HERBERT SPENCER 3 1 



bility of parts and separate centers of feeling.^ He concludes, 

 however, that the similarities are so much more striking than the 

 dissimilarities that the use of the analogy is legitimate. This 

 theory is not essential to Spencer^s system as it was to Comte's, 

 and in reply to criticism he holds that the only analogy alleged is 

 community in the fundamental principles of organization. " I 

 have used the analogies elaborated but as a scaffolding to help in 

 building up a coherent body of analogical inductions. Let us take 

 away the scaffolding: the inductions will stand by themselves." ^ 

 Society, then, according to our author is a quasi-biological 

 organism. 



Spencer is more definite in his concept of the content of that 

 society which is like an organism than is Comte, yet does not face 

 the question squarely as have some later sociologists. His 

 thought is most clearly expressed where he says: " It is the per- 

 manence of the relations among component parts which con- 

 stitutes the individuality of a whole as distinguished from the 

 individuality of its parts "; and again where he defines society as 

 an entity, " because, though formed of discrete units, a certain 

 concreteness in the aggregate of them is implied by the general 

 persistence of the arrangement among them throughout the 

 territory occupied." ' This seems to imply a sovereign group, 

 and corresponds roughly to a biological species. He uses the 

 term with the same meaning also in Part III where he contrasts 

 the diverse interests of the species, of the parents and of the 

 offspring.* 



2. Social Evolution interpreted in Terms of Cosmic Evolution. — 

 Spencer, as Comte, divides sociology into social statics and social 

 dynamics but with difference in meaning. With the latter statics 

 had to do with relations of co-existence and dynamics with rela- 

 tions of sequence, corresponding roughly to social anatomy and 

 social physiology. With the former static is defined in the me- 

 chanical terms of equilibrium of forces and dynamic in those of 

 dis-equilibrium. 



^ Sociology, i, pt. 2, ch. II; also Illusirations of Universal Progress, chapter on 

 " The Social Organism." For Ward's criticism, see Am. Journ. Soc, vii, pp. 493 £F. 

 2 Sociology, i, p. 592. 

 ' Ibid., i, pp. 447, 448, * Ibid., pp. 603 f., esp. p. 610. 



