Essay on the Organic Theory of State
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The union of individuals forming the State has been described as similar to the union between the several parts of an animal body, wherein all parts are functionally related and none can exist in isolation from the rest.
Just as the body has a natural unity, so has a social group. An arm lives and moves only as a part of an organic whole.
Amputated from the body, it dies. The Organic Theory is a biological conception which describes the State in terms of “natural science, views the individuals which compose it as analogous to the cells of a plant or animal, and postulates a relation of interdependence between them and society such as exists between the organs and parts of a biological organism and the whole structure.”
In other words, as the animal body is composed of cells, so is the State composed of several individuals, and as is the “relation of the hand to the body, or the leaf to the tree, so is the relation of man to society. He exists in it and it in him.” The State is an organic unity—”a living spiritual being.”
The Organic Theory is as old as political thought itself. Plato compared the State to a man of great stature, and conceived a resemblance in their functions. He said that “the best ordered commonwealth was one whose structural organisation resembled most nearly in principle to that of the individual.” Cicero, too relied, upon the same analogy and likened the head of the State to the spirit which rules the human body.
Among writers of the middle Ages and early modem times, the theory was supported notably by John of Salisbury, Marsiglio Althusius and many others. It, also, found favour with Hobbes and Rousseau, although the analogies and comparisons which they made were superficial.
With the decline of the Social Contract Theory, in the early part of the nineteenth century, the theory of the organic nature of the State found a new and vigorous expression. The ancient and medieval writers had merely drawn an analogy between the State and an organism.
They held that the State resembled an organism. But writers of the nineteenth century regarded the State as an organism.
Even fanciful and very often vain elaborations of the organic conception, attributing, for instance, to the State an alimentary system, a nervous system, a circulatory system, etc., became the theme of the time.
Indeed, the “fascination of the theory with its biological analogies and parallelisms became so widespread that political science, for a time, seemed in danger of being swallowed up by natural science.”
The new theory, that the State is an organism, took root in German soil and there it found its most notable advocates. But the culmination of the theory was reached in the writings of Bluntschli.
The State, he asserted, is the very “image of human organism.” As “an oil painting,” he said, “is something more than a mere aggregation of drops of oil, as a statue is something more than a combination of marble particles, as a man is something more than a mere quantity of cells and blood corpuscles, so the nation is something more than a mere aggregation of citizens, and the State something more than a mere collection of external regulations.”
He stretched his biological analogy to the extreme and endowed the State with the quality of sex, describing it as having a male personality.
Theory as expanded by Spencer. The theory that the State is an organism received a most scientific treatment at the hands of Herbert Spencer, the English philosopher.
Spencer believed that social life is a part of an ever-evolving nature and starting from the idea of a universal evolution, he afterwards included biological evolution in his analysis. He asserted that society is an organism and it differs in no essential principle from other biological organisms.
The attributes of an organism and society, he maintained, are similar and the permanent relations existing between their various parts are also the same. 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 hunters, all builders, or all tool-maker.
As society grows in complexity, division of labour follows, i.e., new organs with different functions appears, corresponding to the differentiation of functions in the animal, in which fundamental trait they become entirely alike.”
In either case there is a 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 the social organism depend on each other.
Just as the body has a natural unity, so has a social group. An arm lives and moves only as a part of an organic whole.
Amputated from the body, it dies. The Organic Theory is a biological conception which describes the State in terms of “natural science, views the individuals which compose it as analogous to the cells of a plant or animal, and postulates a relation of interdependence between them and society such as exists between the organs and parts of a biological organism and the whole structure.”
In other words, as the animal body is composed of cells, so is the State composed of several individuals, and as is the “relation of the hand to the body, or the leaf to the tree, so is the relation of man to society. He exists in it and it in him.” The State is an organic unity—”a living spiritual being.”
The Organic Theory is as old as political thought itself. Plato compared the State to a man of great stature, and conceived a resemblance in their functions. He said that “the best ordered commonwealth was one whose structural organisation resembled most nearly in principle to that of the individual.” Cicero, too relied, upon the same analogy and likened the head of the State to the spirit which rules the human body.
Among writers of the middle Ages and early modem times, the theory was supported notably by John of Salisbury, Marsiglio Althusius and many others. It, also, found favour with Hobbes and Rousseau, although the analogies and comparisons which they made were superficial.
With the decline of the Social Contract Theory, in the early part of the nineteenth century, the theory of the organic nature of the State found a new and vigorous expression. The ancient and medieval writers had merely drawn an analogy between the State and an organism.
They held that the State resembled an organism. But writers of the nineteenth century regarded the State as an organism.
Even fanciful and very often vain elaborations of the organic conception, attributing, for instance, to the State an alimentary system, a nervous system, a circulatory system, etc., became the theme of the time.
Indeed, the “fascination of the theory with its biological analogies and parallelisms became so widespread that political science, for a time, seemed in danger of being swallowed up by natural science.”
The new theory, that the State is an organism, took root in German soil and there it found its most notable advocates. But the culmination of the theory was reached in the writings of Bluntschli.
The State, he asserted, is the very “image of human organism.” As “an oil painting,” he said, “is something more than a mere aggregation of drops of oil, as a statue is something more than a combination of marble particles, as a man is something more than a mere quantity of cells and blood corpuscles, so the nation is something more than a mere aggregation of citizens, and the State something more than a mere collection of external regulations.”
He stretched his biological analogy to the extreme and endowed the State with the quality of sex, describing it as having a male personality.
Theory as expanded by Spencer. The theory that the State is an organism received a most scientific treatment at the hands of Herbert Spencer, the English philosopher.
Spencer believed that social life is a part of an ever-evolving nature and starting from the idea of a universal evolution, he afterwards included biological evolution in his analysis. He asserted that society is an organism and it differs in no essential principle from other biological organisms.
The attributes of an organism and society, he maintained, are similar and the permanent relations existing between their various parts are also the same. 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 hunters, all builders, or all tool-maker.
As society grows in complexity, division of labour follows, i.e., new organs with different functions appears, corresponding to the differentiation of functions in the animal, in which fundamental trait they become entirely alike.”
In either case there is a 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 the social organism depend on each other.
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