the case of that relationship which depends most definitely upon the dyad type, that is, monogamous marriage. The by no means rare fact that among thoroughly worthy persons decidedly unfortunate marriages occur, and very fortunate ones between defective persons, points at once to the fact that this structure, however dependent it is upon each of the members, still may have a character which coincides with that of neither associate. If, for example, each of the wedded pair suffers from vagaries, difficulties, and unavailabilities, but at the same time understands how to localize these upon himself, while he invests in the marital relationship only his best and purest, and thus holds the relationship free from all the discounts which affect. himself as a person, this may immediately be to the credit merely of the partner in marriage as a person, but there nevertheless arises from it the feeling that marriage is something superpersonal, something in itself worthy and sacred, which stands over and above the unsanctity of each of its elements. Since within a relationship the one is sensitive only on the side toward the other, and behaves only with regard to him, his qualities, although they are, of course, always his own, nevertheless attain a quite different shading, status, and meaning from that which they have when, referring only to the proper ego, they weave themselves into the total complexity of the ego. Hence for the consciousness of each of the two the relationship may crystallize to an entity outside of himself, which is more and better-under certain circumstances also worse -than himself; something toward which he has obligations, and from which there come to him, as from an objective existence, benefits and injuries. With respect to marriage, this tracing of the groupunity to something more than its construction upon the mere I and thou is facilitated by the two sorts of circumstances. the first place, by its incomparable intimacy. That two such fundamentally different natures as man and woman constitute such a close union; that the egoism of the individual is suspended so fundamentally, not merely in favor of the one, but in favor of the total relationship which includes the family interests, the family honor, and more than all the children, is really

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a miracle which goes back to foundations beyond the conscious ego, in circumstances not rationalistically explicable. This very fact expresses itself in the distinction between this unity and its individual elements. That each of these is sensible of the relation as something which leads a peculiar life, with peculiar energies, is merely a statement of its incommensurability with that which we are accustomed to represent as the personal and of-itself-conceivable ego. This is furthermore promoted by the superindividuality of the marriage forms in the spirit of their historical tradition. Immeasurably different as the character and worth of the forms of marriage may be—indeed, one would be rash to say whether they are more or less different than separate individuals—yet in the last analysis no pair has invented the form of marriage for itself, but this form prevailed within each culture area as a relatively fixed one, safe from arbitrariness, and untouched in its formal nature by individual shadings and vicissitudes. This projection of traditional elements into the matrimonial relationship, which puts it in significant contrast with the individual freedom that is possible, for instance, in molding the friendly relationship, and which permits only acceptance or rejection, but no modification, obviously favors the feeling of an objective constitution and superpersonal unity in marriage; although each of the two partners has only the single other in juxtaposition with himself, yet he feels himself at least partially so situated as one feels only when in correlation with a collectivity-i. e., as the mere bearer of a superindividual structure, which in its essence and its norms is independent of himself, although, to be sure, he is an organic member of it. Something sociologically similar might be pointed out, furthermore, in the duality of partners in a business. Although the formation and operation of the partnership rest, perhaps, exclusively upon the co-operation of these two personalities, yet the subject-matter of this co-operation, the business or the firm, is an objective structure, toward which each of its components has rights and duties—in many respects not otherwise than any third party. Yet this has a sociological meaning different from that in the case of marriage; for the business is some

thing from the beginning separated from the persons of those who carry it on, and indeed in the case of a duality of such persons this is not otherwise true than in the case of one alone or many. The reciprocal relationship of the business associates has its purpose outside of itself; whereas in the case of marriage it is within itself. In the former instance the relationship is the means for the gaining of certain objective results; in the latter everything objective appears really only as a means for the subjective relationship. It is the more observable that in marriage, nevertheless, the objectivity and self-reliance of the groupstructure, which are otherwise more foreign to groups of two, psychologically increase in contrast with immediate subjectivity.

One constellation, however, of extreme sociological importance is wanting in every grouping of two, while it is in principle open to every group of larger numbers, namely, the shifting of duties and responsibilities upon the impersonal structure, which so often, and not to its advantage, characterizes social life. This occurs in two directions. Every totality which is more than a mere juxtaposition of given individuals has an indefiniteness of its boundaries and of its power which easily tempts us to expect from it all sorts of achievements that really belong to the separate members. We turn them over to the society, as we very often, in pursuance of the same psychological tendency, postpone them to our own future, whose nebulous possibilities give room for everything, or will accomplish, by spontaneously growing strength, everything which the present moment is not willing to take upon itself. In the precise circumstances in question, the power of the individual is transparent, but for that very reason it is also clearly limited, while in contrast with it is always the somewhat mystical power of the totality, of which we therefore easily expect, not only what the individual cannot perform, but also what he would not care to perform, and, moreover, with the feeling of the full legitimacy of this transfer. Quite as dangerous, however, as on the side of omission is membership in a totality also on the side of commission. Here the point is not merely the increase of impulsiveness and the exclusion of moral restraint, as they appear in the case of the individual in a crowd,

and lead to those mass-crimes in which even the legal responsibility 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 combinations 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 individual 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 constitute 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 element has only another individual by its side, but not a multiplicity which ultimately constitutes a higher unity, the dependence of the whole upon himself, and consequently his co-responsibility 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

manifoldly two combined individuals accomplish more than two that are isolated, yet the decisive factor in this case is that each must actually perform something, and that, when he refuses to do this, only the other remains, without any superindividual energy such as, even in the case of a combination of only three, is in some measure present. The significance of this detail resides, however, by no means merely in the negative, in that which it excludes; from it grows rather a close and special modulation of the union of two. Precisely the fact that each knows he can depend only upon the other, and upon nobody else, gives to such a combination-for example, marriage, friendship, and even more external combinations up to political adjustment of two groups a special consecration; each element in them is, in respect to its sociological destiny and everything dependent upon this, much more frequently made to confront the alternative of all or nothing than in other associations. This peculiar intimacy appears most simply in the contrast between it and combinations of three. In such a case each individual element operates as a court of appeal between the two others, and exhibits the double function of such an organ. It operates both in combining and separating. Where three elements, A, B, C, constitute a community, there is added to the immediate relationship which exists, for example, between A and B, the immediate relationship which they gain by their common relation to C. This is unquestionably a sociological enrichment, apart from the bond by the straight and shortest line; each pair of elements are now joined by a broken line. Points upon which the pair could find no immediate contact are put in reciprocal relationship by the third element, which offers to each another side, and joins these, nevertheless, in the unity of its personality. Separations which the parties could not of themselves reconcile are accommodated by the third, or by their being included in a comprehensive whole. On the other hand, the direct union is not merely strengthened by the indirect, but it may also be destroyed. There is no relationship so complete between three that each individual may not, under certain circumstances, be regarded by the other two as an intruder, even if it is only to the extent of