ABSTRACT
The relations that exist between individuals in community are of an infinite variety and complexity. Many of them are so subtly and delicately interwoven that they escape formulation or organized sanction, but a large number depend for their permanent existence on explicit organization. The essence of organization is the co-ordination and adjustment of the activities of the individuals who have formed an association with a view to the attainment of a common end. Organizations can therefore only be understood by reference to the ends or purposes of the associations for which they exist and which they endeavour, consciously or unconsciously, to realize. It must be clearly understood that though associations rest on common interests, these interests are not always clearly apprehended by all their members, and are not pre-willed by them. Into some associations men are born; into others they are driven by mass suggestion or the prestige of an orator. Many of them exist for purposes which have never been clearly thought out by anyone, contain conflicting elements, and are rather of the nature of trial and error experiments than examples of conscious volition. Still more rudimentary associations rest on instinct, i.e. the mutual interdependence and co-operation of the members is achieved through the instrumentality of the social instincts. As intelligence develops the purposes of the associations become consciously realized and deliberately striven for. In all cases the mutual interdependence is due to the fact that all the parts are seeking to attain a common end, but, in the earlier phases, the end is not consciously apprehended and the actions of the members though purposive are not purposeful, while in the higher forms the ends or purposes come to be clearly apprehended by all or the majority of the members.
