Organicism is the philosophical position that states that the universe and its various parts, including human societies, ought to be considered alive and naturally ordered, much like a living organism. Vital to the position is the idea that organicistic elements are not dormant "things" "per se" but rather dynamic components in a comprehensive system that is, as a whole, everchanging. Organicism is related to but remains distinct from holism insofar as organicism prefigures holism, and the latter concept is applied within a broader scope to universal part-whole interconnections such as anthropology and sociology, but the former is traditionally confined to philosophical and biological applications. Further, organicism is incongruous with reductionism, as well; for the organicism's consideration of "both bottom-up and top-down causation." Regarded as a fundamental tenet in natural philosophy, organicism has remained a vital current in modern thought, alongside both reductionism and mechanism, that has guided scientific inquiry since the early 17th century.