Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/710

 it is a mere form, presumes to construct of itself a separate intelligence, it makes for itself a world which usually presents marked contrasts with the real universe. The logical forms abstracted and organized into a science are merely an organ for comprehension of the totality of things. So soon, however, as logic declines this rôle and strives after complete self-sufficiency, so soon as logic attempts to be the conclusion rather than the medium of understanding, it becomes as obstructive to the preservation, extension, and unification of knowledge as bureaucratic schematism may be to the aggregate interests of the group.

Even the law does not always avoid this sociological complication. The law is aboriginally that form of reciprocal relationship between the group members which has approved itself as most necessary for the stability of the group. The form which the law defines is not sufficient of itself to assure this stability or the progress of the society in which it is in force. The law of any group is the minimum, which must be preserved as the foundation of the existence of that group. The elaboration of organs is, in this connection, double. From transactions actually demanded, and as a rule really customary, there differentiates itself “the law,” the abstracted form and norm of just these transactions, logically connected and completed, which then remains as a standard to which real action shall conform. This group-preserving organ, being composed of ideas, needs still further a concrete organ in order that it may be effective against opposition. Technical relations brought about the destruction of that original unit in which either the pater familias or the assembled group rendered judgment. A special class became necessary to assure the integrity of the legal norms in the acts of the group elements. But useful and necessary as are both these developments—the abstraction of group conduct with arrangement into a completed system of laws, and the incarnation of the law in a judicial class—yet from both comes unavoidably the danger that the very necessary firmness and completeness (innere Geschlossenheit) of these structures may some time come into collision with the demands of group