Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/520

 506 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

tribe is so hard-pressed that each of its fighters is of pivotal importance, and when the issue is either a common safety or a common ruin, each, led by his interest, will do just what his group would have him do. But in peace time people are not so closely matted together but that some may rise at the expense of the rest. The lot of the individual is sufficiently apart from the fortune of the group for him to snatch a gain for himself, just as the capitalist may profitably steal a franchise, even though he raises his taxes thereby.

The longer time we allow, the oftener may we see the trans- gressor sicken with the very virus he has introduced into the veins of society. So they who take the sword come to perish by the sword. But it often takes long to complete the circuit ; and human life is not for the long run. The world's "judgment days" are not a success in respect to settling with the right per- sons. It is still the children whose " teeth are set on edge." The " deluge" is after us. The bad man profits, enjoys, and flits ere the social Nemesis arrives.

Surprising as are the interactions that enchant the social philosopher, they cannot work miracles. Curses do not always recoil on the head of the curser. Only to an Emerson does the thief " steal from himself," the swindler " swindle himself." Of tares men reap tares, but not everyone who sows tares will reap them himself. If Providence does not bring back the "bread cast upon the waters," one may well hesitate to cast it forth ; for we have no guarantee that social interactions will do it. There is considerable proof that a man will feel the social lot, but there is no demonstrating that he will share it.

The solidarity notion finds a variant in the fallacy bred in the bone of jurists, legal writers, political philosophers, and moral empirists generally, that the social necessity from which requirements flow is a sufficing ground of obedience. Nearly all who have approached the moral problem from the side of social science and they are many in these latter days regard the common blessings of order as at once standard and sanction of social behests, and look upon those who disobey in the face of