830 SOCIAL STRUCTURE 



theorists notably Lorenz Stein, Rudolph Gneist, and Robert 

 Mohl who were more or less strongly under the sway of Hege- 

 lian philosophy, seeing that Hegel in his Rechtsphilosophie de- 

 velops his idea of human corporate existence under the threefold 

 heading of (1) the family, as "thesis," (2) civil society, as "anti- 

 thesis," and (3) the state, as "synthesis" of the two former. 



But, though I myself lay considerable stress upon this general 

 notion of society, in juxtapositi6n and opposition to the state or 

 political society, I still regard it as more indispensable to a theory 

 of social structure to inquire into the nature and causes of what 

 may be called, from the present point of view, genuine corporations ; 

 that is, those conceived of as being capable of willing and acting 

 like a single individual endowed with reason and self-consciousness. 

 The question arises how a "moral person" may be considered as 

 possessing this power. 



Evidently this is an impossibility, unless one single individual, 

 or several together, are willing and acting in the name of that ficti- 

 tious being. And in order justly to be taken for the volitions and 

 acts of an individual distinct from their own individualities, those 

 volitions and acts must be distinguishable by certain definite marks 

 from the rest of their willing and acting, which they do in their own 

 name; they must be differentiated formally. There must be a tacit 

 or an open understanding, a sort of covenant or convention, that 

 only volitions and acts so differentiated shall be considered as voli- 

 tions and acts of the said moral person whom that one or those 

 several individuals are supposed to represent. By the way, this 

 question of marks and signs, consensual or conventional, by which 

 a thing, physical or moral, not only is recognized as such, but by 

 which its value (or what it is good for) is differentiated from its 

 existence (or what it is), pervades all social life and mind, and may 

 be called the secret of it. It is clear that certain signs may easily 

 be fixed or invented whereby the volitions and acts of a single indi- 

 vidual may be differentiated from the rest as being representative. 

 But how if there are more than one, who only occasionally have 

 one w T ill and act together, and who cannot be supposed to agree in 

 their feelings as soon as they are required to represent their moral 

 person? It is well known that these must be "constituted" as an 

 assembly or as a whole capable by its constitution to deliberate 

 and, what is more, to resolve and act. It must be settled by their 

 own or by the will of another person (1) under what conditions, 

 and with respect to what subject-matters, their resolutions shall 

 be considered as representing declarations of will of their own body; 

 and (2) under what conditions, and with respect to what subject- 

 matters, declarations of will of this body shall be valid as declara- 

 tions of will of the moral person they represent. 



