The question, of course, is how the individual got to be inthis "social rOle", and how the particular social organisation(with its property-rights and structure of authority)· got to. bethere. And these are historical questions. If we stop history at agiven point, then there are no classes but simply a multitude ofindividuals with a multitude of experiences. But if we watchthese men over an adequate period of social change, we observepatterns in their relationships� their ideas, and their institutions.Class is defined by men as they live their own history, and, in theend, this is its only definition.