Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/619

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 599

ture, we find that this mal-equilibrium is counterbalanced by a wearing out of the tissues, a drain upon the working force, and that this deplorable, regressive equilibration reacts upon the whole social structure, that is to say, upon the reciprocal situa- tion of each of the component parts, affecting all the individu- als as well as all material wealth and society in general.

Then, so far, the characteristics recognized in every aggre- gate as a whole are : a combination of different elements, of properties which are different, but universal, and in this sense homogeneous ; continuity ; the union of all the parts to each other; their union or correlation with the whole; constant equilibration.

Every society, however simple or complicated it may be, involves at least an organization of this nature. Every society is a superorganism because it is produced by several factors combined, whose combination gives rise to properties of an origi- nal character, at least partially different from the properties of the constitutive factors.

According to Herbert Spencer, the character of every social structure will be determined in all particulars by the nature of the component units. He brings to the support of this principle examples borrowed from physics, chemistry, and biology. Thus the begonia, as a plant, is the true reproduction of a single one of its leaves, A crystal, whatever may be its mass, is similar to the little crystals which compose it. This is true, but a society is not the same thing as a zoological human being. A vast society composed of many special societies will be the reproduction of the latter on a large scale, but not a reproduction of human units, since, at least according to our view, the human units are not the only factor of society. In fact, the principle of Spencer cannot be applied to cases in which the body considered is the product of a combination of different factors. The product of such a combination is always different in part from each of the component factors.

According to Spencer, social science has for its subject the relations of the units to the aggregates, or, to express the thought in a more precise, concrete way, the relationships. of the