Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/206

 192 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

ment, Benloew's division of history into periods ruled respect- ively by the ideals of the Beautiful, the Good, and the True. Even the clairvoyant Marx opposes to a social Past, dominated by class struggle, a classless, strifeless Future under the col- lectivist regime. Living exemplars of this way of treating things are Mr. Kidd, with his polarity of "Western" with "Ancient" civilization, and (on a much higher plane) Mr. Brooks Adams, whose fondness for pivotal events and moments causes him to see in history, not the sinuosities of a stream, but the zigzag path of the lightning.

A great stride is taken when it is perceived that many broad contrasts of periods, races, and civilizations resolve themselves on closer inspection into simply a more or less of contrasted social phenomena, which are found in varying proportions with every people and at every period. Why should we with St. Simon oppose so sharply organic and critical epochs, when the essential contrast is between organic and critical tendencies, which coexist in every society? Why confront the "Age of Authority" with the "Age of Reason," when the two principles are found oper- ating side by side in every community and bringing forth fruits each after its kind ? Why with Maine and Bagehot fare afield to contrast Stationary and Progressive peoples, when progressive and unprogressive types are all about us, and without leaving our own time, or even our own town, we can fathom the principal conditions of stagnation and progress ? Even Mr. Spencer's antithesis of militant and industrial societies resolves itself, see- ing that hardly any society is wholly the one or the other, into the contrasts in effects between militant activities and industrial activities.

The diametrical oppositions that should figure in sociology are such unlikenesses as conflict and compromise, competition and combination, class struggle and social solidarity, status and contract, coercive co-operation and voluntary co-operation, imi- tation and innovation, custom and fashion, persecution and toleration, rural life and city life, honorific employments and humilific employments, pecuniary occupations and industrial occupations, the leisure class and the productive class, the