as its expediency is clearly recognized. As a further consequence of this, social relations become more and more definite, and the constitution of the society grows more organic in proportion as a wider insight can be obtained into the interests binding the society together.

§ 63. But human wants and interests being, as they are, of a great variety, frequently come into collision with each other in the same individual, excluding each other entirely or in part. Hence, if societies were formed on the strength of every recognized interest, their number would not only become endless, but the membership of the individuals belonging to each of them would be of a very uncertain and shifting nature. But as all interests are not of equal importance, those springing from vital wants soon become predominant, and the societies which cluster around these will be permanent, because the principal wants of men of equal culture living in the same age and within the same limits are on the whole identical. These permanent societies are naturally of greater importance, and hence, in the thorough investigation of social phenomena they have the first claim to our attention. In speaking of societies, accordingly, we may confine the expression of society preeminently to these, understanding by a society, in this sense, an association of men bound together by the tie of some permanent, recognized and vital interest. Such a society is, from its origin, at once invested with peculiar characteristics; it presents itself as an organic whole, is possessed of a distinct individuality, and runs a course of life of its

own.

§ 64. The application of the notion of organism to a society has frequently given rise to misunderstandings and mistakes: partly because, in employing the expression "organism," the mind reverts exclusively to animals of the highest order, and thus affords extremely contracted limits for explaining the idea of organism, and partly, because the notions thus engendered attached to society, and led to artificial comparisons to be accounted for only by these preconceived notions-such as this, for

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instance, that the constituent elements of society could be dissected, in the same way as those of man, into nerves, muscles, bones, tissues, vessels, and cellules. If, however, we take the notion of an organic being in its proper and general signification, and reflect, that there is an immense variety of degrees and forms of organisms, all differing from each other, and apply this idea to the connection of the elements of society so far only-but to that extent exhaustively-as may be justified by actual traceable phenomena, we may obtain perfectly correct results. For, with regard to the constitution and functions of society, its elements are also inter-dependent in such a way, that the soundness and proper functioning of each depends upon the healthiness and corresponding working of the others. Each separate part feels any change or transformation in the destiny of all the others, and the direction and result of the activity of each is mutually conditioned by the activity of all the rest, just as the circumstances of society, as a whole, are decisive as to the condition of its own constituent elements, and as the character of the latter is again conclusive as to the state of the whole society. Besides, society does not consist exclusively and immediately of individual persons, nor is it a simple compound of its ultimate elements; but persons, and the things over which they rule, unite within it into groups of various character and degree, the combinations of which groups form, in their universality, the society, and present in their turn numerous intermediate formations, from the mutual inter-action of which the organic structure of society is developed. But, just as the organic condition is of various kinds and degrees in the case of various beings-different, for instance, in the Infusoria, whose whole body is homogeneous, and whose organs are infused through every part of their structure, and different again in phanerogamic plants and in mammals, the several members of whose structure differ from each other, and who are provided with separate organs and senses for every function and task of life-so, too, is the composition of the elements of

the societies of a lower order simple, uniform, and homogeneous, whereas an advanced stage of the society alone produces groupings of its various components, which so far conform to the different definite aims and changing circumstances of life, that special and appropriate members are assigned for the various tasks, whilst a separate organ of public consciousness and public will is also developed. Finally, to continue the comparison, just as the lower classes of individual organic beings easily submit to the severance of their substance-it occasionally even grows together again after having been entirely dissevered—whilst those of a higher order are more sensitive to mutilation, suffer more from the effects of physical injuries, and frequently perish in consequence, even so may primitive and less perfect societies be divided up without difficulty into several, or several united into one, whilst those of a higher order are less able to bear more violent injuries inflicted upon them, or operations cutting more deeply into the social body.

But, even as regards nutrition and reproduction, the characteristics of organic beings may also be discovered in societies. The latter are of a more permanent nature than the individuals who enter into their formation, yet are, like these, reduced to the necessity of continually attracting new elements, and of absorbing and assimilating them. And this holds true, especially, because every effort and labour of a society produces a corresponding waste of its matter, in wearing out the vital forces of the persons composing it, a waste which must be replaced and supplied anew. Every society, again, is only able to absorb elements akin to its own substance and which it can digest, as it were, as food. An individual, whose vital interests do not fit into the sphere of those interests which bind together a given society, cannot become its member, and, if violently retained, will not contribute to the enhancement of its strength, but will rather prove an impediment to harmonious social action and an injury, just as a substance, incapable of being assimilated, finding its way into an

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organic body, proves to be poison to it. On the other hand, just as a society can in general spring up only where several subordinate societies have prepared its new life, so again can a society generally only be formed out of others of a similar nature, and its development and transition from one form into another can be effected by imperceptible stages only. In addition to this, every society-the number of whose members has grown, owing to their natural increase, so large, that all of them can find no place within it, and which, in consequence thereof, is compelled to emit swarms of emigrants, or to break up into parts, forming themselves again into independent societies-can give birth only to societies similar to itself. The several groups of a consanguineous society will, in their turn, be consanguineous societies, tribes will give rise to tribal societies, the colonies of communal states will themselves become communal states, and societies drawn from nations will, when settled in new quarters of the globe, again become nations.

§ 65. The main difference between societies and individual organic beings consists in this, that the component elements of a society are in themselves independent individualities, whilst individual organic beings cannot be so divided up, that each part taken separately can again become an individual in itself; and it is owing to this that the individuality of a society is of a different order from that of the individual man. This divergence is increased by the fact, that the consciousness and will of a society and the assertion of its individuality are not uttered through the totality of the society, as such, but can only be expressed through the agency of single individual members. Social consciousness and will can be formed from the consciousness and will of the individuals composing the society only through an abstraction; whereas, in the case of an organic separate individuality, the soul of the individual does not spring from the union of a distinct consciousness of each of its parts, but presents itself as an independent whole, corresponding with the sum of the functions of his life.

If, therefore, the individuality of a society, composed of independent individuals, is, in consequence of this difference, of a higher order than that of the natural individual, the tie binding together the constituent elements of the society is again much slighter-although no less real-there, than in the individual. For public interest, public consciousness, and public will, developed from them, are not simply the sum of the individual conceptions of the members of the society, but are accompanied by the expansion of these conceptions, containing, as they do, such elements as cannot be found in their entirety in any individual sphere of interest, and which, in the absence of the social tie, could neither have been formed nor recognized. Indeed, the individuality of natural individuals can be met with only in the more highly-developed forms of organic beings, for, in such as are of a lower order, we experience merely the presence of a vague and more general sentiency, from which arises only a disposition tending to adaptation to circumstances, whereas the capacity for clear will and consciousness can only follow the development of distinct organs and senses, the intermediaries of clear perception and thought. In societies of different levels, beginning with those spheres in which public interest and its attendant activity show themselves exclusively in the shape of the selfish aims and endeavours of some single individuals, and ending with those ideal constitutions in which the attainment of the social aim is according to the conviction of every member of the society a condition of his own prosperity, we likewise find a lesser or greater degree of ability to assert the consciousness of the entire community with regard to its situation, and to enforce its will in accordance with its circumstances.

The chief obstacle to the recognition of the individuality of a society lies in the familiar idea that, because a single person may, in exceptional cases, be able to exist independently and isolated, and frequently passes from one society to another, the preservation of the individual is independent of that of the society. This is a view still more corrobo