Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/457

 SOCIAL CONTROL 443

"Therefore," so might the inference run, "look to thyself and to those that hold thy heart strings, but trouble not thyself about the rest ! "

Such is the result when the study of man is pursued with the methods that have proved so successful in geology or zoology or philology. And the certitude seems no less in the one case than in the others. Probably as science finds man so is he.

But while expanding geology may clash with Genesis, or expanding zoology with the special-creation hypothesis, thus provoking a conflict with religion, which soon ceases, however, by religion surrendering needless dogmas, it is otherwise with anthropology. Between the individualistic interpretation and the social interpretation of man the opposition is complete. The one rests on fact, the other on faith. The one is positive, the other idealistic. The one weakens social control, the other strengthens it. Here is a conflict between science and religion which is real, and which we may be very sure will last fora long time to come. So long as so much precious and indispensable social emotion is bound up with certain convictions as to what we are and what we may become to each other, society will find means to renew their vitality. The profound truth which sociologists are just bringing to light that, whatever be the ultimate ground of association, society at a given moment is held together by beliefs rather than by interests, 1 opposes the confident optimism of men of science, and justifies in a measure the contention of those who have insisted on the indispensable- ness of religion to societ

'"General beliefs are the indispensable pillars of civilizations; they deter- mine the trend of ideas, they alone are capable of inspiring faith and creating a sense of duty." LE BON, The Crowd, p. 150.

" It is not by reason, but most often in spite of it, that are created those senti- ments that are the main springs of all civilizations sentiments such as honor, self- sacrifice, religious faith, patriotism, and love of glory." Ibid., p. 116.

' 1 .very civilization is as it were a dream of a thousand years, in which heaven and earth, nature and history, appear to men illumined by fantastic light and repre- senting a drama which is nothing but a projection of the soul itself, influenced by some intoxication I was going to say hallucination or other." AMIF.L, Journal In time, Dec. 8, 1869.

Of "naturalism," which takes what I call a /wi/i:r view of man's nature, life.