Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/417

 THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY 403

looked that the prolonged period of immaturity in man, besides cementing the human family group and generating altruism in an instinctive way, gives opportunity for the intellectual elements in human association to assert their influence. It is prolonged immaturity which makes education possible, and gives oppor- tunity for social tradition to mold each individual in conformity with the habits of his social group. Language could hardly be transmitted, and could not be developed and perfected without prolonged immaturity. And so with every other spiritual pos- session of humanity. Abstract thought, religion, government, and moral ideals could hardly effectively mold individual conduct or influence the social organization, were it not for the period of relatively prolonged plastic immaturity through which every indi- vidual passes. Upon this biological circumstance depend, there- fore, many of the striking features of human social life, especially the influence of intellectual elements, that is, plasticity and ulti- mately the capacity for social progress itself.

Other peculiar features of human social life, which by some are held to be so peculiar as to make human society in a class by itself and not comparable with animal groups, may now be quickly disposed of. It is said that man transforms the environ- ment while the environment transforms the animal.^ While the contrast in such absolute terms is not justifiable, yet it must be admitted that man's growing mastery over physical nature is one of the most striking facts of human social life. But it is evident that it is but an outgrowth of man's power of abstract thought together with that vast co-operation which human science and art imply. It is a secondary, then, rather than a primary differ- ence between human and animal social life. Again, the existence of a conscious social morality in human groups has been claimed to be an irreducible difference between them and animal groups. But even Aristotle perceived that this was due to the fact that human groups possess language and so social tradition, and, we may add, the power of abstract thought to form ideals. Organ- ized government is a distinctive feature of human societies, although not all possess it. But organized government undoubt-

•Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 16,