Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/841

 SOCIAL CONTROL 827

individual it advises, and encroaches upon the province of social science. The only hope for ethics as a science is to retire within its natural boundaries, and pronounce, upon life and its prob- lems from the standpoint of the liver of it.

What seduces the ethics people from their proper business and sets them to preaching is the delusion that with their demonstrations and admonitions they hold society together. Could anything be more naive ! If we depended on ethical instruction for justice and mercy, we should banquet on pris- oners of war from the next county. The ethician is like the fly on the chariot wheel saying complacently, " See what a dust I raise!" Religion makes mock of ethics, and justly con- trasts its mighty forces with the feebleness of moral demonstra- tions. But, pace Mr. Kidd, neither is religion the only thing that holds society together. Its partisans go about hawking their patent cement warranted to stand time, weather, and earth- quake, but we shall not invest our bottom dollar with them.

In these papers I have described thirteen leading types of control. Of these only two belong strictly to religion, although a great historical edifice like Christianity, that has assembled all manner of riches under its dome, is able to secure the collabora- tion of six or seven of the chief moral agents of society. It is with justice, then, that we can deny to any one ally the sole guardianship of social order. By many ways unseen or scarcely guessed are men brought to live together peaceably. No single moral influence enjoys a monopoly. The ancient impression of man on man, of the multitude on the man, of the man on the multitude, of the old on the young, of the gifted upon the ungifted so long as these are there, it will be possible to grow afresh the myths, ideals, values, symbols, and illusions that are the girders and tie-beams of the social edifice.

No doubt, as history shows us, there are times when every tim- ber in the old house of order which has sheltered so many gen- erations of men endures as if for a thousand years ; and again there are seasons when one after another props settle, sills rot, beams crack, and the business of repair engages all minds. It