CHAPTER XII: QUALIFICATIONS AND SUMMARY.

§ 268. One who made the analogies between individual organization and social organization his special subject, might carry them further in several directions.

He might illustrate the general truth that as fast as structure approaches completeness, modifiability diminishes and growth ends. The finished animal, moulded in all details, resists change by the sum of those forces which have evolved its parts into their respective shapes; and the finished society does the like. In either case results, at length, rigidity. Every organ of the one and institution of the other becomes, as maturity is neared, more coherent and definite, and offers a greater obstacle to alterations required either by increase of size or variation of conditions.

Then he might enlarge on the fact that, as in individual organisms so in social organisms, after the structures proper to the type have fully evolved there presently begins a slow decay. He could not, indeed, furnish satisfactory proof of this; since among ancient societies, essentially militant in their activities, dissolution by conquest habitually prevented the cycles of changes from being completed; and since modern societies are passing through their cycles. But the minor parts of modern societies, especially during those earlier times when local development was little implicated with general development, would yield him evidence. He Edition: current; Page: [589] might instance the fact that ancient corporate towns, with their guilds and regulations of industry, gradually made more numerous and stringent, slowly dwindled, and gave way before towns in which the absence of privileged classes permitted freedom of industry: the rigid old structure having its function usurped by a plastic new one. In each institution, private or public, he might point to the ever-multiplying usages and bye-laws, severally introduced to fit the actions to the passing time, but eventually making adaptation to a coming time impracticable. And he might infer that a like fate awaits each entire society, which, as its adjustments to present circumstances are finished, loses power to re-adjust itself to the circumstances of the future: eventually disappearing, if not by violence, then by a decline consequent on inability to compete with younger and more modifiable societies.

Were his speculative audacity sufficient, he might end by alleging parallelisms between the processes of reproduction in the two cases. Among primitive societies which habitually multiply by fission, but are by conquest occasionally fused, group with group, after which there is presently a recurrence of fission, he might trace an analogy to what happens in the lowest types of organisms, which, multiplying fissiparously, from time to time reverse the process by that fusion which naturalists call conjugation. Then he might point out that in either case the larger and stationary types propagate by the dispersion of germs. Adult organisms which are fixed, send off groups of such units as they are themselves composed of, to settle down elsewhere and grow into organisms like themselves, as settled societies send off their groups of colonists. And he might even say that as union of the germinal group detached from one organism with a group detached from a similar organism, is either essential to, or conducive to, the vigorous evolution of a new organism: so the mixture of colonists derived from one society with others derived from a kindred society, is, if not essential to, Edition: current; Page: [590] still conducive to, the evolution of a new society more plastic than the old ones from which the mingled units were derived.

But without committing ourselves to any such further adventurous suggestions, we may leave the comparison as it stands in preceding chapters.

§ 269. This comparison has justified to a degree that could scarcely have been anticipated, the idea propounded by certain philosophers and implied even in popular language. Naturally it happened that this idea took at first crude forms. Let us glance at some of them.

In the Republic of Plato, asserting the fact, not even yet adequately recognized, that “the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters,” Socrates is represented as arguing—“then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of individual minds will also be five:” an absurd corollary from a rational proposition. Division of labour is described as a social need; but it is represented rather as having to be established than as establishing itself. Throughout, the conception, like indeed to conceptions that prevail still, is that society may be artificially arranged thus or thus. Alleging such likeness between the State and the citizen that from the institutions of the one may be deduced the faculties of the other, Plato, with the belief that the States, growing “out of human characters,” are “as the men are,” joins the belief that these States, with characters thus determined, can yet determine the characters of their citizens. Chiefly, however, the erroneous nature of the analogy held by Plato to exist between the individual and the State, he shows by comparing reason, passion or spirit, and desire, in the one, to counsellors, auxiliaries, and traders in the other. Not to the mutually-dependent parts of the bodily organization are the mutually-dependent parts of the political organization supposed to be analogous, but rather to the co-operating powers of the mind. The conception of Hobbes in one respect only, approaches nearer Edition: current; Page: [591] to a rational conception. Like Plato he regards social organization not as natural but as factitious: propounding, as he does, the notion of a social contract as originating governmental institutions, and as endowing the sovereign with irrevocable authority. The analogy as conceived by him is best expressed in his own words. He says:—“For by art is created that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth, or State, in Latin Civitas, which is but an artificial man; though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates, and other officers of judicature, artificial joints; reward and punishment, by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty every joint and member is moved to perform his duty, are the nerves, that do the same in the body natural;” etc. Here, in so far as the comparison drawn is in the main between the structures of the two, is it less indefensible than that of Plato; which is a comparison between structures in the one and functions in the other. But the special analogies named are erroneous; as is also, in common with that of Plato, the general analogy; since it is alleged between the organization of a society and the organization of a human being—an analogy far too special. Living at a later time, when biologists had revealed to some extent the principles of organization, and recognizing social structures as not artificially made but naturally developed, M. Comte avoided these errors; and, not comparing the social organism to an individual organism of any one kind, held simply that the principles of organization are common to societies and animals. He regarded each stage of social progress as a product of preceding stages; and he saw that the evolution of structures advances from the general to the special. He did not, however, entirely escape the early misconception that institutions are artificial arrangements; for he inconsistently held it possible for societies Edition: current; Page: [592] to be forthwith re-organized in conformity with the principles of his “Positive Philosophy.”

Here let it once more be distinctly asserted that there exist no analogies between the body politic and a living body, save those necessitated by that mutual dependence of parts which they display in common. Though, in foregoing chapters, sundry comparisons of social structures and functions to structures and functions in the human body, have been made, they have been made only because structures and functions in the human body furnish familiar illustrations of structures and functions in general. The social organism, discrete instead of concrete, asymmetrical instead of symmetrical, sensitive in all its units instead of having a single sensitive centre, is not comparable to any particular type of individual organism, animal or vegetal. All kinds of creatures are alike in so far as each exhibits co-operation among its components for the benefit of the whole; and this trait, common to them, is a trait common also to societies. Further, among individual organisms, the degree of co-operation measures the degree of evolution; and this general truth, too, holds among social organisms. Once more, to effect increasing co-operation, creatures of every order show us increasingly-complex appliances for transfer and mutual influence; and to this general characteristic, societies of every order furnish a corresponding characteristic. These, then, are the analogies alleged: community in the fundamental principles of organization is the only community asserted.*

§ 270. But now let us drop this alleged parallelism between individual organizations and social organizations. I have used the analogies elaborated, but as a scaffolding to Edition: current; Page: [593] help in building up a coherent body of sociological inductions. Let us take away the scaffolding: the inductions will stand by themselves.

We saw that societies are aggregates which grow; that in the various types of them there are great varieties in the growths reached; that types of successively larger sizes result from the aggregation and re-aggregation of those of smaller sizes; and that this increase by coalescence, joined with interstitial increase, is the process through which have been formed the vast civilized nations.

Along with increase of size in societies goes increase of structure. Primitive hordes are without established distinctions of parts. With growth of them into tribes habitually come some unlikenesses; both in the powers and occupations of their members. Unions of tribes are followed by more unlikenesses, governmental and industrial—social grades running through the whole mass, and contrasts between the differently-occupied parts in different localities. Such differentiations multiply as the compounding progresses. They proceed from the general to the special. First the broad division between ruling and ruled; then within the ruling part divisions into political, religious, military, and within the ruled part divisions into food producing classes and handi-craftsmen; then within each of these divisions minor ones, and so on.

Passing from the structural aspect to the functional aspect, we note that so long as all parts of a society have like natures and activities, there is hardly any mutual dependence, and the aggregate scarcely forms a vital whole. As its parts assume different functions they become dependent on one another, so that injury to one hurts others; until, in highly-evolved societies, general perturbation is caused by derangement of any portion. This contrast between undeveloped Edition: current; Page: [594] and developed societies, arises from the fact that with increasing specialization of functions comes increasing inability in each part to perform the functions of other parts.

The organization of every society begins with a contrast between the division which carries on relations, habitually hostile, with environing societies, and the division which is devoted to procuring necessaries of life; and during the earlier stages of development these two divisions constitute the whole. Eventually there arises an intermediate division serving to transfer products and influences from part to part. And in all subsequent stages, evolution of the two earlier systems of structures depends on evolution of this additional system.

While the society as a whole has the character of its sustaining system determined by the character of its environment, inorganic and organic, the respective parts of this system differentiate in adaptation to local circumstances; and, after primary industries have been thus localized and specialized, secondary industries dependent on them arise in conformity with the same principle. Further, as fast as societies become compounded and re-compounded, and the distributing system develops, the parts devoted to each kind of industry, originally scattered, aggregate in the most favourable localities; and the localized industrial structures, unlike the governmental structures, grow regardless of the original lines of division.

Increase of size, resulting from the massing of groups, necessitates means of communication; both for achieving combined offensive and defensive actions, and for exchange of products. Faint tracks, then paths, rude roads, finished roads, successively arise; and as fast as intercourse is thus facilitated, there is a transition from direct barter to trading carried on by a separate class; out of which evolves a complex mercantile agency of wholesale and retail distributors. The movement of commodities effected by this agency, beginning as a slow flux to and re-flux from certain places at Edition: current; Page: [595] long intervals, passes into rhythmical, regular, rapid currents; and materials for sustentation distributed hither and thither, from being few and crude become numerous and elaborated. Growing efficiency of transfer with greater variety of transferred products, increases the mutual dependence of parts at the same time that it enables each part to fulfil its function better.

Unlike the sustaining system, evolved by converse with the organic and inorganic environments, the regulating system is evolved by converse, offensive and defensive, with environing societies. In primitive headless groups temporary chieftainship results from temporary war; chronic hostilities generate permanent chieftainship; and gradually from the military control results the civil control. Habitual war, requiring prompt combination in the actions of parts, necessitates subordination. Societies in which there is little subordination disappear, and leave outstanding those in which subordination is great; and so there are produced, societies in which the habit fostered by war and surviving in peace, brings about permanent submission to a government. The centralized regulating system thus evolved, is in early stages the sole regulating system. But in large societies which have become predominantly industrial, there is added a decentralized regulating system for the industrial structures; and this, at first subject in every way to the original system, acquires at length substantial independence. Finally there arises for the distributing structures also, an independent controlling agency.

Societies fall firstly into the classes of simple, compound, doubly-compound, trebly-compound; and from the lowest the transition to the highest is through these stages. Otherwise, though less definitely, societies may be grouped as militant and industrial; of which the one type in its developed form is organized on the principle of compulsory co-operation, while the other in its developed form is organized on the principle of voluntary co-operation. The one Edition: current; Page: [596] is characterized not only by a despotic central power, but also by unlimited political control of personal conduct; while the other is characterized not only by a democratic or representative central power, but also by limitation of political control over personal conduct.

Lastly we noted the corollary that change in the predominant social activities brings metamorphosis. If, where the militant type has not elaborated into so rigid a form as to prevent change, a considerable industrial system arises, there come mitigations of the coercive restraints characterizing the militant type, and weakening of its structures. Conversely, where an industrial system largely developed has established freer social forms, resumption of offensive and defensive activities causes reversion towards the militant type.

§ 271. And now, summing up the results of this general survey, let us observe the extent to which we are prepared by it for further inquiries.

The many facts contemplated unite in proving that social evolution forms a part of evolution at large. Like evolving aggregates in general, societies show integration, both by simple increase of mass and by coalescence and re-coalescence of masses. The change from homogeneity to heterogeneity is multitudinously exemplified; up from the simple tribe, alike in all its parts, to the civilized nation, full of structural and functional unlikenesses. With progressing integration and heterogeneity goes increasing coherence. We see the wandering group dispersing, dividing, held together by no bonds; the tribe with parts made more coherent by subordination to a dominant man; the cluster of tribes united in a political plexus under a chief with sub-chiefs; and so on up to the civilized nation, consolidated enough to hold together for a thousand years or more. Simultaneously comes increasing definiteness. Social organization is at first vague; advance brings settled arrangements which grow Edition: current; Page: [597] slowly more precise; customs pass into laws which, while gaining fixity, also become more specific in their applications to varieties of actions; and all institutions, at first confusedly intermingled, slowly separate, at the same time that each within itself marks off more distinctly its component structures. Thus in all respects is fulfilled the formula of evolution. There is progress towards greater size, coherence, multiformity, and definiteness.

Besides these general truths, a number of special truths have been disclosed by our survey. Comparisons of societies in their ascending grades, have made manifest certain cardinal facts respecting their growths, structures, and functions—facts respecting the systems of structures, sustaining, distributing, regulating, of which they are composed; respecting the relations of these structures to the surrounding conditions and the dominant forms of social activities entailed; and respecting the metamorphoses of types caused by changes in the activities. The inductions arrived at, thus constituting in rude outline an Empirical Sociology, show that in social phenomena there is a general order of coexistence and sequence; and that therefore social phenomena form the subject-matter of a science reducible, in some measure at least, to the deductive form.

Guided, then, by the law of evolution in general, and, in subordination to it, guided by the foregoing inductions, we are now prepared for following out the synthesis of social phenomena. We must begin with those simplest ones presented by the evolution of the family.