Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/517

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 497

regular relations which are established between the divers par- ticular societies tend to the establishment of a vast, world-wide internationality, that contractualism becomes at a certain point the principal connective bond between the divers members of the humanitarian superorganism. Not only is contractualism the basis of the system of political federations and confedera- tions, but it will be especially prominent in the economic federa- tions and confederations of the future. It is the process par excellence of collective co-operation, which is the positive aspect of the division of social labor. In fact, this division of labor is applicable, not only to individuals, but also to the social forms in which they are incorporated.

Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer have observed in an imperfect manner the essential characteristic of societies. According to the former, this characteristic is that they are conscious. Herbert Spencer explained this fact by saying that they are conscious because the units composing social bodies that is to say, men are conscious. But these are only analo- gies with organisms rather than differences ; at most, they are only quantitative differences. Societies are more conscious than organisms, but by what property, by what new force, does this superior degree of consciousness manifest itself ? Our response is : By the contractual force or property.

Accordingly, by virtue of the principle that the distinctive characteristics of divers orders of phenomena are clearly appar- ent, especially in the highest forms of the phenomena, although they appear in the lowest, we can proclaim that contractualism constitutes the distinguishing characteristic of society, both from the structural and the functional point of view ; it is their superior and special mode of adaptation and life. In brief, it is the original characteristic which alone justifies the formation of the social sciences into distinct sciences and the organization of sociology into a general philosophy of these sciences.

This contractualism appears in all the stages of social his- tory ; it first manifested itself in the phenomena relating to rep- resentation, deliberation, and the execution of the collective will in political affairs ; today it tends to predominate even in