Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/206

 194 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

tution of the Romans, which laid the duty of military service upon the possessors of land instead of upon the burgesses alone, was evidently, says Mommsen, "produced under Greek influ- ence." Marcus Aurelius borrowed from the Germans the status of serfs or liti. The centralized government of Louis XIV. found imitators all over Europe. The spectacle of free institu- tions across the Channel was fatal to the old regime in France. The abolition of slavery, as now the woman's movement and social legislation, spread largely by national example. A true social evolution obeying resident forces has nearly disappeared from the face of the earth, seeing that today the germs of every new social arrangement are blown throughout the world and peoples at the most diverse stages of culture are eagerly adopt- ing the jurisprudence, the laws, and the institutions of the most advanced societies.

Such open-mindedness is, however, a rather recent phenome- non. Usually the peoples have borrowed, not alien institutions, but alien elements of culture, which, nevertheless, in time are likely to work social transformations. When a backward people is in contact with a highly cultured one, there occurs simple bor- rowing, but when the peoples are nearly abreast on different lines of development, one fructifies the other and a higher culture results. Just as the crossing of two strains may yield a creature superior to either, so the crossing of two cultures in the minds of an elite may initiate a superior civilization. One reason is that contact with a culture not too unlike one's own produces that open-mindedness so essential to progress. Another is that by retaining what is best in its own culture and replacing its poorer elements with superior elements from an alien culture, a people may create a blend surpassing both civilizations. Finally, the meeting in originative minds of dissimilar ideas or ideals may fecundate thought and produce a flood of inventions. It is thus that the meeting of Orient and Occident engendered neo- Platonism, and the mutual fertilization of Christian tradition and classic culture by the Revival of Learning produced the Renaissance.

The story of Israel strikingly illustrates the molding of social