Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/202

 1 90 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

constantly repeated structure of the numerically and organically already fixed type. This advantage attaches itself evidently to numerical defmiteness in general, but not to certain numbers only. Nevertheless, a group of a particular number, already mentioned above, is of especial historical significance for social subdivision, namely, the decimal group and its derivatives. Undoubtedly the number of the fingers was the decisive occasion for this grouping of ten members for efforts and responsibilities in a body, which occurred in many of the oldest cultures. While yet entirely lacking arithmetical talent or skill, primitive men had in their fingers a primary principle of orientation, with which to designate a plurality of units, and to visualize their subdivisions and their combinations. This universal and fre- quently enough emphasized sense of the five and ten principle has, besides, an additional importance for its social application ; viz., since the fingers have a relative reciprocal independence and autonomous mobility ; since, on the other hand, however, they are indissolubly dependent (it is said in France of two friends : Us sont unis comme deux doigts de la main), and thus come to their proper meaning only in their combination, they furnish a highly striking picture of the social unification of individuals. The unity and peculiar co-operative capacity of those small collective elements of larger groups could not be more vividly symbol- ized. Even in recent time the Czechish secret society Omladina was constituted according to the principle of quintettes. The leadership of the society belonged to numerous "hands," which consisted in each case of a "thumb," i. e., the chief leader, and four "fingers." How strongly the decimal number was regarded as a constituent unity within a greater group is shown perhaps in the case of the custom, which reaches back to the remotest antiquity, of the "decimation" of divisions of armies in the case of revolts, treason, etc. Precisely ten was looked upon as a unity which, for the purpose of penalty, could be presented by a single individual ; or an approximate experience worked in co-operation to the effect that in every ten, on the average, a ringleader was to be found. The subdivision of a total group into ten numerically equal parts, although evidently leading to