32 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



Spencer's theory of social progress, though nowhere elaborated, 

 is brought out in his summary of the application of the general 

 laws of evolution to the social process. 



The many facts contemplated unite in proving that social evolution forms 

 a part of evolution at large^. Like evolving aggregates in general, societies 

 integration, both by simple increase of mass and by coalescence and 

 of masses^ The change Irom homogeneity LU hKlKTUJ&fteity is 



mnlfi^udinouslv exemplified: up from the single trih<> ahlrp in an its parts 

 to the civilized nation, full of structural and functional unlikeness. With 

 progressing integration ana neterogeneity goes increasing coherence. We see 

 the wandering group disposing, dividing", held together by no bonds; the 

 tribe with parts made more coherent by subordination to a dominant man; 

 the cluster of tribes united in a political plexus under a chief with sub-chiefs; 

 and so on up to the civilized nation, consolidated enough to hold together for 

 a thousand years or more. Simultaneously comes increasing definitene$s. 

 Social organization is at first vague: advance brings settled arrangements 

 which grow slowly more precise: customs pass into laws which, while gaming 

 fixity, alSO beOTrne 1 hi6re specific in their applications to vpn'pHes of arHons; 

 and all institutions, at first confusedly intermingled, slowly separate, at the 

 same time that each within itself marks off more distinctly its component 

 structures. Thus in all respects is fulfilled the formula of evolution. There 

 , greater size, coherence, multiformity, and definiteness. 1 



The sociological unit, corresponding to the cell in biological 

 evolution, is primitive man with certain qualities, physical, 

 emotional and intellectual; 2 yet other unities are given promi- 

 nence as the primitive horde, 3 later the family, 4 and finally the 

 sovereign group or nation. 5 



Men thus endowed form the internal or intrinsic factors in the 

 social process but this process is determined by the extrinsic 

 factors, climate, surface, flora, fauna and their interaction 6 and 

 by the super-organic environment of each group, made up of 

 other groups. 7 



Very little attention is given by our author to an analysis of the 

 social process, 8 his chief purpose being to show that it corre- 

 sponds tr^fiT^lntirm ir general so is considered to be almost 



1 Sociology, i, pp. 596, 597. 



2 Ibid., p. 9, also p. 437. Cf. Earth's criticism, op. cit., p. 100. 



3 Sociology, pp. 464 f ., 550. Cf. Laws of Univ. Prog., p. 399. 



4 Sociology, pp. 437, 711. 6 Ibid., i, p. 9, ch. III. 



5 Ibid., p. 603; ii, pp. 569 f. 7 Ibid., p. 12. 

 8 Cf. Social Statics, pp. 77 ff., Sociology, iii, p. 609. 



