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OPPOSITION 
115 
is something external to the struggle itself, which might 
perhaps be obtained by other means, will give a distinct 
color to the struggle. Only if the struggle is prompted ex- 
clusively by the love of struggle is there no other alterna- 
tive and can satisfaction result from conflict only. 
The pugnacious instinct, however, is usually not the 
sole element in the struggle. It acts rather as a reinforce- 
ment to the other impulses that bring about the contro- 
versy, or as a foundation on which a conflict can be built. 
Even if a struggle is originally fought solely for the sake 
of the struggle, this situation will not remain. The inter- 
est in the struggle may at the outset have been impersonal 
and indifferent to the content of the controversy, but 
eventually hatred and envy will reinforce the original im- 
pulse. The purity of a struggle for struggle’s sake, there- 
fore, does not remain. It becomes mixed with other im- 
nulses and with objective interests.! 
The Contest Game 
A conflict and struggle exclusively for the sake of the 
struggle and without any other impulse or ulterior motive 
occurs only in the case of the contest game. In this case 
the purely sociological attraction of self-assertion and of 
predominance over others in skill is combined only with 
the purely individual pleasure in the exercise of purposeful 
and successful activity. The contest game in its sociologi- 
cal motivation contains nothing but the contest itself. The 
worthless markers, for the sake of which men often play 
with the same earnestness with which they play for money, 
indicate the purely formal aspect of this impulse. 
But even in the case of the contest game there exists 
a socialization in the more narrow sense of the term. No 
contest can take place without some kind of unification. 
l Soz., pp. 247-64.