246 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



A more explicit preliminary statement must now be 

 given of the grounds for the belief that social evolution 

 is but a part of organic evolution in general. Some of 

 these reasons are not far to seek, but their cogency can 

 scarcely be appreciated until we have examined the 

 concrete facts of the whole biological series. Any 

 human society selected for examination — be it a 

 tribe, a village community, or a nation — is in last analy- 

 sis an aggregate of human units and nothing besides. 

 Its life consists of the combined activities of such com- 

 ponents — and nothing else. Could we subtract the 

 members one by one, there would be no intangible 

 residuum after all the people and their lives had been 

 taken away. When these simple facts are recognized, 

 it is clear at once that the concerted activities performed 

 by biological units cannot be anything but organic 

 in their ultimate basis and nature ; the evolution of 

 such activities thus takes its place as a part of organic 

 evolution. 



The task of tracing out the history of social organi- 

 zations of whatever grade can now be defined in precise 

 terms : in simple words, it is to learn how the activities 

 of the component biological units making up any asso- 

 ciation really differ from the vital performances of 

 biological units existing by themselves. What is it 

 that distinguishes a savage of antiquity from an Ameri- 

 can of to-day? The modern example is just as much 

 an animal as the earlier type, and his physiology is 

 essentially the same. It is something added to the 

 common biological qualities of all men, some relation 

 which does not appear as such in the life of rude tribes, 

 that makes the distinction. And it is just this super- 



