Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/823

 SOCIAL CONTROL. XIII.

THE SYSTEM OF SOCIAL CONTROL. I.

IF a number of institutions that mutually determine each other may be said to form a system, then we may properly speak of "the system of social control." Certainly there is a division of labor tending to assign to each form of control that work for which it is best fitted. Law concerns itself with that undesirable conduct which is at once important and capable of clear defini- tion. Central positive qualities courage or veracity in man, chastity in woman are taken in charge by the sense of honor or self-respect. The religious sanction is ordinarily reserved for those acts and abstinences requiring the utmost backing. Religion mounts guard over the ancient, unvarying fundamentals of group life, but deals little with the temporary adjustments required from time to time. The taking of life or property, adultery, unfilial conduct, and false swearing encounter its full force ; but not adulteration, stock gambling, or corporation frauds. In code as in ritual and belief religion betrays its archaic character.

In morals as well as in microscopes we have a major and a minor adjusting apparatus. In adaptability public opinion stands at one end of a series of which religion is the other extreme. Con- nected with this is a gradation in the nature of the sanction. Public opinion bans many things not unlawful, law may require much more than self-respect, and self-respect may be wounded by that which is not regarded as sinful. But the universality of the sanction grows as the scope of prohibition narrows. In the first case the offender encounters the public here and now, in the second the crystallized disapproval of society, in the third the opinion of generations of men who have conspired to frame a standard or ideal, and in the last case the frown of the Ruler

of the Universe.

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