Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/847

 sort, is considerable. Where the social differences are very marked, and where they do not merge into each other through intermediate gradations, any sudden movement and disturbance of the structure of the whole must be much more dangerous than when many intermediate strata are present. This follows from the fact that evolution always affects at first a portion of the group exclusively or with especial energy. Accordingly, in the case last considered, the consequences or extension of the evolution will appear but gradually, while in the first case the movement will be much more violent and will take sudden hold of portions of the group that are most distant and most opposed. The intermediate classes act then as buffers. In the event of sudden developments, or unavoidable disturbance of the structure of the whole, they graduate, mollify, and distribute the shock.

It is most necessary to preserve at all hazards the social peace, stability, and conservative character of the group life in those instances in which the group structure is discontinuous and characterized by sharp internal differences. For that reason we notice, as a matter of fact, that in groups containing tremendous and irreconcilable class contrasts, peace and persistence of the forms of social life are more apt to prevail than in cases of approach and mediation and commingling between the extremes of the social scale. In the latter case preservation of the whole in the status quo ante is much more likely to be along with unstable conditions, sudden developments, and progressive tendencies.

This connection between stability of the social character and width of distances between social elements betrays itself in the opposite direction. In case the preservation of the group, by means of stability, is mechanically forced, abrupt social differences often take shape with that end in view. This appears in the development of peasant serfdom in Russia. In the Russian there has always been a strong nomadic impulse. The level character of the country tended to confirm this impulse. To insure regular cultivation of the soil it was consequently necessary to take from the peasant his liberty to come and go at will.