Excerpt from Introduction to the Study of Society, Vol. 1

Man is formed as an animal and his coming into the world is part of the organic process common to all animals. Once born into the world, however, man's immense capabilities are released, and, as long as life lasts, these interpersonal energies and gifts remove him from the limits imposed on the other creatures of nature. Yet he shares much with the other creatures. All organisms are instinct with those processes we call "life." When they diminish and death comes, it finds each creature separately and in final solitude.

The great gulf between man and the rest of the creatures lies in man's social nature, for man as a whole human being is both individual and social. He has his very being as much in his relationships with other men as he does in the structure and functioning of his own physical self. The recognition of this, of course, is nothing new, for many of the ancient Greeks understood it well. Plato taught that man can be understood only in the context of his political and social life; individual experience is limited, he knew, and "written in very fine letters." Only in the nature of society, written in large letters, does man's total nature become visible.

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