Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/704

 680 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

parties to suffer even the diminution of their numbers, so soon as such change would remove elements inclined to mediation and compromise. In order that this procedure should be indicated, two conditions should usually coincide : in the first place, there should be a condition of acute conflict; in the second place, the struggling group should be relatively small. The type is the minority party, and in particular in cases in which it does not limit itself to defensive action. English parliamentary history has furnished many illustrations. In 1793, for instance, the Whig party was already greatly depleted, yet it operated as a renewal of strength when another defection of all the still some- what mediating and irresolute elements occurred. The few remaining very resolute members could then pursue a quite coherent and radical policy. The majority group does not need to insist upon such certainty of acquiescence or opposition. Vacillating and equivocal adherents are less dangerous to it, because its greater extent can endure such phenomena at the periphery without suffering any serious effect at the center. In cases of more restricted groups, where center and circumference are not far apart, every insecurity with reference to a member at once threatens the nucleus, and therewith the coherence of the whole. On account of the limited span between the elements, there is lacking that elasticity of the group which in this case is the limit of tolerance.

Consequently groups, and especially minorities, that exist in struggle and persecution, frequently rebuff approaches and toler- ance from the other side, because otherwise the solidity of their opposition would disappear, and without this they could not further struggle. This, for example, has occurred more than once in the struggles over creeds in England. Both under James II. and William and Mary the nonconformists, independents, Baptists, Quakers, repeatedly experienced attempted approaches on the part of the government, which they met with no sort of response. Otherwise the possibility would have been offered to the more yielding and irresolute elements among them, and the temptation would have been furnished, to build compromise parties, or at least to have modified their opposition. Every