836 SOCIAL STRUCTURE 



first and second sense, which I have pointed out as a biological 

 or a psychological aspect of collective life, in which case organic 

 analogies hold, but the whole consideration is not properly socio- 

 logical; or it may be taken in our third, or sociological, sense, in 

 which case it implies much less than any corporation the idea of 

 what may be called an organization. It is well known that a lively 

 controversy has been aroused about the new organicist theory, as 

 proposed by Mr. Spencer and others, chiefly among those sociolo- 

 gists who centre about the Institut international of Paris, where 

 the late lamented M. Tarde played so prominent a part. M. Tarde 

 has been among the foremost combatants against the vague anal- 

 ogies of organicism; and I fully agree with most of his arguments 

 as set forth in the third sociological congress of 1897. I even flatter 

 myself on having anticipated some of them in an early paper of 

 mine upon Mr. Spencer's sociological work, which paper, how- 

 ever, did not become known beyond the small public of the Philo- 

 sophische Monatshefte (1888). I have especially, and to a greater 

 degree than M. Tarde, insisted upon the radical difference between 

 a physiological division of labor and that division of labor which is 

 a cardinal phenomenon of society. I said: If we justly call it a di- 

 vision of labor that England manufactures cotton and China pro- 

 duces tea, and that the two countries exchange their products, 

 then there is not and has not been a common labor or function 

 preceding this division and dividing itself, as in the case of an 

 organism; no state of society being historically known where 

 China and England were one whole, working in harmony upon 

 the spinning-wheel and upon the tea-plant. This is far from being 

 true; each had its own historical development, until they met in 

 the mutual want of barter; and even this consideration implies 

 that the countries themselves may justly be said to entertain 

 trade and commerce with each other, though this is hardly more 

 than a fa$on de parler with respect to a country like China. It 

 may be objected that there is a better analogy, if we think of 

 a primitive household, where labor is indeed one and is shifting 

 among members of the community, while at a later stage it splits 

 up into several families, some cultivating the soil, some becom- 

 ing warriors, or priests, or artisans and tradesmen. And in the 

 same way a village community, even an independent township 

 like the ancient or medieval city, and a whole territory of which 

 a city is the centre, may reasonably be conceived of as one real 

 household, of which all single households form organic parts. They 

 would thus be contrasted with modern society, which is more 

 adequately conceived of as a mere aggregate of individual house- 

 holds, each pursuing its own interest, maybe at the cost of all the 



