Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/620

 600 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

individual and the state. This point of view is incomplete. It neglects the inorganic and organic factors which enter into the texture of societies. It creates an antinomy which really does not exist between one of the constitutive elements of society and society itself. It does not take into consideration the characteristics which distinguish societies from individuals, and especially that societies, by the mere fact of their aggregation, are endowed with properties which are possessed neither by individuals nor even by simple collections of individuals. We have noted the principal of these distinctive characteristics, contractualism. Herbert Spencer has therefore not escaped the reefs where Auguste Comte himself was stranded. The former is not successful in proving the legitimacy of the organization of sociology. In fact, very logically from his inexact point of view, namely, the addition of units of the same nature, he is able to discover only the quantitative differences between the indi- vidual and society. And, while calling society a superorganism, he nevertheless places himself in contradiction to the very definition of organism given above, viz., a substance may be called organized when it is composed of more or less numerous simple elements, belonging to at least three distinct groups or classes, and united by special combination and reciprocal disso- lution. A begonia leaf will reproduce the begonia. A large crystal will be composed of little similar crystals. But ten, one hundred, or more human units are by themselves alone incapa- ble of forming a society, without forming among themselves a combination into which there also necessarily enter inorganic, organic, and psychic elements.

Every social aggregate, as a whole, may be increased or diminished : (a) by the increase or diminution of the human units which compose it ; by the increase or diminution of its mesological elements ; [c] by the increase or diminution of these two factors combined, that is to say, by the increase or reduction of the social mass itself, of society.

Reduction of these conditions may even result in the sup- pression of the aggregate. This is the case with Jews, the American Indians, etc. They no longer form a special society.