Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/700

 Social elaboration of differentiated organs for special purposes occurs in many ways under the form-type just discussed. The group forces are concentrated in a special structure, which, in turn, with its own status and character, places itself in antithesis with the group as a whole. Since this organ promotes the purposes of the group, it appears as though independent energies proceeded from it. They are, in fact, nothing but the transformed energies of the same elements upon which the organ now reacts. Of what significance such organs are for the persistence of the group may be most clearly seen, perhaps, from observation of a contrasted instance. The original constitution of Germany, composed of numberless petty associations, went to pieces partly for the reason that the confederacies constructed no organs. They remained identical with the sum of the confederated members. The confederacy did not raise itself as an objective unity above these, and consequently did not succeed in giving this unity an incarnation in special functionaries. It had, to be sure, representatives with specific powers, but these were of purely individual character. A certain trusted person was commissioned to discharge just the needed functions. Such commissions from case to case are very often the origin of administrative offices and permanent organs of public life. In the early history of the German peoples, however, progress did not reach that stage. The unity of the group remained limited to the immediate reciprocities of the personal elements. This unity neither advanced to the objective civic idea, which the aggregate of individuals at any time would merely exemplify or represent, nor for that very reason to the special organs, of which each would assume a particular function, of which the whole body as such would accordingly be relieved. The disadvantageous influences of this lack upon the persistence of the group may be approximately summarized under the following heads:

1. The specialized organ permits greater flexibility of movement in the social body. So soon as it is necessary for the whole group to put itself in action for a single purpose, such as political determinations, judicial judgments, administrative