The effect of the increase in number and diversity of unrelatedfacts that now play pretty continuously upon the average personis more easily grasped than is the influence of popular generalities，not cbecked by observed facts，over the interpretation putupon practical events，one that provokes acquiescence ratherthan critical inquiry.One chief reason for underestimation of theinfluence of generalities or "principles" is that they are so embodied in habits that those actuated by them are hardly aware oftheir existence.Or，if they are aware of them，they take them tobe selfcvidcnt truths of common sense.When habits are so ingrained as to be second nature，they seem to have all of theinevitability that belongs to the movement of the fixed stars.The "principles" and standards which are stated in words andwhich circulate widely at a given time are usually only formularions of things which men do not so much believe in the intellectual sense of belief as live by unconsciously.Then when men whohave lived under different conditions and have formed differentlife habits put forth different "principles，" the latter are rejectedas sources of some contagion introduced by foreigners hostile toour institutions.
Opinions are at once the most superficial and the most steelplated of all human affairs.This difference between them is dueto connection or lack of connection with habits that operate allbut unconsciously.Verbal habits also exist and have power.Mencontinue to give assent to formulae after they have ceased to bemore than linguistic rituals.Even lipscrvice has practical effect，that of creating intellectual and emotional divisions.The lattermay not be deliberate hypocrisy.But they constitute that kind ofinsincerity，that incompatibility of actions with professions，which stardes us in those cases in which it is clear that a person"believes" what he says in the sense that he is not even aware of its inconsistency with what he does.
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