Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/18

 6 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

very large communities, it involves itself in such fatal contradic- tions of its own life-principle as, for example, the nobility of Poland before the division exemplified. In more fortunate cases such a contradiction resolves itself simply through trans- formation into the unified democratic social form ; for example, the ancient free German community, with its complete personal equality of the members, was aristocratic throughout, and yet became in its continuation in the civic communities the source of democracy. If this is to be avoided, nothing remains except to draw, at a definite point of increase in numbers, a hard and fast line, and to oppose to all elements approaching from beyond this line, even though they were otherwise qualified for admis- sion, the quantitative completeness of the structure. Frequently the aristocratic nature of the same appears only at this point ; it becomes conscious for the first time in this closing up of itself against the demand for extension. Accordingly, the old con- stitution of the "gens" seems to have turned into a real aristocracy for the reason that a new population, alien to the members of the gens, pressed in upon them in too large numbers for gradual absorption into the associations of like strata. In opposition to this increase of the total group, the groups of gentes, which, by their very nature, were limited in numbers, could conduct themselves only as an aristocracy. In quite the same way the Colnische Schutzgilde Richerzeche consisted originally of the totality of the free burghers. In the degree, however, in which the population increased, it became an aristocratic society which closed itself against all intruders. A group which consti- tutes a totality and, like the gens for instance, is in its whole nature quantitatively limited, will be able to preserve itself within a new and very extended totality only in the form of an aristocracy.

The tendency of political aristocracies leads, to be sure, as a rule, not to the maintenance of the existing status, but to decline in numbers and disappearance. Not merely on account of physiological causes, but small and narrowly exclusive groups are in general distinguished from greater ones in this that the very same destiny which strengthens and renews the latter