THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE 831 



It is therefore the constitution of a multitude into a unity which 

 we propose as a fourth mode, and as a necessary consequence of 

 the third one, unless the moral person be represented exclusively 

 by a single man or woman as a natural person. The Many consti- 

 tute themselves or are constituted as a body, which is, as far as it 

 may be, similar to a natural person in such relations as are essential 

 precisely for the notion of a person. Consequently, this body also 

 is a unity, but a unity conceived a priori as being destined for a 

 definite purpose, viz., the representation of a moral person the 

 third or sociological kind of unity. And it is different from that 

 third notion by this very relation only, which evidently cannot be 

 inherent in that person himself: that, in consequence of this rela- 

 tion, it has a visible existence apart from its own idea, while the 

 moral person represented is nothing beyond his own idea. We may 

 distinguish, therefore, between five modes of existence in a moral 

 person represented by a body: (1) the ideal existence in the minds 

 of its members; (2) the ideal existence of the body constituted, 

 which represents the moral person, being as well in the minds 

 of the natural persons who compose that body as in the minds of 

 members of the corporation generally; (3) the visible existence of 

 this body, being the assembly of natural persons, willing and acting 

 under certain forms; (4) the intelligible existence of this assembly, 

 being conditioned by a knowledge, on the part of those who exter- 

 nally or theoretically perceive it, of its constitution and its mean- 

 ing; (5) the intelligible existence of the moral person or the body 

 represented, being conditioned by a knowledge of the relation 

 between this corporation and the body representing it, implying the 

 structure of the former in the first, and of the latter in the second 

 instance. 



The visible existence of an assembly means that members are 

 visible as being assembled, but the assembly as a body can be 

 recognized only by a reflecting spectator who knows what those 

 forms mean, who "realizes" their significance, who thinks the 

 assembly. Of course, a corporation also, apart from its representa- 

 tion, can be perceived only mentally, by outsiders as well as by 

 its own members, and these are different perceptions (distinguished 

 here as ideal and intelligible existence): members perceiving it 

 directly as a product of their own will, and therefore in a way as 

 their property (a thing which they own); and outsiders perceiving 

 it only indirectly, by knowing the person or body that represents 

 it ; this being an external perception only, unless it be supplemented 

 by a knowledge of its peculiar mode of being, that is, of its consti- 

 tution and of the relations which members bear to the whole, and 

 the whole to its members. 



