124 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



the family; * (2) he calls attention more than Spencer to the 

 apparatus for the defence of the social body, and (3) he empha- 

 sizes the nature of the spiritual Ufe of society and its media of 

 expression and development. 



As to the social process, our author goes beyond his predeces- 

 sors in his discussion of the decline of social bodies, — the problem 

 of mal-adaptation, — even to destruction, making some use of the 

 terms evolution, transvolution and involution to describe the 

 cycle of growth and decay. He goes further, too, in his distinc- 

 tion between types and stages of development. By the former he 

 has in mind ethnological distinctions corresponding roughly to 

 animal species, but characterized not only by physiological but 

 also by mental and social differences; by the latter he has in 

 mind various social groupings which he considers to represent 

 stages of development.^ Barth holds that he has not extended 

 in any marked degree the social theories of his predecessors.^ 

 The careful reader of Schaffle, however, cannot fail to note a dif- 

 ferent atmosphere and an emphasis not found in Spencer on 

 the psychical character of the " social body " and on purposive 

 action. 



Small characterizes the difference between these two authors as 

 follows: " Spencer's analysis affects one more like the disentan- 

 gling of a mechanical puzzle, while there is more of the atmosphere 

 of actual life in Schaffle's description of the social body. The 

 difference as I see it reduces to this: Spencer does not succeed in 

 making his interpretation of society picture it as more than an 

 organism of mechanism, Schaffle's central conception of society is 

 an organization of work^ * I should add, " directed by pur- 

 posive intelligence." ^ 



1 Op. ciL, pp. 138 f. 



2 Barth, p. 141, gives as Schaffle's classification the following: (i) Volkerschaft, 

 (ii) standische oder feudale Gesellschaft, (iii) biirgergemeinschaftliche Polis, (iv) 

 Landesgemeinwesen, (v) Nationalgemeinwesen. 



* " So finden wir, bei SchaflSe kein principielle Hinausgehen iiber Spencer. . . . 

 Es ist ihm aber nicht bewusst geworden, das damit die Gesetzmassigkeit des tier- 

 ischen Lebens, die biologische, verlassen wird, und eine ganz neue an ihre Stelle 

 tritt," — ibid., p. 145. ■* General Sociology, p. 167. 



* " Der sociale Korper wirkt und lebte zwar durch Krafte der anorganischen 

 und der organischen Natur aber er beherrscht diese Krafie geistig und verwerthet sie 



