Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/47

 SOCIAL CONTROL 33

people come to understand just what morality is for their ethical emancipation is at hand. Whenever, on the other hand, the development of institutions like monogamy or property or admin- istration carries requirements beyond the comprehension of the common people, these people are likely to fall under the sway of an organized minority.

A shrewd eye soon perceives that most of the inhibiting impulses sent through the social group emanate from a minority, sometimes a very small minority, that, by its brains, its prestige, and, above all, by its superior organization, makes up for its numerical weakness. For the more primitive obligations, it is true, a wide support may be provided in the moral feelings natural or cultivated of the common man. But the common man's impulses always lag behind the real needs of his time. Even public opinion, led as it is, is lax and listless, unless it has long been schooled to react in a particular way.

The fact is, social order is always improvable. Whatever the measure of adaptation human beings have realized among them- selves, there are always blessings that can be obtained through better order. Always some loose screw or other permits social energy to be wasted, and always someone sees this and wants to tighten that screw. If wanton aggression is brought^ into bad odor, there remains the mischief wrought by retaliation. Taboo that, and there remains the vendetta-breeding personal encounter or duel. Stigmatize it, and there is gaming which leads to brawl- ing. If the priests make it disreputable, there is card-playing which leads to gaming. Let the Puritans banish this practice from a "sober and godly life," and some other source of evil will catch the eye. In other words, the relations of men are always open to improvement, and the minority, realizing this, will press the needed moralities upon the mass before the mass is ripe for them.

There is good reason, then, why it was a minority that bound the law upon the Semites of Palestine, a minority that put down the drinking of wine in eastern countries, a minority that upheld Christian strictness against Saxon licentiousness, a mino- rity that declared the Truce of God, and why it is a minority that in Burmah today upholds the fantastically humane ethics of