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Sociology and Modern Social Problems by Charles A. (Charles Abram) Ellwood
page 8 of 298 (02%)
problems, and the like must be viewed from the collective or social
standpoint rather than simply as detached problems by themselves. We
must understand the biological and psychological aspects of man's social
life before we can understand its special phases.

The Origin of Society.--From the definition of society that we have
given it is evident that society is something which springs from the
very processes of life itself. It is not something which has been
invented or planned by individuals. Life, in its higher forms at least,
could not exist without association. From the very beginning the
association of the sexes has been necessary for reproduction and for the
care and rearing of offspring, and it has been not less necessary for
the procuring of an adequate food supply and for protection against
enemies. From the association necessary for reproduction has sprung
family life and all the altruistic institutions of human society, while
from the association for providing food supply have sprung society's
industrial institutions. Neither society nor industry, therefore, has
had a premeditated, reflective origin, but both have sprung up
spontaneously from the needs of life and both have developed down to the
present time at least with but little premeditated guidance. It is
necessary that the student should understand at the outset that social
organization is not a fabrication of the human intellect to any great
degree, and the old idea that individuals who existed independently of
society came together and deliberately planned a certain type of social
organization is utterly without scientific validity. The individual and
society are correlatives. We have no knowledge of individuals apart from
society or society apart from individuals. What we do know is that human
life everywhere is a collective or associated life, the individual being
on the one hand largely an expression of the social life surrounding him
and on the other hand society being largely an expression of individual
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