Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/802

 782 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

interior of the body that the conditions of stability are formed. Each organ becomes more and more special ; each one is limited by its neighbors, and all by the whole structure. The covering ceases to be a defensive barrier or an offensive weapon ; it finally becomes one of the most delicate organs of sensibility and of relationship ; it accommodates itself everywhere to move- ments and impressions.

An analogous development may be seen taking place in social structures. That which was a barrier is transformed into means of communication, such as rivers, seas, and oceans. The bounda- ries, at first apparently little fixed, but in reality very rigid, especially in a general way, become more and more elastic; openings are made ; better communications are set up; a gen- eral level is established like that between communicating vessels ; new relations increase ; societies of societies are formed with a new internal structure in relation to a new environment, until in a future of which it is possible to catch a glimpse there may be formed one vast society including all the various particular societies in one supreme internal co-ordination the largest structure and the most complex equilibration which it is possible for the imagination to conceive. Then the social world may find its equilibration and limits ; not only in its internal organi- zation, but also in the limits themselves of the earth and its environment.

This progress takes place in proportion to the development and the differentiation of social functions and of their progres- sive co-ordination in more developed regulating centers. The problem of boundaries and limits is, then, connected with the development, the differentiation, co-ordination, of economic, genetic, artistic, scientific, moral, and juridic institutions ; the political structure, by which the collective will of society is directed through a more or less methodical organization, is the crowning of all the others. When the fundamental institutions are narrow, simple, and authoritative, the boundaries between societies are high, general, and inflexible. So religions are more exclusive than metaphysics, the latter than science and positive morality. Societies protect themselves by offensive and defensive