It is impossible to deny that custom and public opinion are in a continual state of change; the varying fortunes of political parties sufficiently testify to this; but how far these variations are in civilized communities due to unconscious growth and how far to conscious effort it is not easy to determine. Suffice it to point out that, while opposing forces such as egotism and philanthropy, do continually tend to mould opinion under conditions that baffle inquiry, there are conscious forces at work which are quite as powerful and could be made more so. Chief amongst these is education; and in the word "education" are included not our schools and universities alone, but all the educating influences of the day—the press, the stage, music, literature, and art. That all these are engaged in moulding public opinion—some in bringing popular government into contempt, some in relaxing public morals, some in holding up low ideals, some in indulging luxurious tastes, while they could be doing just the opposite of all these things—there is no doubt.
The existence of these things is mentioned here because failure to mention them would have left the discussion incomplete. Enough has been said to indicate that there are great forces at work in society which to-day escape the control of government, and that it is not easy to say how far they operate after the haphazard fashion of Nature and how far subject to the deliberate purpose of man. Whatever be the conclusion, it is certain that so far as they are left to Nature's guidance they will result in Nature's handiwork; whereas so far as they are controlled by human wisdom they will bear the fruits of that wisdom.
In conclusion, therefore, associations of individuals are characterized in primitive forms of life by unconsciousness; but as the individuals develop, these associations seem to become deliberate rather than unconscious, until in man they not only seem deliberate but are so.
The history of human society shows that when it has been allowed to grow unconsciously the development has been in the same direction as under the predatory system of Nature; that is to say, institutions have been moulded to benefit individuals presenting the combination of strength and craft best fitted to survive in the artificial environment which the strong and crafty created to that end. When conditions produced by this system of growth under the spur of egotism were replaced by one of construction under the guidance of wisdom, there was progress.
Society is controlled by two forces: one which it consciously set up for itself, called "government"; one which is unconsciously operating through the silent struggle of natural and non-natural motives in the individual lives of every one of us. The latter to a great extent escapes the control of government; but in so far as society does consciously create its own institutions, it ought to be engaged in the process of construction and in the conscious effort towards self-improvement. To this extent society is not an organism, and à fortiori government is not an organism either.
Society, then, is not an organism.
It differs from an organism in the following essential particulars:
The units of an organism have no individual existence; they are parts essential to the whole and exist for the sake of the whole.
The units of a society have an individual existence; and, in the case of human society, do not exist for the sake of the society, but society for the sake of the individual.
Not only have the units of a society each an individual existence, but they have each an individual will, an independent consciousness, and, all except Materialists will add, an individual soul. The units of an organism are conspicuously without any of these essential attributes.