Organismic Theory of Society

This view, at least as ancient as the contract idea, conceives society as a biological system, a greater organism, alike in its structure and its functions. This theory can even be dated back to Plato and Aristotle.

Plato compared society and state to a magnified human being. He divided society into three classes of rulers, the warriors and artisans based upon the three faculties of the human soul that is wisdom, courage and desire. Aristotle drew a comparison between the symmetry of the state and symmetry of the body and firmly held that the individual is an intrinsic part of society.

The parallelism between an individual organism and social organism has been worked out to the minutest possible extent by Herbert Spencer during the recent times.

The organismic theory considers society to be a unity similar to that which characterizes a biological organism. The union of individuals forming the society has been described as similar to the union between the several parts of an animal body, wherein all parts are functionally related. Just as the body has a natural unity, so has a social group. The animal body is composed of cells, so is the society composed of individuals, and as is the “relation of the hand to the body or the leaf to the tree, so is the relation of human beings to society. Human beings exist in society and society in human beings”.

The ancient and medieval writers had merely drawn an analogy between the society and an organism. They held that the society resembled an organism. But the writers of the 19th century regarded society as an organism. They tried to analyze the structure and function of society in comparison with those of an organism.

Views of Herbert Spencer

English social philosopher Herbert Spencer has been the chief exponent of this theory. He said that society is an organism and it does not differ in essential principle from the other biological organisms. The attributes of an organism and the society, he maintained, are similar. Both exhibit the same process of development. The animal and social bodies, Spencer affirmed, begin as germs, all similar and simple in structure. As they grow and develop, they become unlike and complex in structure. Their process of development is the same, both moving from similarity and simplicity to dissimilarity and complexity. “As the lowest type of animal is all stomach, respiratory surface, or limb, so primitive society is all warriors, all hunter, all builder, or all tool-maker. As society grows in complexity, division of labour follows.

In each case there is mutual dependence of parts. Just as the hand depends on the arm and the arm on the body and head, so do the parts of social organism depend on each other. Every organism depends for its life and full performance of its functions on the proper coordination and interrelation of the units. As the diseased condition of one organ affects the health and proper functioning of other organs, similarly, individuals who form society are inseparably connected with one another for the realization of their best self. There is so much dependence of one on the other that the distress of one paralyses the rest of the society. The society and organism, it is pointed out, are subject to wear and tear and then replacement. (Just as cell tissues and blood corpuscles in the animal organism, wear out and are replaced by new ones, in the same manner, old, infirm, and diseased persons die giving place to newly born persons).