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SOCIAL CONSERVATION

167

therefore, also on the fact that the change is sufficiently
slow and gradual.
This form of gradual change not only is operative in
case of shifting membership, but functions in a similar
manner with regard to the other elements of group unity.
We still speak of “the same group” even when its political
organization, its laws and customs, have altered considerably.
 This is possible because the alterations do not affect
 all the vital elements of the group life simultaneously,
but only a minimum at a given moment.!

Objectivation of the Group Unity in Symbols

The group unity and its persistence may find objective
expression in personal, material, and conceptual symbols.
If the life of the group becomes intimately bound up with
the existence of leadership, special arrangements are required
 to secure the self-preservation. In national groups
this finds expression in the principle that the king never
dies. It involves the very significant sociological conception
 that the king is no longer king as a person, but that
his person is only the irrelevant vehicle of the abstract
kingship. The group will then reflect its immortality in a
hereditary kingship.
This hereditary principle is purely formal in nature
and may bring to the throne the most capable as well as
the most incapable leader. This principle is possible only
if within the group a relationship between ruler and ruled
has become fixed and permanent, only if it does not depend
 any longer on subjective relationships, but has become
 a status. As long as this aspect of the group form is
still uncertain, the supreme leader can hold the group together
 only through definite personal qualities. But if this
form has become established and secure, the personal ele--Soz.,

 pp. 501-4.