As I have explained before, there can be no conscious motive for many of these, and for this reason the tendency develops to discover the motives that may determine our customary behavior. This is the reason why, in all stages of culture, customary actions are made the subject of secondary explanations that have nothing to do with their historical origin, but which are inferences based upon the general knowledge possessed by the people. I think the existence of such secondary interpretations of customary actions is one of the most important anthropological phenomena, and we have seen that it is hardly less common in our own society than in more primitive societies. It is a common observation that we desire or act first, and then try to justify our desires and our actions. When, on account of our early bringing-up, we act with a certain political party, most of us are not prompted by a clear conviction of the justice of the principles of our party, but we do so because we have been taught to respect it as the right party to which to belong. Then only do we justify our standpoint by trying to convince ourselves that these principles are the correct ones. Without reasoning of this kind, the stability and geographical distribution of political parties as well as of church denominations would be entirely unintelligible. A candid examination of our own minds convinces us that the average man, in by far the majority of cases, does not determine his actions by reasoning, but that he first acts, and then justifies or explains his acts by such secondary considerations as are current among us. We have discussed so far only the class of actions in which a break with the customary brings into consciousness the emotional value of the action in question, and releases a strong resistance to change, which is secondarily explained by certain reasons that forbid a change. We have seen that the traditional material with which man operates determines the particular type of explanatory idea that associates itself with the emotional state of mind. Primitive man generally bases these explanations of his customs on concepts that are intimately related to his general views of the constitution of the world. Some mythological idea may be considered the basis of a custom or of the avoidance of certain actions, or the custom may be given a symbolic significance, or it may merely be connected with the fear of ill luck. Evidently this last class of explanations is identical with those of many superstitions that linger among us.