society and the animal organism. The utility of this biological analogy has rightly been called in question. The particular resemblances traced by Mr. Spencer between a society and a living body are these: both grow and increase in size; while they increase in size they increase in structure; increase in structure is accompanied by progressive differentiation of functions; and differentiation of functions leads to mutual interdependence of the parts. Furthermore, in the case both of a society and of a living body the lives of the units continue for some time if the life of the aggregate is suddenly arrested; while if the aggregate is not suddenly destroyed by violence its life greatly exceeds in duration the lives of its units. Since, therefore, the permanent relations among the parts of a society are analogous to the permanent relations among the parts of an organism, society is to be regarded as an organism.
Now the trouble with this clever analogy is that it breaks down completely when the comparison is carried beyond a certain point. Mr. Spencer himself notices some differences between the social body and the animal body, but declares that they are not of such fundamental character as to weaken the force of his analogy. One of these differences, however, can not be so lightly dismissed. If we compare a high type of animal organism with a high type of society, this striking unlikeness is discovered. In the former there is but one center of consciousness; in the latter there are many. "In the one," to quote Mr. Spencer's own words, "consciousness is concentrated in a small part of the aggregate. In the other it is diffused throughout the aggregate." The animal body has one brain, one center of thought, feeling, and life; the social body has numberless such centers.
When we go back and compare the course of development in the two cases the difference noted comes into even greater prominence. The evolution of animal life is characterized by progressive centralization, the evolution of social life by progressive decentralization. In the lowest form of animal, the amoeba, there is no single center of life. The life is in all the parts; reproduction takes place simply by division. But with each successive advance above this lowest form there is developed more and more definitely a single center of consciousness. One part becomes distinctly differentiated as the sole seat of life. If that part is destroyed, the organism dies. Thus, "animal development has meant a concentration of the more important nervous elements and a merging of their separate activity in the common activity of a single consciousness."[1]
The law of progress is quite the reverse in social development. At a primitive stage there is a marked subjection of the individual
- ↑ Fairbanks. Introduction to Sociology, p. 44.
