Evolution of Society. 217 



tion for and as a constant accompaniment of the study of 

 Sociology, under the guidance of the evolutionary philoso- 

 phy, not simply because Biology only can explain and en- 

 able us to understand the units that in association make up 

 the aggregate called. Society ; but also because biological 

 principles seem to be in many cases the only principles 

 by which society as a whole can be reduced to a system and 

 understood. Treating society as a growth, or organism, 

 Evolution undertakes to explain what has otherwise been 

 considered inexplicable, as not reduceable to any system of 

 change, increase or diminishment, largely because of the 

 supposed omnipotence and certain divergences of the human 

 will in action. Evolution recognizes that the individual 

 will has for its domain only an area in many respects nar- 

 row, and in all respects bounded by well defined limits. 

 And it recognizes further, that both individual men and all 

 societies made up of them, live and move and have their 

 being within a surrounding envelope or environment hav- 

 ing many of the qualities of a mechanical matrix, or mould, 

 — especially those qualities which act as barriers to resist 

 the flow of the freest and most molten human purpose, — 

 and also some of the powers of a living womb capable of 

 producing organic life. 



At the very threshold, Evolution asks : What is Society ? 

 And answers, that it is a living organism, or super-organism, 

 and not a mere mechanical aggregation ; a lasting, and not 

 a temporary arrangement ; capable of maintenance for gen- 

 erations and centuries as an organized whole, while many 

 times over the individual units composing it have been born 

 and died out of it, without disintegration or substantial 

 change of the whole.* 



Evolution finds no difficulty in holding, on self-evident 

 grounds, that society is not an inorganic structure, — seeing, 

 for one thing, that it is composed of living units. That 

 society, however, is an organism, composed of parts having 

 permanent relations analogous to those existing among the 

 parts of a living body, does not at once appear to the stu- 

 dent. Some inorganic aggregates, as crystals, seem to grow ; 

 but living bodies and societies exhibit increase of bulk, 

 alike, until they are overwhelmed or deprived of the neces- 

 sary elements of growth. Alike, living bodies and societies, 

 while increasing in bulk, from the beginning of the embry- 



* Principles of Sociology. Vol. I., Part II., Chap. II. 



