est refinement of which was often demanded by the latter, would scarcely have been practiced by many of these if the delinquent had been accountable to a single person alone. An immediately coöperating mass knows no individual considerations, because in the mass itself the individual impulses and qualities are paralyzed so that it cannot feel any sympathy with that which is specifically individual. The chief consideration is however that the point in which all the members of a large group securely coincide is very low in the scale of the moral; that consideration and delicacy is always of an individual and personal nature; that it will not usually be possible to unite a great number upon the same personal considerations; and that, especially in an association for economic ends, unlimited egoism in pursuit of material advantage and in saving cost is the one interest to be unqualifiedly accredited to all.
But subordination to a single individual may be preferred to that under a body of persons upon more ideal grounds, viz., when the superiority and inferiority bears a personal character, when it is a relation of fidelity, and the superior appears rather as a leader than a ruler. In that case there is in subordination a certain freedom and dignity which disappears when one is subordinate to a number of persons. Accordingly, the princes of the sixteenth century in France, Germany, Scotland and the Netherlands often encountered serious opposition when they allowed government to be exercised by learned substitutes or administrative bodies. The prerogative of command was regarded as something personal, to which one would render obedience only from personal devotion. The relation of superiority and inferiority existed only between person and person, whereby a higher and worthier role fell to the subordinate in the relationship than he could preserve in the case of subordination to an impersonal governing body composed of several individuals.
Of great importance for the outline of the sociological picture is the question whether and in what degree the lordship of a numerous body is exercised directly or through agents. The “agent” is a very peculiar phenomenon, emerging in every
