HERBERT SPENCER 31 
bility of parts and separate centers of feeling. He concludes, 
however, that the similarities are so much more striking than the 
dissimilarities that the use of the analogy is legitimate. This 
theory is not essential to Spencer’s system as it was to Comte’s, 
and in reply to criticism he holds that the only analogy alleged is 
community in the fundamental principles of organization. “I 
have used the analogies elaborated but as a scaffolding to help in 
building up a coherent body of analogical inductions. Let us take 
away the scaffolding: the inductions will stand by themselves.’’? 
Society, then, according to our author is a quasi-biological 
organism. 
Spencer is more definite in his concept of the content of that 
society which is like an organism than is Comte, yet does not face 
the question squarely as have some later sociologists. His 
thought is most clearly expressed where he says: “ It is the per- 
manence of the relations among component parts which con- 
stitutes the individuality of a whole as distinguished from the 
individuality of its parts’; and again where he defines society as 
an entity, “‘ because, though formed of discrete units, a certain 
concreteness in the aggregate of them is implied by the general 
persistence of the arrangement among them throughout the 
territory occupied.” * This seems to imply a sovereign group, 
and corresponds roughly to a biological species. He uses the 
term with the same meaning also in Part III where he contrasts 
the diverse interests of the species, of the parents and of the 
offspring.‘ 
2. Social Evolution interpreted in Terms of Cosmic Evolution. — 
Spencer, as Comte, divides sociology into social statics and social 
dynamics but with difference in meaning. With the latter statics 
had to do with relations of co-existence and dynamics with rela- 
tions of sequence, corresponding roughly to social anatomy and 
social physiology. With the former static is defined in the me- 
chanical terms of equilibrium of forces and dynamic in those of 
dis-equilibrium. 
1 Sociology, i, pt. 2, ch. II; also Illustrations of Universal Progress, chapter on 
“The Social Organism.” For Ward’s criticism, see Am. Journ. Soc., vii, pp. 493 ff. 
2 Sociology, i, p. 592. 
3 Ibid., i, pp. 447, 448. 4 Ibid., pp. 603 f., esp. p. 610. 
