232 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



viduals to convince them of the necessity of limiting their 

 desires, of harmonising their aspirations with the means afforded 

 to each individual by the conditions of his sphere of existence. 

 For the individual will not consent to limit his desires, if he 

 considers himself justified in exceeding that limit. And the 

 second sociological law which we can formulate, is that the 

 force which is to restrain individuals by limiting their desires 

 and aspirations must be a moral force. The social hierarchy 

 in itsdf is not sufficient to regulate the activities of the indi- 

 vidual ; for unless the individual be convinced of the funda- 

 mental justice of the social hierarchy, unless he be satisfied 

 with the way in which the respective functions of the hierarchy 

 are recruited, he will not consent, in obedience to orders which 

 he beheves to be unjust or to traditions which he believes to be 

 obsolete prejudices, to hmit his desires and aspirations. The 

 state of unrest among the proletariat of so many countries of 

 Western Europe to-day, is due precisely to dissatisfaction with 

 the manner of recruiting the various functions of the social 

 hierarchy, which the proletariat holds to be antiquated and 

 unjust. The present phase of social evolution, with its extremes 

 of wealth and poverty, appears to those who suffer under exist- 

 ing conditions to be incompatible with the just division of 

 social labour, and incommensurate with the development of 

 social riches and the conquests of science. 



IV. 



When society is troubled by some great and sudden upheaval, 

 whether by economic perturbations or by a too rapid pohtical 

 transformation, the power of its inhibitory action over the 

 individual is necessarily diminished. Violent disturbance in the 

 life of a society cannot but profoundly affect the coherence of 

 the social structure ; and this dislocation of the social machinery 

 finds its repercussion in a corresponding loosening of the bonds 



