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 in- 
dividuals who were entirely owners and those who were 
entirely laborers. But both groups obtained contacts with 
wider social circles. The laborers enlarged their social con- 
tacts by working for different employers; the owners en- 
larged 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 un- 
like than the more highly educated classes. The medieval 
corporation fully absorbed the individual, but the corpora- 
tions remained clearly distinct and separate. The modern 
association touches the individual only in certain aspects of 
his personality and leaves scope for wide individual differ- 
ences, but the associations themselves are integrated in 
one wide, all-inclusive unity, which is manifest in the uni- 
formity of legal norms, the universal penetration of the 
money economy, the mutual dependence through the divi- 
sion of labor, and the common interest in the national 
sconomy. 
This lack of differentiation among the elements of small