Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/90

 78 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

rights. The rights he may possess are attained by him through social service. It is through society that he acquires whatever rights he may claim. There was more sociological truth than cynicism in the reply of the French judge to a prisoner who excused his crime on the plea that " a man must live." " Pardon me," came the rejoinder, "but I don't see the necessity." The inalienable rights of the individual are nil excepting in so far as society may grant them. The individual pure and simple, der Mensch iiberhaupt, is a fiction. All which tends to survive is an organized whole of interacting parts.

The basis of sociality and the material of the science of sociology are therefore found in the interaction of parts which constitute a more or less organized whole. The organized whole, or society, is not something different from the inter- acting parts ; the interacting parts are the society. The social is not the product of the interaction ; it is the interaction. Each part is a partner or socius or Theilnehmer, the service or sociality of one part being complementary to the service of the other parts. Thus the social is reciprocal service. The social arises when the Nebeneinander becomes the Miteinander, when the anatomical becomes the physiological. The sociality con- sists in the correlated, co-ordinated activity of the integrated parts. Sociality is conduct, service rendered, not a conscious- ness of kind nor a feeling of sympathy, excepting in so far as they may be useful for the conduct of the parts.

Pitting the individual against society is an instance of crude sociological thought. Its ambiguity is at once manifest when one remembers that society does not exist as something sepa- rate from the integrated functions of the parts. It may be said that in the long run only those parts are allowed to exist which contribute to the social or organic welfare. The case in which possibly an individual may be pitted against the society is when the function of a part is prejudicial to organic survival. Such conduct is manifestly suicidal and, comparatively speaking, non- transmissible. It is, however, still a matter of sociality in that it is the service rendered by a part in an organized whole. It is, however, to be classed in what may be termed pathological as