THE CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 31 
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neither the cause nor the result of society; they are them- 
selves immediately society. There is not an internally 
self-contained, closed national or social unit which pro- 
duces law, morals, religion, and language, but the social 
elements induced by purpose, need, or force build these 
social products, and this causes or rather means their uni- 
fication. 
The more important the interests which bring men 
into mutual relationships, the more readily will they be- 
come fixed and objectified in institutions. But society 
does not obtain its unity merely from these institutions 
any more than the human organism consists merely of the 
larger organs. There are innumerable varieties of recipro- 
cal relations which never become institutionalized. Not 
only the state and the labor union, the family and the 
political party, but all the thousand minor relationships 
playing from person to person, momentary or permanent, 
conscious or unconscious, create the social unity out of the 
individual elements. “That people gaze at one another 
and are jealous of one another; that they exchange letters 
and dine together; that, apart from all tangible interests, 
they affect one another sympathetically or antipatheti- 
cally; that gratitude gives to the altruistic act an after- 
effect which is an inseparable bond of union between peo- 
ple; that one asks another to point out the way, and that 
people dress and adorn themselves for one another’s bene- 
fit: all these relationships are incessantly binding men 
together.” 
That which constitutes society in the real sense of the 
term is evidently the type of reciprocal influencing thus 
indicated. A collection of human beings does not become 
a society because specific impulses actuate the individuals 
! Soz. Diff., p. 14; Soz., p. 11. 
*Soz., p. 19.