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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 515. 



pathy, or natural brotherhood, theories, 

 which later on are borrowed, adapted and 

 generalized by the great humanitarian 

 religions, like Buddhism and Christianity. 

 Suggested by societies of congenial spirits 

 we have the eonsciousness-of-kind theories, 

 voiced in the proverb that 'birds of a 

 feather flock together,' in the saying of 

 Empedocles that 'like desires like,' in the 

 word of Eeclesiasticus that 'all flesh con- 

 sorteth according to kind, and a man 

 will cleave to his like.' From approba- 

 tional societies have come our natural- 

 justice theories. From despotic societies 

 have come our political-sovereignty theories 

 that 'might makes right,' in the sense 

 of creating law and order. From au- 

 thoritative societies have come theories 

 of the divine right of kings; from con- 

 spirital societies have come Machiavelian 

 theories of the inevitableness of intrigue 

 and conspiracy; and from societies long 

 used to deliberative assemblies, to charters 

 of liberty and bills of rights, have come the 

 social-covenant or contract theories of 

 tlobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Finally, 

 from societies that have attained the 

 heights of civilization have come the 

 Utopian theories, from Plato until now. 



Whatever the kind or type of the so- 

 ciety, there are found in it four great 

 classes or groupings of facts. 



Every society presupposes a certain 

 number of concrete living individuals. The 

 basis of every society, therefore, is a popu- 

 lation. Every social population offers for 

 observation phenomena of aggregation, or 

 distribution of density ; phenomena of com- 

 position, by age, sex and race ; and phe- 

 nomena of amalgamation or tinity. 



The social life, however, as we have seen, 

 is a phenomenon of mind, and the varied 

 modes that the common activity and inter- 

 play of minds assume, present the second 

 great class of social facts. These facts of 



the social mind, as we may call them, in- 

 clude the phenomena of stimulation and 

 response in their generic forms; phenomena 

 of resemblances and differences, that is to 

 say, of types; phenomena of the conscious- 

 ness of kind; and phenomena of concerted 

 volition. 



The common mental activity, taking 

 habitual forms, creates permanent social 

 relationships, that is to say, a more or less 

 complex social organization. In this we 

 meet the third great class of social facts. 

 Two general forms may be observed. In 

 one form, individuals dwell together in 

 groups that, by coalescence and federation, 

 compose the great compound societies. 

 These groups collectively may be called the 

 social composition. In the other form, 

 individuals, with more or less disregard 

 of residence, combine in associations to 

 achieve specific ends. Such associations 

 collectively represent the social division of 

 labor, and, therefore, may be called the 

 social constitution. In its entirety and in 

 its subdivisions the social organization is 

 of one or another type, according as it is 

 on the whole coercive, or on the whole 

 liberal, in character. 



The fourth class of social facts pertains 

 to the great end, to the attainment of which 

 the social organization is a means. That 

 end is the social welfare. The social wel- 

 fare is seen in its most general form in 

 certain public utilities, including security, 

 justice and liberty, material prosperity and 

 popular culture. It is seen finally in the 

 type of personality that the social life 

 creates, and which must be studied as vital- 

 ity, mentality, morality and sociality. 



Not every society individually considered 

 survives long enough to pass through all 

 the possible stages of social evolution, but 

 society in the aggregate, and in historic 

 continuity, displays to us four distinguish- 

 able stages of evolutionary advance. There 

 is, first, the stage of zoogenic association, 



