PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIOLOGY. 819 



society and the animal organism. The utility of this biological 

 analogy has rightly been called in question. The particular resem- 

 blances traced by Mr. Spencer between a society and a living body 

 are these: both grow and increase in size; while they increase in 

 size they increase in structure; increase in structure is accompanied 

 by progressive differentiation of functions; and differentiation of 

 functions leads to mutual interdependence of the parts. Further- 

 more, in the case both of a society and of a living body the lives of 

 the units continue for some time if the life of the aggregate is sud- 

 denly arrested; while if the aggregate is not suddenly destroyed by 

 violence its life greatly exceeds in duration the lives of its units. 

 Since, therefore, the permanent relations among the parts of a society 

 are analogous to the permanent relations among the parts of an 

 organism, society is to be regarded as an organism. 



Now the trouble with this clever analogy is that it breaks down 

 completely when the comparison is carried beyond a certain point. 

 Mr. Spencer himself notices some differences between the social body 

 and the animal body, but declares that they are not of such funda- 

 mental character as to weaken the force of his analogy. One of these 

 differences, however, can not be so lightly dismissed. If we com- 

 pare a high type of animal organism with a high type of society, this 

 striking unlikeness is discovered. In the former there is but one 

 center of consciousness; in the latter there are many. " In the one," 

 to quote Mr. Spencer's own words, " consciousness is concentrated in 

 a small part of the aggregate. In the other it is diffused throughout 

 the aggregate." The animal body has one brain, one center of 

 thought, feeling, and life; the social body has numberless such 

 centers. 



When we go back and compare the course of development in 

 the two cases the difference noted comes into even greater prominence. 

 The evolution of animal life is characterized by progressive centraliza- 

 tion, the evolution of social life by progressive decentralization. In 

 the lowest form of animal, the amoeba, there is no single center of 

 life. The life is in all the parts; reproduction takes place simply by 

 division. But with each successive advance above this lowest form 

 there is developed more and more definitely a single center of con- 

 sciousness. One part becomes distinctly differentiated as the sole 

 seat of life. If that part is destroyed, the organism dies. Thus, 

 " animal development has meant a concentration of the more impor- 

 tant nervous elements and a merging of their separate activity in the 

 common activity of a single consciousness." * 



The law of progress is quite the reverse in social development. 

 At a primitive stage there is a marked subjection of the individual 



* Fairbanks. Introduction to Sociology, p. 44. 



