Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/563

 SOCIAL CONTROL 549

morality makes similar requirements of all temperance, and justice, and the like but has his own individual place, and holds it through preserving a right relation to those who are like and to those who are unlike himself. Morality makes the best of the endless repetition it finds in the natural beings called men, and marshals them to their place in a system of relations, the meaning of each of which is present to their conscious- ness." '

The enlistment of the feelings on behalf of impersonal func- tions and requirements is effected chiefly by the elaboration of social patterns or types, which tend to become the guiding ideals of the members of society. This method of causing righteous- ness to abound is the method of morality.

The corner stone of this form of social control is the fact that men have feelings of love or hatred, of admiration or of contempt, for traits of character. Just as we are attracted or repelled by odors, colors, forms, scenes, deeds or doctrines, so we are affected by the qualities of people. Some love impetu- osity ; others admire cool deliberation. Some are drawn toward the compliant ; others toward the strong will. Some bow to cleverness ; others to tenacity of purpose. Passionate natures have their admirers, but so do contemplative ones. The self- assertion that angers one intimidates another and charms a third. Why people have these preferences the sociologist is not called upon to explain, any more than in treating of marriage he is called upon to account for the vagaries of preference between the sexes.

Whether as the offspring of the instinctive will to live or as the result of living closer to our own choices and efforts than to those of others, 2 we have naturally a high self-esteem. But with the advent of reflection self-esteem comes to be bound up in a measure with a more or less critical and objective self-judgment. We get the power to stand off and look upon and pass judgment on ourselves. In such cases self-esteem lifts its head when we

r.XANDER, Moral Ordtr and Progress, p. 127-8. JAMES, Psychology, Vol. I, p. 326-7.