Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/393

 of displeasure. An example will make clear what I mean. When we consider our table manners, it will readily be recognized that most of them are purely traditional and cannot be given any adequate explanation. Still the constant performance of the actions which constitute good table manners makes it practically impossible for us to act otherwise. An attempt to act differently would not only be difficult on account of the lack of adjustment of muscular motions, but also on account of the strong emotional resistance that we should have to overcome. To eat with people having table manners different from our own seems to us decidedly objectionable and causes feelings of displeasure which may rise to such intensity as to cause qualmishness. Another good example is the feeling connected with acts that in our society are considered as modest or immodest. Every one will feel instinctively the strong resistance that he would have to overcome, even in a different society, if he were required to perform an action that we are accustomed to consider as immodest, and the feelings that would be excited in his mind if he were thrown into a society in which the standards of modesty differed from our own. It seems to my mind that these feelings of displeasure exert a very strong influence upon the development and conservation of customs. The young child in whom the habitual behavior of his surroundings has not yet developed will acquire much of this behavior by unconscious imitation. In many cases, however, it will act in a way different from the customary behavior, and will be corrected by its elders. This is presumably one of the most important elements that tend to bring customary behavior into the consciousness of the people practising it. When educating their children to conform to the tribal standards, these standards must necessarily become conscious to the educators. One of the cases in which the development of ideas based on behavior is best traced, is that of the taboo. Although we ourselves have hardly any definite taboos, to an outsider our failure to use certain animals for food might easily appear from this point of view. Supposing an individual accustomed to eating dogs should inquire among us for the reason why we do not eat dogs, we could only reply that it is not customary; and he would be justified in saying that dogs are tabooed among us, just as much as we are justified in speaking of taboos among primitive people. There are a number of cases in which it is at least conceivable that the older customs of a people, under a new surrounding, develop into taboos. I think, for instance, that it is very likely that the Eskimo taboo forbidding the use of caribou and of seal on the same day may be due to the alternating inland and coast life of the people. When they hunt inland, they have no seals, and consequently can eat only