Introduction to the Science of Sociology Part 96

We now turn to the second sociological question raised by the case of subordination to an impersonal ideal principle. How does this subordination affect the reciprocal relation of the persons thus subordinated in common? The development of the position of the _pater familias_ among the Aryans exhibits this process clearly. The power of the _pater familias_ was originally unlimited and entirely subjective; that is, his momentary desire, his personal advantage, was permitted to give the decision upon all regulations. But this arbitrary power gradually became limited by a feeling of responsibility. The unity of the domestic group, embodied in the _spiritus familiaris_, grew into the ideal power, in relation to which the lord of the whole came to regard himself as merely an obedient agent. Accordingly it follows that morals and custom, instead of subjective preference, determine his acts, his decisions, his judicial judgments; that he no longer behaves as though he were absolute lord of the family property, but rather the manager of it in the interest of the whole; that his position bears more the character of an official station than that of an unlimited right. Thus the relation between superiors and inferiors is placed upon an entirely new basis. The family is thought of as standing above all the individual members. The guiding patriarch himself is, like every other member, subordinate to the family idea. He may give directions to the other members of the family only in the name of the higher ideal unity.

C. CONFLICT AND ACCOMMODATION

1. War and Peace as Types of Conflict and Accommodation[233]

It is obvious that the transition from war to peace must present a more considerable problem than the reverse, i.e., the transition from peace to war. The latter really needs no particular scrutiny. For the situations existing in time of peace are precisely the conditions out of which war emerges and contain in themselves struggle in a diffused, un.o.bserved, or latent form. For instance, if the economic advantage which the southern states of the American Union had over the northern states in the Civil War as a consequence of the slave system was also the reason for this war, still, so long as no antagonism arises from it, but is merely immanent in the existing conditions, this source of conflict did not become specifically a question of war and peace. At the moment, however, at which the antagonism began to a.s.sume a color which meant war, an acc.u.mulation of antagonisms, feelings of hatred, newspaper polemics, frictions between private persons, and on the borders reciprocal moral equivocations in matters outside of the central ant.i.thesis at once manifested themselves. The transition from peace to war is thus not distinguished by a special sociological situation.

Rather out of relationships existing within a peaceful situation antagonism is developed immediately, in its most visible and, energetic form. The case is different, however, if the matter is viewed from the opposite direction. Peace does not follow so immediately upon conflict.

The termination of strife is a special undertaking which belongs neither in the one category nor in the other, like a bridge which is of a different nature from that of either bank which it unites. The sociology of struggle demands, therefore, at least as an appendix, an a.n.a.lysis of the forms in which conflict is terminated, and these exhibit certain special forms of reaction not to be observed in other circ.u.mstances.

The particular motive which in most cases corresponds with the transition from war to peace is the simple longing for peace. With the emergence of this factor there comes into being, as a matter of fact, peace itself, at first in the form of the wish immediately parallel with the struggle itself, and it may without any special transitional form displace struggle. We need not pause long to observe that the desire for peace may spring up both directly and indirectly; the former may occur either through the return to power of this peaceful character in the party which is essentially in favor of peace; or through the fact that, through the mere change of the formal stimulus of struggle and of peace which is peculiar to all natures, although in different rhythms, the latter comes to the surface and a.s.sumes a control which is sanctioned by its own nature alone. In the case of the indirect motive, however, we may distinguish, on the one hand, the exhaustion of resources which, without removal of the persistent contentiousness, may instal the demand for peace; and, on the other hand, the withdrawal of interest from struggle through a higher interest in some other object. The latter case begets all sorts of hypocrisies and self-deceptions. It is a.s.serted and believed that peace is desired from ideal interest in peace itself and the suppression of antagonism, while in reality only the object fought for has lost its interest and the fighters would prefer to have their powers free for other kinds of activity.

The simplest and most radical sort of pa.s.sage from war to peace is victory--a quite unique phenomenon in life, of which there are, to be sure, countless individual forms and measures, which, however, have no resemblance to any of the otherwise mentioned forms which may occur between persons. Victory is a mere watershed between war and peace; when considered absolutely, only an ideal structure which extends itself over no considerable time. For so long as struggle endures there is no definitive victor, and when peace exists a victory _has been_ gained but the act of victory has ceased to exist. Of the many shadings of victory, through which it qualifies the following peace, I mention here merely as an ill.u.s.tration the one which is brought about, not exclusively by the preponderance of the one party, but, at least in part, through the resignation of the other. This confession of inferiority, this acknowledgment of defeat, or this consent that victory shall go to the other party without complete exhaustion of the resources and chances for struggle, is by no means always a simple phenomenon. A certain ascetic tendency may also enter in as a purely individual factor, the tendency to self-humiliation and to self-sacrifice, not strong enough to surrender one's self from the start without a struggle, but emerging so soon as the consciousness of being vanquished begins to take possession of the soul; or another variation may be that of finding its supreme charm in the contrast to the still vital and active disposition to struggle. Still further, there is impulse to the same conclusion in the feeling that it is worthier to yield rather than to trust to the last moment in the improbable chance of a fortunate turn of affairs. To throw away this chance and to elude at this price the final consequences that would be involved in utter defeat--this has something of the great and n.o.ble qualities of men who are sure, not merely of their strengths, but also of their weaknesses, without making it necessary for them in each case to make these perceptibly conscious. Finally, in this voluntariness of confessed defeat there is a last proof of power on the part of the agent; the latter has of himself been able to act. He has therewith virtually made a gift to the conqueror. Consequently, it is often to be observed in personal conflicts that the concession of the one party, before the other has actually been able to compel it, is regarded by the latter as a sort of insult, as though this latter party were really the weaker, to whom, however, for some reason or other, there is made a concession without its being really necessary. Behind the objective reasons for yielding "for the sake of sweet peace" a mixture of these subjective motives is not seldom concealed. The latter may not be entirely without visible consequences, however, for the further sociological att.i.tude of the parties. In complete ant.i.thesis with the end of strife by victory is its ending by compromise. One of the most characteristic ways of subdividing struggles is on the basis of whether they are of a nature which admits of compromise or not.

2. Compromise and Accommodation[234]

On the whole, compromise, especially of that type which is brought to pa.s.s through negotiation, however commonplace and matter of fact it has come to be in the processes of modern life, is one of the most important inventions for the uses of civilization. The impulse of uncivilized men, like that of children, is to seize upon every desirable object without further consideration, even though it be already in the possession of another. Robbery and gift are the most nave forms of transfer of possession, and under primitive conditions change of possession seldom takes place without a struggle. It is the beginning of all civilized industry and commerce to find a way of avoiding this struggle through a process in which there is offered to the possessor of a desired object some other object from the possessions of the person desiring the exchange. Through this arrangement a reduction is made in the total expenditure of energy as compared with the process of continuing or beginning a struggle. All exchange is a compromise. We are told of certain social conditions in which it is accounted as knightly to rob and to fight for the sake of robbery; while exchange and purchase are regarded in the same society as undignified and vulgar. The psychological explanation of this situation is to be found partly in the fact of the element of compromise in exchange, the factors of withdrawal and renunciation which make exchange the opposite pole to all struggle and conquest. Every exchange presupposes that values and interest have a.s.sumed an objective character. The decisive element is accordingly no longer the mere subjective pa.s.sion of desire, to which struggle alone corresponds, but the value of the object, which is recognized by both interested parties but which without essential modification may be represented by various objects. Renunciation of the valued object in question, because one receives in another form the quantum of value contained in the same, is an admirable reason, wonderful also in its simplicity, whereby opposed interests are brought to accommodation without struggle. It certainly required a long historical development to make such means available, because it presupposes a psychological generalization of the universal valuation of the individual object, an abstraction, in other words, of the value for the objects with which it is at first identified; that is, it presupposes ability to rise above the prejudices of immediate desire. Compromise by representation, of which exchange is a special case, signifies in principle, although realized only in part, the possibility of avoiding struggle or of setting a limit to it before the mere force of the interested parties has decided the issue.

In distinction from the objective character of accommodation of struggle through compromise, we should notice that conciliation is a purely subjective method of avoiding struggle. I refer here not to that sort of conciliation which is the consequence of a compromise or of any other adjournment of struggle but rather to the reasons for this adjournment.

The state of mind which makes conciliation possible is an elementary att.i.tude which, entirely apart from objective grounds, seeks to end struggle, just as, on the other hand, a disposition to quarrel, even without any real occasion, promotes struggle. Probably both mental att.i.tudes have been developed as matters of utility in connection with certain situations; at any rate, they have been developed psychologically to the extent of independent impulses, each of which is likely to make itself felt where the other would be more practically useful. We may even say that in the countless cases in which struggle is ended otherwise than in the pitiless consistency of the exercise of force, this quite elementary and unreasoned tendency to conciliation is a factor in the result--a factor quite distinct from weakness, or good fellowship; from social morality or fellow-feeling. This tendency to conciliation is, in fact, a quite specific sociological impulse which manifests itself exclusively as a pacificator, and is not even identical with the peaceful disposition in general. The latter avoids strife under all circ.u.mstances, or carries it on, if it is once undertaken, without going to extremes, and always with the undercurrents of longing for peace. The spirit of conciliation, however, manifests itself frequently in its full peculiarity precisely after complete surrender to the struggle, after the conflicting energies have exercised themselves to the full in the conflict.

Conciliation depends very definitely upon the external situation. It can occur both after the complete victory of the one party and after the progress of indecisive struggle, as well as after the arrangement of the compromise. Either of these situations may end the struggle without the added conciliation of the opponents. To bring about the latter it is not necessary that there shall be a supplementary repudiation or expression of regret with reference to the struggle. Moreover, conciliation is to be distinguished from the situation which may follow it. This may be either a relationship of attachment or alliance, and reciprocal respect, or a certain permanent distance which avoids all positive contacts.

Conciliation is thus a removal of the roots of conflict, without reference to the fruits which these formerly bore, as well as to that which may later be planted in their place.

D. COMPEt.i.tION, STATUS, AND SOCIAL SOLIDARITY

1. Personal Compet.i.tion, Social Selection, and Status[235]

The function of personal compet.i.tion, considered as a part of the social system, is to a.s.sign to each individual his place in that system. If "all the world's a stage," this is a process that distributes the parts among the players. It may do it well or ill, but after some fashion it does it. Some may be cast in parts unsuited to them; good actors may be discharged altogether and worse ones retained; but nevertheless the thing is arranged in some way and the play goes on.

That such a process must exist can hardly, it seems to me, admit of question; in fact, I believe that those who speak of doing away with compet.i.tion use the word in another sense than is here intended. Within the course of the longest human life there is necessarily a complete renewal of the persons whose communication and co-operation make up the life of society. The new members come into the world without any legible sign to indicate what they are fit for, a mystery to others from the first and to themselves as soon as they are capable of reflection: the young man does not know for what he is adapted, and no one else can tell him. The only possible way to get light upon the matter is to adopt the method of experiment. By trying one thing and another and by reflecting upon his experience, he begins to find out about himself, and the world begins to find out about him. His field of investigation is of course restricted, and his own judgment and that of others liable to error, but the tendency of it all can hardly be other than to guide his choice to that one of the available careers in which he is best adapted to hold his own. I may say this much, perhaps, without a.s.suming anything regarding the efficiency or justice of compet.i.tion as a distributor of social functions, a matter regarding which I shall offer some suggestions later. All I wish to say here is that the necessity of some selective process is inherent in the conditions of social life.

It will be apparent that, in the sense in which I use the term, compet.i.tion is not necessarily a hostile contention, nor even something of which the competing individual is always conscious. From our infancy onward throughout life judgments are daily forming regarding us of which we are unaware, but which go to determine our careers. "The world is full of judgment days." A and B, for instance, are under consideration for some appointment; the experience and personal qualifications of each are duly weighed by those having the appointment to make, and A, we will say, is chosen. Neither of the two need know anything about the matter until the selection is made. It is eligibility to perform some social function that makes a man a compet.i.tor, and he may or may not be aware of it, or, if aware of it, he may or may not be consciously opposed to others. I trust that the reader will bear in mind that I always use the word compet.i.tion in the sense here explained.

There is but one alternative to compet.i.tion as a means of determining the place of the individual in the social system, and that is some form of status, some fixed, mechanical rule, usually a rule of inheritance, which decides the function of the individual without reference to his personal traits, and thus dispenses with any process of comparison. It is possible to conceive of a society organized entirely upon the basis of the inheritance of functions, and indeed societies exist which may be said to approach this condition. In India, for example, the prevalent idea regarding the social function of the individual is that it is unalterably determined by his parentage, and the village blacksmith, shoemaker, accountant, or priest has his place a.s.signed to him by a rule of descent as rigid as that which governs the transmission of one of the crowns of Europe. If all functions were handed down in this way, if there were never any deficiency or surplus of children to take the place of their parents, if there were no progress or decay in the social system making necessary new activities or dispensing with old ones, then there would be no use for a selective process. But precisely in the measure that a society departs from this condition, that individual traits are recognized and made available, or social change of any sort comes to pa.s.s, in that measure must there be compet.i.tion.

Status is not an active process, as compet.i.tion is; it is simply a rule of conservation, a makeshift to avoid the inconveniences of continual readjustment in the social structure. Compet.i.tion or selection is the only constructive principle, and everything worthy the name of organization had at some time or other a compet.i.tive origin. At the present day the eldest son of a peer may succeed to a seat in the House of Lords simply by right of birth; but his ancestor got the seat by compet.i.tion, by some exercise of personal qualities that made him valued or loved or feared by a king or a minister.

Sir Henry Maine has pointed out that the increase of compet.i.tion is a characteristic trait of modern life, and that the powerful ancient societies of the old world were for the most part non-compet.i.tive in their structure. While this is true, it would be a mistake to draw the inference that status is a peculiarly natural or primitive principle of organization and compet.i.tion a comparatively recent discovery. On the contrary the spontaneous relations among men, as we see in the case of children, and as we may infer from the life of the lower animals, are highly compet.i.tive, personal prowess and ascendency being everything and little regard being paid to descent simply as such. The regime of inherited status, on the other hand, is a comparatively complex and artificial product, necessarily of later growth, whose very general prevalence among the successful societies of the old world is doubtless to be explained by the stability and consequently the power which it was calculated to give to the social system. It survived because under certain conditions it was the fittest. It was not and is not universally predominant among savages or barbarous peoples. With the American Indians, for example, the definiteness and authority of status were comparatively small, personal prowess and initiative being correspondingly important. The interesting monograph on Omaha sociology, by Dorsey, published by the United States Bureau of Ethnology, contains many facts showing that the life of this people was highly compet.i.tive.

When the tribe was at war any brave could organize an expedition against the enemy, if he could induce enough others to join him, and this organizer usually a.s.sumed the command. In a similar way the managers of the hunt were chosen because of personal skill; and, in general, "any man can win a name and rank in the state by becoming 'wacuce' or brave, either in war or by the bestowal of gifts and the frequent giving of feasts."

Throughout history there has been a struggle between the principles of status and compet.i.tion regarding the part that each should play in the social system. Generally speaking the advantage of status is in its power to give order and continuity. As Gibbon informs us, "The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least invidious of all distinctions among mankind," and he is doubtless right in ascribing the confusion of the later Roman Empire largely to the lack of an established rule for the transmission of imperial authority. The chief danger of status is that of suppressing personal development, and so of causing social enfeeblement, rigidity, and ultimate decay. On the other hand, compet.i.tion develops the individual and gives flexibility and animation to the social order, its danger being chiefly that of disintegration in some form or other. The general tendency in modern times has been toward the relative increase of the free or compet.i.tive principle, owing to the fact that the rise of other means of securing stability has diminished the need for status. The latter persists, however, even in the freest countries, as the method by which wealth is transmitted, and also in social cla.s.ses, which, so far as they exist at all, are based chiefly upon inherited wealth and the culture and opportunities that go with it.

The ultimate reason for this persistence--without very serious opposition--in the face of the obvious inequalities and limitations upon liberty that it perpetuates is perhaps the fact that no other method of transmission has arisen that has shown itself capable of giving continuity and order to the control of wealth.

2. Personal Compet.i.tion and the Evolution of Individual Types[236]

The ancient city was primarily a fortress, a place of refuge in time of war. The modern city, on the contrary, is primarily a convenience of commerce and owes its existence to the market place around which it sprang up. Industrial compet.i.tion and the division of labor, which have probably done most to develop the latent powers of mankind, are possible only upon condition of the existence of markets, of money and other devices for the facilitation of trade and commerce.

The old adage which describes the city as the natural environment, of the free man still holds so far as the individual man finds in the chances, the diversity of interests and tasks, and in the vast unconscious co-operation of city life, the opportunity to choose his own vocation and develop his peculiar individual talents. The city offers a market for the special talents of individual men. Personal compet.i.tion tends to select for each special task the individual who is best suited to perform it.

The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of the division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom and education. When they came into the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence, they were perhaps very much alike, and neither their parents nor playfellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to be employed in different occupations. The difference of talents comes then to be taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance. But without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the same duties to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been no such difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great difference of talent.

As it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by the extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the market.... There are some sorts of industry, even of the lowest kind, which can be carried on nowhere but in a great town.

Success, under conditions of personal compet.i.tion, depends upon concentration upon some single task, and this concentration stimulates the demand for rational methods, technical devices, and exceptional skill. Exceptional skill, while based on natural talent, requires special preparation, and it has called into existence the trade and professional schools, and finally bureaus for vocational guidance. All of these, either directly or indirectly, serve at once to select and emphasize individual differences.

Every device which facilitates trade and industry prepares the way for a further division of labor and so tends further to specialize the tasks in which men find their vocations.

The outcome of this process is to break down or modify the older organization of society, which was based on family ties, on local a.s.sociations, on culture, caste, and status, and to subst.i.tute for it an organization based on vocational interests.

In the city every vocation, even that of a beggar, tends to a.s.sume the character of a profession, and the discipline which success in any vocation imposes, together with the a.s.sociations that it enforces, emphasizes this tendency.

The effect of the vocations and the division of labor is to produce, in the first instance, not social groups but vocational types--the actor, the plumber, and the lumber-jack. The organizations, like the trade and labor unions, which men of the same trade or profession form are based on common interests. In this respect they differ from forms of a.s.sociation like the neighborhood, which are based on contiguity, personal a.s.sociation, and the common ties of humanity. The different trades and professions seem disposed to group themselves in cla.s.ses, that is to say, the artisan, business, and professional cla.s.ses. But in the modern democratic state the cla.s.ses have as yet attained no effective organization. Socialism, founded on an effort to create an organization based on "cla.s.s consciousness," has never succeeded in creating more than a political party.

The effects of the division of labor as a discipline may therefore be best studied in the vocational types it has produced. Among the types which it would be interesting to study are: the shopgirl, the policeman, the peddler, the cabman, the night watchman, the clairvoyant, the vaudeville performer, the quack doctor, the bartender, the ward boss, the strike-breaker, the labor agitator, the school teacher, the reporter, the stockbroker, the p.a.w.nbroker; all of these are characteristic products of the conditions of city life; each with its special experience, insight, and point of view determines for each vocational group and for the city as a whole its individuality.

3. Division of Labor and Social Solidarity[237]

The most remarkable effect of the division of labor is not that it accentuates the distinction of functions already divided but that it makes them interdependent. Its role in every case is not simply to embellish or perfect existing societies but to make possible societies which, without it, would not exist. Should the division of labor between the s.e.xes be diminished beyond a certain point, the family would cease to exist and only ephemeral s.e.xual relations would remain. If the s.e.xes had never been separated at all, no form of social life would ever have arisen. It is possible that the economic utility of the division of labor has been a factor in producing the existing form of conjugal society. Nevertheless, the society thus created is not limited to merely economic interests; it represents a unique social and moral order.

Individuals are mutually bound together who otherwise would be independent. Instead of developing separately, they concert their efforts; they are interdependent parts of a unity which is effective not only in the brief moments during which there is an interchange of services but afterward indefinitely. For example, does not conjugal solidarity of the type which exists today among the most cultivated people exert its influence constantly and in all the details of life? On the other hand, societies which are created by the division of labor inevitably bear the mark of their origin. Having this special origin, it is not possible that they should resemble those societies which have their origin in the attraction of like for like; the latter are inevitably const.i.tuted in another manner, repose on other foundations, and appeal to other sentiments.

The a.s.sumption that the social relations resulting from the division of labor consist in an exchange of services merely is a misconception of what this exchange implies and of the effects it produces. It a.s.sumes that two beings are mutually dependent the one on the other, because they are both incomplete without the other. It interprets this mutual dependence as a purely external relation. Actually this is merely the superficial expression of an internal and more profound state. Precisely because this state is constant, it provokes a complex of mental images which function with a continuity independent of the series of external relations. The image of that which completes us is inseparable from the image of ourselves, not only because it is a.s.sociated with us, but especially because it is our natural complement. It becomes then a permanent and integral part of self-consciousness to such an extent that we cannot do without it and seek by every possible means to emphasize and intensify it. We like the society of the one whose image haunts us, because the presence of the object reinforces the actual perception and gives us comfort. We suffer, on the contrary, from every circ.u.mstance which, like separation and death, is likely to prevent the return or diminish the vivacity of the idea which has become identified with our idea of ourselves.

Short as this a.n.a.lysis is, it suffices to show that this complex is not identical with that which rests on sentiments of sympathy which have their source in mere likeness. Unquestionably there can be the sense of solidarity between others and ourselves only so far as we conceive others united with ourselves. When the union results from a perception of likeness, it is a cohesion. The two representations become consolidated because, being undistinguished totally or in part, they are mingled and are no more than one, and are consolidated only in the measure in which they are mingled. On the contrary, in the case of the division of labor, each is outside the other, and they are united only because they are distinct. It is not possible that sentiments should be the same in the two cases, nor the social relations which are derived from them the same.

We are then led to ask ourselves if the division of labor does not play the same role in more extended groups; if, in the contemporaneous societies where it has had a development with which we are familiar, it does not function in such a way as to integrate the social body and to a.s.sure its unity. It is quite legitimate to a.s.sume that the facts which we have observed reproduce themselves there, but on a larger scale. The great political societies, like smaller ones, we may a.s.sume maintain themselves in equilibrium, thanks to the specialization of their tasks.

The division of labor is here, again, if not the only, at least the princ.i.p.al, source of the social solidarity. Comte had already reached this point of view. Of all the sociologists, so far as we know, he is the first who has pointed out in the division of labor anything other than a purely economic phenomenon. He has seen there "the most essential condition of the social life," provided that one conceives it "in all its rational extent, that is to say, that one applies the conception to the ensemble of all our diverse operations whatsoever, instead of limiting it, as we so often do, to the simple material usages."

Considered under this aspect, he says:

It immediately leads us to regard not only individuals and cla.s.ses but also, in many respects, the different peoples as constantly partic.i.p.ating, in their own characteristic ways and in their own proper degree, in an immense and common work whose inevitable development gradually unites the actual co-operators in a series with their predecessors and at the same time in a series with their successors. It is, then, the continuous redivison of our diverse human labors which mainly const.i.tutes social solidarity and which becomes the elementary cause of the extension and increasing complexity of the social organism.

If this hypothesis is demonstrated, division of labor plays a role much more important than that which has ordinarily been attributed to it. It is not to be regarded as a mere luxury, desirable perhaps, but not indispensable to society; it is rather a condition of its very existence. It is this, or at least it is mainly this, that a.s.sures the solidarity of social groups; it determines the essential traits of their const.i.tution. It follows--even though we are not yet prepared to give a final solution to the problem, we can nevertheless foresee from this point--that, if such is really the function of the division of labor, it may be expected to have a moral character, because the needs of order, of harmony, of social solidarity generally, are what we understand by moral needs.

Social life is derived from a double source: (a) from a similarity of minds, and (b) from the division of labor. The individual is socialized in the first case, because, not having his own individuality, he is confused, along with his fellows, in the bosom of the same collective type; in the second case, because, even though he possesses a physiognomy and a temperament which distinguish him from others, he is dependent upon these in the same measure in which he is distinguished from them. Society results from this union.

Like-mindedness gives birth to judicial regulations which, under the menace of measures of repression, impose upon everybody uniform beliefs and practices. The more p.r.o.nounced this like-mindedness, the more completely the social is confused with the religious life, the more nearly economic inst.i.tutions approach communism.

The division of labor, on the other hand, gives birth to regulations and laws which determine the nature and the relations of the divided functions, but the violation of which entails only punitive measures not of an expiatory character.

Every code of laws is accompanied by a body of regulations purely moral.

Where the penal law is voluminous, moral consensus is very extended; that is to say, a mult.i.tude of collective activities is under the guardianship of public opinion. Where the right of reparation is well developed, there each profession maintains a code of professional ethics. In a group of workers there invariably exists a body of opinion, diffused throughout the limits of the group, which, although not fortified with legal sanctions, still enforces its decrees. There are manners and customs, recognized by all the members of a profession, which no one of them could infringe without incurring the blame of society. Certainly this code of morals is distinguished from the preceding by differences a.n.a.logous to those which separate the two corresponding kinds of laws. It is, in fact, a code localized in a limited region of society. Furthermore, the repressive character of the sanctions which are attached to it is sensibly less accentuated.

Professional faults arouse a much feebler response than offenses against the mores of the larger society.