The mass does not know the dualism of egoistic and altruistic impulses, a dualism that often renders the individual helpless and makes him embrace a vacuum. Law, the first and essential condition of the life of groups, large and small, has aptly been called the "ethical minimum."

DEFINE: Defines the 'ethical minimum' concept — law as the baseline morality required for group life, contrasted with the individual's psychological conflict between egoistic and altruistic drives.

Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simm…, loc. 1755