Conformity is a sort of co-operation: one of its functions is to economize energy. The standards which it presses upon the individual are often elaborate and valuable products of cumulative thought and experience, and whatever imperfections they may have they are, as a whole, an indispensable foundation for life: it is inconceivable that anyone should dispense with them. If I imitate the dress, the manners, the household arrangements of other people, I save so much mental energy for other purposes. It is best that each should originate where he is specially fitted to do so, and follow others where they are better qualified to lead. It is said with truth that conformity is a drag upon genius; but it is equally true and important that its general action upon human nature is elevating. We get by it the selected and systematized outcome of the past, and to be brought up to its standards is a brief recapitulation of social development: it sometimes levels down but more generally levels up. It may be well for purposes of incitement to goad our individuality by the abuse of conformity; but statements made with this in view lack accuracy. It is good for the young and aspiring to read Emerson’s praise of self-reliance, in order that they may have courage to fight for their ideas; but we may also sympathize with Goethe when he says that “nothing more exposes us to madness than distinguishing us from others, and nothing more contributes to maintaining our common-sense than living in the universal way with multitudes of men.”[75] There are two aspects of non-conformity: first, a rebellious impulse or “contrary suggestion” leading to an avoidance of accepted standards in a spirit of opposition, without necessary reference to any other standards; and, second, an appeal from present and commonplace standards to those that are comparatively remote and unusual. These two usually work together. One is led to a mode of life different from that of the people about him, partly by intrinsic contrariness, and partly by fixing his imagination on the ideas and practices of other people whose mode of life he finds more congenial.