Groups appear law-determined while individuals appear free

Evidence

Although it often changes its line of action, the social group is, by contrast, nevertheless determined at any one moment to follow, without reservation, the line of that moment. Above all, it always knows whom to consider its enemy and whom its friend. Furthermore, it shows less discrepancy than the individual between will and deed, and between means and ends. Individual actions, therefore, strike us as “free,” and mass actions impress us as if they were determined by natural laws. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 1740