When these
simple facts are recognized, it is clear at once that the concerted
activities performed by biological units cannot be anything but organic in
their ultimate basis and nature; the evolution of such activities thus
takes its place as a part of organic evolution.
The task of tracing out the history of social organizations of whatever
grade can now be defined in precise terms: in simple words, it is to learn
how the activities of the component biological units making up any
association really differ from the vital performances of biological units
existing by themselves. What is it that distinguishes a savage of
antiquity from an American of to-day? The modern example is just as much
an animal as the earlier type, and his physiology is essentially the same.
It is something added to the common biological qualities of all men, some
relation which does not appear as such in the life of rude tribes, that
makes the distinction. And it is just this superadded relation that
requires explanation, as regards its exact biological value and its
historic development as well.
In undertaking this difficult task, it seems best to begin with the very
simplest organisms that biology knows, working upwards through the scale
to man.
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