The important facts brought out are (1) the existence in a social group
of certain habits not only of acting, but of feeling and believing about
actions, of valuing or approving and disapproving. (2) The persistent
forcing of these mental habitudes upon the attention of each new member
of the group. The newcomer, whether by birth or adoption, is introduced
into a social medium whose conditions and regulations he can no more
escape than he can those of his physical environment. (3) Thus the
mental and practical habits of the newly introduced individual are
shaped. The current ways of esteeming and behaving in the community
become a "standing habit" of his own mind; they finally reign as
"habitual, self-suggested tendencies." Thus he becomes a full member of
the social group, interested in the social fabric to which he belongs,
and ready to do his part in maintaining it.
=1. Persistence of Group Morality.=--Comparing this state of affairs
with what obtains to-day in civilized communities, we find certain
obvious points of agreement. The social groups with which an individual
comes in touch are now more numerous and more loosely formed. But
everywhere there are customs not only of acting, but of thinking and
feeling about acting. Each profession, each institution, has a _code_ of
which the individual has to take account. The nature of this code,
unexpressed as well as formulated, is brought to the attention of the
individual in countless ways; by the approval and disapproval of its
public opinion; by his own failures and successes; by his own tendency
to imitate what he sees about him, as well as by deliberate, intentional
instruction.
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