Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/159

Rh greatly furthers combined action. From the beginning, therefore, this kind of social coöperation is a conscious coöperation, and a coöperation which is not wholly a matter of choice—is often much at variance with private wishes. As the organization initiated by it develops, we see that, in the first place, the fighting division of the society displays in a more marked degree these same traits; the grades and divisions constituting an army coöperate more and more under a regulation, consciously established, of agencies which override individual volitions—or, to speak strictly, control individuals by motives which prevent them from acting as they would spontaneously act. In the second place, we see that, throughout the society as a whole, there spreads a kindred form of organization—kindred in so far that, for the purpose of maintaining the militant organization and the government which directs it, there are similarly established over citizens agencies which force them to labor more or less largely for public ends instead of private ends. And, simultaneously, there develops a further organization, still akin in its fundamental principle, which restrains individual activities in such wise that social safety shall not be endangered by the disorder consequent on unchecked pursuit of personal ends. So that this kind of social organization is distinguished from the other, as arising through conscious pursuit of public ends, in furtherance of which individual wills are constrained, first of all by the joint wills of the entire group, and afterward more definitely by the will of a regulative agency which the group evolves.

Most clearly shall we perceive the contrast between these two kinds of organization on observing that, while they are both instrumental to social welfare, they are instrumental in converse ways. That organization shown us by the division of labor for industrial purposes exhibits combined action; but it is a combined action which directly seeks and subserves the welfares of individuals, and indirectly subserves the welfare of society as a whole by preserving individuals. Conversely, that kind of organization evolved for governmental and defensive purposes exhibits combined action; but it is a combined action which directly seeks and subserves the welfare of the society as a whole, and indirectly subserves the welfares of individuals by preserving the society. Efforts for self-preservation by the units originate the one form of organization; while efforts for self-preservation by the aggregate originate the other form of organization. In the one case there is conscious pursuit of private ends only; and the correlative organization resulting from this pursuit of private ends, growing up unconsciously, is without coercive power. In the other case there is conscious pursuit of public ends; and the correlative organization, consciously established, exercises coercion.

Of these two kinds of coöperation and the structures effecting them, we are here concerned only with one. Political organization is to be understood as that part of social organization which consciously carries