It is always precisely the intermediate structure that exhibits the pattern in question—internal cohesion, external repulsion—when contrasted with a more general higher structure and a more individual lower structure. The latter is a relative individual in relation to the former, regardless of whether in relation to still others it is a collective structure. Thus, wherever one seeks, as we do here, the normal correlation between three levels that are distinguished by their magnitudes—between the primarily individual element, and the narrower and the wider circle—there one will find that under different circumstances one and the same complex can play all three roles, depending on the relationships into which it enters.

DEFINE: Clarifies that 'individual' and 'collective' are relative concepts determined by the relational context, not absolute properties of a structure.

DEFINE: Clarifies how 'individual,' 'narrower circle,' and 'wider circle' are relative rather than absolute categories — a single complex can occupy each role depending on relation.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 631