184 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL

The system of concentric circles was a transitional
form between the participation of the individual in one
narrow exclusive corporation absorbing the whole of his
personality and the modern form of participation in a
great number of intersecting social circles. The old corporation
 demanded from the individual his exclusive loyalty.
 The new association touches only a certain aspect of
his personality and leaves him free to enter into innumerable
 other associations. The transitional form of concentric
 circles, although not permitting that full sociological
freedom which the individual has obtained since the invention
 of the purposive association, enabled him none the less
to participate in a greater number of social circles and in
a wider area of social life than had been possible up to that
Hme.l

Social Differentiation and Sociological Determination
From the foregoing observations it becomes evident
that there is an immediate correlation between the extent
of social differentiation and the extent of sociological determination.
 That is, the more different social classes and
groupings there are, the more is the individual sociologically
 determined by his membership in these classes. The
groups or circles to which an individual belongs form a system
 of sociological co-ordinates. Each new circle added to
the ones in which he participates determines more fully his
place in the sociological structure. The more associations
he participates in, the less chance there is that there exists
for another individual a fully identical system of co-ordinates.


This sociological determination will, of course, be more
definite in the case of overlapping and intersecting circles
than in the case of concentric circles. If he merely partici-'
 Soz., pp. 403-12.