THE SOCIETAL ORGANISM 



organism functions effectively. The extent of awareness 

 of the entire organism itself is a matter of degree. 

 Awareness probably came into existence gradually and 

 almost imperceptibly somewhere during the evolu- 

 tionary ascent of animal life. A rigid definition of 

 awareness is an exercise in semantics and would be 

 of little use at this point. What matters is to realize 

 that awareness (or if awareness in animals is denied, 

 the tendencies leading toward awareness) increases, as 

 the complexity of the living organisms increases.^ 



It is an interesting sidelight to note that there seems 

 to be a far greater psychological barrier to surmount 

 in accepting the fully unaware cooperation of insects 

 in a functioning colony, than to admit the complete 

 unawareness of cells in the multicellular organism. 

 Could this reluctance be due to the fact that we believe 

 that human society functions only because of the 

 awareness of individual human beings as to their roles, 

 and that therefore we find it difficult to see how any 

 other colony-forming creature can act in so unaware a 

 fashion? It will be discussed in the next chapter how 

 the function of human society in many aspects is not 

 necessarily determined by awareness of individual 

 human beings, but may well be a far more unconscious 

 process, at least from the standpoint of the individual 



^This treatise makes a distinction between awareness and conscious- 

 ness which will be discussed later in the book, where the manner in which 

 these terms are used by the author will be clarified. 



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