Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/378

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

If, now, those of a certain bent become aware of one another, draw together in fellowship, formulate articles of faith, glorify distinctive ideals, perhaps even frame a manner of life and develop their own leaders, gatherings, and literature, a sect is formed. To the degree to which the sectaries segregate into a "peculiar people," the old check ceases to operate. For each reveling in this new social environment renounces part and lot with the "unbelievers," the "Philistines," the "bourgeoisie," the " unillumined," the "world," as the rest of society is variously styled. The moderating influence that kept each a little less outrf and fanatical than he was prompted to be is withdrawn. Finding countenance, each now rises to the full stature of his eccentricity. If it is class pride, he will assert it with an impu- dence and unreasonableness he would never show by himself. If it is some notion about the Second Coming or the treatment of disease, he exalts it into a dogma. If it is a dislike, it hardens into a murderous hatred. If it is a prejudice, it mounts to the pitch of fanaticism.

From the too exclusive intercourse of workingmen, what mortal antipathy grows up toward the Chinaman or the non- striker! In priestly seminaries, with what hoofs and horns they picture the freethinker! What bizarre notions of "bourgeois society" circulate in the cabarets where anarchists touch glasses! What strange growths of belief or worship flourish in closed communities like the Shakers or the Doukhobors ! To what a pitch of arrogance mounted the pride of the southern planter class from the intimate association of the capitals and watering- places of the old regime ! What warped ideas of right and wrong become hallowed in codes of tribal or professional ethics! What absurd idolatries strike root in the Latin Quarter! What crazy cults in coteries of artists or writers !

In the crowd the dominant emotion becomes exaggerated partly owing to the unrestrained manifestation of feeling, partly in consequence of the reverberation of a feeling by means of reciprocal suggestion. But in the sect all the characteristics, ideas as well as feelings, are exaggerated. The cause of this exaggeration is not heightened suggestibility, but segregation,