MORALITY Space is running out fast, and it is quite impossible to grapple with the details of so vast a subject as primitive morality.

For these the reader must consult Dr.Westermarck's monumental treatise, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, which brings together an immense quantity of facts, under a clear and comprehensive scheme of headings.
He will discover, by the way, that, whereas customs differ immensely, the emotions, one may even say the sentiments, that form the raw material of morality are much the same everywhere.
Here it will be of most use to sketch the psychological groundwork of primitive morality, as contrasted with morality of the more advanced type.

In pursuance of the plan hitherto followed, let us try to move yet another step on from the purely exterior view of human life towards our goal; which is to appreciate the true inwardness of human life--so far at least as this is matter for anthropology, which reaches no farther than the historic method can take it.
It is, of course, open to question whether either primitive or advanced morality is sufficiently of one piece to allow, as it were, a composite photograph to be framed of either.

For our present purposes, however, this expedient is so serviceable as to be worth risking.

Let us assume, then, that there are two main stages in the historical evolution of society, as considered from the standpoint of the psychology of conduct.
I propose to term them the synnomic and the syntelic phases of society.
"Synnomic" (from the Greek _nomos_, custom) means that customs are shared.