ABSTRACT
As toward every deed there are three possible attitudes,—that of the doer, that of the sufferer, and that of the disengaged spectator,— so there are three bodies of feeling and opinion that work together in shaping social control. In trying to make a man do or desist from something, society may be acting either as indignant bystander or as irate victim. Its policy may be inspired by moral disapprobation or by self-interest. Social control appears as one of the ways in which this living thing seeks to keep itself alive and well. Social control would be the limitation that the social ego for its own sake imposes upon the freedom of the individual ego. In either view society is seen to take action not as bystander but as interested party. The conduct it frowns on is that which in the long run hurts it; the conduct it smiles on is that which in the long run helps it.
