32 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL
as such, but they grow into a unity only when these im-
pulses lead to reciprocal influencing. Only when an influ-
ence is exerted by one upon another, whether immediately
or through a third, has society come into existence out of
the mere spatial proximity or the temporal contempora-
neousness or succession of individuals.!
The term “society” is, however, also used in a broader
sense. In that case it stands for the sum of all individuals
concurring in reciprocal relations, together with all the in-
terests which unite them. In the more narrow sense, the
term designates the process of socialization or association
as such, the interaction itself in abstraction from these
interests. These two meanings of the term can be dis-
tinguished on the basis of a differentiation between the
form and the content of socialization.
Everything which is present in the individuals, the im-
mediate bearers of the socialization, in the form of im-
pulse, interest, or purpose, and which brings about the
socialization, may be designated as its content. This con-
tent is economic or religious, domestic or political, intel-
lectual or volitional; but these materials with which the
socialization is filled, these motives which impel it, are in
and for themselves not sociological in nature. Neither
hunger nor love, neither labor nor religiosity, as they are
given immediately and in their strict sense, signify sociali-
zation. They constitute socialization only if they shape
the spatial proximity of individuals into some definite
form of interaction which belongs under the general con-
cept of reciprocity.
These socializations. these processes of association,
1 Soz., p. 7. Simmel would therefore not consider an instinct of gregarious
ness a sufficient explanation of group unity. It could at best explain that a group
of individuals aggregate. But it does not account for the fact that out of that
group of individuals there arises a unitary society, the essence of which is recip-
rocal action of elements.
