ABSTRACT
The difference has been realized from the beginning, the unity is only being slowly realized. But this mere fact of infinite grades of unity extending out from the innermost circle of the family to the uttermost bounds of humanity is already a sufficient disproof of the doctrine which makes of any social group, the nation, for instance, a self-subsistent organic whole, subject to the organic law. In a society the generations of life are integrally bound together, young life with old life, parents with youth. Now life is a process of evolution, and evolution knows nothing of beginning or end. For a society is neither old nor young, and need not grow older or younger. Hence its life is not subject to the rhythm of organic life or to the law of organic mortality. The organic life appears at a definite point out of the unknown and, fulfilling its simple curve, disappears at a definite point into the unknown.
