Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/709

 THE SOCIOLOGY OF CONFLICT' 685

The antithesis between violent antagonism and momentary comradeship in struggle may, under particular circumstances, reach such refinement that, for the parties concerned, the very absoluteness of their enmity may constitute the direct cause of their coalition. The opposition in the English Parliament has sometimes been cbnstituted in the following manner: The ultras of the ministerial party were not satisfied by the administration, and they joined as a party with those who were their opponents on principle. This combination was held together by the com- mon element of hostility to the ministry. For instance, the ultra- Whigs under Pulteney united with the high Tories against Robert Walpole. Thus the very radicalism of the principle which was nourished on hostility against the Tories fused its adher- ents with the latter. If they had not been so extremely anti- Tory, they would not have combined with the Tories in order to secure the fall of the Whig ministry which was not sufficiently Whiggish for them. This case is so vivid because the common enemy led individuals who were otherwise enemies to the point where he, in the view of each, seemed to stand too much on the side of the other. Further than this, the case is still only the clearest example of the vulgar experience that even the most bitter enmities do not hinder coalition, so soon as it may have a bearing upon a common enemy.

Finally, the lowest step in this scale, its least acute form, con- sists of those coalitions which are merely formed by a common tone of feeling (Stimmung). That is, in this case there is con- sciousness of belonging together only in so far as there is a similar aversion or a similar practical interest against a third ; but this need not lead to a concerted struggle. In this case also we must distinguish two types. Concentrated industry, which has placed masses of laborers in opposition to a few employers has, as we know, not merely brought into existence separate coalitions of the former for struggle over the conditions of labor, but another consequence has been the quite general feeling that all wage-laborers in some way belong together, because they are all in 'the struggle which is radically one against the employing class. This opinion crystallizes, to be sure, at certain points in