THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 125 
To appreciate Schaffle’s use of the organic concept as applied to 
society and especially the bearing of his teaching on our subject 
one must understand his philosophical approach. A follower of 
F. U. Lange and von Baer in his spiritual monism and so a posi- 
tivist in his treatment of social phenomena from the point of view 
of science, he nevertheless makes place for the hyper-scientific 
world of values, —the realm of the aesthetic and religious.! 
Although making large use of the work of Fechner, Helmholtz and 
Wundt in physiological psychology, he repudiates all attempts to 
identify the two orders on the material side, and lays great stress 
on the fact of teleology in the social process, asserting that this 
fact gives warrant for belief in teleology in the world-order.? 
With Nageli et al., he posits as a necessary assumption to the 
understanding of cosmic and especially of social evolution, an 
entelechy or life-force with a tendency to reach out and develop to 
ever higher forms of life.? 
A follower of Darwin in his belief in natural selection at least as 
a powerful factor in organic evolution, he shows that in animal and 
human societies the individual is not the unit of struggle but the 
group, and that group life is characterized by mutual aid He 
holds that the law of natural selection operates very differently in 
social evolution for the groups are ever enlarging, and the struggle 
is not so much for existence as for kind of existence and is also 
between social ideals and institutions.® 
technisch. Der Mechanismus, der Chemismus und das Spiel organischer Vorginge 
werden im socialen Leben zu einer zweckbewussten geistig bewegten Physik 
erhoben. ... 
“Der sociale Kérper folgt aber auch einer vdéllig eigenartigen, wenn gleich 
gesetzmissigen Entwickelung. . . . Diese Entwickelung ist die Wirkung von in 
historischem Sinn constanten Motiven und Bediirfnissen und von eben solchen 
Naturvoraussetzungen. Sie ist nicht Ablauf eines mechanischen Uhrwerks. 
Gegeniiber dem wunderbar sicheren und regelmdssigen aber noch nicht genau 
erklarbaren Verlauf der Evolutions- und ‘ Involutions’-Erscheinungen orga- 
nischer Leiber ist die sociale Entwickelung wesentlich Produkt der bewussten 
Triebe oder Beweggriinde, die in jeder Generation des Volkes leben, jedoch unter 
dem Einfluss fiihrender Geister und ihrer Ideen beharrlichen Neuerungen und 
Bereicherungen unterliegen,” of. cit., i, p. 4. Cf. also, pp. 9, 10, 12, 828, 831. 
1 Bau und Leben, i, pp. 5, 63, 66. 3 Ibid., ii, p. 20. 
2 Thid., ii, p. 23; cf. i, p. 104. 4 Ibid., ii, pp. 11, 25. 
5 Ibid., ii, pp. z, 29, 47. His theory of social development is summarized as follows 
(ii, p. 55): “Die fortschreitende Gesellschaftsbildung (Civilisation) ist das héchste 
