124 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
the family; (2) he calls attention more than Spencer to the 
apparatus for the defence of the social body, and (3) he empha- 
sizes the nature of the spiritual life of society and its media of 
expression and development. 
-As to the social process, our author goes beyond his predeces- 
sors in his discussion of the decline of social bodies, — the problem 
of mal-adaptation, — even to destruction, making some use of the 
terms evolution, transvolution and involution to describe the 
cycle of growth and decay. He goes further, too, in his distinc- 
tion between types and stages of development. By the former he 
has in mind ethnological distinctions corresponding roughly to 
animal species, but characterized not only by physiological but 
also by mental and social differences; by the latter he has in 
mind various social groupings which he considers to represent 
stages of development.? Barth holds that he has not extended 
in any marked degree the social theories of his predecessors.? 
The careful reader of Schiaffle, however, cannot fail to note a dif- 
ferent atmosphere and an emphasis not found in Spencer on 
the psychical character of the “ social body ” and on purposive 
action. 
Small characterizes the difference between these two authors as 
follows: ‘‘ Spencer’s analysis affects one more like the disentan- 
gling of a mechanical puzzle, while there is more of the atmosphere 
of actual life in Schéffle’s description of the social body. The 
difference as I see it reduces to this: Spencer does not succeed in 
making his interpretation of society picture it as more than an 
organism of mechanism, Schaffle’s central conception of society is 
an organization of work.” * I should add, “ directed by pur- 
posive intelligence.” § 
1 Op. cit., pp. 138 f. 
? Barth, p. 141, gives as Schaffle’s classification the following: (i) Vélkerschaft, 
(ii) standische oder feudale Gesellschaft, (iii) biirgergemeinschaftliche Polis, (iv) 
Landesgemeinwesen, (v) Nationalgemeinwesen. 
3 “ So finden wir, bei Schiffle kein principielle Hinausgehen iiber Spencer. . . . 
Es ist ihm aber nicht bewusst geworden, das damit die Gesetzmassigkeit des tier- 
ischen Lebens, die biologische, verlassen wird, und eine ganz neue an ihre Stelle 
tritt,” —ibid., p. 145. 4 General Sociology, p. 167. 
5 “Der sociale Kérper wirkt und lebte zwar durch Krafte der anorganischen 
und der organischen Natur aber er beherrscht diese Krafte geistig und verwerthet sie 
