Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/39

 NUMBER AS DETERMINING FORM OF GROUP 27

industry. With a certain complexity and centripetality of the whole, it permits none of its elements any longer to bring a thought to expression, so to speak, but this member acquires an external and merely mechanical character that of a mere means, which must be as much as possible colorless and sche- matic in order to be in the highest degree yielding and con- structive with reference to the purpose of the whole. In the case of certain highly perfected types of development this is not the case. There are certain social structures which precisely with the largest size and most complete organization permit to indi- vidual elements the greatest freedom to live out their individuality according to special norms and in the most peculiar form. On the other hand, there are social structures which reach the high- est total energy only under the condition of the most intensified and differentiated peculiar life of their elements. The transition from the clan to the Hundred, however, seems to mark that middle stadium in which absence of special spirit and character in the members denotes an advance for the whole ; for only under such organization were they, in the given circumstances, easily surveyed, responsive to guidance according to simple norms, and without that opposition against the central power which, with strong internal cohesion of each subordinate group, too easily appears.

Where the constitution or action of the group is numerically determined from the old Hundred to the modern dominance of majorities there is in evidence an ascendency over the individ- uality. It is a point at which the profound internal discrepancy between the democratic and the liberal-individualistic social ideas comes very clearly into view. That a " round number " is produced out of personalities, and that with this artificial creation opera- tions are carried on without any regard to the peculiarities of the individuals included within it ; that the votes are counted, not weighed ; that arrangements, precepts, and prohibitions are simply conditioned upon the existence of a definite number of persons that is, either despotically or democratically ; in either case, however, a degradation of the real and total content of the separate personality to the formal fact that it is simply