SOCIAL INVOLUTION 



SUPl'LK.MKNTAUY READINGS. 



1f t \\.-riiysics <in<I rtitic8. 



COOLEY, C. II. Social Organic it 



( i HIDINGS, P. H. The Principles of Sociology. 



GiDDLNi.-. K. II. Descriptive and Historical Sociology. 



GUMPLOWICZ, L. The Outlines of Sociology. 



KROPOTKIN, P. Mutual Aid. 



SI-MNKK. \V. Ci. 



N..I-K. John Fiske thought that the family was the chief 

 s.ieial c\o lut ion \\hich brought aliout the development of man's higher 

 emotional, moral and intellectual nature. The human nervous s\>tem is 

 Midi a coni|.le\ thing that its development is extended over a considerable 

 period. I hiring the period of helplessness, parental instincts led one or 

 In.th parents to care for the young. Hence the prolongation of infamy 

 serxed to k-ep the parents together for longer and longer periods in 

 8iiccessi\e epoehs. In this way the family became the source of associated 

 life, (Jiddings considers that Fiske's theory reverses the probable order 

 of cause and effect. The complex brain and nervous system which 

 brought about the prolongation of infancy could only have developed as a 

 consequence of the stimulating relationships of social life. Hence then- 

 must have been association before the family group appeared. Whatever 

 its form, this primitive social life was sufficiently stimulating to cause 

 the adjustment in nervous structure which resulted in the prolongation 

 of infancy, and this, in turn, resulted in the family. Thus it is seen 

 that the family was not the single original germ from which society 

 grew. On this* point others have written. Petrucci says, "The family, 

 therefore, is not essential to the formation of societies. The clan may 

 sometimes be an extension of the family, but in certain animal spe- 

 cies, as in man hiiraelf, it is not always the direct line of parentage 

 which is at the basis of the group. Sometimes, furthermore, the group 

 can be established only when the family disappears." In discussing the 

 origin of human socie'ty, Kropotkin -a\> that anthropology "has estab- 

 li-hed beyond any doubt that mankind did not legin it- life in the shape 

 of small 'isolated families. Far from being a primitive form of org;mi/a 

 tion, the family is a very late product of human evolution. . . . Societies. 

 bands, or tribes not families were the primitive form of ori:ani/ation 

 of mankind and its earliest ancestors. . . . None of the higher mammals, 

 save a few carnivores and a few undoubtedly d.--a\ in- .f ape- 



(orang-outans and gorillas), live in -mall families, isohitedly struL"_ding 

 in the woods. All others live in -oci t i< -." For a more complete di-cu.-- 

 sion, see Parmelee, The Science of Human Udiaiwi . pp. ayj-Ul. 



NOTK. More ample treatment of the principles of social selection and 

 societal selection, principles merely touched upon in the preceding 

 chapter, will be found in Appendix I, Social Selection, pp. 297-310. 



