Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/169

 Rh that legislative intervention, a modification of the natural order of phenomena, is always a serious affair; that, in short, we cannot touch a single cell of the social organism, however minute it may be, without affecting all the rest; that the least derangement produces repercussion at every point throughout the environment; that, consequently, before experimenting with a reform, of whatever order it may be, there should be most attentive inquiry as to the sort of consequences which it may bring in its train, throughout series of phenomena that may be very remote in appearance.

From all this the conclusion will be derived that important and lasting modifications are to be expected not from a sudden overthrow, however well meaning may have been its authors, but from the natural course of things, from the proper life of the social organism, which in the long run, like the individual organism, knows how to adapt itself in the best possible way to its environment.

This detailed study of the nature of the social world will result in giving us an increasingly high regard for this nature, in making us comprehend how majestic is its energy, and how feeble in comparison are the powers of individuals or of associated men; in arousing confidence in the spontaneous evolution of societies, and in awakening incredulity toward revolutions which propose to accelerate this evolution more rapidly than is possible, or which even plan to prevail against it by leading us back to a social state which history, the most impartial of judges, has once for all condemned.