Hidrogênio, oxigênio, fósforo e enxofre em Small (1905)

Now, there is a sense in which this must be true. Society is made up of individuals, just as matter is supposed to be made up of atoms; but no theory of atoms alone will account beforehand for the behavior of the particular atoms that make hydrogen or oxygen or sulphur or phosphorus. Nor will any theory of the atom alone account for what happens when one pair of substances enter into a reaction, and the unlike results when another pair of substances react upon each other. The [50] case is similar with the actions of individuals. All social facts are combinations of individual facts. Yet the influences at work in these combinations are not accounted for by any a priori conception of individuals which we can reach. For instance, a hundred socialistic German students are mustered into the imperial army and are sworn to defend the Kaiser and the flag. So long as they wear the uniform they are imperialists, not socialists. Now, there is something besides the sum of those individualities which is at work in giving them a character, when they are combined, that is different from the sum of their characters as isolated individuals. In this case the flag and the uniform may symbolize the added something. At all events, it would be a very shallow and unpenetrating account that would find in the company merely one hundred detached and self-sufficient individuals. (Small 1905:49-50)

SMALL, Albion. 1905. General Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.