r^^. 



j,J^ 



510 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL RESULTS 



which we call the life of an organism, the biologist has so far 

 simply brought the distinctively vital into greater prominence. 



Similarly, in regard to the biological analysis of social se- 

 (- quences, there seems to us in recent literature some warrant 

 jff^^ for protesting against the " materialism " (in Comte's sense) 

 of pretending that sociology is merely a higher department of 

 biology, and a human societary group no more than a crowd of 

 mammals. We have little faith in a biology which does not 

 frankly admit that an organism is a new synthesis when com- 

 pared with inanimate systems, and we have equally little in a 

 sociology which does not consistently recognise that a human 

 societary unit, however simple, is also a new synthesis as com- 

 pared with the beasts of the field — a unity with a distinctive 

 mode of behaviour, with a whole that is more than the sum of 

 its parts ; in short, with a life and mind of its own. 



The fallacy of regarding sociology as no more than a recondite 

 branch of biology is not merely verbal, implying differences 

 of opinion on the tedious question of the best definitions of 

 these two sciences ; it involves a misconception of what human 

 society is, a misconception which is discredited by the facts of 

 history and experience. No one doubts that the life of a social 

 group is made up of a complex of activities of individual per- 

 sons ; but these are integrated, harmonised, and regulated in 

 a manner as far beyond present biological analysis as the inte- 

 gration, harmonisation, and regulation of the chemical and 

 physical processes in the individual organism are at present 

 beyond mechanical analysis. 



Nor is the " materialism " a theoretical fallacy merely ; it 

 has its practical side. A cattle-breeder has been known to pro- 

 duce by careful selection a prize bull, almost perfect according 

 to the physical standard aimed at, but with the serious vital 

 1 defect of being sterile ; so preoccupation with a purely biological 

 ideal might, in relation to the human race, result in consequences 

 which were anything but advantageous socially. We venture 



