Custom and Convention

Custom names the whole body of usage that people inherit rather than choose. It includes manners and ceremonies, the rites of guest and funeral, the codes of trades and orders, the fashions of dress and speech, and the tacit agreements on which language, money and government rest. It is a great idea for these books because nearly every author who looks closely at human beings finds custom already at work before reason begins. Bacon calls it the “principal magistrate” of man’s life, stronger than nature or words¹. Pascal goes further and makes custom our very nature². Between these claims lie the questions the essay follows. How deep does custom reach into the mind? Are justice and beauty its creatures or its judges? Should a reasonable person obey it, reform it, or defy it?

The oldest formula is that custom is a second nature, and the moderns sharpen it into a paradox. Pascal wonders whether nature itself may be only a first custom, so that the principles we call natural are principles of habit³. Custom, he says, makes men masons, soldiers and slaters, and produces every condition of life⁴. The same thought appears in a homelier register. In Hamlet, custom has made grave-digging an easiness to the gravedigger⁵. Locke observes that poor children who go barefoot are reconciled to wet by use alone⁶. Thomas à Kempis draws the moral lesson that custom can be overcome only by custom⁷. Mill turns the old formula into an accusation. Because custom is mistaken for nature, each age and country thinks its own rules self-evident and in need of no reasons⁸.

Custom shapes belief as well as conduct. Descartes found that observing the accepted usages of other nations taught him not to trust what rested merely on example and custom⁹. He concluded that our opinions owe more to custom than to certain knowledge¹⁰. Pascal holds that custom, more than demonstration, makes men Christians, Turks or soldiers¹¹. Locke notes that parents send children to grammar school as they go to church, without asking why, so that custom serves in place of reason¹². Hume carries the point into the foundations of knowledge. Custom is the habitual transition from a present object to its usual companion, and this transition gives belief its strength¹³. It works in animals as in men¹⁴. It sets up a kind of pre-established harmony between nature’s course and our ideas, without which we could not live¹⁵. Yet Hume grants that inference resting on custom may be fallacious¹⁶. With him custom ceases to be merely a social usage and becomes a principle of human nature¹⁷.

From belief it is a short step to faith and station. Augustine laments the “torrent” of human custom that carried him through a corrupt classical schooling¹⁸. Pascal sees men follow their fathers’ way and faith out of inherited prejudice that it is best¹⁹. Rousseau’s Vicar says that birth and country, not choice, determine a man’s religion²⁰. People are made Jews, Turks or Christians before they are men²¹. Mill notes that the accident of birth decides between a Churchman in London and a Buddhist in Pekin²². He adds that not one Christian in a thousand tests his conduct by the New Testament rather than by the custom of his nation, class or profession²³. Browne admits this geography of religions but denies that mere upbringing made him a Christian²⁴. Hume treats the differences of manners across ages as proof of the force of education in moulding character²⁵. Dana watches the children of industrious Americans grow up Spanish in California²⁶.

The gravest controversy concerns justice. Augustine warns against mistaking the variety of times and places for a mutable justice²⁷. Human compacts are to be respected according to local usage, but God’s command overrides them²⁸. Hobbes sees ignorant men appealing from custom to reason and back again as interest serves²⁹. Pascal draws the sceptical conclusion that the maxim follow your country’s customs shows justice to be relative to place³⁰. In his view custom creates all equity simply by being received, and its authority dissolves once it is traced to first principles³¹. Rousseau answers that beneath all diversity of worship and manners, every nation shares the same notions of good and evil³². He rebukes Montaigne for using travellers’ oddities to overturn this uniform judgment³³. Macaulay leans the other way. He holds that morality varies with fashion and association, being a taste rather than a science³⁴, and that ages change their morals like fashions in hats and coaches³⁵. Mill takes a middle ground. He traces popular moral sentiment to preference, prejudice and class interest³⁶, yet distinguishes acts bad in themselves from mere breaches of convention³⁷.

Taste raises the same question in a gentler form. Pascal holds that custom determines both what is agreeable and what is just³⁸. Burke resists him. Custom can breed deviant relishes, such as preferring tobacco to sugar, but the natural relish remains distinguishable from the acquired one³⁹. Beauty cannot result from custom⁴⁰. Custom reconciles us to everything, yet the original impression persists⁴¹. Hume grants that the manners of one’s age make ancient comedy less pleasing to moderns, and he asks readers to allow innocent peculiarities of manners⁴². Adam Smith shows custom fixing even necessities, so that decency requires linen shirts and leather shoes in one country but not in another⁴³. Darwin infers from the differing standards of beauty among races that beauty is not innate⁴⁴.

The diversity of customs is one of the great themes of the historians and travellers. Herodotus reports that the Egyptians reverse other men’s manners in nearly everything⁴⁵. They mourn, dress, eat and even write in the opposite direction⁴⁶. Tacitus sorts tribes into German or Sarmatian by their usages⁴⁷. Vespucci is astonished at peoples who abandon the dying in forest hammocks⁴⁸. Darwin finds that fashion rules at Tahiti as at Paris⁴⁹. He records how the Fuegians examined the strangers’ skins and beards with surprise⁵⁰. Plutarch’s Persian Artabanus states the principle of mutual respect, that men’s laws differ and each should honour his own⁵¹. The comparison of usages also teaches. Montaigne says diverse customs help us judge our own rightly⁵². Descartes says they keep us from thinking contrary customs ridiculous⁵³. More imagines Utopians whose contempt for gold baffles the ambassadors of other nations⁵⁴.

National character is the large-scale form of this diversity. Emerson’s portrait of the English is the most extended. Each Englishman is an island⁵⁵, decorum rules court and cottage alike⁵⁶, and the English think all the world outside England rubbish⁵⁷. Emerson concludes that national distinctions are accidental and that nature punishes national pride⁵⁸. Mill contrasts French frank sociability with English reserve⁵⁹. Prejudice follows from such differences. Browne condemns the logic that wounds a whole people by a word drawn from a few⁶⁰. Hume notes that nations call barbarous whatever departs from their own taste, and find the reproach thrown back at them⁶¹. Voltaire shows Englishmen and other Europeans calling each other fools over inoculation⁶². In Acts, Peter learns that he must call no man unclean, though Jewish law forbade him to associate with other nations⁶³. On adopting foreign ways the authors counsel moderation. Bacon would have the traveller graft only some flowers of foreign custom onto his own⁶⁴. Locke complains that travellers admire the worst foreign fashions⁶⁵. Milton objects that youths return from Paris as mimics⁶⁶. In Schiller’s play, the old Swiss lament that foreign manners warp their guileless ways⁶⁷.

Whether to conform is the practical question, and the classical answer is prudent compliance with an independent mind. Descartes’s first maxim is to obey the laws and customs of his country⁶⁸. Montaigne allows only souls like Socrates to defy common fashions⁶⁹. Pascal holds that custom should be followed because it is custom, though the people follow it believing it just⁷⁰. Paul appeals to the custom of the churches on veiling⁷¹, and he circumcises Timothy to satisfy the Jews⁷². Franklin pays the printing-house fee in order to live in peace⁷³. Penn calls conformity a civil virtue, to be pressed only in necessaries⁷⁴. Stevenson marks the limit. Pepys, who governed even his honesty by what society deemed decent⁷⁵, shows that doing things because others do them is a surrender of moral control⁷⁶. Fashion is the restless form of conformity. Harrison finds nothing more constant in England than inconstancy of attire⁷⁷. Locke shows fashion governing education by implicit faith⁷⁸. Pascal suspects that unbelief itself is a fashion⁷⁹.

The case against custom becomes systematic with the moderns, though it has ancient roots. In Luke, new wine will not fit old skins, and men prefer the old⁸⁰. The Koran rejects the idolaters’ plea “what we found our fathers agreed upon”⁸¹. More sees appeals to forefathers stifling improvement⁸². Calvin holds that long-practised public error is only a common agreement of vices⁸³. Sydney Smith ridicules the reverence for ancestors in the Noodle’s Oration⁸⁴, and observes that juries and pews were once innovations⁸⁵. Conscience brings its own objections. Luther treats ceremonies as indifferent in themselves, though they can bind weak consciences⁸⁶. Bunyan’s Faithful is condemned because Christianity and the customs of Vanity are irreconcilable⁸⁷. Woolman resolves to abandon customs contrary to pure wisdom⁸⁸. He wears an undyed hat at the cost of unsettling his fellow Friends⁸⁹, knowing that deep-rooted wrong customs are not easily altered⁹⁰.

Emerson and Mill make the argument secular and general. For Emerson, society conspires against manhood and demands conformity⁹¹. Conformity to dead usages makes men false in every particular⁹². Society has chosen our housekeeping, marriages and religion for us⁹³. Mill gives the argument its sharpest form. Where custom rather than character rules, a chief ingredient of happiness is missing⁹⁴. Conformity merely as custom develops no faculty⁹⁵. Nonconformity is itself a service⁹⁶. The “despotism of custom” is the standing hindrance to human advancement, as in the East where custom is the final appeal⁹⁷.

Against this stands the defence of tradition, which also has ancient roots. In the Bacchae, ancestral tradition is wisdom that no clever argument can overturn⁹⁸. Tacitus says good manners among the Germans do more than good laws elsewhere⁹⁹. Machiavelli finds that states differing in usages are hard to hold¹⁰⁰. Bacon finds that rigid retention of custom is as turbulent as innovation, though custom is at least fit¹⁰¹. Pascal concedes that established customs began in usurpation, yet holds they should not be examined at their source¹⁰². Burke gives the conservative case its classic statement. Civil society is the offspring of convention¹⁰³. Prejudice is the early received sense of mankind and contains latent wisdom¹⁰⁴. The general bank of nations and ages outweighs private reason¹⁰⁵. If each generation destroys inherited institutions at whim, men become like summer flies¹⁰⁶. Without old manners and opinions Europe loses its compass¹⁰⁷. Emerson grants that among the English the antiquity of a usage is sanction enough¹⁰⁸. In science, however, reverence meets its limit. Harvey fears enmity because respect for antiquity resists new doctrine¹⁰⁹. Pascal asks that reverence for the ancients be measured by reason, which gave it birth¹¹⁰.

Manners are custom refined into an art, and the authors largely agree on their purpose. Confucius holds that ritual propriety is the beauty of the old kings’ ways¹¹¹. For Swift, good manners are the art of making others easy¹¹². Locke says breeding sets off virtue, whose lack disfigures courage¹¹³. He adds that forms of civility differ by country like languages¹¹⁴. Bacon wants ceremonies natural, neither neglected nor overdone¹¹⁵. Swift mocks ceremonies corrupted into endless trouble¹¹⁶ and denies that settled forms rest on reason¹¹⁷. Hamlet scorns courtiers who have only the outward habit of encounter¹¹⁸. Pascal defends outward signs of rank because they avoid quarrels over merit and secure peace¹¹⁹. Emerson calls politeness the ritual of society¹²⁰, and judges manners good or bad as they help or hinder fellowship¹²¹.

Hospitality is the oldest of these sacred customs. In Homer, Menelaus rebukes the servant who hesitates to receive strangers¹²². Guests are bathed, seated and fed before anyone asks their names¹²³. The stranger and suppliant stand in a brother’s place¹²⁴. The Cyclops’s refusal of the stranger’s due marks his lawlessness¹²⁵. Tacitus records boundless German hospitality¹²⁶. In the Thousand and One Nights, guests are outraged to have eaten before the bond of bread and salt was sealed¹²⁷. Darwin finds provincial hospitality in South America that forbids payment¹²⁸. Rites of death and festival show the same constancy. Confucius defends three years’ mourning as the universal custom¹²⁹. Herodotus describes Egyptian embalming¹³⁰. Darwin explains Indian burials by the wish to lie where ancestors lay¹³¹. Dana is surprised that Californians treat a child’s death as a festive occasion¹³². Burns records Halloween charms handed down as tradition¹³³, and Corbet mourns old merry rites that have passed away¹³⁴.

Callings keep codes of their own. Froissart shows the law of arms binding a captive knight to his captor¹³⁵. Don Quixote claims that knights-errant need not pay at inns¹³⁶, and that by custom they eat coarse fare¹³⁷. Burke credits chivalric manners with softening power and obedience in modern Europe¹³⁸. Dana finds shipboard usage carrying the force of prescriptive law¹³⁹. Among sailors, refusing to drink in turn is a grave affront¹⁴⁰. Newman notes that the hazing of freshmen survives from medieval to modern universities¹⁴¹. Some customs are evil, and knights exist to overthrow them, as Galahad does at the Castle of Maidens¹⁴². Sindbad’s hosts defend the live burial of spouses as ancestral custom¹⁴³. Augustine sees custom sheltering outrages that law forbids¹⁴⁴. Yet the tabus of Dá Derga’s Hostel show a king torn between two binding customs¹⁴⁵.

The questions remain open. If custom is second nature, no standpoint wholly outside it may exist, and Burke’s stored wisdom and Mill’s despotism describe the same force from opposite sides. Whether some uniform sense of justice underlies the variety, as Rousseau insists, or whether custom makes equity, as Pascal fears, these books do not settle. They agree, however, that no one escapes custom by ignoring it. It can be understood only by comparing usages, and it can be amended only by those who first know what it is.