126 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
the overt activity and hence were not attended to as such, so the break-up of the fundamental habits of a nation, or even an interference with its customs by some external agency, may result in a social attitude analogous to that of emotion in the individual. In the individual this condition may be described as one of suspension following the coming to consciousness of the insufficiency or the impossibility of the old adjustment before a new one can be formed.
For the best examples of this state on the social side we must go to those peoples to whom custom means a very different thing than to ourselves. We are living in a period of perpetual readjustment, but there have been times and races to which the stoppage of old usages, in fact all change, has meant everything that is serious and fraught with danger. The consciousness of such a people seems to be wholly expressed in their customs. If any individuality arises, it is ignored or repressed. Whatever initiative occurs outside the recognized lines is regarded as dis- graceful, impious, or as a sin against society. The habits of a people who have lived in comparative isolation in their formative period come to have an inclusiveness and a validity that it is difficult for us to realize. What now will be the result if such a people, through external influences of some sort, as contact with other races, or through the process of their own development, are forced to break with their traditions more or less suddenly ? Try to conceive such a race brought suddenly into intimate con- tact with a people of widely differing customs and perhaps of another plane of culture. For the first time they will feel the narrowness of their own traditions. They see others living and prospering without doing the things that they themselves have grown to consider such an essential part of life. They are not in a position to see that customs are simply methods of living. Instead they have set them up as absolutely valid, and when their old faith in them is clearly proved groundless, they are apt to cast them aside entirely, as having no value.
Old habits may gradually be found to be inadequate as con- ditions change, and the result may be as gradual a readjustment. But when the old is simply cut off or rendered inadequate there
