Human Ecology

Human ecology is an attempt to apply to the interrelations of human beings a type of analysis previously applied to the interrelations of plants and animals. The term "symbiosis" describes a type of social relationship that is biotic rather than cultural. This biotic social order comes into existence and is maintained by competition. In plant and animal societies competition is unrestricted by an institutional or moral order. Human society is a consequence and effect of this limitation of the symbiotic social order by the cultural. Different social sciences are concerned with the forms which this limitation of the natural or ecological social order assumes on (1) the economic, (2) the political, and (3) the moral level.