Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/46

 34 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

emphasized in the following way. This variation affects evi- dently only certain intermediate quantities. Certain lower numbers surely do not yet constitute the collectivities in ques- tion. Certain quite higher numbers constitute them without doubt. But even those numerically small structures have, how- ever, sociological qualities which are characteristic : the meeting which falls short of being the " society," the troop of soldiers which does not constitute an army, the co-operating vagabonds who are not yet a "band." Since the other qualities, which are quite as little doubtful in the case of the great society, are in contrast with these, we may indicate the character of those that are numerically intermediate as composed of both, so that each makes itself in a rudimentary way perceptible in particular characteristics now appears, now disappears or becomes latent. Since, then, such structures, lying in the intermediate numerical zone, have also a share objectively in the decided character of the structure below and above, or at least have such share partially and intermittently, the subjective uncertainty in determining to which of them they belong is to be explained accordingly. The point, then, is not that in a sociologically qualityless structure suddenly, like the crystal in the solution, a quite definite sociological constellation forms, without our being able to designate the precise moment of this transformation ; but rather that two diverse formations, each consisting of a col- lection of traits and capable of being arranged in a qualitative scale, under certain quantitative conditions meet in a social structure, and in various degrees divide it between themselves ; so that the question to which of the two they belong is not essentially one that suffers from the inherent epistemological difficulties of continuous series, but it is simply a question whose content is fallaciously proposed. 1

1 More precisely, however, the situation is rather this : To every definite number of elements there corresponds, in accordance with the purpose and spirit of their com- bination, a sociological form, an organization, firmness of texture, relation of the whole to the parts, etc., which experiences a modification, however immeasurably small and indeterminate, with every added or subtracted element. Since, however, we do not possess a special expression for each of these endlessly numerous sociological con- ditions, even in those cases in which their distinctive character is observable, there