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 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 337

decreed by the conditions which are antecedent to the social desires, and more persistent. But given a certain minimum of material resource, and the industrial activities at once encounter as real barriers and deflectors in the social characteristics of per- sons as seas and rivers encounter in dikes and levees and break- waters. In a word, the quantity and energy and direction of economic action in a society depend, among other things, upon the social quality of that society. The fact that Carthage grew rich by commerce, while Rome did not, is due in part to the con- trast in social conditions, not to the excessive greed of the Car- thaginians. On the contrary, the rapacity of the Romans was more relentless than that of their rivals. The means which it adopted to satisfy itself was determined in part by different con- ceptions of the social worthiness of war as compared with pro- duction and peaceful exchange. Similar results have been seen in modern Europe from the operation of the aristocratic taboo upon business. Since capitalistic business has risen to such unique importance, the German, French, and English aristocratic classes have been stricken with dismay at the rising power, com- mercial and political, of the class controlling money. The aris- tocrats have simply handicapped themselves in the commercial race by social traditions that have proscribed business careers. They have improvidently bred business capacity out of their ranks. This is one clue to the anti-Semitic movement in France and Germany. The Jews have been forced into trade, commerce, and banking by the policy of the Christian nations since Chris- tianity came into political power. They have developed business instincts which were not originally peculiar marks of the race. They are the superiors of the social leaders in ability to carry on the kinds of business that predominate in our day, and they are consequently the objects of impotent jealousy on the part of the classes that demand artificial prestige. The chief reason why there is no anti-Semitic movement in England is that democracy is so much more intelligent and thorough there than in France and Germany. The predominance of the aristocracy has been more or less a fiction for a long time, and the failures of the aristocracy to succeed in the capitalistic game do not move the