Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/407

 SOCIAL CONTROL 393

the rulers must be as far as possible differentiated from that of the ruled, in order that the former may be looked upon as beings apart. But the splendor with which nobles surround their actions, both public and private, is costly, and hence leads to that insatiable rapacity which characterizes over-ripe aristocra- cies, and which so often leads them to ruin.

Simplicity, on the other hand, comes in as class rule disap- pears. In the democratic era the need of solemn ostentation passes away, and the wealthy employ their riches in keeping up a manner of life very different from that of the great in the aristocratic era. Moreover, government is conducted with less of state, and the ceremony that is still retained for public occa- sions is religious and ethical in character rather than spectacular.

Finally, a ruling class profits by prescription. For the secret of the stability of an oppressive social system is not always in the weapons or even in the prestige of the class that sits aloft. Whatever be the relations it fixes between master and slave, lord and serf, priest and flock, prince and subject, the system by its very existence utters an imperious suggestion which few can resist. The young, drawing from their native feelings their ideas of what is fit and right, may criticise the established order. But a longer steeping in the silent, overmastering presence of majestic institutions adapts their notions of what is fit and right to the relations that are, and fosters a spirit of acquiescence. 1 Nothing but this triumph of suggestion over logic can explain in history those epochs of paradox when the same men are at once mystics and heresy-hunters, philanthropists and slave- holders, Christians and assertors of feudal privilege.

Those who have the sunny rooms in the social edifice have, therefore, a powerful ally in the suggestion of Things-as-they-are. With the aid of a little narcotizing teaching and preaching, the denizens of the cellar may be brought to find their lot proper

1 " Wherever there is an ascendent class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests and its class feelings of superiority. The morality between Spartans and helots, between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been for the most part the creation of these class interests and feelings." (J. S. MILL, On Liberty, p. 15.)