Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/259

 SOCIAL CONTROL 245

terminate upon himself. Alongside of that little boat which he steers so carefully are millions of others of similar build and dimensions; none of them are worth much, and his own is not worth more. In vain will he provision it, decorate it, and shove ahead to get the first place ; in vain will he repair it and handle it carefully ; in a few years it leaks ; sooner or later it sinks, and with it goes all the labor it has cost him.

He with eye to see the shortness of his course and the near- ness of his fate will feel the pettiness of individual aims, and will be drawn toward those substantial and enduring communal objects, those corporate concerns and undertakings which affect vast numbers of men, and have an imposing secular history. Among the innumerable boats, so soon to sink, so easy to replace, there are great three-deckers, freighted with vast interests, and destined to remain afloat long after he and his boat have dis- appeared. Is it strange, then, that the exceptional man fre- quently devotes himself more willingly to steering, maneuvering, and advancing one of these ships than to managing his own frail bark? 1

But if the man of influence still cleaves to a purely personal ambition, and if, moreover, society cannot overcome him with any of its long-range weapons of control its faiths or its ideals there are still other means of bringing him into line with social endeavor. Society is always contending with the brittleness of its regulative instruments. The helmsmen of the state, the archons of religion, the shapers of moral disciplines, the framers of ideals are painfully conscious of a certain impo- tence. Hence society, through its guides, courts the aid of dominating persons, hoping to use their influence to strengthen its own. This it does by making it to the interest of the man of light and leading to pull with it rather than against it, to dis- pose of his control to the wardens of the social order rather than to invest it on his own account.

The military service exemplifies this policy. Here we have

cat body of fighters led by a small body of officers, organ-

1 This illustration is adapted from TAINK'S Modern Rtzime, Vol. I. Hk. iv. chap. I.