Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/394

 caribou. When they hunt on the coast, they have no caribou, and consequently can eat only seal. The simple fact that in one season only caribou can be eaten, and that in another season only seal can be eaten, may have easily led to a resistance to a change of this custom; so that from the simple fact that for a long period the two kinds of meat could not be eaten at the same time developed the law that the two kinds of meat must not be eaten at the same time. I think it is also likely that the fish taboo of some of our Southwestern tribes may be due to the fact that the tribes lived for a long time in a region where no fish was available, and that the impossibility of obtaining fish developed into the custom of not eating fish.

It would seem, therefore, that we may say in a general way that the customary action is the ethical action, that a breach of custom is everywhere considered as essentially unethical.

It is very likely that the same causes have had a strong influence upon the development of local conventional styles of art. It is no less true that the customary form is liable to be considered the beautiful form than that the customary behavior is considered ethical behavior. Therefore the stability of primitive styles of art may ultimately be due to the same causes as the stability of primitive customs.

If the origin of concepts and of distinct types of association is such as I suggested to-day, and if the existence of these concepts and types of association is brought into the consciousness of primitive man by the incidents of his daily life, when customary concepts and customary associations seem to be broken, we recognize that man must in a great many cases find himself confronted with the fact that certain ideas exist in his mind for which he cannot give any explanation except that they are there. The desire to understand one’s own actions, and to get a clear insight into the secrets of the world, manifests itself at a very early time, and it is therefore not surprising that man in all stages of culture begins to speculate on the motives of his own actions.

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 one which is hardly less common in our own society than in more primitive societies. It is a common observation that we desire or act