A study of society starts with human beings living together. In the process of human evolution, sociability seems a quality ingrained in human nature. Every individual has his personality that belongs to him apart from every other individual, but the perpetuation and development of that personality is dependent on relations with other personalities and with the physical environment which limits his activity.

As an individual, his primary interest is in self, but he finds by experience that he cannot survive in solitude. His impulses, his feelings, and his ideas are due to the relations that he has with that which is outside of himself. He may exercise choice, but it is within limits set by these outside relations. He may make use of what they can do for him, or he may antagonise them, at least he cannot ignore them. How the individual may best adapt himself to his environment and adapt the environment to his own needs helps establish certain definite relationships.

Any group of individuals, who have thus consciously established relationships with one another and with their social environment, is a society. The relationships through which the interplay of social forces is constantly going on make up the social organisation. The readjustments of these relations for the better adaptation of one individual to another, or his environment, make up the process of social development. A society which remains in equilibrium is termed static; that which is changing is called dynamic.