882 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 



because they are interested in incompatible social systems." 

 But it is worth pondering if the strifes of classes are not often aggra- 

 vated by the fact that the combatants differ in mental type and do 

 not understand each other. The successful conciliation of labor 

 disputes suggests that the feud between capital and labor is partly 

 owing to divergent modes of thought and feeling that grow up 

 among employers on the one hand and workingmen on the other. 

 In this epoch of democracy and deliquescence, society by no 

 means falls apart into neat segments, as it did two centuries ago. 

 Caste has had its day, and the compartment society, with thick 

 bulkheads of privilege, prejudice, non-intercourse, and non-inter- 

 marriage separating the classes, is well-nigh extinct. To-day the 

 imprint each manner of life tends to leave on those who lead it is 

 continually effaced by such assimilating influences as church, school, 

 press, party, voluntary association, and public opinion. But that 

 imprint must be deciphered if we are to gauge the significance of 

 class ascendencies in backward or bygone societies. We need to 

 know how and why a society dominated by the sacerdotal class 

 Judea or medieval Rome differs from Sparta ruled by the warrior 

 class, Venice dominated by the commercial class, Florence dominated 

 by the artisan class, or the Transvaal dominated by the rural class. 



