THE ORGANIC CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 145 
It must secure inner cohesion and strength in accordance with 
the principles elaborated by Durkheim et al., and must have as its 
ideal that function in the larger whole for which it is adapted. 
It must, too, not only find its place but make its place by seeing a 
social need as yet unrealized by others. 
FuRTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORGANIC CONCEPT 
In the use of the organic concept as applied to society, we have 
noted development along several lines. First, from the vague- 
ness of the concept of society as used by Comte and Schiffle, 
through the nationalism of most of the German school, to the 
variable definiteness of the concept as used by Durkheim; i.e., 
with him any social group or unity becomes a society under 
certain conditions.!_ It is well to note in passing that others con- 
sider society, not as an object or unity, but rather as a process.” 
A second line of development is in the conception of the kind or 
grade of organism to which societyis analogous. Spencer held that 
society could be compared only to the lowest forms of biological 
organisms but today, with increasing emphasis on the psychical, 
the tendency is to compare it to the most highly-developed person- 
ality, endowed with self-consciousness and intelligent, purposeful 
volition.2? With this has come, too, for the most part, emphasis 
on centralized government, the analogue of the ever increasing 
power of the central nervous system in biological organisms. 
A third line has been in a change of emphasis from analysis of 
the structure of the organism as with Spencer, through that of 
function as with Schiffle, to an analysis of social consciousness as 
with Durkheim, and of the laws of social and socio-psychical 
development as with the authors we are about to consider. 
Before passing to a discussion of this last phase, which carries 
us beyond the organicists, we must consider briefly some further 
developments of the concept of social consciousness. 
1 Cf. Boodin, American Journal of Sociology, xix, p. 37. 
2 For an illuminating discussion of the theories of society as held by German 
sociologists, cf. Jacobs, German Sociology, pp. 31 f. Ellwood, Sociology in its 
Psychological Aspects, pp. 382-395. Boodin, of. cit., p. 21. 
3 Boodin, of. cit., pp. 37 f. Deploige, of. czt., p. 161. 
