Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/33

 NUMBER AS DETERMINING FORM OF GROUP 21

resolution of the contradiction is very simple : The size of the circle demands the legal form naturally only in that relation in which the manifoldness of its elements is composed into a unity. The social unity is a graduated idea ; the spirit and purpose of various circles demand various degrees in the closeness and strength of their unity ; so that the social form of regulation which is demanded by a certain quantity of the circle, with respect to the degree of the unity which it is to achieve may still be the same with different quantities. The significance of the numerical conditions is thus not impaired if a greater circle, on account of its special tasks, may or must content itself with- out giving legal forms to its rules, just as in other cases is pos- sible only to a smaller circle. Those undisciplined civic structures of Teutonic antiquity did not yet possess the cohesion of the elements which, existing in the case of great groups, is both cause and effect of their legal constitutions. Likewise in both the collective and the individual relationships between modern states there arise certain norms in the mere form of custom, because there is lacking here a unity of the parties necessary to be the vehicle of a legal order, and such a unity is in part sup- plied in a smaller, just as in a looser, circle by the immediate reactions of element with element. This, however, corresponds precisely with the function of custom as a form of regulation. Consequently the apparent exceptions really confirm the cor- relation which appeared between custom and law on the one side, and the quantities of the circles on the other side.

It is evident that the concepts " greater and smaller circle " are of a very crude scientific order, entirely indefinite and fluctu- ating, and properly applicable in general only in order to point out the dependence of the sociological form-character of a group upon its quantitative limitations. It cannot serve in any way to show more exactly the actual proportion which exists between the former and the latter. Nevertheless it is perhaps not in all cases impossible to make out this proportion more exactly. In the thus far observed formations and relationships any attempt to assign precise numerical values would evidently be, for any stage of our knowledge that can be foreseen, a completely