THE MECHANICS OF SOCIETY 243
antagonizing the tendency to violate the laws of nature and jeopardize the existence of the race. The moral and conven- tional codes have a similar function to the last named. Every ethnic custom before it passes into a mere "survival" has a purpose or function and performs it. Marriage and the family have the supreme function of continuing the race. And so on to the end of the list.
All this belongs strictly to statical sociology and shows the immense importance of the social order. But we may go a step farther. Statics is not limited merely to preservation and per- petuation. It also includes growth and multiplication. So long as the same normal function is peformed by the same structure the phenomenon is statical, although the amount of the product be increased to any extent. If more spindles of the same kind are introduced into a factory whereby a greater quantity of goods is manufactured the function of its machinery is the same. If by reason of favorable conditions an organism attains an unusual growth without any physical modification of its organs, its function is still normal. If a species of plant or animal succeeds in multiplying its individuals without any change in its structure it remains the same species and its con- dition is technically statical. So of social structures and human institutions, no matter how great the results of their functional activity, so long as they remain the same structures and the same institutions, their study belongs to social statics.
One further step might be taken before the strict bounds of statical sociology are exceeded. It is an important fact not to be overlooked that structures are at first crude and poorly perform their functions, and that they usually continue gradu- ally to improve in quality and attain correspondingly increased efficiency. This, too, properly belongs to statics, although it would seem to involve a true progress. Great caution, how- ever, is required in this study of the improvement in the quality of types of structure. Then- is always danger of overlooking tin true character of structures. They are almost always com- posite and consist <>t what may be called substructures. The
