rendered by the church, and under the rubric "ecclesiastical" or "religious" mark them off from the control exercised through law, public opinion or literature. This would be in harmony with Mr. Spencer's procedure of dissecting society and studying the various clusters of institutions that come to light. But this method is not only open to the charge of getting at form rather than forces, but is peculiarly inappropriate to the study of control.
The very reason why this department of social phenomena has never been properly explored, is that there is no group of specialized institutions set apart for the task of regulating men. The eye that seeks eagerly for signs of structure cannot but miss seeing a function that has no set of organs devoted exclusively to its service. There is no group of (let us say) ethical institutions answering to domestic, industrial or professional institutions. Social control, as I shall show, is exercised through all kinds of instruments in turn—through religious, governmental and professional organizations, through amorphous masses of people, through individuals and through super-organic products, such as folk-lore, tradition, ceremonial poetry and works of art. A classification, therefore, according to the institution, organ or agency by which control is exercised will not be satisfactory.
An alternative classification proceeds from the mode in which society gains ascendency over its members. If it be remembered that we restrain men from actions by stimulating certain feelings, such as fear, cupidity, pride or love, we may regard all cases of control, both those which repress action and those which incite to action as applications of stimuli. Now it is possible to classify our phenomena according to the kind of stimulus used. And if we classify according to the nature of the stimulus rather than according to the institution from which the impulses proceed, we emphasize forces rather than forms. To use the organic figure, we attend to the living body of society rather than to the dead corpse, thereby bringing to light not only the organs but their actual manner of operating. Hitherto the point of departure, in studying regulation, has been the visible agency such as government, press, or theater. The consequence has
