THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE 833 



pure matter, as it exists only in our imagination; and therefore 

 a thing which has merely a nominal existence would be really 

 nothing but a mass of such imaginary matter, absolutely at one's 

 disposal, offering no resistance, being stuff in itself, that is to say, 

 potentially anything one may be able to make, to knead, to shape, 

 or to construe out of it (of course, real matter may and will more 

 or less approach to this idea). On the other hand, to think of an 

 ideal thing as being ideal is not the same as to think of it as imagin- 

 ary matter; but if one aims at a certain object, if one follows out 

 one's designs, one is constrained by a psychological necessity to break 

 resistances and to subject things as well as persons to one's own will ; 

 one tends to make them all alike, as "wax in one's hand," to remove 

 or to oppress their own qualities and their own wills so as to leave, 

 as far as possible, nothing but a dead and unqualified heap of atoms, 

 a something of which imaginary matter is the prototype. Of course, 

 it is only as a tendency that this dissolving and revolutionary prin- 

 ciple is always active, but its activity is manifest everywhere in 

 social life, especially in modern society, and characterizes a con- 

 siderable portion of the relations of individuals to each other and 

 consequently to their corporations. As long as men think and re- 

 gard "society" that is to say, their clan or their polis, their 

 church or their commonwealth as real and as truly existing; nay, 

 when they even think of it as being alive, as a mystical body, a 

 supernatural person so long will they not feel themselves as its 

 masters; they will not be likely to attempt using it as a mere tool, 

 as a machine for promoting their own interests ; they will look upon 

 it rather with awe and humility than with a sense of their own 

 interest and superiority. And, in consequence of feelings of this 

 kind, they even forget their own authorship which, as a rule, 

 will indeed be an ideal one only; they will feel and think them- 

 selves, not creators, but creatures of their own corporations. This 

 is the same process as that which shows itself in the development 

 of men's regular behavior toward their gods, and the feeling and 

 thinking just mentioned are always closely related to, or even 

 essentially identical with, religious feeling and thinking. Like the 

 gods themselves, to whom so regularly la cite antique, with its temples 

 and sanctuaries, is dedicated, the city or corporation itself is sup- 

 posed to be a supernatural eternal being, and consequently existing 

 not only in a real, but in an eminent sense. 



But, of course, all feelings of this kind are but to a limited extent 

 liable to retard the progress of a consciousness of individual inter- 

 ests, or, as it is commonly spoken of with a taint of moral re- 

 proach of selfishness. As a matter of fact, it is the natural ripen- 

 ing of consciousness and thinking itself which makes reflection 



