Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/44

 32 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

where characterized by great intimacy and solidarity, which had its center in the paterfamilias, through the guardianship which the latter exercised, both in the interest of the whole and in his own egoistic interest, over the concerns of each individual. Hence the upper boundary was determined : this sort of dependence and of control appears able to comprehend, at the corresponding stage of psychological development, no greater collection of elements. The lower boundary, on the other hand, is determined by the fact that a group thus dependent upon itself for its self- satisfaction and its maintenance must develop certain collective psychical facts, which in turn usually arise only above a certain numerical limit. Such facts are, for example, resolution for offense and defense, confidence on the part of each that he will at every moment find the necessary support and reinforcement ; more than all religious consensus, whose exaltation and spiritu- ality can raise itself above the individual and the individual above himself only from the commingling of many contributions, with reciprocal effacement of their individual peculiar character. The number mentioned has perhaps indicated the scope approxi- mately established by experience above and below which the group could not go if it were to develop the traits of the patri- archal house family. It appears as though, with increasing individualization, before this stage of culture, those intimacies were possible only within a smaller number of persons ; the phenomena, on the other hand, which looked to the size of the family at once demanded an ever-growing circle. The needs from above and below which in that stage of culture realized themselves with this numerical material have become differenti- ated ; one portion demands a smaller, another a larger number, so that later no structure is any longer in existence which can satisfy both sides of the demand in the same unified way as was the case with the patriarchal family.

Apart from such singular cases, all questions of the sort whose type is the numerical requirements for a " society" have a sophistical tone how many soldiers make an army, how many members are necessary to constitute a political party, how many participants make an outbreak. They appear to rehearse the