Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/345

 SOCIAL CONTROL 331

fruitful classification of hunmn conduct, save tltat ^vhich discriminates according to results. And it is just here that men stumble and hence need light. For the consequences of a deed are numer- ous, lying in many directions and often entangled with the con- sequences of other acts and conditions. Some fall within the physical sphere, others in the vital or psychical. Some are near and others are remote. Some are certain and others are problematic. Some are momentous and others are trivial. Some are transient and others are enduring. Some affect self and some affect others. In this maze the uninstructed eye catches chiefly what will happen to me here and now. When the links in the chain of connection are many a consequence is unseen, when its form is indeterminate, it appears doubtful, when it falls well into the future, it has no real weight, when it strikes another person, it lacks in reality. Thus partial views prevail, pennyweights are balanced against each other instead of pounds, and the choices of life prove to be unreasonable and disastrous. This state of confusion is harmful to the common welfare. On the whole it is more to the interest of society to turn up the lights than to turn them down. A facility in reckoning and weighing consequences makes more virtue than it mars. Of course good impulses may be overruled as well as bad ones, but the balance of advantage lies with prudence. Impulse reigns in Uganda, enlightened selfishness in China. Neither is a paragon of social architecture, but there is no question as to which pre- ^ -nts the better equilibrium of clashing private interests. We find, therefore, that no man is allowed to go through life with- out receiving a vast amount of gratuitous instruction, admoni- tion and advice from sources official, semi-official, or merely countenanced, as to the consequences of acts in the debatable portion of the field of conduct.

II

One is enlightened as to the results of his acts to himself.

Here we have a setting forth of :

a. Physiological consequences. " Society " is, of course, a kind