CHAPTER I 
THE CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 
SOCIETY AS FORM AND SOCIETY AS CONTENT 
HE fact that society has an existence apparently 
independent of the single individuals gives it the 
- appearance of a structure of independent reality. 
It seems to lead a life according to specific laws, by virtue 
of special forces, independent of its individual components. 
These laws and forces appear as products and functions 
of an impersonal structure. The social group appears as 
something objective over and above the individual and 
absolved from the limitation of personal life.! 
On the other hand, it is certain that in the last analysis 
only individuals really exist. The group is not a unity of 
independent reality, is not the unitary subject of the 
group spirit or of the group mind. Apart from material 
objects, there are no human products except within human 
beings themselves, except within personal minds. Every 
attempt to think of psychic entities outside of personal 
minds, outside of the mental life of individuals, is a form of 
mysticism similar to the conceptual realism which makes 
independent substantial entities of human ideas.? 
But if society were nothing more than an aggregate 
of individuals who were the actual realities, then only 
these individuals and their relationships could be the sub- 
ject-matter of a social science. The concept of society 
would then dissolve. Society would be merely a subjective 
mental synthesis, not an objective unity. It might be an 
- “Persistence of Social Groups,” 4. J. S., IIL, 665. 2 Ibid. 
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