The Nature of Society 59 



forces creating social unity rather than upon 

 the biological forces that engender conflict. 



I. Darwinism and Sociology 



Not only is our sociology inadequate, it is 

 so warped by inharmonious development as to 

 be sometimes misleading or even practically 

 false. Social thinking, so far at least as it 

 claims scientific standing, has arisen as a side 

 issue from biology. The evolution of plant 

 and animal life, viewed in the light of the 

 Darwinian theory — with the emphasis placed 

 on the natural struggle and the survival of 

 the fittest in that struggle — has been made the 

 basis of recent attempts to understand social 

 evolution. It has therefore come about, as we 

 have seen, that society has been viewed as a 

 struggle of individuals in the market for su- 

 premacy and survival through the ownership 

 of property; and this view, abstracted from a 

 passing phase of economic history, has been 

 considered an inherently just system resting 

 on unchangeable biologic law. Or, again, 

 social evolution has been viewed as a struggle 

 of groups, states, or races for supremacy, and 

 the principle of the survival of the fittest has 

 been called upon to pronounce its benediction 



