Sociology and Modern Social Problems by Charles A. (Charles Abram) Ellwood
page 30 of 298 (10%)
page 30 of 298 (10%)
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individuals, and the group which can command the most loyal, most
efficient membership, and has the best organization, is, other things being equal, the group which survives. Natural selection is, then, active in social evolution as well as in general organic evolution. But the distinctive principle of social evolution is coöperation. In other words, it is sympathetic feeling, altruism, which has made the higher types of social evolution possible. While the same factors are at work in the higher phases of evolution which are at work in the lower phases, yet it is evident that the higher phases have new and distinct factors. Sociology, being especially concerned with social evolution, has a new and distinct factor at work which we may call association, coöperation, or combination, and this it is which gives sociology its distinct place in the list of general sciences. Factors In Organic Evolution.--As has already been said, the factors which are at work in organic evolution generally are also at work in social evolution. We need, therefore, to note these factors carefully and to see how they are at work in human society as well as in the animal world below man. While these factors are not all of the factors which are at work in social evolution, still they are the primitive factors, and are, therefore, of fundamental importance. Let us see what these factors are. (1) _The Multiplication of Organisms in Some Geometric Ratio through Reproduction._ It is a law of life that every species must increase so that the number of offspring exceeds the number of parents if the species is to survive. If the offspring only equal in number the parents, some of them will die before maturity is reached or will fail |
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