Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Sociology and Modern Social Problems by Charles A. (Charles Abram) Ellwood
page 30 of 298 (10%)
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
DigitalOcean Referral Badge