INTRODUCTORY 
23 
as an organic whole does not lend itself 
to analysis. By the statement that society 
is an organic whole is meant that no one 
set of human actions can be regarded as 
wholly unconnected with any other set 
of human actions taking place in the same 
community. Each society, it is asserted— 
and we may allow at once rightly asserted— 
presents an organized system of activities 
covering all that happens at one time and 
reaching backwards into the past and for 
wards into the future. A simple illustration 
can readily be furnished. My demand for a 
particular ^ book to-day—say, for Pareto’s 
Cours cTEconomie Politique, which at the 
time that I write is out of print—is 
dependent (a) upon my possession of other 
things, which gives to this want the oppor 
tunity of expressing itself, or may even be 
partially responsible for its existence ; (b) 
upon my education and circumstances in 
the past ; (c) upon my ideas and deter 
minations as regards my future ; and 
(d) upon the tastes, acquirements and 
possessions of my fellows. This being 
so, to take out the demand in question 
and try to study it as an independent 
specimen is to imply an atomistic view of 
social functioning which is in conflict with