According to the laws of Manu, the custom handed down in regular succession since time immemorial “is called the conduct of virtuous men.”28 The Greek idea of the customary, τὸ νόμιμον, shows the close connection between morality and custom; and so do the words ἔθος, ἤθος, and ἠθικά, the Latin mos and moralis, the German Sitte and Sittlichkeit.29 Moreover, in early society, customs are not only moral rules, but the only moral rules ever thought of. The savage strictly complies with the Hegelian command that no man must have a private conscience. The following statement, which refers to the Tinnevelly Shanars, may be quoted as a typical example:—“Solitary individuals amongst them rarely adopt any new opinions, or any new course of procedure. They follow the multitude to do evil, and they follow the multitude to do good. They think in herds.”30
20 Cf. Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence, i. 104; Tönnies, ‘Philosophical Terminology,’ in Mind, N.S., viii. 304. Von Jhering (Zweck im Recht, ii. 23) defines the German Sitte as “die im Leben des Volks sich bildende verpflichtende Gewohnheit”; and a similar view is expressed by Wundt (Ethik, p. 128 sq.).
21 Montaigne, Essais, i. 22 (Œuvres, p. 48).
22 Fison and Howitt, op. cit. p. 256 sq.
23 Bernau, Missionary Labours in British Guiana, p. 60.
24 Rink, Greenland, p. 201 sq.
25 Rowley, Religion of the Africans, p. 44.
26 Junod, Ba-Ronga, p. 477.
27 Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 224.
28 Laws of Manu, ii. 18.
29 For the history of these words, see Wundt, op. cit. p. 19 sqq. For other instances illustrating the moral character of custom, see Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Law and Customs, p. 34 (Amaxosa); Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 94 (Kandhs); Kubary, Ethnographische Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Karolinischen Inselgruppe, i. 73 (Pelew Islanders); Smith, Chinese Characteristics, p. 119.
30 Caldwell, Tinnevelly Shanars, p. 69.
Disobedience to custom evokes public indignation. In the lower stages of civilisation, especially, custom is a tyrant who binds man in iron fetters, and who threatens the transgressor, not only with general disgrace, but often with bodily suffering. “To believe that man in a savage state is endowed with freedom either of thought or action,” says Sir G. Grey, “is erroneous in the highest degree”;31 and this statement is corroborated by an array of facts from all quarters of the savage world.32 Now, as the rule of custom is a moral rule, the indignation aroused by its transgression is naturally a moral emotion. Moreover, where all the duties incumbent on a man are expressed in the customs of the society to which he belongs, it is obvious that the characteristics of moral indignation are to be sought for in its connection with custom. The most salient feature of custom is its generality. Its transgression calls forth public indignation; hence the flavour of generality which characterises moral disapproval. Custom is fixed once for all, and takes no notice of the preferences of individuals. By recognising the validity of a custom, I implicitly admit that the custom is equally binding for me and for you and for all the other members of the society. This involves disinterestedness; I admit that a breach of the custom is equally wrong whether I myself am immediately concerned in the act or not. It also involves apparent impartiality; I assume that my condemnation of the act is independent of the relationship in which the parties concerned in it stand to me personally, or, at least, I am not aware that my condemnation is influenced by any such relationship. And this holds good whatever be the origin of the custom. Though customs are very frequently rooted in public sympathetic resentment or in public disinterested aversions, they may have a selfish and partial origin as well. At first the leading men of the society may have prohibited certain acts because they found them disadvantageous to themselves, or to those with whom they particularly sympathised. Where custom is an oppressor of women, this oppression may certainly be traced back to the selfishness of men. Where custom sanctions slavery, it is certainly not impartial to the slaves. Yet in the one case as in the other, I assume custom to be in the right, irrespectively of my own station, and I even expect the women and slaves themselves to be of the same opinion. Such an expectation is by no means a chimera. Under normal social conditions, largely owing to men’s tendency to share sympathetically the resentment of their superiors, the customs of a society are willingly submitted to, and recognised as right, by the large majority of its members, whatever may be their station. Among the Rejangs of Sumatra, says Marsden, “a man without property, family, or connections, never, in the partiality of self-love, considers his own life as being of equal value with that of a man of substance.”33 However selfish, however partial a certain rule may be, it becomes a true custom, a moral rule, as soon as the selfishness or the partiality of its makers is lost sight of.
31 Grey, Journals of Expeditions in North-West and Western Australia, ii. 217.
32 Tylor, ‘Primitive Society,’ in Contemporary Review, xxi. 706. Idem, Anthropology, p. 408 sq. Avebury, Origin of Civilisation, p. 466 sqq. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions into Central Australia, ii. 384, 385, 388. Curr, The Australian Race, i. 51. Mathew, ‘Australian Aborigines,’ in Jour. and Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. Wales, xxiii. 398. Idem, Eaglehawk and Crow, p. 93. Taplin, ‘Narrinyeri,’ in Woods, Native Tribes of South Australia, pp. 35, 136 sq. Hawtrey, ‘Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 292. Murdoch, ‘Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 427 sq. (Point Barrow Eskimo). Holm, ‘Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,’ in Meddelelser om Grönland, x. 85. Nansen, First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 295. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 452. New, Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 110 (Wanika). Scott Robertson, Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, p. 183 sq.
33 Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 247.
It will perhaps be argued that, by deriving the characteristics of moral indignation from its connection with custom, we implicitly contradict our initial assumption that moral emotions lie at the bottom of all moral judgments. But it is not so. Custom is a moral rule only on account of the indignation called forth by its transgression. In its ethical aspect it is nothing but a generalisation of emotional tendencies, applied to certain modes of conduct, and transmitted from generation to generation. Public indignation lies at the