Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/701

 THE SOCIOLOGY OF CONFLICT 677

to exclude the elements which cannot be definitively brought into the general order. The Catholic church, for instance, has from the beginning of its power found itself in a dual warfare. On the one hand, it has been- opposed to the whole complex of involved philosophical opinions which together have constituted heresy ; on the other hand, it has encountered the actual life-interests and powers holding parallel competence and demanding some sort of dominion independent of the church. The compact unity of form which under these circumstances the church needed has been secured in this way : dissenters have been treated so long as possible as though belonging within the church. From the moment, however, that this was no longer possible, they have been thrust out of the church with an incomparable energy. For a structure of this sort a certain elasticity of its outward form is extremely important ; not in order to facilitate transition and accommodation with the antagonistic powers, but rather, pre- cisely for the sake of opposing them with the utmost vigor with- out sacrificing any still available elements. The elasticity is not in stretching out beyond the proper boundary. The latter, rather, circumscribes in this case the elastic body quite as unequivocally as it can bound a rigid one. This roominess characterizes, for example, the monastic orders through which the mystical or fanatical impulses that emerge in all religions in this case have expressed themselves in a way that has been harmless to the church and quite subordinate to it. On the contrary, in Protes- tantism, with its sometimes more intense dogmatic intolerance, the same factors have led to schism and disintegration. Socio- logical attitudes which specifically concern women seem to run back to the same motive. Among the highly manifold elements out of which the aggregate relationships between men and women are formed there occurs also a typical enmity springing from the two sources, first, that the women as the physically weaker are always in danger of economic and personal exploitation, 1 and, sec-

1 1 am here speaking of the relation as it has existed in the far largest part of known history, and I waive the question whether a change in the relation in the future is to be brought about through the modern development of the rights and powers of women, or whether the change is already partially accomplished.