Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/195

 highly developed form of intercourse. This phenomenon manifests its genuinely sociological character in the fact that it occurs in the most diverse sorts of groups and in the service of the most varied interests, everywhere exhibiting however certain similar formal traits. This common fundamental characteristic consists in the transference of responsibility. The real consequences of his action do not fall upon the agent, as they do upon every one who pursues his own proper interests. The affair itself does not make him responsible. Only because the consequences of his procedure fall upon another, and this latter has some sort of power over him, can the agent’s action produce pleasure or pain in himself. This circumstance must make the essential relationship between the agent and the object of his action take a shape quite different from that which appears when the action is direct, without transference to the agency of another. On account of the greater distance of personal interest from the object the requirements of the agent may be less immediate and precise, and on that account very wide scope is often present for personal differences, especially where a totality is represented by a single individual. Here is room for hard-heartedness and pleasure in cruelty, which assumes the appearance of rigorous care for the interests of the principal; for pedantry or actual conscientiousness, which, in effect, amounts to the same thing; for negligence and complaisance, which tolerates lax discharge of duty on the part of the subordinate on the ground that the generality can easily bear the injury. This wide scope which the vicarious principle gives to personal tendencies, that are often little restrained by the requirements of the action concerned, is evidently one ground for the fact that subjection to a totality may have such widely contrasted consequences for the subordinate.

A peculiar form of subordination to a number of individuals is determination by vote of a majority. The presumption of majority rule is that there is a collection of elements originally possessing equal rights. In the process of voting the individual places himself in subordination to a power of which he is a part,