ever
varied the form which they assume. What is decisive is not the fact that
certain common characteristics exist side by side with individual
differences which may or may not affect them but rather that the
influence of this common possession itself upon the personal relation of
the individuals involved is determined by certain conditions: Does it
exist in and for these individuals and for these only? Does it represent
qualities that are general in the group, to be sure, but peculiar to it?
Or is it merely felt by the members of the group as something peculiar
to individuals themselves whereas, in fact, it is a common possession of
a group, or a type, or mankind? In the last case an attenuation of the
effect of the common possession enters in, proportional to the size of
the group. Common characteristics function, it is true, as a basis for
union among the elements, but it does not specifically refer these
elements to each other. A similarity so widely shared might serve as a
common basis of each with every possible other. This too is evidently
one way in which a relation may at the same moment comprehend both
nearness and remoteness. To the extent to which the similarities become
general, the warmth of the connection which they effect will have an
element of coolness, a feeling in it of the adventitiousness of this
very connection. The powers which united have lost their specific,
centripetal character.

This constellation (in which similarities are shared by large numbers)
acquires, it seems to me, an extraordinary and fundamental
preponderance--as against the individual and personal elements we have
been discussing--in defining our relation to the stranger. The stranger
is near to us in so far as we feel between him and ourselves
similarities of nationality or social position, of profession or of
general human nature. He is far from us in so far as these similarities
reach out over him and us, and only ally us both because in fact they
ally a great many.

In this sense a trait of this strangeness easily comes into even the
most intimate relations. Erotic relations show a very decided aversion,
in the stage of first passion, to any disposition to think of them in
general terms. A love such as this (so the lover feels) has never
existed before, nor is there anything to be compared with our passion
for the beloved person. An estrangement is wont, whether as cause or as
result it is difficult to decide, to set in at