Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/536

524 religious faith, all distinctions as to the moral worth of types of conduct, all sense of duty, all pride and self-reverence, should undertake to build an orderly and stable society on the spontaneous sympathies and social instincts of men.

The natural kindness of the human heart, while it is far from being the main pillar of the social edifice, has, beyond all doubt, the leading rôle in forming the family. It was developed in interest of offspring ages before association, and is even today the chief support of that venerable institution. While substitute motives, such as self-respect, sense of duty, or regard for appearances stand in line ready to shore up the walls of the home, if they totter, it is sympathy originating in the specialized forms of sexual and parental love that preserves and renews from generation to generation the familial relations. Besides its services in behalf of the propagating organ of society, sympathy is valuable to the larger group, as a stimulus to spontaneous aid and a main spring of beneficence. With its timely help it mitigates the vicissitudes of the individual life, averts the stroke of misfortune, lessens the smart of disaster, tones down the harsher inequalities of lot, and for the weaker ones, such as women, widows, children and the aged, softens the rigor of individualistic competition. In its collective manifestation, sympathy fixes the legal status of the feeble and defective classes, determines the plane of comfort they shall enjoy at public expense, and is the parent of various forms of control aiming to excite compassion on behalf of the unfortunate. In the form of pity for the victim and indignation at the oppressor, it authoritatively oversees all disciplines and subordinations in society. It throws the arm of the law about the more helpless, weighs and judges legal and social punishments, enforces a standard of humanity in private life, and intervenes actively between man and woman, parent and child, teacher and pupil, master and servant, officer and private, physician and patient, policeman and offender, warden and convict, employer and employé, railway and patron. Nor is sympathy without its services to the economic organization. It smooths daily intercourse, aids in