THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 143 
consciousness of supplementary difference. The result of this 
process has been ever increasing organic solidarity in societies. 
One of the strongest proofs of his position he finds in the de- 
crease of mechanical solidarity and increase of organic solidarity 
as revealed in the decrease of repressive rights and criminal laws 
and increase of co-operative rights and laws.! 
The social ideal is a society where the division of labor produces 
such a condition that social inequalities express natural inequali- 
ties. Under such xormal conditions we have the greatest possible 
individual and social well-being. 
The only cause which determines the manner by which work is divided is 
diversity of capacity. By reason of this the division is made on this basis. 
Thus there is realized of itself a harmony between the constitution of each 
individual and his condition. One may say that this is not always sufficient 
to content men; that there are those whose desires exceed their abilities. It 
is true but such cases are exceptions not the rule. Normally man finds happi- 
ness in filling his natural place in society; his needs are in correspondence 
with his means. Thus in the organism each organ claims only that amount 
of aliment proportionate to its dignity? 
Most, I think, would say that this was the ideal rather than the 
normally actual. But even as an ideal it is suggestive, and as the 
disparity between the actual and the ideal is the background for 
individual and social telic endeavor, we have in this condition the 
chief sphere for the process of active as against passive adapta- 
tion. And indeed Durkheim recognizes this but considers as 
normal what we should term ideal and as abnormal what statis- 
tics by use of a frequency curve would doubtless show to be 
normal. He seems to have been misled by Comte’s theory of 
society as a developing personality, by the general organic 
analogy and by Galton’s theory of natural ability. The law of 
adaptation does not work so rigidly in social evolution at present 
as to bring about the survival of those societies only where divi- 
sion of labor is based on natural capacity to the degree assumed 
by our author. Indeed, as we have seen, we have no data avail- 
able which afford proof of such differences in ability as assumed 
by Galton and Durkheim. 
1 Dela Division du Travail Social, ch. V. 2 Ibid., pp. 421, 422. 
