d blood. A hoe may be
regarded as a highly specialized hand, so also logically, if less
figuratively, a plow. So the hand of another person if it does your
bidding may be regarded as your instrument, your hand. Language is
witness to the fact that employers speak of "the hands" which they
"work." Social institutions may likewise be thought of as tools of
individuals for accomplishing their purposes. Logically, therefore,
society, either as a sum of institutions or as a collection of persons,
may be conceived of as a sum total of instrumentalities, extensions of
the functions of the human organism which enable individuals to carry on
life-activities. From this standpoint society is an immense co-operative
concern of mutual services.

This latter is an aspect of society which economists have sought to
isolate and study. From this point of view the relations of individuals
are conceived as purely external to one another, like that of the plants
in a plant community. Co-operation, so far as it exists, is competitive
and "free."

In contrast with the view of society which regards social institutions
and the community itself as the mere instruments and tools of the
individuals who compose it, is that which conceives society as resting
upon biological adaptations, that is to say upon instincts,
gregariousness, for example, imitation, or like-mindedness. The classic
examples of societies based on instinct are the social insects, the
well-known bee and the celebrated ant. In human society the family, with
its characteristic differences and interdependences of the sexes and the
age groups, husband and wife, children and parents, most nearly realizes
this description of society. In so far as the organization of society is
predetermined by inherited or constitutional differences, as is the case
pre-eminently in the so-called animal societies, competition ceases and
the relations of its component individuals become, so to speak,
internal, and a permanent part of the structure of the group.

The social organization of human beings, on the other hand, the various
types of social groups, and the changes which take place in them at
different times under varying circumstances, are determined not merely
by instincts and by competition but by custom, tradition, public
opinion, and contract. In animal societies as herds, flocks, and packs,
collective behavior seems obviously to be explained in terms of instinct
and emotion. In the case o