d of this political pressure--all political unity often likewise
ceases. There spring up a great number of party factions which
previously, in view of that supreme political interest for or against
the monarchy, found no room.

Wonder has often been felt over the irrationality of the condition in
which a single person exercises lordship over a great mass of others.
The contradiction will be modified when we reflect that the ruler and
the individual subject in the controlled mass by no means enter into the
relationship with an equal _quantum_ of their personality. The mass is
composed through the fact that many individuals unite fractions of their
personality--one-sided purposes, interests and powers, while that which
each personality as such actually is towers above this common level and
does not at all enter into that "mass," i.e., into that which is really
ruled by the single person. Hence it is also that frequently in very
despotically ruled groups individuality may develop itself very freely,
in those aspects particularly which are not in participation with the
mass. Thus began the development of modern individuality in the
despotisms of the Italian Renaissance. Here, as in other similar cases
(for example, under Napoleon I and Napoleon III), it was for the direct
interest of the despots to allow the largest freedom to all those
aspects of personality which were not identified with the regulated
mass, i.e., to those aspects most apart from politics. Thus
subordination was more tolerable.

b) _Subordination to a group._--In the second place the group may
assume the form of a pyramid. In this case the subordinates stand over
against the superior not in an equalized mass but in very nicely graded
strata of power. These strata grow constantly smaller in extent but
greater in significance. They lead up from the inferior mass to the
head, the single ruler.

This form of the group may come into existence in two ways. It may
emerge from the autocratic supremacy of an individual. The latter often
loses the substance of his power and allows it to slip downward, while
retaining its form and titles. In this case more of the power is
retained by the orders nearest to the former autocrat than is acquired
by those more distant. Since the power thus gradually percolates, a
continuity and graduation of superiority and inferiority must develop
itself. This is, in fact, the way in which in oriental states the social
forms often ari