SOCIAL CONTROL. X.
RELIGION, Ideals, Assemblage, Ceremony, Art and Personality have been considered in their influence on the feelings. To keep this series of studies within due bounds it is necessary to slur over other modifiers of feelings, such as Music and Wont and dismiss them with a word.
The discussion of the former would lead us to consider why music was esteemed so valuable in moral education by peoples so unlike as the Greeks and the Chinese, while among moderns it is quite neglected as a moral means, save in warfare and in worship. After noting the strong words of Plato, Luther, Napoleon and others, we should ask with Professoi Mahaffy whether the Greeks exaggerated the moral side of music or we moderns have unduly lost sight of it. The conclusion would be that although music has a magical power over the harsh fell self-will of early folk, it is less fitted to dissolve the intellec- tual, refined selfishness that flourishes in an advanced and sophis- ticated society.
Custom and tradition are allies rather than agents of social control. It is not in the power of society to impart venerable- ness to an injunction or a practice, but it can profit by the tend- ency of its laws, rites and institutions to bind men more firmly with the lapse of time. It cannot at will make the moss grow or the ivy run, but it can thankfully avail itself of the charm they lend to the granite walls of authority. Psychology has not yet fully explored the roots of custom-imitation, but it is certainly a primary force guiding successive generations to their due place in the social system just as heredity presides over the growth of the body. It is to guard unbroken the hallowing spell of time and wont that the regulative organs of society so often obstinately refuse to allow needed changes in laws, faiths,
rites and dynasties.
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