A good deal of confusion has been introduced into this subject by a tendency to regard society itself as an end. In much modern thought upon the matter, the individual is conceived as attaining his own end through his due contribution to the life of the group. The extreme development of this view is to be found in the German doctrine of the state, a doctrine which prevails in more or less perfection wherever the Hegelian philosophy has struck its roots.[8] On this view, the individual has neither function nor end which is not to be expressed in terms of his own personal subordination to the state. He is a cog in the wheel, and no more. The modern dogma of progress has reinforced this view to some extent; as has also the obsession of _size_, which is one of the by-products of our extended knowledge of the physical universe and which has had the effect of minimising the significance of the single life. But whatever the causes to which this view is attributable, its influence on sociological thought is beyond question. It has been assumed, with varying explicitness, that the supra-personal end which the individual is to serve is to be identified with the social group to which he belongs. It is his appointed purpose to minister to the happiness of the group or to increase its efficiency as a military or economic unit. Footnote 8: The devout Hegelian who dislikes the Prussian doctrine of the state is nowadays at some pains to explain that Hegel’s view of the state does not cohere quite congruously with the rest of his philosophy.