Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/175

 NUMBER AS DETERMINING FORM OF GROUP 163

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associate, and is, of course, found precisely in that which consti- tutes the antithesis between the two and the superior. More- over, the transformation of the numerical into a qualitative dif- ference remains not less fundamental when it shows the reverse result for the controlling element of the association. It is easier to hold at the desired distance two subordinates than one, and their superior possesses, in their jealousy and competition, an instrument for keeping each down and making him obedient, for which there is no equivalent to be used in the case of a single inferior. In a formally similar sense, an old proverb says : " He that hath one child is its slave ; he that hath more is their master." In each case the combination of threes is distinguished as a completely new structure from that of twos. The latter are characterized by the fact that the former are specifically differentiated, only backward, in contrast with the dual combinations, but not forward, by contrast with those which are composed of four and more elements.

In transition to the special forms of the tripartite combina- tion of elements, attention must be called to the variety of group characters which their division into two or into three chief parties announces. Periods of excitement habitually place the whole of public life under the motto : " He that is not for me is against me." The consequence must be a division of the elements into two parties. In such case the duality appears, not as the point of departure of sociological formations, but as result and expression of them. We cannot make the tremendous variety of the forms of relationship, and of the degrees of repulsion and attraction within them, more evident than in the application of that principle; for all interests, convictions, impulses, which place us in any positive or negative relationship whatsoever to others, are differentiated by the extent to which the principle applies to them, and they may be arranged in a series, starting from the radical exclusion of all mediation and nonpartisanship and extending to tolerance for the contrasted standpoint, as one that is also legitimate and, up to a certain gradation of more-or-less t in agreement with the peculiar standpoint. Every decision which has a relationship to the narrower or wider circle that sur-