Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/83

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 7 1

and limits. That was not without considerable influence on his conception of the individual and the state. He has not set them over against each other when the problem to be solved is that of their reciprocal relations and of the limits of their reciprocal activity limits constant as well as always variable.

The observations made up to this point relative to the bounda- ries of primitive groups and to the beliefs concerning these boundaries should be completed. Social groups that live off of the spontaneous products of the territory they inhabit are the least developed in civilization. Among these peoples we see constant conflicts between groups over territories naturally fruit- ful. This contest continues later among pastoral peoples; still later among agricultural people, or- people belonging to unequal stages of development; the same contests will continue between commercial and industrial peoples. To summarize : Strife arises between groups of different quality, as well as between groups qualitatively homogeneous. The conflicts manifest not only the antagonistic interests of the group, but also positive tenden- cies toward a higher state of development, by a partial or total assimilation of one group by another. Victory does not always belong to the group most advanced in civilization, especially if the latter has some conditions of relative inferiority. For example, if it has become too civilized and too peaceful to defend itself against military society, the final result will generally be a certain lowering of the superior type and an establishment of a mean level as between two communicating vessels. Every civilization undergoes a certain social degradation, because, in subordinating inferior groups it assimilates them more or less, and modifies them to its own composition both materially and morally. It should be added that military conquest, being the manifestation of the force of a society, is a savage form of the functioning of that force, and therefore, by virtue of the laws of correlation and of constant interdependence, the practice of these methods necessarily affects the structure of a highly civilized people. The present tendency to military imperialism in certain countries chiefly industrial, as England and the United States, not to mention little Belgium with its immense empire of the