ABSTRACT
This chapter considers society as an organic whole, of which every cell is a mind, every organ a mental system, and the whole structure a scheme of thoughts and purposes. It discusses the idea of purpose as determining the significance of society and its parts and functions—only remembering that society is a kind of unity in consequence of the system into which all its purposes are worked, and by which they are all connected. In a human society which has reached, or rather is trying to reach, the level the chapter considers, change is of a different kind, conditioned by elements of feeling, idea, and will, by which alone the ethical stage is made possible. The essence of the ethical view is that it alone defines the place and social quality of each institution and each social functioner in relation to the whole scheme of agreed purposes of the social life in which all have their place.
