There is nothing fixed about the objects to which society demands conformity. It is only the quantity that seems to be constant. So much conformity, like the conservation of physical energy in the universe, but the manners in which people shall think alike, or behave, or what objects they shall consider sacred, differ in myriad ways throughout different social groupings and in different eras. Diametrically opposite ideas are held in two social groups with the same vigor and fury; diametrically opposite conduct is considered equally praiseworthy and necessary; two social groups will visit with the same punishment two diametrically opposite actions. To any student of primitive societies or of the history of Western civilization, these facts are commonplaces. But the moral is not a commonplace as yet. Yet it must be evident that most of the customs and attitudes of these societies were almost wholly irrational, that is, they were social habits which persisted solely through inertia and the satisfaction they gave the gregarious impulse. The latter had to be satisfied, so that anything which cost the least in invention or reasoning or effort would do. The customs, therefore, of primitive tribes seem to practically everybody in a modern Western society outlandish and foolish. What evidence is there that our codes and conformities which perform exactly the same rôle, and are mostly traditional survivals, are any the less outlandish and irrational? May they not be tainted with the same purposelessness? Is not the inference irresistible that they are? They seem to us to be intelligent and necessary not because we have derived them or invented them for a clearly imagined and desired end, but because they satisfy our need for acting in a herd, just as the primitive savage is satisfied.