THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE GROUP 201

system there developed a similar increase in individual
differentiation and enlargement of social contacts. The
serf, bound in a narrow circle, was partly owner of his own
land, partly laborer on the lord’s demesne. The decline
of the system brought a sharp differentiation between individuals
 who were entirely owners and those who were
entirely laborers. But both groups obtained contacts with
wider social circles. The laborers enlarged their social contacts
 by working for different employers; the owners enlarged
 their social contacts by their increased commercial
activity.

A similar observation may be made for all periods of
social history. Among primitive tribes, the Individuals
show marked similarity and are strongly united in small
social groups. The groups as a whole are dissimilar and
antagonistic. The stronger the synthesis within the group,
the stronger the antithesis to other groups. The growth of
culture brought on the one hand a differentiation within
the group, and on the other hand an approach to other
groups. Among civilized peoples, the uneducated masses
show less individual differences than the more educated
classes, but the masses in different nations seem more unlike
 than the more highly educated classes. The medieval
corporation fully absorbed the individual, but the corporations
 remained clearly distinct and separate. The modern
association touches the individual only in certain aspects of
his personality and leaves scope for wide individual differences,
 but the associations themselves are integrated in
one wide, all-inclusive unity, which is manifest in the uniformity
 of legal norms, the universal penetration of the
money economy, the mutual dependence through the division
 of labor, and the common interest in the national
sconomy.
This lack of differentiation among the elements of small