METHOD AND TECHNIQUE OF FORMAL SOCIOLOGY 477 
formal relations within the group resulting from general 
dislocations occurring in the contacts of human beings. 
The difficulty involved in the abstraction may be seen 
from the following illustration. Toward the end of the 
Middle Ages certain guild masters were forced through 
an extension of their trade relations to new means of ob- 
taining material and new ways of attracting customers 
which were inconsistent with the older guild principles. 
The ancient tradition that all masters should have a similar 
business organization was no longer followed, and they 
sought to place themselves outside of the narrow unity. 
With regard to the purely sociological form abstracted 
from the special content, this signifies that an expansion 
of the circle with which the individual is connected goes 
hand in hand with a more pronounced expression of in- 
dividual peculiarity and a greater personal freedom. There 
is, however, no absolutely effective method for wringing 
this sociological meaning from the complex phenomena. 
The questions asked are: What purely sociological config- 
urations are contained in the historical occurrence? What 
special interactions between individuals are involved, ab- 
stracted from the interests and impulses and from the 
factual conditions? Not only are these questions answer- 
able in various ways in a given case, but the historical facts 
within which the actual sociological form is realized must 
be cited in their factual totality. There is no definite guide 
for the decomposition of the actuality into form and sub- 
stance. Until the technique of this decomposition can be 
formulated in precise concepts, a certain amount of intui- 
tive procedure will therefore be inevitable. 
It would seem that therein lies the fundamental diffi- 
culty. This difficulty is, however, not insurmountable. 
The natural sciences did not start with a perfect technique, 
L Soz., pp. 13-16.