OF SOCIETY. 



525 



(positivist) theory of Spencer. The former is adopted 

 not as a theory of how society originated but as a 

 theory of what society must be : an organisation based 

 upon justice ; and this must ultimately be of the nature 

 of a contract, a conscious acceptance of a fair and just 

 system of distribution. The latter, the biological view, 

 is developed beyond the conceptions of Spencer into 

 that of the higher organism.^ 



etait celle du passe ; mais d'abord 

 il faub voir la uue critique iudirecte 

 du present ; tout en parlant beau- 

 coup des ' sauvages,' les ecrivains 

 d'alors se preoccupaieut surtout des 

 generations k venir et de la civilisa- 

 tion future"' (p. 6). 



^ " En resume, on pent et on doit 

 adinettre que la societe est uu vaste 

 organisme physiologique sans ad- 

 mettre pour cela qu'elle soit une 

 vaste individualite psychologique. 

 Nous proposons done de reconnaitre 

 trois sortes d'organismes : les uns 

 ou la conscience est a la fois confuse 

 et dispersee, comtne les zoopliytes 

 et les anneles ; les autres ou elle 

 est claire et centralisee, comme les 

 vertebres superieurs ; les autres oil 

 elle est claire et dispersee, comme 

 les societds humaines. Dans le 

 premier genre d'organisme, la con- 

 science reflechie et le moi n'existent 

 encore nuUe part ; dans le second, 

 les elements u'ont pas de moi, mais 

 I'organisme en a un ; dans le 

 troisieme, les elements ont un moi, 

 et, par cela meme I'organisme n'en 

 peut avoir ; il ne pent plus exister 

 la enti'e les consciences qu'une unite 

 d'objec et de but, non une unite de 

 sujet ; car ce sont precisemenb de 

 sujets multiples qui, se conuaissant 

 eux-memes et connaissant les autres, 

 s'associent avec reflexion etliberte " 

 {loo. cit., pp. 245-6). Dr Barth has 

 (loc. cit., p. 156) criticised Fouillee's 

 doctrine of the social organism with 

 much appreciation, but considers 

 that Fouillee has not drawn the full 



and valuable conclusions which his 

 original premises involve. He has, 

 in fact, not got sufficiently heyond 

 the Speucerian point of view ; 

 maintaining that the conscious 

 principle in society is diffused 

 among the members, he has de- 

 prived the ensemble of such members 

 of an independent mental existence. 

 This, applied to practical sociology, 

 means that in the ultimate or ideal 

 state of society there would exist 

 only private (contractual) but no 

 public law or right. "He recog- 

 nises for the future, like Spencer 

 and other social philosophers, no 

 other voluntary activity of the 

 members than that of contract. 

 They all seem to have in their 

 mind the state of things in which 

 only one command exists : keep 

 your contract — in which there 

 remains only private law and in 

 which all public law is abolished. 

 This would be the absence of a 

 state, the ideal anarchy, of which 

 Proudhon and others dreamed : 

 certainly it would ultimately be so 

 if all and every inequality was 

 removed. ... So long, however, 

 as differences of thinking and will- 

 ing exist — and these will probably 

 never disappear — so long also those 

 who are strong of mind and will 

 will rule over the weaker ones, and 

 that, indeed, in the real interest of 

 the latter. . . . Hence, as Wundt 

 says, ideal anarchism is a psycho- 

 logically and morally impossible 

 order of things." 



