setting the equilibrium. In spite of the
natural conservatism of institutions and agencies of control, group
life is as continually changing as the physical elements in nature.
Continued observation recorded over a considerable period of time
reveals changing habits, changing occupations, changing interests,
even changing laws and governments. Inside the group individuals are
continually readjusting their modes of thought and activity to one
another, and between groups there is a similar adjustment of social
habits. Without such change there can be no progress. War or other
catastrophe suddenly alters wide human relations. External influences
are constantly making their impression upon us, stimulating us to
higher attainment or dragging us down to individual and group
degeneration.

14. =Causes of Change.=--The factors that enter into social life to
produce change are numerous. Conflict of ideas among individuals and
groups compels frequent readjustment of thought. The free expression
of opinion in public debate and through the press is a powerful
factor. Travel alters modes of conduct, and wholesale migration
changes the characteristics of large groups of population. Family
habits change with accumulation of wealth or removal from the farm to
the city. The introduction of the telephone and the free mail delivery
with its magazines and daily newspapers has altered currents of
thought in the country. Summer visitors have introduced country and
city to each other; the automobile has enlarged the horizon of
thousands. New modes of agriculture have been adopted through the
influence of a state agricultural college, new methods of education
through a normal school, new methods of church work through a
theological seminary. Whole peoples, as in China and Turkey, have been
profoundly affected by forces that compelled change. Growth in
population beyond comfortable means of subsistence has set tribes in
motion; the need of wider markets has compelled nations to try
forcible expansion into disputed areas. The desire for larger
opportunities has sent millions of emigrants from Europe to America,
and has been changing rapidly the complexion of the crowds that walk
the city streets and enter the polling booths. Certain outstanding
personalities have moulded life and thought through the centuries,
and have profoundly changed whole regions of country. Mohammed and
Confucius put their personal stamp upon the Orient; Caesar and Napole