832 SOCIAL STRUCTURE 



But it is, above all, in this respect that great differences exist 

 between different kinds of corporations. The first question is whether 

 individuals feel and think themselves as founders or authors or at 

 least as representative ideal authors of their own corporation. Let 

 us take an obvious example. Suppose a man and a woman con- 

 tract a marriage (we waive here all questions of church or state 

 regulations for making the marriage tie public). They are said to 

 found a family. Now, the children springing from this union and 

 growing up in this family cannot justly feel and think themselves 

 as the creators or authors of it, as long as they are dependent upon 

 their parents. However, they partake of it more and more consciously, 

 and some day they may take upon themselves the representation 

 of this whole internally and externally, in place of their father and 

 mother. They may learn to feel and to think of themselves as bearers 

 of the personality of this ideal being, playing, so to speak, the parts 

 of the authors and founders, whom they also may survive, and will 

 survive in the normal course of human events; and they may con- 

 tinue the identity of the family beyond the death of their parents. 

 They may maintain the continuity of this identical family, even 

 when new families have sprung from it which may or may not regard 

 themselves as members of the original one. The proposition that 

 it exists still is true at least for those who will its truth, and who 

 act upon this principle; nay, it is by their thought and will that 

 they are creating it anew, as it was made originally by the wills of 

 the first two persons. A different question is whether the existence 

 of this corporation will be recognized and acknowledged by others, 

 who may stand in relations to its members, or may simply be im- 

 partial theoretical spectators. 



But, further, there is this fundamental difference in the relation 

 of individuals to that ideal entity which they think and will, whether 

 they be its real or merely its representative authors, viz. : (1) they 

 may look upon the corporation, which they have created really or 

 ideally, as upon a thing existing for its own sake, as an end in itself, 

 although it be at the same time a means for other ends ; or (2) they 

 may conceive it clearly as a mere tool, as nothing but an instru- 

 ment for their private ends, which they either naturally have in 

 common, or which accidentally meet in a certain point. 



The first case appears in a stronger light, if they consider the 

 social entity as really existing, and especially if they consider their 

 corporation as a living being; for a real thing, and especially a 

 living thing, has always some properties of its own. The latter 

 has even something like a will of its own; it cannot be conceived 

 as being disposable, divisible, applicable, and adaptable at pleasure 

 to any purpose, as a means to any end this being the notion of 



