Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/428

 most radical incommensurability in all social formations, this antinomy between the just claim to superior relation and the technical impossibility of satisfying it, is overcome in the sociological respect by the principle of rank (ständische Princip), and the existing social order, by erecting classes pyramidally one above the other, with constantly diminishing numbers of members, and thereby a priori diminishing the number of those “qualified” for leading positions. Since in case of the equal right of all to all positions it would be impossible to satisfy every legitimate claim, the social order which includes ranks and classes provides at the outset for a limiting selection which pays no attention to the individual, but rather on the contrary determines the individual. In a multitude a priori equal, it is impossible to bring each to a suitable position; consequently this social arrangement might be considered as an attempt, on the contrary, from the point of view of the previously determined position, to discipline men for this preordained station. Whether a socialistic constitution, without such a prejudice for superordination and subordination, could fulfill its promises is to me doubtful. Under socialism, on the one hand, with removal of every accidental chance, only talent shall determine the attainment of position. On the other hand every talent shall find its appropriate station; that is, shall bring its highest potency to development, in consequence of which, according to the above explanations, there must be more superiors than inferiors, more to give orders than to execute them. By no means political organizations alone, but group formations of every kind and of every content labor under this difficulty, which rests in the last analysis upon the conflict between the individual totality of men and their character as an element of the group. The inferiority (Niedrigkeit) of the latter (group element) in comparison with the former (total individual) brings about the necessity that there shall be many subordinates and few superiors. The eminence of the former (total individual) in comparison with the latter (group element) amounts to necessity that there shall be incomparably more persons essentially and