A basic dualism . . . pervades the fundamental form of all sociation. The dualism consists in the fact that a relation, which is a fluctuating, constantly developing life-process, nevertheless receives a relatively stable external form. The sociological forms of reciprocal behavior, of unification, of presentation toward the outside, cannot follow, with any precise adaptation, the changes of their inside, that is, of the processes that occur in the individual in regard to the other. These two layers, relation and form, have different tempi of development; or it often is the nature of the external form not to develop properly at all.

XREF: Echoes sociological distinctions between process and structure, akin to Giddens' structuration or Simmel's own formal sociology. Could connect to any study of institutions vs. lived behavior.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 778