Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/631

 SOCIAL CONTROL 6lS

as well as in law or religion. So that too often the black bat of obscurantism gets them at the last. Over against them, then, must stand the investigator, the artist, the reformer, the prophet, to level the "forts of folly," to open new paths, and to keep mankind on the march.

It must be admitted that, in Christendom at least, custom now holds things together less than ever before. The family is no longer the secure seat of tradition it once was, and the spirit of the age has broken the scepter of the Past. The hoop of precedent has become a streak of rust, and the ferment is spread- ing the staves of the social cask. Consider the meaning of the democratic reorganization of society in the nineteenth century. In the United States free land has supplied an economic lever for the leveling-up process. But in western Europe the demo- cratic movement arose, beyond all doubt, out of the radical movement of thought in the eighteenth century which dis- credited traditions by requiring them to submit their credentials at the bar of reason and justice. The shock broke the spell of use and wont, and weakened the bonds of society beyond their power to hold those under-classes which bore the most and got the least out of the social union — those who, from the nature of the case, required the most control to keep them quiet. The undermining of authority left only physical force confronting them, and against this the disadvantaged classes have gradually fought their way to political recognition and a certain equality of opportunity. Whether, after this is fully attained, power can dispense with that custom which was once, in Pindar's phrase, "lord of all things" — whether, in other words, the centrifugal tendencies will continue until property goes the way of privilege — is a question to be seriously pondered. But there is another consideration.

In social architecture the prime desiderata have always been order and progress. If one must come first, it is the former, for there can be no progress without order, although there can be order without progress. But their real rivalry lies in the fact that order can be somewhat impaired for the sake of quicker progress, or progress can be somewhat checked for the sake of