A central fact of modern living is the knowledge that in the sphere of social relations and institutions “natural law” does not control and “natural rights” do not exist. Man's culture is what he makes it, and rights are the product of social action. Planned change on a culture-wide scale lies ready to our hand. If the course of institutional change is uneven and, in the main, slow, this is not due to the fact that present institutional forms are either functionally adequate or founded on “higher” laws, or that human beings are “naturally” averse to change.
Actually, human behavior is vastly malleable; but at the same time man also exhibits huge patience in wearing inherited institutional hair shirts.