Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/412

 estate, by means of its economic resources, made the formerly superior estates dependent upon it. In the second place, however, the third estate and its whole emancipation was of meaning and consequence only because of the fact that a fourth estate existed or built itself up in the course of like progress. The third estate could exploit the fourth and raise itself above it. Consequently we can by no means draw the simple analogy that the fourth estate wants to do today precisely what the third did one hundred years ago, for the freedom from subordination which the latter achieved was, as remarked, closely united with the gain of superiority over the fourth estate. Likewise is it to be observed that the “freedom of the church” is apt to be by no means merely a liberation from superior secular powers, but it usually means at the same time the acquisition of control over the same. Thus, for example, the “ecclesiastical freedom of teaching” (Lehrfreiheit der Kirche) means that the state contains citizens who stand under the suggestion of the church, who are impressed by it, and thereby the state has often enough passed under the control of the church.

Moreover this sociological type, viz., that liberation from inferiority at once enlarges itself by effort after or gain of superiority—exhibits itself in somewhat more complicated manifestations. In case the whole lowest strata sought to gain an absolute elevation of their position, a lessening of the quantum of their inferiority, the consequence has often been that a certain portion of the group uniformly seeking elevation reaches the higher plane, which, however, only means that these become a part of the previously superior strata, while the rest remain inferior. This is especially the case, and very naturally, wherever within the aspiring strata there is already a division of superiors and inferiors. In this case, after the end of the rebellion against the stratum which is superior to them all, the difference between the rebels, which during the commotion fell into the background, will at once appear again, and will bring it to pass that the formerly more eminent now assimilate themselves to that higher stratum, while