Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/828

 8 14 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

My people are strangers one to another, and so it is best. They do not take the same malady at the same time. In France, when the fever comes, it attacks you all the same day. I put the Hungarians in Italy and the Italians in Hungary. Each watches his neighbor. They do not understand each other and they detest each other. From their antipathy order is born, and from their reciprocal hatred, the general peace. 1

An example of the democratic type of assimilation is offered by the United States.

All states have given instances of partial assimilation ; other- wise there would have been no social growth. But one cause of the repeated downfall of ancient societies is that there existed in them no true unity of the people ; in fact, they contained no "people" in our modern sense. In a group where control is exercised by force, with the class system of rigid separation in operation, sympathy between the members of different classes is not encouraged. Unanimity of opinion on the most vital questions those of rights and privileges is, therefore, impos- sible. How could the master and slave, the lord and serf, think alike be en rapport? The economic status of the different classes prevents the spread of like-mindedness ; potential resem- blance is limited by the economic system. Much dissimilation thus occurs in societies practicing the aristocratic type of assimi- lation, and they attain but partial or class assimilation. Such societies, however, desire but partial unity. Thus, Metternich did not care to Germanize the Slavs of Austria ; he did not wish their intellectual horizon widened, for he thought he could use and abuse them more if they remained in ignorance. 2 In such groups the imitative faculty is restricted, held in check. Imita- tion is allowed only within the class ; it cannot extend beyond the lines laid down by law and custom. Assimilation is approxi- mately complete or national only in the highest stage of social evolution, where class lines have about disappeared, and hence where there is practically no class opposition to hinder inter- class association and sympathy where there is no bar to the extension of consciousness of kind. Association is not perfect until it is pleasurable, sympathetic, and voluntary. When this

1 BLUNTSCHLI, Attgemeine Staatslehre, p. no.

a Novicow, Les Luttes entre Socidits humaines, pp. 134, 135.