94 The Study of Animal Life part i 



their conceptions of an " organism " as sociologists do in 

 regard to " society." 



It may be questioned, however, whether we need any 

 other designation for society than the word society sup- 

 plies, and whether the biological metaphor, with physical 

 associations still clinging to it, is not more illusory than help- 

 ful. For the true analogy is not between society and an 

 individual organism, but between human ■ society and those 

 incipient societies which were before man was. Human 

 society is, or ought to be, an integrate — a spiritual integrate 

 — of organisms, of which the bee-hive and the ants' nest, 

 the community of beavers and the company of monkeys, 

 are like far-off prophecies. And in these, as in our own 

 societies, the modern conception of heredity leads us to 

 recognise that there is a very real unity even between 

 members physically discontinuous. 



The peculiarity of human society, as distinguished from 

 animal societies, depends mainly on the fact that man is a 

 social person, and knows himself as such. Man is the realis- 

 ation of antecedent societies, and it is man's realisation of 

 himself as a social person which makes human society what 

 it is, and gives us a promise of what it will be. As bio- 

 logists, and perhaps as philosophers, we are led to conclude 

 that man is determined by that whole of which he is a 

 part, and yet that his life is social freedom ; that society is 

 the means of his development, and at the same time its 

 end ; that man has to some extent realised himself in society, 

 and that society has been to some extent realised in man. 



But I am slow to suppose that we, who in our ignorance 

 and lack of coherence are like the humbler cells of a great 

 body, have any adequate conception of the social organism 

 of which we form part. 



II. Conclusions. — I would in the main agree with 

 Kropotkine that " sociability is as much a law of nature as 

 mutual struggle " ; with Espinas that " Le milieu social est 

 la condition n^cessaire de la conservation et du renouvelle- 

 ment de la vie " ; and with Rousseau that " man did not 

 make society, but society made man." 



