CONFORMITY—NON-CONFORMITY—THE TWO VIEWED AS COMPLEMENTARY PHASES OF LIFE—RIVALRY—HERO-WORSHIP. It will be convenient to distinguish three sorts of emulation—conformity, rivalry, and hero-worship. Conformity may be defined as the endeavor to maintain a standard set by a group. It is a voluntary imitation of prevalent modes of action, distinguished from rivalry and other aggressive phases of emulation by being comparatively passive, aiming to keep up rather than to excel, and concerning itself for the most part with what is outward and formal. On the other hand, it is distinguished from involuntary imitation by being intentional instead of mechanical. Thus it is not conformity, for most of us, to speak the English language, because we have practically no choice in the matter, but we might choose to conform to particular pronunciations or turns of speech used by those with whom we wish to associate. The ordinary motive to conformity is a sense, more or less vivid, of the pains and inconveniences of non-conformity. Most people find it painful to go to an evening company in any other than the customary dress; the source of the pain appearing to be a vague sense of the depreciatory curiosity which one imagines that he will excite. His social self-feeling is hurt by an unfavorable view of himself that he attributes to others. This example is typical of the way the group coerces each of its members in all matters concerning which he has no strong and definite private purpose. The world constrains us without any definite intention to do so, merely through the impulse, common to all, to despise peculiarity for which no reason is perceived. “Nothing in the world more subtle,” says George Eliot, speaking of the decay of higher aims in certain people, “than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly; you and I may have sent some of our breath toward infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman’s glance.” “Solitude is fearsome and heavy-hearted,” and non-conformity condemns us to it by causing _gêne_, if not dislike, in others, and so interrupting that relaxation and spontaneity of attitude that is required for the easy flow of sympathy and communication. Thus it is hard to be at ease with one who is conspicuously worse or better dressed than we are, or whose manners are notably different; no matter how little store our philosophy may set by such things. On the other hand, a likeness in small things that enables them to be forgotten gives people a _prima facie_ at-homeness with each other highly favorable to sympathy; and so we all wish to have it with people we care for.