MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY.
IV. THE PROPERTIES OF GROUP-UNITS.
In his Study of Sociology Mr. Spencer shows that, just as the form of a pile of bricks or cannon balls is conditioned by the form of the bricks or balls themselves, and the form of crystallization is characteristic for each kind of molecule, so the properties of a social aggregate are derived from and determined by the properties of its members. We should therefore expect that, other things being equal, the diversity of any two societies would correspond to the diversity in character of the peoples composing them.
In his Principles of Sociology Mr. Spencer is more cautious. After stating that the primary factors in social phenomena are the characters of the units and the nature of the physical environment (for all minor groupings within a population this factor, being common to all, may be ignored), he goes on to enumerate certain derived factors, one of these being the reciprocal influence of the society and its units:
As soon as a combination of men acquires permanence, there begin actions and reactions between the community and each member of it, such that either affects the other in nature; the control exercised by the aggregate over its units tends ever to mould their activities and sentiments and ideas into congruity with social requirements; and these activities, sentiments, and ideas, in so far as they are changed by changing circumstances, tend to remould the society into congruity with themselves.
The principle that seemed so self-evident to Mr. Spencer has not passed without challenge. De Greef protests against the proposition that the character of an aggregate is determined by the essential characters of its constituent units, on the ground that it gives up the existence of a distinct social science. Says he:
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