THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY 147
ment of theory has been associated with each. The problems which have been selected for this purpose are the following:
1. The problem of conceiving society as a whole.
2. The problem of race-conflict and group-struggle.
3. The problem of the psychical nature of the group the social mind.
4. The problem of the individual and society.
5. The problem of the influence of natural environment on the social group.
6. The problem of social progress.
7. The problem of the province of sociology as a science. The conception of society as an organic whole enduring
through secular time, extending over wide areas, and unified by natural forces from without and by conscious consensus from within, was fundamental with Comte. His "law of the three stages " swept into its ken an unbroken continuity of generations which were later idealized into an object of worship Humanity. True, this idea had been implicit in all the philosophies of history, and the organic simile is traceable to remote antiquity, but Comte was the first with the possible exception of Vico to present in a realistic and vivid way this view of the unity of mankind. The " hierarchy of the sciences " was only another means of emphasizing this idea. Step by step the mind is led up from physical and chemical combinations to organic and thence to social unities. This conception, familiar as it seems, was in Comte's time by no means obvious, and today it is far from gener- ally accepted. Persons and small groups, not vast social wholes, are the striking surface facts which hold the attention of the average observer.
Biological sociology has elaborated the conception of social unity and centralization. Comte merely outlined the idea of the social organism. Spencer carried the analogy to a high degree of definite detail, insisting especially upon parallels of structure. Lilienfeld laid all the stress upon the nervous system, as does Novicow in his theory of the social elite. 4 So, too, Fouillee classifies social organisms according to the degree of centralization
4 Novicow, Conscience et volonte societies (Paris, 1897), pp. 32 f.
