Class (biology)

“ Things in nature and in society do not, as a rule, exhibit such salient, undeniable, rigidly differentiated characteristics as to render their classification as easy as, for instance, the division of the higher organisms into two sexes, or the human species into white, black, and yellow races. ”

“ And in every classification they considered some one class as the lowest or infima species. Man, for instance, was a lowest species. Any further divisions into which the class might be capable of being broken down, as man into white, black, and red man, or into priest and layman, they did not admit to be species. ”

“ As one portion of the bodily tissue is differentiated so that it can be the hand and the hand only, another, the eye, and so on, all taken together making the organism, so one individual is supposed to be differentiated for the exercise of the mechanical operations of society, another for those of a statesman, another for those of a scholar, and so on. The notion of 'organism' is thus used to give a philosophic sanction to class distinctions in social organization—a notion which in its educational application again means external dictation instead of growth. ”

“ If we turn to the individual classes, the same thing obtains. To take but the the highest class, the Prosimiae, or half-apes, among the Mammalia are an order, that stands centrally to the Insectivora, Eodentia, Cheiroptera, and Primates. ”

“ We are limited, not by the nature of our method, but by the whole nature of the case, to the comparison of organisms such as are manifestly related to one another and belong to the same zoological class. ”

“ Thus one of the plainest facts of natural history, namely, that in even one group or class of animals we find forms of exceedingly low structure included along with animals of high organization—the apparently diverse bodies being really modeled on the one and the same type—is explained by the consideration that with different conditions, or with various conditions acting differently upon unlike constitutions, we expect to find extreme differences in the rank to which the members of a class may attain. ”

“ I shall have to return to this subject in the chapter on classification, but I may add that as, according to this view, extremely few of the more ancient species have transmitted descendants to the present day, and, as all the descendants of the same species form a class, we can understand how it is that there exist so few classes in each main division of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. ”

“ The morphologists build on unity of type, or that fundamental agreement in the structure of each great class of beings which is quite independent of their habits or conditions of life; which requires each individual "to go through a certain formality," and to accept, at least for a time, certain organs, whether they are of any use to him or not. ”

“ It is desirable to have names by which to show that one class is contained in another, and, accordingly, we call the class which is divided into two or more smaller ones the genus, and the smaller ones into which it is divided, the species. ”

“ All peculiarities which are characteristic of a race, species, genus, order, class and phylum are of course inherited, otherwise there would be no constant characteristics of these groups and no possibility of classifying organisms. ”

“ The assemblage of the functions of the first class, I call organic life, because all organized beings, vegetable or animal, enjoy it in a greater or less degree, and because organic texture is the only condition necessary to its exercise. The united functions of the second class form animal life, thus called, because it is the exclusive attribute of the animal kingdom. ”

“ I have attempted to show, first, that biology can profit by incorporating certain conclusions of sociology and so rounding off and completing certain of its own principles: on the other hand, I have put before you my belief that there are certain basic biological principles which must be taken into account by the sociologist—principles which hold good in sociology because man too is an organism. ”

“ It will not add much to his ability to tell him that two processes—abstraction and generalization—are the basis of all true classification. It is simpler and means the same to say that things should be classed together which agree in some permanent and fundamental quality. Thus a vast number of animals of the most varied sizes, shapes, and powers, agree in having backbones and are therefore put into a class and called vertebrates. ”

“ Following the same process we may narrow down the sub-families into species composed of various individuals; or into greater and still greater families or groups. Generalization is really the act of Classification, or forming into classes all things having certain qualities or properties in common. The corollary is that all things in a certain generalized class must possess the particular quality or property common to the class. Thus we know that all animals in the class of the Carnivora must eat flesh; and that all Mammals possess breasts from which they feed their young. ”

“ To a certain extent, within certain limits, the sub-groups and the sub-sub-groups of the articulated class of animals, which classification or morphology reveals, may lay the foundation for a theoretical belief in an ancestral stock from which the different and now perfect forms of these distinct animals may have become developed by successive changes of structure. But the extent to which connected changes can be actually traced in the animal kingdom is extremely limited ”

“ No true sociology could be established before the facts of biology were known, as the one results from the other. In both, the ruling principle is that of association, with the evolution of a directing power. An animal is an association of cells. Every association implies division of labour. Now, progress in organic development means the slow constitution of an organ—the brain—which shall direct the body. ”

“ If the animals of a class differ from each other, it is only possible by their bringing to bear in addition to their characteristic organ some other organ, and consequently becoming similar to an earlier or later class. ”

“ BIOLOGICAL Methods applicable to Sociology.—We have thus shown the use in sociology of the ideas and doctrines characteristic of biology. We have shown that they are applicable, but with some limitations and modifications imposed by the presence of a nature higher than the animal. We come now to show the use of biological methods in the cultivation of sociology.
The great characteristic method of biology is the method of comparison. The reason is obvious. The phenomena of life are so complex that it is impossible to reduce them to law without simplifying them. ”

“ Resting upon the law of the division of physiological work, the importance of which was first demonstrated by Milne-Edwards, and upon that of polymorphism, which without it have only a limited and indefinite meaning, consequent on the law of division of protoplasmic masses, it has been the great producer of organization, and establishes a new link between sociology and the branches of biology that are occupied with the constitution and functions of organisms. ”

“ To assert the existence of the class-struggle is equivalent to saying that human society, like all other living organisms, is not a homogeneous whole, the sum of a greater or smaller number of individuals; it is, on the contrary, a living organism which is made up of diverse [Pg 76] parts, and their differentiation constantly increases in direct ratio to the degree of social evolution attained. ”

“ Genus and Species are superior and inferior classes, and are stated2 to be capable of repeated subordination. The ‘most 106 general Genus’ is the widest class; the ‘most special Species’ the narrowest. Between these are intermediate classes, which are Genera with regard to those below, and Species with regard to those above them. Thus Being is the most general Genus; under this is Body; under Body is Living Body; under this again Animal; under Animal is Rational Animal, or Man; under Man are Socrates and Plato, and other individual men. ”

“ The next question concerns what constitutes adequate preparation for the direction of studies of animate nature. First and foremost is a realization of the aims, or better, the values, and relations of biology. It is a socializing subject and must be so taught—man is social. Biology affects man vitally, directly his behavior follows natural laws, and indirectly by illustration and comparison brings him to a better understanding biologic laws underlying the organization of society. ”

“ With new degrees of complexity, new qualitative differences emerge. Thus the sciences are a hierarchy, the subject-matter of one constituting the foundation for the next in the series. All that biology can do for sociology is to help her to build her foundations solidly and correctly: but we all know that without good foundations no building is safe. ”

“ Social organisms, like individual organisms, are to be arranged into classes and sub-classes—not, indeed, into classes and sub-classes having any thing like the same definiteness or the same constancy, but nevertheless having likenesses and differences which justify the putting of them into major groups most markedly contrasted, and, within these, arranging them in minor groups less markedly contrasted. ”

“ Through psychology and biology, [Pg 78] sociology can become attached to the general body of science; and in so doing it can both receive and give. Since man is but a single species of organism, and, biologically speaking, a very young one; since moreover he presents a peculiar type of organization, it is clear that the broad principles underlying physiology and evolution can best be studied on other organisms and later applied to man. On the other hand, man is the highest existing organism ”

“ It is said, in short, that a natural-history class is not capable of being defined—that the class Rosaceæ, for instance, or the class of Fishes, is not accurately and absolutely definable, inasmuch as its members will present exceptions to every possible definition; and that the members of the class are united together only by the circumstance that they are all more like some imaginary average rose or average fish, than they resemble anything else. ”

“ It is a truth in Sociology, comparable to the biological truth, that the first step in the production of any living organism, high or low, is a certain differentiation, whereby a peripheral portion becomes distinguished from a central portion. And such exceptions to this biological truth as we find in those minute non-nucleated portions of protoplasm that are the very lowest living things, are paralleled by those exceptions to the sociological truth, seen in the small incoherent assemblages formed by the very lowest types of men. ”

“ The race is not, in fact, analogous to the higher organism, which forms a whole separated from all similar wholes, but to an organism of the lower [Pg 129] type, which consists of mutually connected parts spreading independently in dependence upon external conditions, and capable of indefinite extension, not of united growth. We may consider the race, thus, as forming social tissue, rather than constituting an organism. The tissue is built up of men, as the tissue of physiology is said to be built up of cells. ”

“ But their importance for classification, I believe, depends on their greater constancy throughout large groups of species; and this constancy depends on such organs having generally been subjected to less change in the adaptation of the species to their conditions of life. That the mere physiological importance of an organ does not determine its classificatory value, is almost shown by the one fact, that in allied groups, in which the same organ, as we have every reason to suppose, has nearly the same physiological value, its classificatory value is widely different. ”

“ That naturalists have been gradually compelled to arrange organisms in groups within groups, and that this is the arrangement which we see arises by descent, alike in individual families and among races of men, is a striking circumstance. That while the smallest groups are the most nearly related, there exist between the great sub-kingdoms, structural contrasts of the profoundest kind, cannot but impress us as remarkable, when we see that where it is known to take place evolution actually produces these feebly-distinguished small groups, and these strongly-distinguished great groups. ”

“ Difficulties of another class may next be exemplified—those which present themselves when we ask how there can be effected by the selection of favourable variations, such changes of structure as adapt an organism to some useful action in which many different parts co-operate. None can fail to see how a simple part may, in course of generations, be greatly enlarged, if each enlargement furthers, in some decided way, maintenance of the species. ”

“ Finally, we must derive from this philosophy of biology the assurance that the generalizations which it offers to us are grounds upon which we can stand securely in our deductions—of course within the province of biology—respecting man and the human species. ”

“ I scarcely need point out the application of so important a principle to sociology, but it is too early to discuss this subject. I have presented this fundamental view of the nature of an organism in order the better to approach the general question whether society is capable of being logically compared to an organism in the biological sense. ”