The term 'society' or 'social organism' is not a metaphor. A human social group is really a unit of a higher order than a single animal, just as a many-celled animal is a unit of a higher oreder than a single cell. The single cells in a many-celled animal co-operate by means of such arrangements as the nervous system: the individuals in human society co-operate by means of sound-waves.
- Bloomfield (1935), a pag.28