Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/335

 284 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899

the cells of which it is composed. Now, whoever applies to soci- ology the results of biologic and anthropologic science, as reorgan- ized by Darwin, must necessarily consider the social aggregate as an eminently utilitarian institution, intended to secure the wel- fare and defense of the individual against untoward influences from without. Hence, of two species, one of which is socially or- ganized and the other not, the former has a much greater chance of winning in the struggle for existence ; hence, also, in the course of time only the socially organized species survive, while the others, by a fatal law, perish ; in this way social organization becomes the universal law of beings. But while in the lower spe- cies the social organization is limited to a simple mechanical aggregation of undifferentiated individuals, and while in the somewhat higher species this is complicated by a certain differen- tiation of functions, in the highest species, man, society presents a most pronounced differentiation of functions and individuals, inasmuch as, through a wise division of occupations, society in the end assigns to each individual that special function to which he is best adapted — it puts the right man in the right place.

When one considers a great number of individuals from the point of view of intellectual capacity, he will presently discover that they are arranged according to the well-known binomial law — those of the highest intellect, the geniuses, are few in number ; those between genius and medium intelligence are in greater number ; those of medium intelligence comprise the largest num- ber of individuals ; those whose intelligence is less than medium are the fewer in number the lower their intellectual level ; finally, the lowest grade, the cretins, are about equal in number to the geniuses. Now, human society cannot progress, cannot triumph in the conflict with rival societies and with nature, unless the function and social position of- each of its members be adapted to his intellectual status ; hence a sound social organization re- quires that the best positions be assigned to the best men and the inferior positions to inferior men ; while of course it is highly

�� �