them endowed with a
unified organization. And as there is no unique organization of the
human species, there is not "one" but there are "several" human
societies. Humanity therefore exists solely as a biological concept
not as a social one.

Each society on the other hand exists in the unity of both its
biological and its social contents. Socially considered it is a
fraction of the human species endowed with unity of organization for
the attainment of the peculiar ends of the species.

This definition brings out all the elements of the social phenomenon
and not merely those relating to the preservation and perpetuation of
the species. For man is not solely matter; and the ends of the human
species, far from being the materialistic ones we have in common with
other animals, are, rather, and predominantly, the spiritual
finalities which are peculiar to man and which every form of society
strives to attain as well as its stage of social development allows.
Thus the organization of every social group is more or less pervaded
by the spiritual influxes of: unity of language, of culture, of
religion, of tradition, of customs, and in general of feeling and of
volition, which are as essential as the material elements: unity of
economic interests, of living conditions, and of territory. The
definition given above demonstrates another truth, which has been
ignored by the political doctrines that for the last four centuries
have been the foundations of political systems, viz., that the social
concept has a biological aspect, because social groups are fractions
of the human species, each one possessing a peculiar organization, a
particular rank in the development of civilization with certain needs
and appropriate ends, in short, a life which is really its own. If
social groups are then fractions of the human species, they must
possess the same fundamental traits of the human species, which means
that they must be considered as a succession of generations and not as
a collection of individuals.

It is evident therefore that as the human species is not the total of
the living human beings of the world, so the various social groups
which compose it are not the sum of the several individuals which at a
given moment belong to it, but rather the infinite series of the past,
present, and future generations constituting it. And as the ends of
the human species are not those of the several individuals living at a
certain moment, being o