Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/56

 44 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

and lead to those mass-crimes in which even the legal responsi- bility of the participants is debatable, but the point is that the true or the ostensible interest of a community justifies or constrains the individual in undertakings for which he would not be willing to bear the responsibility as an individual. Economic combina- tions make demands of such shameless egoism, colleagues in office wink at such crying malfeasances, corporations of political or of scientific nature exercise such monstrous suppressions of individual rights, as would be impossible in the case of an indi- vidual if he were responsible for them as a person, or at least they would put him to shame. As a member of a corporation, however, he does all this with untroubled conscience, because in that case he is anonymous and feels himself covered and, as it were, concealed by the totality. There are few cases in which the distance of the social unity from the elements which consti- tute it is so great. It is perceptible and operative to a degree which descends almost to caricature.

It was necessary to indicate this reduction of the practical worth of personality, which inclusion in a group often occasions for the individual, in order that, by exclusion of this factor, we might characterize the dyad-group. Since in this case each ele- ment has only another individual by its side, but not a multi- plicity which ultimately constitutes a higher unity, the depend- ence of the whole upon himself, and consequently his co-respon- sibility for all collective action, is made perfectly visible. He can, to be sure, as happens frequently enough, shift responsibility upon his associate, but the latter will be able to decline the same much more immediately and decisively than can often be done by an anonymous whole, which lacks the energy of personal interest or the legitimate representation requisite for such cases. Moreover, just as the one of two constituting a group cannot hide himself behind the group in cases of positive action, no more can he claim the group for his excuse in cases of culpable inaction. The energies with which the group very indefinitely and very partially, to be sure, but still very perceptibly, overtops the individual cannot in this instance reinforce the individual inadequacy, as in the case of larger combinations ; for, however