ividual components of the society (both immediately and by
heredity), and how the individuals reacted upon their environment. The
problem is psychical, but it is analogous to the main problem of the
biologist.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 238: A society presents suggestive analogies with an
organism, but it certainly is not an organism, and sociologists who
draw inferences from the assumption of its organic nature must fall
into error. A vital organism and a society are radically distinguished
by the fact that the individual components of the former, namely the
cells, are morphologically as well as functionally differentiated,
whereas the individuals which compose a society are morphologically
homogeneous and only functionally differentiated. The resemblances and
the differences are worked out in E. de Majewski's striking book, _La
Science de la Civilisation_. Paris. 1908.]

[Footnote 239: It is to be observed that history is (not only
different in scope but) not co-extensive with anthropology _in time_.
For it deals only with the development of man in societies, whereas
anthropology includes in its definition the proto-anthropic period
when _anthropos_ was still non-social, whether he lived in herds like
the chimpanzee, or alone like the male ourang-outang. (It has been
well shown by Majewski that congregations--herds, flocks, packs,
&c.--of animals are not _societies_; the characteristic of a society
is differentiation of function. Bee hives, ant hills, may be called
quasi-societies; but in their case the classes which perform distinct
functions are morphologically different.)]

[Footnote 240: Recently O. Seeck has applied these principles to the
decline of Graeco-Roman civilisation in his _Untergang der antiken
Welt_, 2 vols., Berlin, 1895, 1901.]

[Footnote 241: Darwinian formulae may be suggestive by way of analogy.
For instance, it is characteristic of social advance that a multitude
of inventions, schemes and plans are framed which are never carried
out, similar to, or designed for the same end as, an invention or plan
which is actually adopted because it has chanced to suit better the
particular conditions of the hour (just as the works accomplished by
an individual statesman, artist or savant are usually only a residue
of the numerous projects conceived by his brain). This process in
which so much abortive production occurs is analogous to elimination
by natural selection.]

[Footnote 242: We can ignore here