ABSTRACT
Classical Greek was more fortunate in possessing distinct single words for the two kinds of order, namely taxis for a made order, such as, for example, an order of battle, and kosmos for a grown order, meaning originally ‘a right order in a state or a community’. In consequence, the degree of power of control over the extended and more complex order will be much smaller than that which the peoples could exercise over a made order or taxis. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the terms ‘organism’ and ‘organization’ have been frequently used to contrast the two types of order. Organisms are indeed a kind of spontaneous order and as such show many of the characteristics of other spontaneous orders. It was therefore tempting to borrow such terms as ‘growth’, ‘adaptation’ and ‘function’ from them. The term ‘organization’, which in the nineteenth century was frequently used in contrast to ‘organism’ to express the distinction.
