Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/411

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 397

nomic forms which, among other things, are considered by him,, and with reason, as fundamentals. Others, with still more rash- ness, extend the principle to the entire social organization.

We shall have to examine this hypothesis. Let us say, how- ever, at present that, even from the economic point of view, the superiority of complexity and of malleability which characterizes the social organisms does not permit us to predict what would be the limits of their variations and of their material or social development. At most we are able to assign to their develop- ment some limits from the point of view of extension in space, but not at all from the intensive point of view. However, we shall have to take account of the biological data in this connec- tion ; for although the social types may be less inflexible than the specific types of organisms in general, the laws of social structure and growth have in biology partly their point of departure and their primary philosophy, of which the sociologi- cal philosophy is but the extension to special and more complex cases, requiring partly a new interpretation.

Let us therefore indicate briefly these biological limits of structure and growth among organisms generally, in order that we may not lose sight of their total or partial applicability, pos- sible or not, to the structure and growth of societies.

Organisms are altogether limited in space and time. Not only do they attain only to certain dimensions, but they likewise live only a certain length of time. Many animals man, for example reach their normal size long before their natural death. Everywhere organisms attain a maximum of size which is never exceeded. We shall see later that the number of organisms of each species, and especially of the human species, is limited by the very conditions of the social structure.

What is the cause of this structural limitation? Is it an exterior or interior obstacle? This problem in its more simple terms is one of those which bring up that more complex problem of the social frontiers. How is it settled by the biologists?

They explain it first by a general law of mathematics and physics. There is a constant relation between the increase of mass of all bodies and that of their surfaces. This law applies