Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/491

Rh c) The increase in internal heterogeneity is determined by the continuous increase of heterogeneity in the environment (physical and psychical).

d) The increase of heterogeneity in the environment is determined by the successive integration of communities into more and more complex and coherent aggregates.

3. Conclusion. The results of the evolutionary conception of society since Comte are in general:

a) Greater definiteness; a clearer conviction as to the mutual reaction of physical and psychical forces.

b) A fuller appreciation of the universality of law, even among the most complex phenomena.

c) A working hypothesis which may be made the basis of practical attempts either to bring social efforts into harmony with immutable forces, or by conscious plan to recombine and modify natural tendencies.

VI.

The analogies between society and an individual organism have been pointed out by many philosophers from Plato and Thucydides to Hobbes, Hegel and Comte. The rapid development of biology during the present century has unquestionably stimulated thought about this conception. Spencer has made