COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



more in detail. By instituting a novel compari- 

 son between the processes of organic and of 

 social life, we shall be led directly to the special 

 law of progress for which we are seeking. 



Observe first that the living beings which are 

 lowest, or next to the lowest, in the scale of 

 organization — as, for example, the protococcus 

 and the amoeba — are nothing but simple cells. 

 It has been shown, by Mr. Spencer, that pro- 

 gress in morphological composition, both in the 

 animal and in the vegetable kingdoms, consists 

 primarily in the union of these simple cells into 

 aggregates of higher and higher orders of com- 

 plexity. Now in the study of social evolution 

 we are met by precisely similar phenomena. Let 

 us consider what is implied by the conclusions 

 at which Sir Henry Maine has arrived, in his 

 profound treatise on " Ancient Law," by an 

 elaborate inquiry into early ideas of property, 

 contract, and testamentary succession, and into 

 primitive criminal legislation. " Society in an- 

 cient times," says Sir Henry Maine, "was not 

 what it is assumed to be at present, a collection 

 of individuals} In fact, and in the view of the 

 men who composed it, it was an aggregation of 



^ [In chapter ix. of Part III. of his Principles of Sociology y 

 Spencer criticises the theory of Maine at length, and under- 

 takes to show its limitations. Fiske would probably have been 

 led to modifications of his views had this chapter been before 

 him.] 



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