Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/747

 THE PRESENT STATUS OF SOCIOLOGY IN GERMANY 731

each other or accustom themselves easily to each other; speak and think often and gladly to, with, and of each other. The same is true in different proportions of neighbors and other friends. (2) Between persons loving each other in these varying degrees there is common understanding. (3) Persons thus lov- ing and understanding each other continue together and order their common life (p. 25). The first and most intimate type of community is the family, the last and most extreme the religious society.

While thus the community manifests a complete subjective coherence, a natural affinity {Zusiunmengehorigkeit], such ele- ment is entirely wanting in society. Here the bond is lax and external, and the individual "wills" or more precisely "arbi- trarinesses" which are bound to and in it "remain inde- pendent of each other and without subjective influence upon each other." At the same time it is to be borne in mind that society is not to be regarded as an artificial product, as a com- bination formed for defined purposes, according to the social contract theory. Society is rather, like every other human work, a combination of natural and artificial elements, with the imma- nent tendency toward the preponderance and ultimate entire prevalence of the artificial. Today's society is derived from primitive society ; that is, what was originally subjective has become "externalized," what was originally close and intimate has become loosened and alienated. Externally this transition appears to be the passage from universal domestic economy to universal commercial economy, and in the closest connection therewith from predominant agriculture to predominant "indus- try" (p. 63).

While now society shows "industry" as its external stamp, it appears at the same time that the "capitalist class" is the peculiar social agent, for in the tripartite process of industry Tdnnies here strictly follows the scheme of Marx the prole- tarians, the laborers, are for the most part "unfree" and only "formally arbitrary" (formal K'ilknrlich), while the capita class acts in all respects as ' md " materially arbitrary."