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SPATIAL RELATIONS OF SOCIAL FORMS 159
Social Organization on a Territorial Basis
The significance of the organization of a group on a ter-
ritorial basis is best illustrated in the change from a tribal
to a political organization. It means the substitution of
a spatial principle for a kinship principle, of spatial relations
for blood relations in the subdivisions of the group, and
of administrative areas for clans. Apart from this, it means
the dissolution of formerly internally coherent subgroups
and the combination of.their elements in a single large
structure which appears more mechanical, but also more
rational, than the biological and emotional bonds of the
tribal system.
The territorial principle is the immediate expression
of the unity of the state. The danger of a suborganization
for the state lies in the fact that its basic principle may
be hostile to spatial relations. Blood relationships are su-
perspatial and do not fit into a political system based on
territory. A political organization based on kinship must
crumble after it has grown to a certain size, because the
subdivisions have a strong organic unity which is entirely
independent of the common territory. The unity of the
state can be preserved only if its subgroups are formed on a
principle that is indifferent to that unity and at the same
time less exclusive. The organization of the state on the
basis of administrative territorial subdivisions fulfils these
requirements. It enables genetically and qualitatively
different elements which are spatially related to function
as units without thereby endangering the unity of the
whole. Such territorial subdivisions are much less likely to
develop particularistic tendencies than subgroups consist-
ing of closely related elements held together by kinship
and forming strong unitary structures. This is the advan-
tage of a subdivision according to a spatial principle. The
complete impartiality and the identity of relationships be-
