110 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL 
their existence is justified by the fact that the psychologi- 
cal differences between individuals create them, and by the 
fact that the technique for the realization of social pur- 
poses requires them. The motive for abolishing them re- 
sults from the fact that the social superiority or inferiority 
is felt as a personal superiority or inferiority. The superior 
or inferior position in one social relationship is felt as a su- 
periority or inferiority of the whole personality. There 
would, however, be no reason to abolish the sociological 
relationships if this psychological by-product could be 
avoided. This might presumably be the case if the rela- 
tionships within the social structure became wholly objec- 
tified and allowed a complete withdrawal of personal feel- 
ings and sentiments from the impersonal social functions. 
Something similar is already happening in the relation- 
ships in the economic world. The feeling of personal supe- 
riority and inferiority resulting from the social relation- 
ships may also disappear if a further social differentiation 
and integration creates a structure in which the individual 
is at the same time in a great many superior and inferior 
sositions. 
Apart from the foregoing difficulty resulting from the 
existence of superior-inferior relationships, there exists a 
problem of even wider import. Originally these relation- 
ships were the immediate expression of psychological dif- 
ferences between individuals. In modern society the or- 
ganization of the group has taken definite shape, and a 
great many of these relationships have become objectified 
in a more or less fixed social structure. The result has been 
the formation of a relatively fixed system of superior and 
inferior positions which are to a large extent independent 
of the individuals that hold them at any given time. They 
have not created these positions, they merely fill them. 
On the other hand. the stratification of society in classes