Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/866



having defined the social aggregate, the mass produced by the union of different substances, territory, and population, united as a whole at the moment of their formation into a combination which is neither exclusively material nor exclusively biological, but something more complex and more special, we have seen that this is an external and internal equilibrium.

Every social aggregate, like all organic matter, has a form, a structure. Its equilibrium is always unstable. Increase of mass is at once the first and most simple characteristic of its differentiation. A quantitative variation is always the origin of a qualitative variation.

Every social aggregate, whatever may be its mass, having a form, is necessarily limited. This is true even if it includes the entire planet and all peoples. In fact, social material, territory, and population, is limited. All the forces and properties of nature are likewise limited—the mathematical, mechanical, astronomical, physical, and chemical forces. Organized material is, in its turn, limited. This point is important, for organized matter corresponds directly to that super-organic matter to which we give the name "social." This should be insisted upon; not only are its properties limited, but also its form. This is true for the simplest living matter. As M. Le Dantee has set forth so well in his Traité de biologie, a very important result of the viscosity of living matter is that any mass of such matter has a form in water, whereas a freely soluble substance is gradually diffused throughout the vessel in which it is dissolved. When we see any living body, we are first of all impressed by its form, by the apparent contour of the body. We see that a constant parallelism exists between the form and the chemical nature of