Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/833

 SOCIAL CONTROL 819

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things.

Not one kneels to another or to one of his kind that lived thousands of years

ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. 1

IV.

To expose the antinomy that lies at the foundation of society and to show faiths, moralities, and wisdom, in all their nakedness as so many ways of luring a man from the pursuit of his private welfare is to subvert all control save that of force. " In vain in the sight of the bird the net of the fowler is spread." One who learns why society is urging him into the strait and narrow way will resist its pressure. One who sees clearly the method of control will thenceforth be emancipated. Of course he may cleave to goodness and justice they are not exotic to human nature but no one knowingly consents to be controlled. To betray the secrets of social ascendency is to forearm the indi- vidual in his struggle with society. If at the hour that now strikes the Anglo-Saxon is over-regulated, his conscience too. sensitive, his ideals too imperious, his conduct too devoted, his; proper development checked, then let us show him the net in- which he is taken. But if he still thwarts his fellows more than our control thwarts him, let us beware of rashly strengthening an individualism already too rampant.

Since the days of Reimarus and Priestley bold scientific analysis has destroyed vicious forms of control guarded by dark- ness and superstition, till it has become an acknowledged axiom that all dissections may take place in public. It is now an article of faith that truth can never harm and cannot be proclaimed too widely. When human action is seen to be influenced by baseless faiths or wrong ideas, it has been assumed that we cannot too quickly foster doubt and question. But this optimism has pre- vailed simply because the iconoclasm of natural science could do- little harm so long as the veil was not lifted from those sacred recesses where are prepared the convictions and sentiments by

'Z/at/ of Grass, "Song of Myself."