THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 127 



This principle of adaptation is with him the mediator between 

 the cosmic spirit and the material world-order; i. e., the spirit is 

 limited in its manifestation by bonds imposed by the material. 1 



With this glimpse into the background of his social philosophy 

 we can understand better his use of the organic concept as applied 

 to society. " At the very summit of the phenomena of life on our 

 earth," he says in the opening paragraph of his Bau und Leben, 

 " stands human society, the social body and its private and 

 national institutions. Built up out of matter, and impelled by 

 forces of the inorganic and organic world, it is nevertheless a 

 living body of a peculiar kind. Human or civil society, a far 

 higher structure than the societies of animals, is a purely spiritual 

 result, an indivisible social lif e of organized individuals wrought 

 out through the force of ideas and achievements of art." 2 



It is true that Schaffle does not make it as plain as we should 

 desire just what is included in this concept " social body." In 

 the preface to Bau und Leben he quotes with seeming approval 

 Goethe, Paschal and Comte who conceived all past generations of 

 men as forming an organic whole; in some places the goal of the 

 social process includes all humanity; in other places he seems to 

 have in mind primarily the sovereign state, and again the term 

 is used as synonymous with a civilization; but his general line 

 of argument would necessitate the limitation of the term to such 

 a group as possesses real psychical unity. 3 It is thus a very 

 elastic term. The one thing Schaffle seems to be groping after 

 is a conception developed later by Le Bon and Durkheim of a 

 psychical somewhat over against the individual which moulds his 

 life, into which he is assimilated and which he in turn modifies, 

 and this unity organized and active, expressing itself in social 

 institutions. 4 



The goal of the social process is " the coming to fulfilment " of 

 the process itself, but this is not given definite content. With 

 increasing development comes increasing differentiation and 



1 Bau und Leben, ii, p. 31. 



2 Cf. also, i, pp. 9, 10, 12, 828, 831. 



3 Ibid., Introduction, esp. pp. 6, 7; cf. i, pp. 316 .; ii, pp. 464 f.; cf. Jacobs, 

 German Sociology, pp. 18 f. 



4 Bau und Leben, i, p. 203; ii, pp. 203 f. 



