SAM A STUDY OF THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMPOR- TANCE OF USAGES, MANNERS, CUS- GENERAL ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 77.5 The Athenæum Press PREFACE In 1899 I began to write out a text-book of sociology from materi. which I had used in lectures during the previous ten or fteen years. At a certain point in that undertaking I found that I wanted to introduce my own treatment of the "mores." I could not refer to it anywhere in print, and I could not do ustice to it in a chapter of another book. I therefore turned to write a treatise on the "Folkways," which I now offer. definitions of "folkways" and "mores see secs. I, 34, 39, 3. nd 66. I formed the word "folkways" on the analogy of wo's already in use in sociology. I also took up again the Latin word "mores" as the best I could find for my purpose. I me in by it the popular usages and traditions, when they include judgment that they are conducive to societal welfare, and when they exert a coercion on the individual to conform to t tough they are not coördinated by any authority (cf. sec. 42) I have also tried to bring the word "Ethos" into familiarity aan (secs. 76, 79). "Ethica," or "Ethology," or "The Mores sected good titles for the book (secs. 42, 43), but Ethics is already employed otherwise, and the other words were very unfamiliar. Perhaps "folkways" is not less unfamiliar, but its meaning is more obvious. I must add that if any one is liable to be shocked by any folkways he ought not to read about folkways at all Nature her custom holds, let shame say what it will” (Hon let, IV, 7, ad fin.). I have tried to treat all folkways, including those which are most opposite to our own, with truthfulness, but with dignity and due respect to our own conventions. Chapter I contains elaborate definitions and expositions of the folkways and the mores, with an analysis of their play in human society. Chapter II shows the bearing of the folkways on human inter, and the way in which they act or are acted on. The thesis which is expounded in these two chapters is that the fkways are habits of the individual and customs of the society which arise from efforts to satisfy needs; they are intertwined |