THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 1 45 



It must secure inner cohesion and strength in accordance with 

 the principles elaborated by Durkheim et al., and must have as its 

 ideal that function in the larger whole for which it is adapted. 

 It must, too, not only find its place but make its place by seeing a 

 social need as yet unrealized by others. 



Further Development of the Organic Concept 



In the use of the organic concept as applied to society, we have 

 noted development along several fines. First, from the vague- 

 ness of the concept of society as used by Comte and Schaffle, 

 through the nationalism of most of the German school, to the 

 variable definiteness of the concept as used by Durkheim; i. e., 

 with him any social group or unity becomes a society under 

 certain conditions. 1 It is well to note in passing that others con- 

 sider society, not as an object or unity, but rather as a process. 2 



A second line of development is in the conception of the kind or 

 grade of organism to which society is analogous. Spencer held that 

 society could be compared only to the lowest forms of biological 

 organisms but today, with increasing emphasis on the psychical, 

 the tendency is to compare it to the most highly-developed person- 

 ality, endowed with self-consciousness and intelligent, purposeful 

 volition. 3 With this has come, too, for the most part, emphasis 

 on centralized government, the analogue of the ever increasing 

 power of the central nervous system in biological organisms. 



A third fine has been in a change of emphasis from analysis of 

 the structure of the organism as with Spencer, through that of 

 function as with Schaffle, to an analysis of social consciousness as 

 with Durkheim, and of the laws of social and socio-psychical 

 development as with the authors we are about to consider. 



Before passing to a discussion of this last phase, which carries 

 us beyond the organicists, we must consider briefly some further 

 developments of the concept of social consciousness. 



1 Cf. Boodin, American Journal of Sociology, xix, p. 37. 



2 For an illuminating discussion of the theories of society as held by German 

 sociologists, cf. Jacobs, German Sociology, pp. 31 f. Ellwood, Sociology in its 

 Psychological Aspects, pp. 382-395- Boodin, op. cit., p. 21. 



3 Boodin, op. cit., pp. 37 f. Deploige, op. cit., p. 161. 



