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wherein human society resembles the societies formed by the lower 
animals, the more so as no one disputes that these fall strictly 
within his province.* As the term society indeed assumes, some 
general truths must be common to societies of Formica, Apis , 
Castor , and Homo alike — to ant-hill, bee-hive, beaver-dam, and city, 
and this must therefore underlie our classification of social facts. 
§ 11. First, then, a society obviously exists within certain limits 
of time and space. Secondly, it consists of a number of living 
organisms. Thirdly, these modify surrounding nature, primarily by 
seizing part of its matter and energy. Fourthly, they apply this 
matter and energy to the maintenance of their life, i.e., the support 
of their physiological functions. 
It is here clearly to be understood that no attempt is made com- 
pletely to define a society. A society may be much more than all 
this, in which case more general truths are discoverable, but in any 
case these four generalisations are obviously true, neither hypothesis 
nor metaphysical principle being involved. These will therefore 
henceforth be termed sociological axioms. What aid can they 
afford us h 
§ 12. They enable us to classify out the facts relating to each and 
every society as follows :t — 
(A.) Those relating to the limits of (1) time and (2) space occu- 
pied by the given society. 
(B.) Those relating to the matter and energy utilised by the 
society from surrounding nature. 
(C.) Those relating to the organisms composing the society. 
(D.) Those relating to the application of the utilised matter and 
energy by the given organisms. 
* “ The Biological sciences are those which deal with the phenomena mani- 
fested by living matter ; and though it is customary and convenient to group 
apart such of these phenomena as are termed mental, and such of them as are 
exhibited by men in society under the heads of Psychology and Sociology, yet 
it must be allowed that no natural boundary separates the subject matter of 
the latter sciences from that of Biology. Psychology is inseparably linked with 
Physiology ; and the phases of social life exhibited by animals other than man, 
which sometimes curiously foreshadow human policy, fall strictly within the 
province of the biologist.” — Huxley, “Anatomy of Invertebrated Animals,” 
London, 1877, p. 1, Introduction. 
t For better agreement with the order of the sciences (see p. 301), it is con- 
venient to transpose the classes of facts derived from the second and third axioms. 
