Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/16

 4 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

the last decade of the nineteenth century to 2,000 people, and has proved that it is capable of life. This is evidently the case, however, only because it is surrounded by a totality existing under entirely different conditions of life. From this environ- ment the organization can cover the necessarily remaining gaps in the means of satisfaction which are left by its own production. For human needs cannot be so rationalized as is the case with production. A previously calculated, mechanically working life-system, in which every detail is regulated according to gen- eral principles, can be applied, to be sure, in a small circle which can draw from a greater one whatever it requires for the estab- lishment of its internal equilibrium. But human needs appear to contain an accidental or incalculable element, and this fact permits their satisfaction only at the cost of carrying on parallel activities which produce countless irrational and unavailable by-products. A circle, therefore, which avoids this, and confines itself to complete responsibility and utility in its activities, must always remain minute, because it has need of a greater group in order to be reinforced with the requisite capacity for life.

Moreover, there are group-formations of the ecclesiastical sort which, from the very fact of their sociological structure, permit no application to large numbers ; thus the sects of the Waldenses, Mennonites, and Herrnhuter. Where dogma forbids, for example, the oath, military service, occupation of civil offices ; where quite personal matters, such as modes of earning a living and the division of the hours of the day, are subject to the regu- lation of the community; where a special type of dress separates the faithful from all others, and distinguishes, them as belonging together ; where the subjective experience of an immediate rela- tionship to Jesus constitutes the principal solder of the com- munity in such cases, evidently, expansion into large circles would snap the bond of union, which consists largely in their exceptional and antithetical attitude toward larger bodies. At least in this sociological respect is the claim of these sects to represent primitive Christianity not unjustified ; for precisely this early form of faith, manifesting a yet undifferentiated unity of dogma and form of life, was possible only in those small