Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/794

* CUSTER. 686 CUSTOM. ■where he was repulsed and driven back across the river to the .shelter of a protecting blutV. Custer and his five companies dashed almost at the centre of the Indians, were driven back and surrounded, but fought on desj^erately until every man of them was killed. Not a single man sur- vived to give any account of the tragedy, but their bodies were found the next day when Terry's troops relieved the reunited forces of Benteen and Reno, who had been holding their position on the bluff's with difficulty. Custer was one of the bravest, most daring, and dashing soldiers America has produced, but he undoubt- edly .lUowed his impetuosity to get the better of his judgment. He was the author of My Life on the Plains (1874). Consult Whittaker, Life of General George A. Custer (New York, 1876). C4eneral Custer's wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, is well known as an author. She ac- companied him in many of his campaigns on the frontier, and published: Boots and Saddles, or Life tcith General Custer in Dakota (1885); Tenting on the Plains (1887) ; and Following the Guidon (1891). CUSTINE, kn'sten', Adah Philippe, Count de (1740-93). A French general, born at iletz. He served with distinction in the Seven Years' War. As colonel of the infantry' regiment 'Sain- tonge," and quartermaster-general of the French Army in America, he took part in the Revolution- ary War, and was present at the surrender of Yorktown. In 1792 he became commander of the Army of the Lower Rhine, and conducted the brilliant campaigns against Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. In consequence of his failure, however, in the campaign of 1793, to relieve the latter city, which was recaptured by the Allies, he fell under a strong suspicion of entertaining secret negotiations with the enemy, and was shortly afterwards accused of treason and executed. CUSTINE, A.STOLPHE Louis Leonard, Mar- quis de (1790-1857). A French author, grand- son of the preceding, born at Niederwiller, Lor- raine. His writings include a play and several romances, but he is mostly celebrated for his descriptions of travels in his llemoires ct toijages (1820). The most amusing of his books on travels. La Russie en 1S39 (1843), is very Avell known. CUS'TIS, George Washingtox Parke (1781- 1857 ). An American author, the adopted son of Greorge Washington. He was born at ilount Airy. 5Id., a grandson of ilartha Washington, his father being her son by her first husband. Custis studied at Princeton and Saint John's colleges, married IMary Lee Fitzhugh, and in 1802 went to reside on an estate of 1000 acres at Arlington, near Washington. His daughter married Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general. The grand estate was confiscated by the Gov- ernment and is now the Arlington National Cemetery. Besides orations and plays, he left Recollections of Washington (1860). CUSTOM (OF. costume, Tr. coutumc. It. cos- tuma, ilL. custtima, costuma, from Lat. con- suet udo, habit, from consuescere, to grow accus- tomed, from ronsuere. to be accustomed, from con-, together -- suere, to be accustomed : prob- ably from suus, Gk. i6c, heos, 8c, has. Skt. sva, Av. hi^a, one's own). One of the three great departments of social psychology- (q.v.), co- ordinate with language and myth (qq.v. ). It may be defined as "any norm of voUmtary action which has been developed in a national or tribal community" (Wundt). Like animal instinct (q.v.), it is the outgrowth of individual habits. But instinct is practically invariable; it ex- presses the habits of past generations in the fomi of mechanized, not of consciously motived, actions, whereas custom, however rigorous its prescriptions, may always be disobeyed or modi- lied : the customary action has not lost its con- scious antecedents. Hence we may say that "instinct is habitual conduct that has become mechanical ; custom, habitual conduct that has become generic." The origin of custom ajjpears to have been tAvofold. In the great majority of cases in which we are able to trace a custom back toward its first beginnings, we come upon religious or ceremonial ideas. In certain other cases cus- tom seems to have originated in ancient rules of law, the meaning of which has been forgotten, while the usage which they enjoin still persists; although, when we consider that every action of importance in a primitive society, whatever its special significance, has a religious aspect, we shall probably not be wrong in referring these legal customs also to an ultimately religious source. As an illustration of legal custom we may cite the Greek and Roman marriage cere- mony, in which it was an established tradition that the mothers of the contracting familic? should bring the bride and groom together — a clear indication of that law of mother-riglit Avhich the civilized societies of the ancient world had long outgrown. But the mother-right is it- self permeated through and through with primi- tive mythological conceptions: so that we are, in this case, thrown back with practical certainty upon a religious origin of the custom. As an instance of the transformation by custom of the purpose of a religious ceremonial, we may take the funeral feast. In primitive times the 'funer- al baked meats' were furnished forth as a sacri- ficial feast ; the mourner .seeks in part to obtain the favor of the gods for his dead and in part to offer worship to the dead man himself. Later the feast becomes a meal shared in all piety with the dead: the sunivors symbolize their brotherhood with the departed by partaking of the meat which is to sustain him on his pil- grimage to the other world. Nowadays the cake and wine may be off'ered quite perfunctorily; or may bring so much of comfort to the mourners as springs from the conviction that they have dealt handsomely with the dead : or may serve as an excuse for ill-timed carousals. In any event it has completely lost its primary signifi- cance, and has persisted only by virtue of that fis inertiw which makes custom at large so valu- able a mine of information to the anthropologist and social psychologist. Consiilt: Wundt, Elhics (London, 1897): id., Volkerpsychologie (Leipzig. 1900) ; Tylor, Primi- tive Culture (New York. 1891) : id.,' Early His- tory of Mankind (London. 1878) : id.. Anthro- pology (New York. 1881). See Axthropologt. For the legal aspect of custom, see the follow- ing article. CUSTOM. In a legal sense, a custom is .a usage which has obtained the force of law. and which will, accordingly, be enforced by the courts. As is explained in the article on CuSTOjfARY Law, the greater part of the legal