n the material ground which instigated the
quarrel, but also on the sociological ground, namely, that we hate the
enemy of the group as such; that is, the one from whom danger to its
unity threatens. Inasmuch as this is a reciprocal matter, and each
attributes the fault of endangering the whole to the other, the
antagonism acquires a severity which does not occur when membership in a
group-unity is not a factor in the situation. Most characteristic in
this connection are the cases in which an actual dismemberment of the
group has not yet occurred. If this dismemberment has already taken
place, it signifies a certain termination of the conflict. The
individual difference has found its sociological termination, and the
stimulus to constantly renewed friction is removed. To this result the
tension between antagonism and still persisting unity must directly
work. As it is fearful to be at enmity with a person to whom one is
nevertheless bound, from whom one cannot be freed, whether externally or
subjectively, even if one will, so there is increased bitterness if one
will not detach himself from the community because he is not willing to
give up the value of membership in the containing unity, or because he
feels this unity as an objective good, the threatening of which deserves
conflict and hatred. From such a correlation as this springs the
embittering with which, for example, quarrels are fought out within a
political faction or a trade union or a family.

The individual soul offers an analogy. The feeling that a conflict
between sensuous and ascetic feelings, or selfish and moral impulses, or
practical and intellectual ambitions, within us not merely lowers the
claims of one or both parties and permits neither to come to quite free
self-realization but also threatens the unity, the equilibrium, and the
total energy of the soul as a whole--this feeling may in many cases
repress conflict from the beginning. In case the feeling cannot avail to
that extent, it, on the contrary, impresses upon the conflict a
character of bitterness and desperation, an emphasis as though a
struggle were really taking place for something much more essential than
the immediate issue of the controversy. The energy with which each of
these tendencies seeks to subdue the others is nourished not only by
their egoistic interest but by the interest which goes much farther than
that and attaches itself to the unity of the ego, for which this
struggle m