SOCIAL CONTROL 103
requires that men rest under the illusion that their thinking is entirely free. The necessary disintegration of belief and rejec- tion of authority which paves the way to this higher spe- cies of control has been bitterly opposed at every step by the earthly dispensers of supernatural rewards and punishments. Thirdly, as the whole system rests on belief, this must be hedged with the greatest sanctions. More than any social trans- gression must the gods hate and punish doubt, unbelief, disregard of the divine will, defiance of the priesthood, or neglect of eccle- siastical requirements. Not only does unbelief become the capital sin and belief the cardinal virtue, but even thumbscrew and stake, ban and outlawry will be used to crush out heresy. 1 Such a perversion of ethical values shocks the refined moral judgment and often drives the best men of a society into revolt.
Fourthly, the unconcern of people for distant consequences of present actions weakens the efficacy of rewards and punish- ments deferred to the close of this life. To overcome this handicap the horrors of hell and the raptures of heaven are exaggerated to the limits of the imaginable. Priests and seers vie with one another in a vividness of imagery and profusion of metaphor that shall make the future state seem as real as the present. The terror resulting is most fatal to the growth of that human sympathy which makes social control unnecessary. Fifthly, the theory of things with which the supernatural asso- ciates itself proves a stumbling-block to the progress of science and the consequent amelioration of human life. The waste of lives by the retardation of medicine and hygiene owing to the resistance of the church was a round price to pay for the dis- cipline afforded by belief in heaven and hell. Sixthly, more perhaps than any other kind of control is belief liable to degen- erate into an engine of personal and class oppression. Rarely is it found working obedient to the social interest. Certain cor-
'" Multitudinous anomalies occur, however anomalies which seem unaccount- able till we recognize the truth that in all cases the thing which precedes in impor- tance, the special injunctions of a cult, is the preservation of the cult itself and the institutions embodying it." SPENCER, Principle* of Sociology, Vol. II, p. 815.
