Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/839

Rh same parties would rob it of all dignity and earnestness. For, supposing that one such repetition has occurred, nothing then appears against a second and a third, which would reduce the whole situation to a contemptible and frivolous proceeding. Perhaps this feeling that a repetition of the breach would be final—a feeling to which previous to the first breach there is properly no analogy—is for the more refined natures the strongest bond through which the conciliated relationship distinguishes itself from that which has never been interrupted.

The degree of reconciliation after conflict, after pain inflicted on one or both sides, is for the development of all the relationships of the persons concerned, both in minor and in major matters, of decided significance. For this reason there is need of a few words about its negative extreme, that is, irreconcilability. So long as this has rather an external meaning, so long as it proceeds from hatred, love of fighting, extravagance of the claims urged, and so on, it is no further problem. It becomes an additional problem when, as in the case of the conciliatory attitude, it presents itself as a formal sociological factor. In this case it requires, to be sure, a purely external situation in which to actualize itself, but, this being given, it proceeds quite spontaneously, and not merely as the consequence of further mediating emotions. Both tendencies belong to the polar elements, the combination of which determines all relationships between men. It is often said, for instance, that if we could not forget, we could not forgive, or we could not become completely reconciled. This would obviously mean the most frightful irreconcilability, since it makes conciliation depend upon the disappearance from consciousness of every occasion for the contrary attitude. Moreover, it would also, like all other states of consciousness, be subject to the constant danger of being called into existence through a revival of memory. If this whole opinion is to have any meaning at all, it is to be found in the reverse direction. The state of conciliation, as a primary fact, is in itself the reason why the quarrel and the pain which the one party has occasioned for the other mounts no longer into consciousness. In a corresponding way, essential irreconcilability by no means consists in