Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/381

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY 367

pound, or doubly-compound. These details we must hurry by, for they involve the whole philosophy of government.

In the corporation the group-judgment or group-will is no longer as in the crowd or the sect the immediate outcome of the interactions of the members. The justification for thus handing over thought and choice to the few is threefold. In the first place, there are differences in capacity among associates, and men are by no means equal in value. Secondly, those steeped in any business soon distance the layman in expertness. The principle of specialization would call into being directive organs even if associates were precisely equal in ability. Thirdly, only in small assemblages, probably of less than twoscore, occurs that happy and ever-to-be-desired intellectual synthesis which yields a collective judgment superior to even the best individual judgment. Large assemblages inhibit thinking. But in the council that forms about a single board, that can be addressed in ordinary tones, that neither applauds nor hisses, but only listens and thinks, minds easily fecundate one another. Each acquaints the rest with the facet of life he has seen, the arc of experience he has traveled. Since no one looks upon all the faces of the infinite polyhedron of life, even the master-mind learns something in the council-chamber. Amid the stillness and measured speech brains join, as it were, into one great brain that ponders and decides wiselier than can any individual. Hence the saying: "Many to advise, one to execute."

Let no one suppose, however, that the concentration of power in organs is without its drawbacks. Broadly speaking, the action of any group-unit has reference to the assuming of certain bur- dens with a view to enjoying certain benefits. Such action is successful when every associate reaps a benefit that outweighs the burden he has had to bear. But the action, albeit supremely wise as regards the adjustment of means to contemplated ends, may, nevertheless, miss this happy outcome. The reasons are three : the benefit may have been overestimated ; the burden may have been underestimated ; the benefit may be shared other- wise than the burden has been shared.

Now, just because it is select, small, and specialized, a direc-