244 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOG\
no longer able to overcome the resistance they encounter, the class ceases to be a controlling center and loses itself in the social mass.
What keeps social commands from multiplying and choking up life, as the rank growth of swamp-weed chokes up water- courses, is, of course, the resistance of the individual. Naturally a man prefers to do as he pleases, and not as society pleases to have him do. The more, then, that social power dwells in the mass of persons whose necks are galled by social requirement, the more the yoke of the law will be lightened. On the other hand, the more distinct those who apply social pressure from those who must bear it, the more likely is regulation to be laid on lavishly in obedience to some class interest or class ideal. Hence we arrive at the law that the volume of social requirement will be greater when social power is concentrated than when it is diffused.
When the laws, standards, and ideals a man is required to conform to spring up among the plain people, they will be ahead of the community, but not very far ahead. But when they originate with the few, they may be very far in advance of the community and so hurrying it forward, or they may be far in the rear and hence holding it back. It is a well-known fact that we never find a legal or moral code pitched high above the natural inclination of a people without signs of minority domination. It is safe, then, to frame the law, the greater the ascendency of the few, the more possible is it for social control to affect the course of the social movement.
Social control has about it a tinge that betrays the source from which it springs. When the reverend seniors monopolize power, much will be made of filial respect and obedience, infan- ticide will be a small offense, while parricide will be punished with horrible torments. Let the priests get the upper hand, and chastity, celibacy, humility, unquestioning belief, and scrupulous observance will be the leading virtues. The ascendency of the military caste shifts the accent to courage, obedience, loyalty, pugnacity, sensitiveness to personal honor, and the unrelenting pursuit of revenge. When the moneyed man holds the baton in
