Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/93

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY. VI. THE FACTORS OF SOCIAL CHANGE. Continued.

PASSING now from static o-dynamic processes and transmuta- tions as factors of social change to stimuli, we have first to remark that the quest for these is made difficult by the fact that a brusque revolution in the conditions of life or thought produces not sudden but gradual changes in society. Removal to a new environment, the change from peace to war or vice versa, con- tact with an alien culture, the conjugation of two peoples through conquest, the introduction of a new agent of production each of these may suddenly shift the plane of existence for a people, and necessitate extensive social readjustments. Yet, owing to mental inertia and the selfish resistance of interested classes, such read- justments are apt to be spread over a considerable period. The shock received within a twelvemonth may echo and reverberate for a whole generation. It is because a given stimulus does not cause a prompt and equally vigorous pulsation in social life, but brings in a long train of adaptations some of them at several removes trom the original center of disturbance, that it is so diffi- cult to connect social transformations with their primary causes. Moreover, a succession of dissimilar and unrelated stimuli from different quarters may yield a continuity of social change which will foster the false impression that the transformations of society occur in a fixed order, each state drawing after it the succeeding state, according to some formula of necessary " development."

With this caution we may now take up, one after another, the chief extra-social factors of social change, and present the charac- teristic workings of each.

I. The groivth of population. This phenomenon presents two cases. In the one case the rate of increase is the same for all parts of the population ; in the other, the various classes and sections multiply at diverse rates. The former case will be con- sidered first.

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