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SECTION VI Working Out the Dynamic Organic Standpoint 1. Getting a Clear Statement of the Organic Theory Lecture XIX. May 7, 1901 THE INDIVIDUAL HAS a twofold social aspect or outlook: First, that which arises in virtue of his membership in some special social group or formation; and, second, that which arises through the need of change because ofthe interaction ofthat group with other social groups. The first of these aspects defines the associated individual; the second defines the subjective [or] psychological individual. I think it is in order now to pass on to the discussion of the point of society as an organism. That will lead more specifically to the question of social consciousness and then we shall be ready to go on to take up some of the special problems. In much of the discussion of social organism, or whether society is an organism or not, the terms of the problem are not stated or made clear. In that discussion the point which is most apt to be left in the dark is whether we take the biological organism as our standard and then ask whether the social organism has characteristic operations which are either similar or identical with the biological organism, or whether we start with a more generic conception oforganism and then proceed to discuss to what extent the living bodies ofplants and animals on one side and the social structure on the other side manifest the characteristics of the organism. The first conception in a way takes the plant or animal as a given and well understood fact, finds certain traits ofstructure and offunction marking that living body, and then inquires whether society manifests 354 Social Ethics 355 these same traits. Now that discussion presents, I suppose, points of interest. But there is nothing very fundamental or important about it. Scientifically speaking, it is impossible for it to get outside the region of analogy. It is just as clear that there are lots of differences between that "body" which we call society and that "body" which we call a plant or animal, as it is that there are plenty of likenesses or resemblances between the two. And it becomes pretty arbitrary what value we assign to the points ofdifference and what to the points oflikeness. The points of likeness, moreover, unless we can get below taking the physical organism as Ol,lr basis ofcomparison, are points oflikeness rather than points of identity. We can only show that there are analogies. Logically speaking the value of analogy is in its suggestiveness. Analogy is useful, in the mental process of going over subject matter to get new points of view, to get hypotheses. Analogies are of value to the individual while he is in process of exploring or endeavoring to explain given subject matter or for purposes ofcommunication for illustration from one mind to another. But no objective fact is stated in terms of analogy. If a fact is a fact, it is a fact on its own ground and not because of analogy with some other fact. So even here, as far as we draw analogies between society and the animal organism for scientific purposes, it could be only preliminary in character. Analogy would be useful for calling our attention, for instance, to a class of phenomena that had been ordinarily overlooked: the phenomena of change and growth, facts regarding the mutual interests ofsociety and its environment , or the importance of the food relations, and the environments, etc. The real problem, to have any scientific meaning, is a question of what we mean by an organism, whether biological or social; and then whether society presents those traits which define the organism wherever and whenever found. Mr. MacKenzie, in his Social Ethics, has discussed the question of organism from the standpoint of the definition of a living structure as such, and has pointed to such things as unity of result, differentiation of parts, cooperation or interdependence of these differentiated parts as the signs of an organism. Mr Spencer, in his discussion in Sociology has wavered, it seems to me, between the two points of view. The really valuable parts of what he has said have their value because he is really working on the conception ofthe organism as such. But a large part ofhis mode of statement assumes that some animal form is the type and standard of organism, and that if the idea of a social organism is to be established it must be done by...

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