THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 1 27 



This principle of adaptation is with him the mediator between 

 the cosmic spirit and the material world-order; i. e., the spirit is 

 limited in its manifestation by bonds imposed by the material. 1 



With this glimpse into the background of his social philosophy 

 we can understand better his use of the organic concept as applied 

 to society. " At the very summit of the phenomena of life on our 

 earth," he says in the opening paragraph of his Bau und Leben, 

 " stands human society, — the social body and its private and 

 national institutions. Built up out of matter, and impelled by 

 forces of the inorganic and organic world, it is nevertheless a 

 living body of a peculiar kind. Human or civil society, a far 

 higher structure than the societies of animals, is a purely spiritual 

 result, an indivisible social life of organized individuals wrought 

 out through the force of ideas and achievements of art." 2 



It is true that Schaffle does not make it as plain as we should 

 desire just what is included in this concept " social body." In 

 the preface to Bau und Leben he quotes with seeming approval 

 Goethe, Pascal and Comte who conceived all past generations of 

 men as forming an organic whole; in some places the goal of the 

 social process includes all humanity; in other places he seems to 

 have in mind primarily the sovereign state, and again the term 

 is used as synonymous with a civilization; but his general line 

 of argument would necessitate the limitation of the term to such 

 a group as possesses real psychical unity. 3 It is thus a very 

 elastic term. The one thing Schaffle seems to be groping after 

 is a conception developed later by Le Bon and Durkheim of a 

 psychical somewhat over against the individual which moulds his 

 life, into which he is assimilated and which he in turn modifies, — 

 and this unity organized and active, expressing itself in social 

 institutions. 4 



The goal of the social process is " the coming to fulfilment " of 

 the process itself,— but this is not given definite content. With 

 increasing development comes increasing differentiation and 



1 Bau und Leben, ii, p. 31. 



2 Cf. also, i, pp. 9, 10, 12, 828, 831. 



3 Ibid., Introduction, esp. pp. 6, 7; cf. i, pp. 316 f.; ii, pp. 464 f.; cf. Jacobs, 

 German Sociology, pp. 18 f. 



4 Bau und Leben, i, p. 203; ii, pp. 203 f. 



