III. Communities and societies.-The bond existing between all the constituent parts of a society is not of the same nature as that which unites the members of a colony or the cells of an animal or plant. These physiological bonds are not comparsea, and after living there a certain time, enters the female cephalopod, to effect impregnation.

The individuality of this hectocotyle appears so obvious that for a long time it was regarded as a distinct species-some kind of worm. At first sight, then, the hectocotyle seems to be an individual. This, however, is not the case, as it reproduces, not a hectocotyle but a cephalopod.

Many Echinoderms, by a spontaneous act of protection, can separate their arms from their bodies. Such a separated arm may live, feed and slowly build up again a whole Echinoderm. Plainly, it would be impossible to indicate the precise point at which such an organ should be regarded as an individual. The vegetable kingdom abounds in analogous facts. A strawberry plant, for instance, gives off runners in the course of the Summer, which take root, and themselves become strawberry plants. So long as these young plants are insufficiently developed to maintain themselves, the mother-plant continues to supply them with nourishment. As soon, however, as the young shoot can dispense with this support, the runner atrophies, and the little plant begins a separate existence. By prematurely cutting the runner, the new plant may be compelled to live alone sooner than it naturally would have done.

With some other plants (Phalangium viviparum) the young shoots frequently retain their connection with the mother-plant, although quite capable of maintaining themselves. Under these circumstances it is obviously impossible to say if these plants represent colonies or free individuals. Speaking generally, it may be said that no precise line can be drawn between colonies and individuals. Many writers on the subject, and Perrier among the number, consider that every colony where there is a physical continuity among the members, should be regarded as an individual,

able, without forcing the analogy, although they have been so compared by some sociologists, to such means of communication between individuals and societies as exchange, traffic, roads, railways, telegrams and telephones. It is merely a matter of definition, and if societies are to be termed organisms, they should be distinguished as organisms by social contract, organismes contractuels (Fouillée).

This definition, however, only applies to those societies which owe their existence to a formal contract with definite objects in view, and not to ready-made communities consisting of individuals already united together without any preliminary contract. The latter is the case, for instance, in societies of ants or bees, and in human societies in those social groups in which the individuals are united by the bonds of consanguinity. The characters of such communities partly approach the characters of organic associations, but precisely as such natural communities approach societies by social contract, the differences between social groups and actual organisms become more marked. In the more complex forms of societies the results of the characters we have distinguished become most accentuated.

IV. Distinctive characters of societies of which the members are united by social contract.-(1) A cell cannot be part of two organisms or of two

organs at the same time.' On the other hand, there is no reason why the members of one social community should not belong to other communities at the same time.

2. Speaking generally, the biological conception of an organism denotes a definite thing-a plant or an animal in itself, quite distinct from similar organisms. In sociology, however, there is no precise line between co-existing social communities. Are we to regard, for instance, the families, communes and cantons of a state as distinct organisms, or merely as organs? Does a free town such as Hamburg or Frankfort cease to be an organism when it loses its independence? Take the various Swiss cantons, which are now mere organs of the Helvetic Confederation, like the Provinces of Belgium, or the Departments of France, would they become organisms on the rupture of the Federal bond? On the other hand, with the growth of international treaties between the states of Eastern Europe, will their social individuality disappear, and will they come to be regarded as are the United States of America, as the organs of an organism in process of formation? These few examples suffice to show

1 When two organs are united into one whole, the cell exercises two totally different functions. The liver, as we now know, is a double organ consisting of a bile-forming liver, and the glycogenproducing liver, two organs which are embryologically distinct. The cells of which the liver is composed are both bile-secreting and glycogen-forming organs,

that, so far as social matters are concerned, the conception of organisms is a pure convention. In the course of this treatise, we may therefore regard families, societies and nations as distinct organisms, or, with regard to their connection with other and vaster organizations, as organs of the latter.

3. The structure of an animal or plant depends upon the physical arrangements of its parts, and on the physiological links between those parts. The structure of a society depends upon the links of social contract existing among its members. We regard these as two very different things, and we cannot follow Tarde in pressing the analogy between them in the following way: "The length, breadth, and height of an organism are never very much out of proportion. With snakes and poplars the height or length preponderates; among flat fish the thickness is very small compared to the other dimensions, but in each instance the disproportion exhibited in extreme cases is not comparable to that shown by any social aggregate-such as China for instance, which is 3000 kilometres in length and breadth, and only one or two yards in average height, for the Chinese being a short race, build their edifices correspondingly low."1

4. Organic modifications are effected more slowly and with greater difficulty than are social modifica

1 Les Monades et la Science sociale. (Tarde. Revue de Sociologie, 1893, p. 169.)

tions. 1 The result is an important one from the point of view of method.

In biology, excepting in the case of individual adaptation of artificial selection, direct observation -the historical method, if we may so call it-is not available for the study of the origin and modification of organisms. Phylogeny, the science of organic kinship, resorts to other methods, and particularly to the comparative method in its various forms:

(a) Morphology, the science of determining the phylogeny of organs by comparing them with the organs of other creatures belonging to the same systematic group.

(b) Palæontology, which determines the direct ancestors of living creatures.

(c) Embryology, which, so far as it is founded upon the principle of recapitulation, investigates the development of organs in the individual, and draws conclusions therefrom bearing upon its descent.

1 Among animals there is a special factor which gives a stability to the specific characters not found elsewhere-this is reproduction. Specific characters being common to the whole line of descent, are very deeply enrooted in the organism. They are not easily modified by the influence of new environments, but maintain their likeness to one another in spite of external conditions. They are regulated by an internal force, notwithstanding the importunities to variation offered from outside. This force is heredity, and heredity accounts for the precise way in which specific characters may be defined. In society this internal force is wanting. (Les Règles de la méthode sociologique. Durckheim, Paris, F. Alcan, 1895.)

B