A further effect of the movement of culture on group-formation is seen in the divisions into sects, a phenomenon which seems to be conspicuous in the communities built up by our race. This tendency to a minute subdivision of religious, political and other bodies introduces a new kind of relation. We cannot well say that one section surpasses {286} its rivals in intelligence. This may or may not be the case, but the rules of the social game require us to leave the question open. On the other hand, this differentiation of organised opinion into a number of particular creeds or “views,” the shade of opinion being often fine, leads to a new bifurcation of “higher” and “lower” groups. The “higher” here is the mass or majority which naturally laughs at tiny minorities as faddists and cranks. Yet again, the fine impartiality of the god of laughter, to whom, since mankind for the greater part is other than wise, the difference of the many and the few may hardly count, occasionally gives the despised minority its chance; for minorities do sometimes represent ideas which are born for sovereignty. While the progress of a nation in ideas and institutions thus serves in a manner to multiply groups, and so to introduce new opportunities for the indulgence of group attack and retaliation, it tends on the whole to break down their barriers. It does this by means of the pulpit, the press, and the educational agencies which help to circulate new ideas through all classes. These conduce, both directly and indirectly, to a certain assimilation of groups; and assimilative action is going on rapidly to-day. Yet, as we have seen, it leaves ample room for different grades of culture, since natural differences of coarseness and fineness in the intellectual fibre will always secure the broad contrast of the cultured and the uncultured. The spread of knowledge and culture through all classes acts indirectly on group-distinctions by throwing open the occupations of one class to members of others, and more particularly of “lower” ones. The workman’s son who has a brain and cultivates it may, as we are often told, find his way to the university and take his place unchallenged {287} among the lawyers, the doctors, or the exalted “dons” themselves. Now all sudden changes in class, especially such as involve elevation, are apt to appear laughable. Even when promotion comes by royal favour, we feel the leap into a higher sphere to be anomalous, and are wont to examine the grounds of the new title with some care. The conservative instincts of men oppose themselves laughingly to the appearance of new dignitaries very much as they oppose themselves to the appearance of new ideas, and some temporary unfitness in the person for his new social niche is to be expected. In the comedy of the Restoration, we are told, “no measure is kept in pouring contempt on the mushroom growths of yesterday, the knights of recent creation”.[248]