antithesis between the whole group and an external power, and as antithesis between the elements of the group among themselves—is reproduced as genuine sociological life form in the narrower relationships between individual people. These also plainly need the stimulus of difference in order to retain and protect their unity. Now this difference may reside either within the relationship itself, in the different characteristics of its temporal divisions, or in the difference which appears between the relationship as a whole and, on the other hand, experiences and emotions quite outside of it. Thus it is often remarked that friendship, love, and marriage need occasional interruptions in order to get a true realization of their meaning and intimacy (Festigkeit), after reconciliation. Similar relationships are to be distinguished which do not require this internal difference, but rather, along with more even internal character, become conscious of their own weal through the difference from that which the world otherwise affords, and that which is otherwise known of it. The last form surely stands higher in the scale, and gives evidence of stronger, positive motives of coherence. The first form, in its turn, stands lower, according to the degree of frequency in the alternation between the divergent and the convergent periods. The lowest grade is represented by the formula: “One minute blows, the next agreement (Pack schlägt sich, Pack verträgt sich).” This marks a condition in which the essential and permanent relationships have only a slight value in consciousness; the disposition being rather determined at each moment by external stimuli, which work in accidental alternation, now in attraction, now in repulsion. For that very reason, however, there is in all this a deep utility in connection with the promotion of coherence. For wherever the occasion to be conscious of precisely this coherence is in itself slight, and the capability of appreciating it is itself not particularly developed, there will be needed, in order to arouse it, constantly renewed psychological impulses and rude stimulation from contrasts. These cannot be furnished better than in the form of constantly renewed agreements after constantly repeated disagreements. This at the same time affords the background from which unity at last appears.
Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/63
