■n, xvm.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, 209 



foregoing discussion has bronglit out one point of funda- 

 mental importance, in which the development of social life 

 agrees with the development of organic life : both are con- 

 tinuous processes of adjustment or equilibration. But in all 

 this there is nothing more than might have been anticipated. 

 Since the phenomena of society are really but the phe- 

 nomena of life, specialized by the addition of new groups of 

 circumstances ; we must expect to find that the law of social 

 evolution will be identical with the law of organic evolution, 

 save only that it will require an all-important additional 

 clause to express the results of the action of the superadded 

 circumstances. Let us then seek to ascertain definitely, — 

 first, in what respects the two kinds of evolution agree, and 

 secondly, in what respects they differ. 



In the first place the evolution of society, no less than the 

 evolution of life, conforms to that universal law of evolution 

 discovered by Mr. Spencer, and illustrated at length in earlier 

 chapters. The brief survey just taken shows us that social 

 progress consists primarily in the integration of small and 

 simple communities into larger communities that are of higher 

 and higher orders of composition ; and in the more and more 

 complete subordination of the psychical forces which tend to 

 maintain isolation, to the psychical forces which tend to main- 

 tain aggregation. In these respects the prime features of social 

 progress are the prime features of evolution in general. 



In the second place, tlie progress of society exhibits those 

 secondary features of differentiation and integration which 

 evolution universally exhibits. The advance from indefinite 

 .omogeneity to definite heterogeneity in structure and 

 function is a leading characteristic of social progress. On 

 considering primitive societies, we find them affected by no 

 lauses of heterogeneity except those resulting from the 

 establishment of the various family relationships. As Sir 

 3enry Maine has shown, in early times the family and not 

 nhe individual was the social unit. In the absence of any- 



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