THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 127 
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. 
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.” ? 
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. It is thus a very 
elastic term. The one thing Schiéffle 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.‘ 
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. 
8 [bid., Introduction, esp. pp. 6, 7; cf. i, pp. 316 f.; ii, pp. 464 f.; cf. Jacobs, 
German Sociology, pp. 18 £. 
4 Bau und Leben, i, p. 203; ii, pp. 203 f. 
