And thus is made manifest the need for the foregoing account of the origin and development of this trait in the fsocial units, by which co-ordination of their actions is ren- dered possible.
§ 210. Setting out with social units as thus conditioned, as thus constituted physically, emotionally, and intellectually, amd as thus possessed of certain early-acquired ideas and correlative feelings, the Science of Sociology has to give an account of all the phenomena that result from their com- bined actions.
The simplest of su(^ combined actions are those by which the successiye generations of units are produced^ reared, and brought into fitness for co-operation. The developmeat of the family thus stands first in order. The respective ways in which the fostering of offspring is influenced by promiscuity, by polyandry, by polygyny, and by iSonogamy, have to be traced; as have also the results of exogamons marriage and endogamous marriage. These, considered first as affecting the maintenance of the race in number and quality, have also to be considered as affecting the domestic lives of adults. Moreover, beyond observing how the several forms of the sexual relations modify family-life, they have to be treated in connexion with public life; on which they act and which reacts on them. And then, after the sexual relations, have to be similarly dealt with the parental bjoA filial relations.
Sociology has next to describe and explain the rise and development of that political organi2sation which in several ways regpilates affairs — which combines the actions of in- dividuals for purposes of tribal or national offence and defence; which restrains them in certain of their dealings with one another; and which also restrains them in certain of their dealings with themselves. It has to trace the re- lations of this co-ordinating and controlling apparatus to the area occupied, to the amount and distribution of popu- lation, to the means of communication. It has to show the differences of form which this agency presents in the dif- ferent social types, nomadic and settled, military and in- dustrial. It has to describe the changing relations between this i*egulative structure which is unproductive, and those structures which carry on production and make national life possible. It has also to set forth the connexions be- tween, and reciprocal influences of, the institutions carrying on civil government, and the other governmental institu- tions simultaneously developing — the ecclesiastical and the ceremonial. And then it has to take account of those naodi- 458 THS DATA OF 8OCIOL0OT.
ficaticms wldch persistent political restraints are ever work- ing in the characters of the sodal nnits, as well as the modi* fications worked bj the reactions of the changed characters of the units on the political organization.
There has to be similarly described the eTolntion of the ecclesiastical strnctnres and functions. Commencing with these as united to, and often scarcely distinguishable from, the political structures and functions, their dirergent de- velopments must be traced. How the share of ecclesias- tical agencies in political actions becomes gradually less; how, reciprocally, political agencies play a decreasing part in ecclesiastical actions; are phenomena to be set forth. How the internal organization of the priesthood, differen- tiating and integrating as the society grows, stands related in typo to the co-existing organizations, political and otiier; and how changes of structure in it are connected with changes of structure in them; are also subjects to be dealt with. Further, there has to be shown the progressive diver- gence between the set of rules gradually framed into civil law, and the set of rules which the ecclesiastical organiza- tion enforces; and in this second set of rules there has to be traced the divergence between those which become a code of religious ceremonial and those which become a code of ethical precepts. Once more, the science has to note how the ecclesiastical agency in its structure, functions, laws, creed, and morals, stands related to the mental nature of the citizens; and how the actions and reactions of the two mutually modify them.
The simultaneously-evolving system of restraints whereby the minor actions of citizens are regulated in daily life, has next to be dealt with. Ancillary to the political and ec- clesiastical controls, and at first inseparable from them, is the control embodied in ceremonial observances; which, beginning with rules of class-subordination, grow into rules of intercourse between man and man. The mutila- tions which ^ark conquest and become badges of servi- THE SCOPE OP SOCIOLOGY. 459 tude; the obeisances whicli are originallj signs of submis- sion made by the conquered; the titles which are words directly or metaphorically attributing mastery over those who utt^r them; the salutations which are also the flattering professions of subjection and implied inferiority — ^these, and some others^ have to be traced in their genesis and develop- ment as a supplementary regulative agency. The growth of the structure which maintains observances; the accumu- lation^ complication^ and increasing definition of observ- ances; and the resulting code of bye-laws of conduct which comes to be added to the civil and religious codes; have to be severally delineated. These regulative arrange- ments^ too^ must be considered in their relations to co- existing regulative arrangements; with which they all along maintain a certain congruity in respect of coerciveness. And the reciprocal influences exercised by» these restraints on men's natures, and by men's natures on them, need setting forth.
Co-ordinating structures and functions having been dealt with, there have to be dealt with the structures and functions co-ordinated. The regulative and the operative are the two most generally contrasted divisions of every society; and the inquiries of highest importance in social science concern the relations between them. The stages through which the in- dustrial part passes, from its original union with the govern- mental part to its ultimate separateness, have to be studied. An aUied subject of study is the growth of those regulative structures which the industrial part develops within itself. For purposes of production the actions of its units have to be directed; and the various forms of the directive appa- ratus have to be dealt with — the kinds of government under which separate groups of workers act; the kinds of govern- ment under which workers in the same business and of the same class are combined (eventually differentiating into guilds and into unions); and the kind of government which keeps in balance the activities of the various industrial 460 THB DATA OV SOdOLOaT.
stractores. The relations between the forms of these industrial governments and the forms of the co-existing^ political and ecclesiastical goremments^ hare to be con- sidered at each saccessiye stage; as have also the relations between each of these saccessiye forms and the natures of the citizens: there being here^ too^ a reciprocity of influ- ences. After the regulative part of the industrial organization comes the operative part; also presenting its successive stages of differentiation and integration. The separation of the distributive system from the productive system having been first traced^ there has to be traced the growing division of labour within each — ^the rise of grades and kinds of distributors as well as grades and kinds of producers. And then there have to be added the effects which the developing and differentiating industries produce on one another — the advances of the industrial arts themselves^ caused by the help received from one another's improve- ments.
After these structures and functions which make up the 6rganization and life of each society^ have to be treated certain associated developments which aid, and are aided by, social evolution — the developments of lan- guage, knowledge, morals, aesthetics. Linguistic progress has to be considered first as displayed in language itself, while passing from a relatively incoherent, indefinite, homogeneous state, to states that are successively more coherent, definite, and heterogeneous. We have to note how increasing social complexity conduces to increasing complexity of language; and how, as a society becomes settled, it becomes possible for its language to acquire perma- nence. The connexion between the developments of words and sentences and the correlative developments of thought which they aid, and which are aided by them, has to be ob- served: the reciprocity being traced in the increasing multi- pliciiyj variety, exactness, which each helps the other to gain. Progress in intelligence, thus associated THB 800FB OV SOCIOLOGT. 4A1 with progress in laoguage, has also io be treated as wA acoompaniiULent of social progress; whioh^ while f ortheriBg it, is farthered by it. From experiences which accumnbuta and are recorded, come comparisons leading to generali* zations of simple kinds. Gradaally the ideas of unifor* mity, order, cause, becoming nascent, gain clearness with each fresh truth established. And while there have to be noted the connexion between each phase of science and the concomitant phase of social life, there have also to be noted the stages through which, within the body of science itself, there is an advance from a few, simple, inoo* herent truths, to a number of specialized sciences forming a body of truths that are multitudinous, varied, exact, co- herent. The emotional modifications which, as indi- cated above, Accompany social modifications, both as causes and as consequences, also demand separate attention. Besides observing the inter-actions of the social state and the moral state, we have to observe the associated modifi- cations of those moral codes in which moral feelings get their intellectual expression. The kind of behaviour which each kind of regime necessitates, finds for itself a justification which acquires an ethical character; and hence ethics must be dealt with in their social dependences. Then come the groups of phenomena we call aasthetic; which, as exhibited in art-products and in the correlative sentiments, have to be studied in their respective evolutions internally considered, and in the rela- tions of those evolutions to accompanying social phenomena. Diverging as they do from a common root, architecture, sculpture, painting, together with dancing, music, and poetry, have to be severally treated as connected with the political and ecclesiastical stages, with the co-existing phases of moral sentiment, and with the degrees of intel- lectual advance.
Finally we have to consider the inter-dependence of struc- tures, and functions^ and products, taken in their totality.
462 THB DATA OF SOCtOLOdT.
Not only do all the aboye-enamerated organizations^ do- mestic^ political, ecclesiastical, ceremonial, industrial, in- fluence one another through their respectire activities; and not only are they all daily influenced by the states of lan- guage, knowledge, morals, arts; but the last are severally in- fluenced by them, and are severally influenced by one another. Among these many groups of phenomena there is a con- ttensua; and the highest achievement in Sociology is so to grasp the vast heterogeneous aggregate, as to see how each group is at each stage determined partly by its own antecedents and partly by the past and present actions of the rest upon it.
§ 211. But now before trying to explain these most in- volved phenomena, we must leaiii by inspecting them the actual relations of co-existence and sequence in which they stand to one another. By comparing societies of different kinds, and societies in different stages, we must ascertain what traits of size, structure, function, etc., are habitually associated. In other words, before deductive interpretation of the general truths, there must come inductive establish- ment of them.
Here, then, ending preliminaries, let us examine the facts of Sociology, for the purpose of seeing into what empirical generalizations they may be arranged.
m >¥ PART II.
THE INDUCTIONS OF SOCIOLOGY.
.* CHAPTER L WHAT IS A SOCIETY?
§ 212. This question has to be asked and answered at the outset. Until we hare decided whether or not to regai*d a society as an entity; and until we have decided whether^ if regarded as an entity, a society is to be classed as abso- lutely unHke all other entities or as like some others; our conception of the subject-matter before us remains vague.
It may be said that a society is but a collective name for 1 a number of individuals. Carrying the controversy between nominalism and realism into another sphere, a nominalist might afiSrm that just as there exist only the members of a species, while the species considered apart from them has no existence; so the units of a society alone exist, while the existence of the society is but verbal. Instancing a lec- turer's audience as an aggregate which by disappearing at the close of the lecture, proves itself to be not a thing but only a certain arrangement of persons,- he might argue that the like holds of the citizens forming a nation.
But without disputing the other steps of his argument, the last step may be denied. The arrangement, temporary in the one case, is lasting in the other; and it is the per- manence of the relations among component parts which constitutes the individuality of a whole as distinguished from the individualities of its parts. A coherent mass broken into fragments ceases to be a thing; while, con- H H 466 THE INDUCTIONS OF SOCIOLOGY.
versely, tlie stones, bricks, and wood, previously separate^ become the thing called a house if connected in fixed ways. ' Thus we consistently regard a society as an entity, because, though formed of discrete units, a certain concreteness in the aggregate of them is impUed by the maintenance, for generations and centuries, of a general likeness of arrange- ment throughout the area occupied. And it is this trait which yields our idea of a society. For, withholding the name from an ever-changing cluster such as primitive men form, we apply it only where some constancy in the distri- bution of parts has resulted from settled life.
§ 213. But now, regarding a society as a thing, what kind of thing must we call it 7 It seems totally unlike every object with which our senses acquaint us. Any likeness it may .possibly have to other objects, cannot be manifest to percep- ttion, but can be discerned only by reason. If the constant relations among its parts make it an entity; the question arises whether these constant relations among its parts are akin to the constant relations among the parts of other entities. Between a society and anything else, the only conceivable resemblance must be one due to 'paToXleMsm of principle in the arrangement of components.
There are two great classes of aggregates with which the social aggregate may be compared — ^the inorganic and the organic. Are the attributes of a society, considered apart from its living units, in any way like those of a not-living body? or are they in any way like those of a living body? or are they entirely unlike those of both?
The first of these questions needs only to be asked to bd answered in the negative. A whole of which the parts are alive, cannot, in its general characters, be like lifeless wholes. The second question, not to be thus promptly answered, is to be answered in the affirmative. The rea- sons for asserting that the permanent relations among the parts of a society, are analogous to the permanent relations among the parts of a living body, we have now to consider.
CHAFrBB 11.
A SOCIETY IS AN ORGANISM.
§214. When we saj tliat gprowth is common to social aggregates and organic aggregates, we do not tlius entirely exclude community with inorganic aggregates: some of these, as crystals, grow in a visible manner; and all of them, on the hypotheais of eyolution. are oonclnded to have ariBen by integration at some time or other. Nevertheless, com- pared with things we call inanimate, living bodies and so- cieties so conspicuously exhibit augmentation of mass, that we may fairly regard this as characteristic of them both. Many org^anisms grow throughout their lives; and the rest grow throughout considerable parts of their lives. Social growth usually continues either up to times when the so- cieties divide, or up to times when they are overwhelmed.
Here, then, is the first trait by which societies ally them- selves with the organic world and substantiaUy distinguish themselves from the inorganic world.
§ 215. It is also a character of social bodies, as of living bodies, that while they increase in size they increase in structure, A low animal, or the embryo of a high one, has few distinguishable parts; but along with its acquirement of greater mass, its parts multiply and simultaneously differ- entiate. It is thus with a society. At first the unlikenesses among its groups of units are inconspicuous in number and 463 THE INDUCTIONS OF SOCIOLOGT.
degree; but as it becomes more populous^ cLiyisions and sub-diyisions become more numerous and more decided. Furtber^ in the social organism as in the individual organism, differentiations cease only witb that completion of the type which marks maturity and precedes decay.
Though in inorganic aggregates also, as in the entire solar system and in each of its members, structural differen- tiations accompany the integrations; yet these are so relatively slow, and so relatively simple^ that they may be disregarded. The multiplication of contrasted parts in bodies politic and in living bodies, is so great that it sub^ stantially constitutes another common character which marks them off from inorganic bodies.
§ 216. This community will be more fully appreciated on observing that progressive differentiation of structures is accompanied by progressive differentiation of functions.
The multiplying divisions, primary, secondary, and tertiary, which arise in a developing animal, do not assume their major and minor unlikenesses to no purpose. Along with diversities in their shapes and compositions there go diver- sities in the actions they perform: they grow into unlike organs having unlike duties. Assuming the entire function of absorbing nutriment at the same time that it takes on its structural characters, the alimentary system becomes gradu- ally marked off into contrasted portions; each of which has a special function forming part of the general function. A limb, instrumental to locomotion or prehension, acquires divisions and sub-divisions which perform their leading and their subsidiary shares in this office. So is it with the parts into which a society divides. A dominant class arising does not simply become unlike the rest, but assumes con- trol over the rest; and when this class separates into the more and the less dominant, these, again, begin to discharge distinct parts of the entire control. With the classes whose actions are controlled it is the same. The various groups A SOCIBTT IS AN OBOAKISM. 469 into wliich they fall hare yarions occupations: each of such groups alsoj within itself ^ acquiring minor contrasts of parts along with minor contrasts of duties.
And here we see more clearly how the two classes of things we are comparing distinguish themselves from things of other classes; for such differences of structure as slowly arise in inorganic aggregates^ are not accompanied by what we can fairly call differences of function.
§ 217. Why in a body politic and in a living body, these unlike actions of unlike parts are properly regarded by us as functions, while we cannot so regard the unlike actions of unlike parts in an inorganic body, we shall perceive on turn- ing to the next and most distinctive common trait.
Evolution establishes in them both, not differences simply, but definitely-connected differences — differences such that each makes the others possible. The parts of an inorganic aggregate are so related that one may change greatly with- out appreciably affecting the rest. It is otherwise with the parts of an organic aggregate or of a social aggregate. In either of these the changes in the parts are mutually deter- mined, and the changed actions of the parts are mutually dependent. In both, too, this mutuality increases as the evolution advances. The lowest type of animal is all stomach, all respiratory surface, all limb. Development of a type having appendages by which to move about or lay hold of food, can take place only if these appendages, losing power to absorb nutriment directly from surrounding bodies, are supplied with nutriment by parts which retain the power of absorption. A respiratory surface to which the circulating fluids are brought to be aerated, can be formed only on con- dition that the concomitant loss of ability to supply itself with materials for repair and growth, is made good by the development of a structure bringing these materials. So is it in a society. What we call with perfect propriety its organization, has a necessary implication of the same kind.
470 THE INDUCTIONS O? SOCIOLOGY.
While rudimentary^ it is all warrior^ all hunter^ all liat- boilder^ all tool-maker: every part fulfils for itself all needs. Progress to a stage characterized by a permanent army, can go on only as there arise arrangements for supplying that army with food, clothes, and munitions of war by the rest. If here the population occupies itself solely with agriculture and there with mining — if these manufacture goods while those distribute them; it must be on condition that in exchange for a special kind of seryice rendered by each part to other parts, these other parts seyerally give due proportions of their services.
This division of labour, first dwelt on by political econo- mists as a social phenomenon, and thereupon recognized by biologists as a phenomenon of living bodies, which they called the ''physiological division of labour,^' is that which in the society, as in the animal, makes it a living whole. Scarcely can I emphasize sufficiently the truth that in re- spect of this fundamental trait, a social organism and an individual organism are entirely alike. When we see that in a mammal, arresting the lungs quickly brings the heart to a stand > that if the stomach fails absolutely in its office all other parts by-and-by cease to act; that paralysis of its Kmbs entails on the body at large death from want of food or inability to escape; that loss of even such small organs as tiie eyes, deprives the rest of a service essential to their preservation; we cannot but admit that mutual dependence of parts is an essential charaoteristie; And when, in a society, we see that the workers in iron stop if the miners do not supply materials; that makers of clothes eannot carry on their business in the absence of those who spin and weave textile fabrics; that the manufacturing community will cease to act unless the food-producing and food-distributing agencies are acting; that the controlling powers, governments, bureaux, judicial officers, police, must fail to keep order when the necessaries of life are not supplied to them by the parts kept in order; we are obliged to say that this A SOCIBTT IS AN ORGAKISM. 471 mntaal dependence of parts is similarly rigorous. Unlike as the two kinds of aggregates are in sundry respects^ they are alike in respect of this fundamental character^ and the characters implied by it.
§ 218, How the combined actions of mutually -dependent parts constitute life of the whole^ and how there hence re- sults a parallelism between national life and individual Uf e, we see still more clearly on learning that the life of every visible organism is constituted by the lives of units too minute to be seen by the unaided eye.
An undeniable illustration is furnished us by the strange order Myxamyeetes, The spores or germs produced by one of these f orms^ become ciliated monads which^ after a time of active locomotion^ change into shapes like those of amcebso^ move about^ take in nutriment^ gi^w^ multiply by fission. Then these amoeba-form individuals swarm together^ begin to coalesce into groups, and these groups to coalesce with one another: making a mass sometimes barely visible, some- times as big as the hand. This plasmodium, irregular, mostly reticulated, and in substance gelatinous, itself ex- hibits movements of its parts like those of a gigantic rhizopod; creeping slowly over surfaces of decaying matters and even up the stems of plants. Here, then, union of many minute living individuals to form a relatively vast aggregate in which their individualities are apparently lost, but the life of which results from combination of their lives, is demonstrable.
In other cases, instead of units which, originally discrete, lose their individualities by aggregation, we have units which, arising by multiplication from the same germ, do not part company, but nevertheless display their separate lives very clearly. A growing sponge has its homy fibres clothed with a gelatinous substance; and the microscope shows this to consist of moving monads. We cannot deny life to the sponge as a whole; for it shows us some corporate ac- 472 THE INDUCTIONS OP SOCIOLOGY.
tions. Tlie outer amcBba-form units partially lose their individualities by fusion into a protective layer or skin; the supporting framework of fibres is produced by the joint agency of the monads; and from their joint agency also result those currents of water which are drawn in through the small orifices and expelled through the larger. But while there is thus shown a feeble aggregate life^ the lives of the myriads of component units are very little sub- ordinated: these units form, a^ it were, a nation having scarcely any sub-division of functions. Or, in the words of Professor Huxley, " the sponge represents a kind of sub- aqueous city, where the people are arranged about the streets and roads, in such a manner, that each can easily appropriate his food from the water as it passes along.''