THE SOCIAL ORGANISM.

[_First published in_ The Westminster Review _for January,_ 1860.]

Sir James Macintosh got great credit for the saying, that "constitutions

are not made, but grow." In our day, the most significant thing about

this saying is, that it was ever thought so significant. As from the

surprise displayed by a man at some familiar fact, you may judge of his

general culture; so from the admiration which an age accords to a new

thought, its average degree of enlightenment may be inferred. That this

apophthegm of Macintosh should have been quoted and requoted as it has,

shows how profound has been the ignorance of social science. A small ray

of truth has seemed brilliant, as a distant rushlight looks like a star

in the surrounding darkness.

Such a conception could not, indeed, fail to be startling when let fall

in the midst of a system of thought to which it was utterly alien.

Universally in Macintosh's day, things were explained on the hypothesis

of manufacture, rather than that of growth; as indeed they are, by the

majority, in our own day. It was held that the planets were severally

projected round the Sun from the Creator's hand, with just the velocity

required to balance the Sun's attraction. The formation of the Earth,

the separation of sea from land, the production of animals, were

mechanical works from which God rested as a labourer rests. Man was

supposed to be moulded after a manner somewhat akin to that in which a

modeller makes a clay-figure. And of course, in harmony with such

ideas, societies were tacitly assumed to be arranged thus or thus by

direct interposition of Providence; or by the regulations of law-makers;

or by both.

Yet that societies are not artificially put together, is a truth so

manifest, that it seems wonderful men should ever have overlooked it.

Perhaps nothing more clearly shows the small value of historical

studies, as they have been commonly pursued. You need but to look at the

changes going on around, or observe social organization in its leading

traits, to see that these are neither supernatural, nor are determined

by the wills of individual men, as by implication the older historians

teach; but are consequent on general natural causes. The one case of the

division of labour suffices to prove this. It has not been by command of

any ruler that some men have become manufacturers, while others have

remained cultivators of the soil. In Lancashire, millions have devoted

themselves to the making of cotton-fabrics; in Yorkshire, another

million lives by producing woollens; and the pottery of Staffordshire,

the cutlery of Sheffield, the hardware of Birmingham, severally occupy

their hundreds of thousands. These are large facts in the structure of

English society; but we can ascribe them neither to miracle, nor to

legislation. It is not by "the hero as king," any more than by

"collective wisdom," that men have been segregated into producers,

wholesale distributors, and retail distributors. Our industrial

organization, from its main outlines down to its minutest details, has

become what it is, not simply without legislative guidance, but, to a

considerable extent, in spite of legislative hindrances. It has arisen

under the pressure of human wants and resulting activities. While each

citizen has been pursuing his individual welfare, and none taking

thought about division of labour, or conscious of the need of it,

division of labour has yet been ever becoming more complete. It has been

doing this slowly and silently: few having observed it until quite

modern times. By steps so small, that year after year the industrial

arrangements have seemed just what they were before--by changes as

insensible as those through which a seed passes into a tree; society has

become the complex body of mutually-dependent workers which we now see.

And this economic organization, mark, is the all-essential organization.

Through the combination thus spontaneously evolved, every citizen is

supplied with daily necessaries; while he yields some product or aid to

others. That we are severally alive to-day, we owe to the regular

working of this combination during the past week; and could it be

suddenly abolished, multitudes would be dead before another week ended.

If these most conspicuous and vital arrangements of our social structure

have arisen not by the devising of any one, but through the individual

efforts of citizens to satisfy their own wants; we may be tolerably

certain that the less important arrangements have similarly arisen.

"But surely," it will be said, "the social changes directly produced by

law, cannot be classed as spontaneous growths. When parliaments or kings

order this or that thing to be done, and appoint officials to do it, the

process is clearly artificial; and society to this extent becomes a

manufacture rather than a growth." No, not even these changes are

exceptions, if they be real and permanent changes. The true sources of

such changes lie deeper than the acts of legislators. To take first the

simplest instance. We all know that the enactments of representative

governments ultimately depend on the national will: they may for a time

be out of harmony with it, but eventually they must conform to it. And

to say that the national will finally determines them, is to say that

they result from the average of individual desires; or, in other

words--from the average of individual natures. A law so initiated,

therefore, really grows out of the popular character. In the case of a

Government representing a dominant class, the same thing holds, though

not so manifestly. For the very existence of a class monopolizing all

power, is due to certain sentiments in the commonalty. Without the

feeling of loyalty on the part of retainers, a feudal system could not

exist. We see in the protest of the Highlanders against the abolition of

heritable jurisdictions, that they preferred that kind of local rule.

And if to the popular nature must be ascribed the growth of an

irresponsible ruling class; then to the popular nature must be ascribed

the social arrangements which that class creates in the pursuit of its

own ends. Even where the Government is despotic, the doctrine still

holds. The character of the people is, as before, the original source of

this political form; and, as we have abundant proof, other forms

suddenly created will not act, but rapidly retrograde to the old form.

Moreover, such regulations as a despot makes, if really operative, are

so because of their fitness to the social state. His acts being very

much swayed by general opinion--by precedent, by the feeling of his

nobles, his priesthood, his army--are in part immediate results of the

national character; and when they are out of harmony with the national

character, they are soon practically abrogated. The failure of Cromwell

permanently to establish a new social condition, and the rapid revival

of suppressed institutions and practices after his death, show how

powerless is a monarch to change the type of the society he governs. He

may disturb, he may retard, or he may aid the natural process of

organization; but the general course of this process is beyond his

control. Nay, more than this is true. Those who regard the histories of

societies as the histories of their great men, and think that these

great men shape the fates of their societies, overlook the truth that

such great men are the products of their societies. Without certain

antecedents--without a certain average national character, they neither

could have been generated nor could have had the culture which formed

them. If their society is to some extent re-moulded by them, they

were, both before and after birth, moulded by their society--were the

results of all those influences which fostered the ancestral character

they inherited, and gave their own early bias, their creed, morals,

knowledge, aspirations. So that such social changes as are immediately

traceable to individuals of unusual power, are still remotely traceable

to the social causes which produced these individuals; and hence, from

the highest point of view, such social changes also, are parts of the

general developmental process.

Thus that which is so obviously true of the industrial structure of

society, is true of its whole structure. The fact that "constitutions

are not made, but grow," is simply a fragment of the much larger fact,

that under all its aspects and through all its ramifications, society is

a growth and not a manufacture.

* * * * *

A perception that there exists some analogy between the body politic and

a living individual body, was early reached; and has from time to time

re-appeared in literature. But this perception was necessarily vague and

more or less fanciful. In the absence of physiological science, and

especially of those comprehensive generalizations which it has but

lately reached, it was impossible to discern the real parallelisms.

The central idea of Plato's model Republic, is the correspondence

between the parts of a society and the faculties of the human mind.

Classifying these faculties under the heads of Reason, Will, and

Passion, he classifies the members of his ideal society under what he

regards as three analogous heads:--councillors, who are to exercise

government; military or executive, who are to fulfil their behests; and

the commonalty, bent on gain and selfish gratification. In other words,

the ruler, the warrior, and the craftsman, are, according to him, the

analogues of our reflective, volitional, and emotional powers. Now

even were there truth in the implied assumption of a parallelism

between the structure of a society and that of a man, this

classification would be indefensible. It might more truly be contended

that, as the military power obeys the commands of the Government, it is

the Government which answers to the Will; while the military power is

simply an agency set in motion by it. Or, again, it might be contended

that whereas the Will is a product of predominant desires, to which the

Reason serves merely as an eye, it is the craftsmen, who, according to

the alleged analogy, ought to be the moving power of the warriors.

Hobbes sought to establish a still more definite parallelism: not,

however, between a society and the human mind, but between a society and

the human body. In the introduction to the work in which he develops

this conception, he says--

"For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH,

or STATE, in Latin CIVITAS, which is but an artificial man; though

of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose

protection and defence it was intended, and in which the

_sovereignty_ is an artificial _soul_, as giving life and motion to

the whole body; the _magistrates_ and other _officers_ of

judicature and execution, artificial _joints_; _reward_ and

_punishment_, by which, fastened to the seat of the sovereignty,

every joint and member is moved to perform his duty, are the

_nerves_, that do the same in the body natural; the _wealth_ and

_riches_ of all the particular members are the _strength_; _salus

populi_, the _people's safety_, its _business_; _counsellors_, by

whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are

the _memory_; _equity_ and _laws_ an artificial _reason_ and

_will_; _concord_, _health_; _sedition_, _sickness_; and _civil

war_, _death_."

And Hobbes carries this comparison so far as actually to give a drawing

of the Leviathan--a vast human-shaped figure, whose body and limbs are

made up of multitudes of men. Just noting that these different analogies

asserted by Plato and Hobbes, serve to cancel each other (being, as they

are, so completely at variance), we may say that on the whole those of

Hobbes are the more plausible. But they are full of inconsistencies. If

the sovereignty is the _soul_ of the body-politic, how can it be that

magistrates, who are a kind of deputy-sovereigns, should be comparable

to _joints_? Or, again, how can the three mental functions, memory,

reason, and will, be severally analogous, the first to counsellors, who

are a class of public officers, and the other two to equity and laws,

which are not classes of officers, but abstractions? Or, once more, if

magistrates are the artificial joints of society, how can reward and

punishment be its nerves? Its nerves must surely be some class of

persons. Reward and punishment must in societies, as in individuals, be

_conditions_ of the nerves, and not the nerves themselves.

But the chief errors of these comparisons made by Plato and Hobbes, lie

much deeper. Both thinkers assume that the organization of a society is

comparable, not simply to the organization of a living body in general,

but to the organization of the human body in particular. There is no

warrant whatever for assuming this. It is in no way implied by the

evidence; and is simply one of those fancies which we commonly find

mixed up with the truths of early speculation. Still more erroneous are

the two conceptions in this, that they construe a society as an

artificial structure. Plato's model republic--his ideal of a healthful

body-politic--is to be consciously put together by men, just as a watch

might be; and Plato manifestly thinks of societies in general as thus

originated. Quite specifically does Hobbes express a like view. "For by

_art_," he says, "is created that great LEVIATHAN called a

COMMONWEALTH." And he even goes so far as to compare the supposed social

contract, from which a society suddenly originates, to the creation of a

man by the divine fiat. Thus they both fall into the extreme

inconsistency of considering a community as similar in structure to a

human being, and yet as produced in the same way as an artificial

mechanism--in nature, an organism; in history, a machine.

Notwithstanding errors, however, these speculations have considerable

significance. That such likenesses, crudely as they are thought out,

should have been alleged by Plato and Hobbes and others, is a reason

for suspecting that _some_ analogy exists. The untenableness of the

particular parallelisms above instanced, is no ground for denying an

essential parallelism; since early ideas are usually but vague

adumbrations of the truth. Lacking the great generalizations of biology,

it was, as we have said, impossible to trace out the real relations of

social organizations to organizations of another order. We propose here

to show what are the analogies which modern science discloses.

* * * * *

Let us set out by succinctly stating the points of similarity and the

points of difference. Societies agree with individual organisms in four

conspicuous peculiarities:--

1. That commencing as small aggregations, they insensibly augment in

mass: some of them eventually reaching ten thousand times what they

originally were.

2. That while at first so simple in structure as to be considered

structureless, they assume, in the course of their growth, a

continually-increasing complexity of structure.

3. That though in their early, undeveloped states, there exists in them

scarcely any mutual dependence of parts, their parts gradually acquire a

mutual dependence; which becomes at last so great, that the activity and

life of each part is made possible only by the activity and life of the

rest.

4. That the life of a society is independent of, and far more prolonged

than, the lives of any of its component units; who are severally born,

grow, work, reproduce, and die, while the body-politic composed of them

survives generation after generation, increasing in mass, in

completeness of structure, and in functional activity.

These four parallelisms will appear the more significant the more we

contemplate them. While the points specified, are points in which

societies agree with individual organisms, they are also points in which

individual organisms agree with one another, and disagree with all

things else. In the course of its existence, every plant and animal

increases in mass, in a way not paralleled by inorganic objects: even

such inorganic objects as crystals, which arise by growth, show us no

such definite relation between growth and existence as organisms do. The

orderly progress from simplicity to complexity, displayed by

bodies-politic in common with living bodies, is a characteristic which

distinguishes living bodies from the inanimate bodies amid which they

move. That functional dependence of parts, which is scarcely more

manifest in animals than in nations, has no counterpart elsewhere. And

in no aggregate except an organic or a social one, is there a perpetual

removal and replacement of parts, joined with a continued integrity of

the whole. Moreover, societies and organisms are not only alike in these

peculiarities, in which they are unlike all other things; but the

highest societies, like the highest organisms, exhibit them in the

greatest degree. We see that the lowest animals do not increase to

anything like the sizes of the higher ones; and, similarly, we see that

aboriginal societies are comparatively limited in their growths. In

complexity, our large civilized nations as much exceed primitive savage

tribes, as a mammal does a zoophyte. Simple communities, like simple

creatures, have so little mutual dependence of parts, that mutilation or

subdivision causes but little inconvenience; but from complex

communities, as from complex creatures, you cannot remove any

considerable organ without producing great disturbance or death of the

rest. And in societies of low type, as in inferior animals, the life of

the aggregate, often cut short by division or dissolution, exceeds in

length the lives of the component units, very far less than in civilized

communities and superior animals; which outlive many generations of

their component units.

On the other hand, the leading differences between societies and

individual organisms are these:--

1. That societies have no specific external forms. This, however, is a

point of contrast which loses much of its importance, when we remember

that throughout the vegetal kingdom, as well as in some lower divisions

of the animal kingdom, the forms are often very indefinite--definiteness

being rather the exception than the rule; and that they are manifestly

in part determined by surrounding physical circumstances, as the forms

of societies are. If, too, it should eventually be shown, as we believe

it will, that the form of every species of organism has resulted from

the average play of the external forces to which it has been subject

during its evolution as a species; then, that the external forms of

societies should depend, as they do, on surrounding conditions, will be

a further point of community.

2. That though the living tissue whereof an individual organism

consists, forms a continuous mass, the living elements of a society do

not form a continuous mass; but are more or less widely dispersed over

some portion of the Earth's surface. This, which at first sight appears

to be an absolute distinction, is one which yet to a great extent fades

when we contemplate all the facts. For, in the lower divisions of the

animal and vegetal kingdoms, there are types of organization much more

nearly allied, in this respect, to the organization of a society, than

might be supposed--types in which the living units essentially composing

the mass, are dispersed through an inert substance, that can scarcely be

called living in the full sense of the word. It is thus with some of the

_Protococci_ and with the _Nostoceae_, which exist as cells imbedded in a

viscid matter. It is so, too, with the _Thalassicollae_--bodies made up

of differentiated parts, dispersed through an undifferentiated jelly.

And throughout considerable portions of their bodies, some of the

_Acalephae_ exhibit more or less this type of structure. Now this is very

much the case with a society. For we must remember that though the men

who make up a society are physically separate, and even scattered, yet

the surface over which they are scattered is not one devoid of life, but

is covered by life of a lower order which ministers to their life. The

vegetation which clothes a country makes possible the animal life in

that country; and only through its animal and vegetal products can such

a country support a society. Hence the members of the body-politic are

not to be regarded as separated by intervals of dead space, but as

diffused through a space occupied by life of a lower order. In our

conception of a social organism, we must include all that lower organic

existence on which human existence, and therefore social existence,

depend. And when we do this, we see that the citizens who make up a

community may be considered as highly vitalized units surrounded by

substances of lower vitality, from which they draw their nutriment: much

as in the cases above instanced.

3. The third difference is that while the ultimate living elements of an

individual organism are mostly fixed in their relative positions, those

of the social organism are capable of moving from place to place. But

here, too, the disagreement is much less than would be supposed. For

while citizens are locomotive in their private capacities, they are

fixed in their public capacities. As farmers, manufacturers, or traders,

men carry on their businesses at the same spots, often throughout their

whole lives; and if they go away occasionally, they leave behind others

to discharge their functions in their absence. Each great centre of

production, each manufacturing town or district, continues always in the

same place; and many of the firms in such town or district, are for

generations carried on either by the descendants or successors of those

who founded them. Just as in a living body, the cells that make up some

important organ severally perform their functions for a time and then

disappear, leaving others to supply their places; so, in each part of a

society the organ remains, though the persons who compose it change.

Thus, in social life, as in the life of an animal, the units as well as

the larger agencies formed of them, are in the main stationary as

respects the places where they discharge their duties and obtain their

sustenance. And hence the power of individual locomotion does not

practically affect the analogy.

4. The last and perhaps the most important distinction is, that while in

the body of an animal only a special tissue is endowed with feeling, in

a society all the members are endowed with feeling. Even this

distinction, however, is not a complete one. For in some of the lowest

animals, characterized by the absence of a nervous system, such

sensitiveness as exists is possessed by all parts. It is only in the

more organized forms that feeling is monopolized by one class of the

vital elements. And we must remember that societies, too, are not

without a certain differentiation of this kind. Though the units of a

community are all sensitive, they are so in unequal degrees. The classes

engaged in laborious occupations are less susceptible, intellectually

and emotionally, than the rest; and especially less so than the classes

of highest mental culture. Still, we have here a tolerably decided

contrast between bodies-politic and individual bodies; and it is one

which we should keep constantly in view. For it reminds us that while,

in individual bodies, the welfare of all other parts is rightly

subservient to the welfare of the nervous system, whose pleasurable or

painful activities make up the good or ill of life; in bodies-politic

the same thing does not hold, or holds to but a very slight extent. It

is well that the lives of all parts of an animal should be merged in the

life of the whole, because the whole has a corporate consciousness

capable of happiness or misery. But it is not so with a society; since

its living units do not and cannot lose individual consciousness, and

since the community as a whole has no corporate consciousness. This is

an everlasting reason why the welfares of citizens cannot rightly be

sacrificed to some supposed benefit of the State, and why, on the other

hand, the State is to be maintained solely for the benefit of

citizens. The corporate life must here be subservient to the lives of

the parts, instead of the lives of the parts being subservient to the

corporate life.

Such, then, are the points of analogy and the points of difference. May

we not say that the points of difference serve but to bring into clearer

light the points of analogy? While comparison makes definite the obvious

contrasts between organisms commonly so called, and the social organism,

it shows that even these contrasts are not so decided as was to be

expected. The indefiniteness of form, the discontinuity of the parts,

and the universal sensitiveness, are not only peculiarities of the

social organism which have to be stated with considerable

qualifications; but they are peculiarities to which the inferior classes

of animals present approximations. Thus we find but little to conflict

with the all-important analogies. Societies slowly augment in mass; they

progress in complexity of structure; at the same time their parts become

more mutually dependent; their living units are removed and replaced

without destroying their integrity; and the extents to which they

display these peculiarities are proportionate to their vital activities.

These are traits that societies have in common with organic bodies. And

these traits in which they agree with organic bodies and disagree with

all other things, entirely subordinate the minor distinctions: such

distinctions being scarcely greater than those which separate one half

of the organic kingdom from the other. The _principles_ of organization

are the same, and the differences are simply differences of application.

Here ending this general survey of the facts which justify the

comparison of a society with a living body, let us look at them in

detail. We shall find that the parallelism becomes the more marked the

more closely it is examined.

* * * * *

The lowest animal and vegetal forms--_Protozoa_ and _Protophyta_--are

chiefly inhabitants of the water. They are minute bodies, most of which

are made individually visible only by the microscope. All of them are

extremely simple in structure, and some of them, as the _Rhizopods_,

almost structureless. Multiplying, as they ordinarily do, by the

spontaneous division of their bodies, they produce halves which may

either become quite separate and move away in different directions, or

may continue attached. By the repetition of this process of fission,

aggregations of various sizes and kinds are formed. Among the

_Protophyta_ we have some classes, as the _Diatomaceae_ and the

Yeast-plant, in which the individuals may be either separate or attached

in groups of two, three, four, or more; other classes in which a

considerable number of cells are united into a thread (_Conferva_,

_Monilia_); others in which they form a network (_Hydrodictyon_); others

in which they form plates (_Ulva_); and others in which they form masses

(_Laminaria_, _Agaricus_): all which vegetal forms, having no

distinction of root, stem, or leaf, are called _Thallogens_. Among the

_Protozoa_ we find parallel facts. Immense numbers of _Amoeba_-like

creatures, massed together in a framework of horny fibres, constitute

Sponge. In the _Foraminifera_ we see smaller groups of such creatures

arranged into more definite shapes. Not only do these almost

structureless _Protozoa_ unite into regular or irregular aggregations of

various sizes, but among some of the more organized ones, as the

_Vorticellae_, there are also produced clusters of individuals united to

a common stem. But these little societies of monads, or cells, or

whatever else we may call them, are societies only in the lowest sense:

there is no subordination of parts among them--no organization. Each of

the component units lives by and for itself; neither giving nor

receiving aid. The only mutual dependence is that consequent on

mechanical union.

Do we not here discern analogies to the first stages of human societies?

Among the lowest races, as the Bushmen, we find but incipient

aggregation: sometimes single families, sometimes two or three families

wandering about together. The number of associated units is small and

variable, and their union inconstant. No division of labour exists

except between the sexes, and the only kind of mutual aid is that of

joint attack or defence. We see an undifferentiated group of

individuals, forming the germ of a society; just as in the homogeneous

groups of cells above described, we see the initial stage of animal and

vegetal organization.

The comparison may now be carried a step higher. In the vegetal kingdom

we pass from the _Thallogens_, consisting of mere masses of similar

cells, to the _Acrogens_, in which the cells are not similar throughout

the whole mass; but are here aggregated into a structure serving as leaf

and there into a structure serving as root; thus forming a whole in

which there is a certain subdivision of functions among the units, and

therefore a certain mutual dependence. In the animal kingdom we find

analogous progress. From mere unorganized groups of cells, or cell-like

bodies, we ascend to groups of such cells arranged into parts that have

different duties. The common Polype, from the substance of which may be

separated cells that exhibit, when detached, appearances and movements

like those of a solitary _Amoeba_, illustrates this stage. The

component units, though still showing great community of character,

assume somewhat diverse functions in the skin, in the internal surface,

and in the tentacles. There is a certain amount of "physiological

division of labour."

Turning to societies, we find these stages paralleled in most aboriginal

tribes. When, instead of such small variable groups as are formed by

Bushmen, we come to the larger and more permanent groups formed by

savages not quite so low, we find traces of social structure. Though

industrial organization scarcely shows itself, except in the different

occupations of the sexes; yet there is more or less of governmental

organization. While all the men are warriors and hunters, only a part

of them are included in the council of chiefs; and in this council of

chiefs some one has commonly supreme authority. There is thus a certain

distinction of classes and powers; and through this slight

specialization of functions is effected a rude co-operation among the

increasing mass of individuals, whenever the society has to act in its

corporate capacity. Beyond this analogy in the slight extent to which

organization is carried, there is analogy in the indefiniteness of the

organization. In the _Hydra_, the respective parts of the creature's

substance have many functions in common. They are all contractile;

omitting the tentacles, the whole of the external surface can give

origin to young _hydrae_; and, when turned inside out, stomach performs

the duties of skin and skin the duties of stomach. In aboriginal

societies such differentiations as exist are similarly imperfect.

Notwithstanding distinctions of rank, all persons maintain themselves by

their own exertions. Not only do the head men of the tribe, in common

with the rest, build their own huts, make their own weapons, kill their

own food; but the chief does the like. Moreover, such governmental

organization as exists is inconstant. It is frequently changed by

violence or treachery, and the function of ruling assumed by some other

warrior. Thus between the rudest societies and some of the lowest forms

of animal life, there is analogy alike in the slight extent to which

organization is carried, in the indefiniteness of this organization, and

in its want of fixity.

A further complication of the analogy is at hand. From the aggregation

of units into organized groups, we pass to the multiplication of such

groups, and their coalescence into compound groups. The _Hydra_, when it

has reached a certain bulk, puts forth from its surface a bud which,

growing and gradually assuming the form of the parent, finally becomes

detached; and by this process of gemmation the creature peoples the

adjacent water with others like itself. A parallel process is seen in

the multiplication of those lowly-organized tribes above described. When

one of them has increased to a size that is either too great for

co-ordination under so rude a structure, or else that is greater than

the surrounding country can supply with game and other wild food, there

arises a tendency to divide; and as in such communities there often

occur quarrels, jealousies, and other causes of division, there soon

comes an occasion on which a part of the tribe separates under the

leadership of some subordinate chief and migrates. This process being

from time to time repeated, an extensive region is at length occupied by

numerous tribes descended from a common ancestry. The analogy by no

means ends here. Though in the common _Hydra_ the young ones that bud

out from the parent soon become detached and independent; yet throughout

the rest of the class _Hydrozoa_, to which this creature belongs, the

like does not generally happen. The successive individuals thus

developed continue attached; give origin to other such individuals which

also continue attached; and so there results a compound animal. As in

the _Hydra_ itself we find an aggregation of units which, considered

separately, are akin to the lowest _Protozoa_; so here, in a _Zoophyte_,

we find an aggregation of such aggregations. The like is also seen

throughout the extensive family of _Polyzoa_ or _Molluscoida_. The

Ascidian Mollusks, too, in their many forms, show us the same thing:

exhibiting, at the same time, various degrees of union among the

component individuals. For while in the _Salpae_ the component

individuals adhere so slightly that a blow on the vessel of water in

which they are floating will separate them; in the _Botryllidae_ there

exist vascular connexions among them, and a common circulation. Now in

these different stages of aggregation, may we not see paralleled the

union of groups of connate tribes into nations? Though, in regions where

circumstances permit, the tribes descended from some original tribe

migrate in all directions, and become far removed and quite separate;

yet, where the territory presents barriers to distant migration, this

does not happen: the small kindred communities are held in closer

contact, and eventually become more or less united into a nation. The

contrast between the tribes of American Indians and the Scottish clans,

illustrates this. And a glance at our own early history, or the early

histories of continental nations, shows this fusion of small simple

communities taking place in various ways and to various extents. As says

M. Guizot, in his _History of the Origin of Representative

Government_,--

"By degrees, in the midst of the chaos of the rising society, small

aggregations are formed which feel the want of alliance and union

with each other.... Soon inequality of strength is displayed among

neighbouring aggregations. The strong tend to subjugate the weak,

and usurp at first the rights of taxation and military service.

Thus political authority leaves the aggregations which first

instituted it, to take a wider range."

That is to say, the small tribes, clans, or feudal groups, sprung mostly

from a common stock, and long held in contact as occupants of adjacent

lands, gradually get united in other ways than by kinship and proximity.

A further series of changes begins now to take place, to which, as

before, we find analogies in individual organisms. Returning to the

_Hydrozoa_, we observe that in the simplest of the compound forms the

connected individuals are alike in structure, and perform like

functions; with the exception that here and there a bud, instead of

developing into a stomach, mouth, and tentacles, becomes an egg-sac. But

with the oceanic _Hydrozoa_ this is by no means the case. In the

_Calycophoridae_ some of the polypes growing from the common germ, become

developed and modified into large, long, sack-like bodies, which, by

their rhythmical contractions, move through the water, dragging the

community of polypes after them. In the _Physophoridae_ a variety of

organs similarly arise by transformation of the budding polypes; so that

in creatures like the _Physalia_, commonly known as the "Portuguese

Man-of-war," instead of that tree-like group of similar individuals

forming the original type, we have a complex mass of unlike parts

fulfilling unlike duties. As an individual _Hydra_ may be regarded as a

group of _Protozoa_ which have become partially metamorphosed into

different organs; so a _Physalia_ is, morphologically considered, a

group of _Hydrae_ of which the individuals have been variously

transformed to fit them for various functions.

This differentiation upon differentiation is just what takes place

during the evolution of a civilized society. We observed how, in the

small communities first formed, there arises a simple political

organization: there is a partial separation of classes having different

duties. And now we have to observe how, in a nation formed by the fusion

of such small communities, the several sections, at first alike in

structures and modes of activity, grow unlike in both--gradually become

mutually-dependent parts, diverse in their natures and functions.

* * * * *

The doctrine of the progressive division of labour, to which we are here

introduced, is familiar to all readers. And further, the analogy between

the economical division of labour and the "physiological division of

labour," is so striking as long since to have drawn the attention of

scientific naturalists: so striking, indeed, that the expression

"physiological division of labour," has been suggested by it. It is not

needful, therefore, to treat this part of the subject in great detail.

We shall content ourselves with noting a few general and significant

facts, not manifest on a first inspection.

Throughout the whole animal kingdom, from the _Coelenterata_ upwards,

the first stage of evolution is the same. Equally in the germ of a

polype and in the human ovum, the aggregated mass of cells out of which

the creature is to arise, gives origin to a peripheral layer of cells,

slightly differing from the rest which they include; and this layer

subsequently divides into two--the inner, lying in contact with the

included yelk, being called the mucous layer, and the outer, exposed to

surrounding agencies, being called the serous layer: or, in the terms

used by Prof. Huxley, in describing the development of the

_Hydrozoa_--the endoderm and ectoderm. This primary division marks out a

fundamental contrast of parts in the future organism. From the mucous

layer, or endoderm, is developed the apparatus of nutrition; while from

the serous layer, or ectoderm, is developed the apparatus of external

action. Out of the one arise the organs by which food is prepared and

absorbed, oxygen imbibed, and blood purified; while out of the other

arise the nervous, muscular, and osseous systems, by the combined

actions of which the movements of the body as a whole are effected.

Though this is not a rigorously-correct distinction, seeing that some

organs involve both of these primitive membranes, yet high authorities

agree in stating it as a broad general distinction. Well, in the

evolution of a society, we see a primary differentiation of analogous

kind, which similarly underlies the whole future structure. As already

pointed out, the only manifest contrast of parts in primitive societies,

is that between the governing and the governed. In the least organized

tribes, the council of chiefs may be a body of men distinguished simply

by greater courage or experience. In more organized tribes, the

chief-class is definitely separated from the lower class, and often

regarded as different in nature--sometimes as god-descended. And later,

we find these two becoming respectively freemen and slaves, or nobles

and serfs. A glance at their respective functions, makes it obvious that

the great divisions thus early formed, stand to each other in a relation

similar to that in which the primary divisions of the embryo stand to

each other. For, from its first appearance, the warrior-class, headed by

chiefs, is that by which the external acts of the society are carried

on: alike in war, in negotiation, and in migration. Afterwards, while

this upper class grows distinct from the lower, and at the same time

becomes more and more exclusively regulative and defensive in its

functions, alike in the persons of kings and subordinate rulers,

priests, and soldiers; the inferior class becomes more and more

exclusively occupied in providing the necessaries of life for the

community at large. From the soil, with which it comes in most direct

contact, the mass of the people takes up, and prepares for use, the food

and such rude articles of manufacture as are known; while the overlying

mass of superior men, maintained by the working population, deals with

circumstances external to the community--circumstances with which, by

position, it is more immediately concerned. Ceasing by-and-by to have

any knowledge of, or power over, the concerns of the society as a whole,

the serf-class becomes devoted to the processes of alimentation; while

the noble class, ceasing to take any part in the processes of

alimentation, becomes devoted to the co-ordinated movements of the

entire body-politic.

Equally remarkable is a further analogy of like kind. After the mucous

and serous layers of the embryo have separated, there presently arises

between the two a third, known to physiologists as the vascular layer--a

layer out of which are developed the chief blood-vessels. The mucous

layer absorbs nutriment from the mass of yelk it encloses; this

nutriment has to be transferred to the overlying serous layer, out of

which the nervo-muscular system is being developed; and between the two

arises a vascular system by which the transfer is effected--a system of

vessels which continues ever after to be the transferrer of nutriment

from the places where it is absorbed and prepared, to the places where

it is needed for growth and repair. Well, may we not trace a parallel

step in social progress? Between the governing and the governed, there

at first exists no intermediate class; and even in some societies that

have reached considerable sizes, there are scarcely any but the nobles

and their kindred on the one hand, and the serfs on the other: the

social structure being such that transfer of commodities takes place

directly from slaves to their masters. But in societies of a higher

type, there grows up, between these two primitive classes, another--the

trading or middle class. Equally at first as now, we may see that,

speaking generally, this middle class is the analogue of the middle

layer in the embryo. For all traders are essentially distributors.

Whether they be wholesale dealers, who collect into large masses the

commodities of various producers; or whether they be retailers, who

divide out to those who want them, the masses of commodities thus

collected together; all mercantile men are agents of transfer from the

places where things are produced to the places where they are consumed.

Thus the distributing apparatus in a society, answers to the

distributing apparatus in a living body; not only in its functions, but

in its intermediate origin and subsequent position, and in the time of

its appearance.

Without enumerating the minor differentiations which these three great

classes afterwards undergo, we will merely note that throughout, they

follow the same general law with the differentiations of an individual

organism. In a society, as in a rudimentary animal, we have seen that

the most general and broadly contrasted divisions are the first to make

their appearance; and of the subdivisions it continues true in both

cases, that they arise in the order of decreasing generality.

Let us observe, next, that in the one case as in the other, the

specializations are at first very incomplete, and approach completeness

as organization progresses. We saw that in primitive tribes, as in the

simplest animals, there remains much community of function between the

parts which are nominally different--that, for instance, the class of

chiefs long remains industrially the same as the inferior class; just

as in a _Hydra_, the property of contractility is possessed by the units

of the endoderm as well as by those of the ectoderm. We noted also how,

as the society advanced, the two great primitive classes partook less

and less of each other's functions. And we have here to remark that all

subsequent specializations are at first vague and gradually become

distinct. "In the infancy of society," says M. Guizot, "everything is

confused and uncertain; there is as yet no fixed and precise line of

demarcation between the different powers in a state." "Originally kings

lived like other landowners, on the incomes derived from their own

private estates." Nobles were petty kings; and kings only the most

powerful nobles. Bishops were feudal lords and military leaders. The

right of coining money was possessed by powerful subjects, and by the

Church, as well as by the king. Every leading man exercised alike the

functions of landowner, farmer, soldier, statesman, judge. Retainers

were now soldiers, and now labourers, as the day required. But by

degrees the Church has lost all civil jurisdiction; the State has

exercised less and less control over religious teaching; the military

class has grown a distinct one; handicrafts have concentrated in towns;

and the spinning-wheels of scattered farmhouses, have disappeared before

the machinery of manufacturing districts. Not only is all progress from

the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, but, at the same time, it is from

the indefinite to the definite.

Another fact which should not be passed over, is that in the evolution

of a large society out of a cluster of small ones, there is a gradual

obliteration of the original lines of separation--a change to which,

also, we may see analogies in living bodies. The sub-kingdom _Annulosa_,

furnishes good illustrations. Among the lower types the body consists of

numerous segments that are alike in nearly every particular. Each has

its external ring; its pair of legs, if the creature has legs; its

equal portion of intestine, or else its separate stomach; its equal

portion of the great blood-vessel, or, in some cases, its separate

heart; its equal portion of the nervous cord; and, perhaps, its separate

pair of ganglia. But in the highest types, as in the large _Crustacea_,

many of the segments are completely fused together; and the internal

organs are no longer uniformly repeated in all the segments. Now the

segments of which nations at first consist, lose their separate external

and internal structures in a similar manner. In feudal times the minor

communities, governed by feudal lords, were severally organized in the

same rude way, and were held together only by the fealty of their

respective rulers to a suzerain. But along with the growth of a central

power, the demarcations of these local communities become relatively

unimportant, and their separate organizations merge into the general

organization. The like is seen on a larger scale in the fusion of

England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; and, on the Continent, in the

coalescence of provinces into kingdoms. Even in the disappearance of

law-made divisions, the process is analogous. Among the Anglo-Saxons,

England was divided into tithings, hundreds, and counties: there were

county-courts, courts of hundred, and courts of tithing. The courts of

tithing disappeared first; then the courts of hundred, which have,

however, left traces; while the county-jurisdiction still exists.

Chiefly, however, it is to be noted, that there eventually grows up an

organization which has no reference to these original divisions, but

traverses them in various directions, as is the case in creatures

belonging to the sub-kingdom just named; and, further, that in both

cases it is the sustaining organization which thus traverses old

boundaries, while, in both cases, it is the governmental, or

co-ordinating organization in which the original boundaries continue

traceable. Thus, in the highest _Annulosa_ the exo-skeleton and the

muscular system never lose all traces of their primitive segmentation;

but throughout a great part of the body, the contained viscera do not in

the least conform to the external divisions. Similarly with a nation we

see that while, for governmental purposes, such divisions as counties

and parishes still exist, the structure developed for carrying on the

nutrition of society wholly ignores these boundaries: our great

cotton-manufacture spreads out of Lancashire into North Derbyshire;

Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire have long divided the stocking-trade

between them; one great centre for the production of iron and

iron-goods, includes parts of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and

Worcestershire; and those various specializations of agriculture which

have made different parts of England noted for different products, show

no more respect to county-boundaries than do our growing towns to the

boundaries of parishes.

If, after contemplating these analogies of structure, we inquire whether

there are any such analogies between the processes of organic change,

the answer is--yes. The causes which lead to increase of bulk in any

part of the body-politic, are of like nature with those which lead to

increase of bulk in any part of an individual body. In both cases the

antecedent is greater functional activity consequent on greater demand.

Each limb, viscus, gland, or other member of an animal, is developed by

exercise--by actively discharging the duties which the body at large

requires of it; and similarly, any class of labourers or artisans, any

manufacturing centre, or any official agency, begins to enlarge when the

community devolves on it more work. In each case, too, growth has its

conditions and its limits. That any organ in a living being may grow by

exercise, there needs a due supply of blood. All action implies waste;

blood brings the materials for repair; and before there can be growth,

the quantity of blood supplied must be more than is requisite for

repair. In a society it is the same. If to some district which

elaborates for the community particular commodities--say the woollens

of Yorkshire--there comes an augmented demand; and if, in fulfilment of

this demand, a certain expenditure and wear of the manufacturing

organization are incurred; and if, in payment for the extra quantity of

woollens sent away, there comes back only such quantity of commodities

as replaces the expenditure, and makes good the waste of life and

machinery; there can clearly be no growth. That there may be growth, the

commodities obtained in return must be more than sufficient for these

ends; and just in proportion as the surplus is great will the growth be

rapid. Whence it is manifest that what in commercial affairs we call

_profit_, answers to the excess of nutrition over waste in a living

body. Moreover, in both cases when the functional activity is high and

the nutrition defective, there results not growth but decay. If in an

animal, any organ is worked so hard that the channels which bring blood

cannot furnish enough for repair, the organ dwindles: atrophy is set up.

And if in the body-politic, some part has been stimulated into great

productivity, and cannot afterwards get paid for all its produce,

certain of its members become bankrupt, and it decreases in size.

One more parallelism to be here noted, is that the different parts of a

social organism, like the different parts of an individual organism,

compete for nutriment; and severally obtain more or less of it according

as they are discharging more or less duty. If a man's brain be

overexcited it abstracts blood from his viscera and stops digestion; or

digestion, actively going on, so affects the circulation through the

brain as to cause drowsiness; or great muscular exertion determines such

a quantity of blood to the limbs as to arrest digestion or cerebral

action, as the case may be. So, likewise, in a society, great activity

in some one direction causes partial arrests of activity elsewhere by

abstracting capital, that is commodities: as instance the way in which

the sudden development of our railway-system hampered commercial

operations; or the way in which the raising of a large military force

temporarily stops the growth of leading industries.

* * * * *

The last few paragraphs introduce the next division of our subject.

Almost unawares we have come upon the analogy which exists between the

blood of a living body and the circulating mass of commodities in the

body-politic. We have now to trace out this analogy from its simplest to

its most complex manifestations.

In the lowest animals there exists no blood properly so called. Through

the small assemblage of cells which make up a _Hydra_, permeate the

juices absorbed from the food. There is no apparatus for elaborating a

concentrated and purified nutriment, and distributing it among the

component units; but these component units directly imbibe the

unprepared nutriment, either from the digestive cavity or from one

another. May we not say that this is what takes place in an aboriginal

tribe? All its members severally obtain for themselves the necessaries

of life in their crude states; and severally prepare them for their own

uses as well as they can. When there arises a decided differentiation

between the governing and the governed, some amount of transfer begins

between those inferior individuals who, as workers, come directly in

contact with the products of the earth, and those superior ones who

exercise the higher functions--a transfer parallel to that which

accompanies the differentiation of the ectoderm from the endoderm. In

the one case, as in the other, however, it is a transfer of products

that are little if at all prepared; and takes place directly from the

unit which obtains to the unit which consumes, without entering into any

general current.

Passing to larger organisms--individual and social--we meet the first

advance on this arrangement. Where, as among the compound _Hydrozoa_,

there is a union of many such primitive groups as form _Hydrae_; or

where, as in a _Medusa_, one of these groups has become of great size;

there exist rude channels running throughout the substance of the body:

not, however, channels for the conveyance of prepared nutriment, but

mere prolongations of the digestive cavity, through which the crude

chyle-aqueous fluid reaches the remoter parts, and is moved backwards

and forwards by the creature's contractions. Do we not find in some of

the more advanced primitive communities an analogous condition? When the

men, partially or fully united into one society, become numerous--when,

as usually happens, they cover a surface of country not everywhere alike

in its products--when, more especially, there arise considerable classes

which are not industrial; some process of exchange and distribution

inevitably arises. Traversing here and there the earth's surface,

covered by that vegetation on which human life depends, and in which, as

we say, the units of a society are imbedded, there are formed indefinite

paths, along which some of the necessaries of life occasionally pass, to

be bartered for others which presently come back along the same

channels. Note, however, that at first little else but crude commodities

are thus transferred--fruits, fish, pigs or cattle, skins, etc.: there

are few, if any, manufactured products or articles prepared for

consumption. And note also, that such distribution of these unprepared

necessaries of life as takes place, is but occasional--goes on with a

certain slow, irregular rhythm.

Further progress in the elaboration and distribution of nutriment, or of

commodities, is a necessary accompaniment of further differentiation of

functions in the individual body or in the body-politic. As fast as each

organ of a living animal becomes confined to a special action, it must

become dependent on the rest for those materials which its position and

duty do not permit it to obtain for itself; in the same way that, as

fast as each particular class of a community becomes exclusively

occupied in producing its own commodity, it must become dependent on

the rest for the other commodities it needs. And, simultaneously, a more

perfectly-elaborated blood will result from a highly specialized group

of nutritive organs, severally adapted to prepare its different

elements; in the same way that the stream of commodities circulating

throughout a society, will be of superior quality in proportion to the

greater division of labour among the workers. Observe, also, that in

either case the circulating mass of nutritive materials, besides coming

gradually to consist of better ingredients, also grows more complex. An

increase in the number of the unlike organs which add to the blood their

waste matters, and demand from it the different materials they severally

need, implies a blood more heterogeneous in composition--an _a priori_

conclusion which, according to Dr. Williams, is inductively confirmed by

examination of the blood throughout the various grades of the animal

kingdom. And similarly, it is manifest that as fast as the division of

labour among the classes of a community becomes greater, there must be

an increasing heterogeneity in the currents of merchandize flowing

throughout that community.

The circulating mass of nutritive materials in individual organisms and

in social organisms, becoming at once better in the quality of its

ingredients and more heterogeneous in composition, as the type of

structure becomes higher, eventually has added to it in both cases

another element, which is not itself nutritive but facilitates the

processes of nutrition. We refer, in the case of the individual

organism, to the blood-discs; and in the case of the social organism, to

money. This analogy has been observed by Liebig, who in his _Familiar

Letters on Chemistry_ says:--

"Silver and gold have to perform in the organism of the state, the

same function as the blood-corpuscles in the human organism. As

these round discs, without themselves taking an immediate share in

the nutritive process, are the medium, the essential condition of

the change of matter, of the production of the heat and of the

force by which the temperature of the body is kept up, and the

motions of the blood and all the juices are determined, so has gold

become the medium of all activity in the life of the state."

And blood-corpuscles being like coin in their functions, and in the fact

that they are not consumed in nutrition, he further points out that the

number of them which in a considerable interval flows through the great

centres, is enormous when compared with their absolute number; just as

the quantity of money which annually passes through the great mercantile

centres, is enormous when compared with the quantity of money in the

kingdom. Nor is this all. Liebig has omitted the significant

circumstance that only at a certain stage of organization does this

element of the circulation make its appearance. Throughout extensive

divisions of the lower animals, the blood contains no corpuscles; and in

societies of low civilization, there is no money.

Thus far we have considered the analogy between the blood in a living

body and the consumable and circulating commodities in the body-politic.

Let us now compare the appliances by which they are respectively

distributed. We shall find in the developments of these appliances

parallelisms not less remarkable than those above set forth. Already we

have shown that, as classes, wholesale and retail distributors discharge

in a society the office which the vascular system discharges in an

individual creature; that they come into existence later than the other

two great classes, as the vascular layer appears later than the mucous

and serous layers; and that they occupy a like intermediate position.

Here, however, it remains to be pointed out that a complete conception

of the circulating system in a society, includes not only the active

human agents who propel the currents of commodities, and regulate their

distribution, but includes, also, the channels of communication. It is

the formation and arrangement of these to which we now direct attention.

Going back once more to those lower animals in which there is found

nothing but a partial diffusion, not of blood, but only of crude

nutritive fluids, it is to be remarked that the channels through which

the diffusion takes place, are mere excavations through the

half-organized substance of the body: they have no lining membranes, but

are mere _lacunae_ traversing a rude tissue. Now countries in which

civilization is but commencing, display a like condition: there are no

roads properly so called; but the wilderness of vegetal life covering

the earth's surface is pierced by tracks, through which the distribution

of crude commodities takes place. And while, in both cases, the acts of

distribution occur only at long intervals (the currents, after a pause,

now setting towards a general centre and now away from it), the transfer

is in both cases slow and difficult. But among other accompaniments of

progress, common to animals and societies, comes the formation of more

definite and complete channels of communication. Blood-vessels acquire

distinct walls; roads are fenced and gravelled. This advance is first

seen in those roads or vessels that are nearest to the chief centres of

distribution; while the peripheral roads and peripheral vessels long

continue in their primitive states. At a yet later stage of development,

where comparative finish of structure is found throughout the system as

well as near the chief centres, there remains in both cases the

difference that the main channels are comparatively broad and straight,

while the subordinate ones are narrow and tortuous in proportion to

their remoteness. Lastly, it is to be remarked that there ultimately

arise in the higher social organisms, as in the higher individual

organisms, main channels of distribution still more distinguished by

their perfect structures, their comparative straightness, and the

absence of those small branches which the minor channels perpetually

give off. And in railways we also see, for the first time in the social

organism, a system of double channels conveying currents in opposite

directions, as do the arteries and veins of a well-developed animal.

These parallelisms in the evolutions and structures of the circulating

systems, introduce us to others in the kinds and rates of the movements

going on through them. Through the lowest societies, as through the

lowest creatures, the distribution of crude nutriment is by slow

gurgitations and regurgitations. In creatures that have rude vascular

systems, just as in societies that are beginning to have roads, there is

no regular circulation along definite courses; but, instead, periodical

changes of the currents--now towards this point and now towards that.

Through each part of an inferior mollusk's body, the blood flows for a

while in one direction, then stops and flows in the opposite direction;

just as through a rudely-organized society, the distribution of

merchandize is slowly carried on by great fairs, occurring in different

localities, to and from which the currents periodically set. Only

animals of tolerably complete organizations, like advanced communities,

are permeated by constant currents that are definitely directed. In

living bodies, the local and variable currents disappear when there grow

up great centres of circulation, generating more powerful currents by a

rhythm which ends in a quick, regular pulsation. And when in social

bodies there arise great centres of commercial activity, producing and

exchanging large quantities of commodities, the rapid and continuous

streams drawn in and emitted by these centres subdue all minor and local

circulations: the slow rhythm of fairs merges into the faster one of

weekly markets, and in the chief centres of distribution, weekly markets

merge into daily markets; while in place of the languid transfer from

place to place, taking place at first weekly, then twice or thrice a

week, we by-and-by get daily transfer, and finally transfer many times a

day--the original sluggish, irregular rhythm, becomes a rapid, equable

pulse. Mark, too, that in both cases the increased activity, like the

greater perfection of structure, is much less conspicuous at the

periphery of the vascular system. On main lines of railway, we have,

perhaps, a score trains in each direction daily, going at from thirty to

fifty miles an hour; as, through the great arteries, the blood moves

rapidly in successive gushes. Along high roads, there go vehicles

conveying men and commodities with much less, though still considerable,

speed, and with a much less decided rhythm; as, in the smaller arteries,

the speed of the blood is greatly diminished and the pulse less

conspicuous. In parish-roads, narrower, less complete, and more

tortuous, the rate of movement is further decreased and the rhythm

scarcely traceable; as in the ultimate arteries. In those still more

imperfect by-roads which lead from these parish-roads to scattered

farmhouses and cottages, the motion is yet slower and very irregular;

just as we find it in the capillaries. While along the field-roads,

which, in their unformed, unfenced state, are typical of _lacunae_, the

movement is the slowest, the most irregular, and the most infrequent; as

it is, not only in the primitive _lacunae_ of animals and societies, but

as it is also in those _lacunae_ in which the vascular system ends among

extensive families of inferior creatures.

Thus, then, we find between the distributing systems of living bodies

and the distributing systems of bodies-politic, wonderfully close

parallelisms. In the lowest forms of individual and social organisms,

there exist neither prepared nutritive matters nor distributing

appliances; and in both, these, arising as necessary accompaniments of

the differentiation of parts, approach perfection as this

differentiation approaches completeness. In animals, as in societies,

the distributing agencies begin to show themselves at the same relative

periods, and in the same relative positions. In the one, as in the

other, the nutritive materials circulated are at first crude and simple,

gradually become better elaborated and more heterogeneous, and have

eventually added to them a new element facilitating the nutritive

processes. The channels of communication pass through similar phases of

development, which bring them to analogous forms. And the directions,

rhythms, and rates of circulation, progress by like steps to like final

conditions.

* * * * *

We come at length to the nervous system. Having noticed the primary

differentiation of societies into the governing and governed classes,

and observed its analogy to the differentiation of the two primary

tissues which respectively develop into organs of external action and

organs of alimentation; having noticed some of the leading analogies

between the development of industrial arrangements and that of the

alimentary apparatus; and having, above, more fully traced the analogies

between the distributing systems, social and individual; we have now to

compare the appliances by which a society, as a whole, is regulated,

with those by which the movements of an individual creature are

regulated. We shall find here parallelisms equally striking with those

already detailed.

The class out of which governmental organization originates, is, as we

have said, analogous in its relations to the ectoderm of the lowest

animals and of embryonic forms. And as this primitive membrane, out of

which the nervo-muscular system is evolved, must, even in the first

stage of its differentiation, be slightly distinguished from the rest by

that greater impressibility and contractility characterizing the organs

to which it gives rise; so, in that superior class which is eventually

transformed into the directo-executive system of a society (its

legislative and defensive appliances), does there exist in the

beginning, a larger endowment of the capacities required for these

higher social functions. Always, in rude assemblages of men, the

strongest, most courageous, and most sagacious, become rulers and

leaders; and, in a tribe of some standing, this results in the

establishment of a dominant class, characterized on the average by those

mental and bodily qualities which fit them for deliberation and

vigorous combined action. Thus that greater impressibility and

contractility, which in the rudest animal types characterize the units

of the ectoderm, characterize also the units of the primitive social

stratum which controls and fights; since impressibility and

contractility are the respective roots of intelligence and strength.

Again, in the unmodified ectoderm, as we see it in the _Hydra_, the

units are all endowed both with impressibility and contractility; but as

we ascend to higher types of organization, the ectoderm differentiates

into classes of units which divide those two functions between them:

some, becoming exclusively impressible, cease to be contractile; while

some, becoming exclusively contractile, cease to be impressible.

Similarly with societies. In an aboriginal tribe, the directive and

executive functions are diffused in a mingled form throughout the whole

governing class. Each minor chief commands those under him, and, if need

be, himself coerces them into obedience. The council of chiefs itself

carries out on the battle-field its own decisions. The head chief not

only makes laws, but administers justice with his own hands. In larger

and more settled communities, however, the directive and executive

agencies begin to grow distinct from each other. As fast as his duties

accumulate, the head chief or king confines himself more and more to

directing public affairs, and leaves the execution of his will to

others: he deputes others to enforce submission, to inflict punishments,

or to carry out minor acts of offence and defence; and only on occasions

when, perhaps, the safety of the society and his own supremacy are at

stake, does he begin to act as well as direct. As this differentiation

establishes itself, the characteristics of the ruler begin to change. No

longer, as in an aboriginal tribe, the strongest and most daring man,

the tendency is for him to become the man of greatest cunning,

foresight, and skill in the management of others; for in societies that

have advanced beyond the first stage, it is chiefly such qualities

that insure success in gaining supreme power, and holding it against

internal and external enemies. Thus that member of the governing class

who comes to be the chief directing agent, and so plays the same part

that a rudimentary nervous centre does in an unfolding organism, is

usually one endowed with some superiorities of nervous organization.

In those larger and more complex communities possessing, perhaps, a

separate military class, a priesthood, and dispersed masses of

population requiring local control, there grow up subordinate governing

agents; who, as their duties accumulate, severally become more directive

and less executive in their characters. And when, as commonly happens,

the king begins to collect round himself advisers who aid him by

communicating information, preparing subjects for his judgment, and

issuing his orders; we may say that the form of organization is

comparable to one very general among inferior types of animals, in which

there exists a chief ganglion with a few dispersed minor ganglia under

its control.

The analogies between the evolution of governmental structures in

societies, and the evolution of governmental structures in living

bodies, are, however, more strikingly displayed during the formation of

nations by coalescence of tribes--a process already shown to be, in

several respects, parallel to the development of creatures that

primarily consist of many like segments. Among other points of community

between the successive rings which make up the body in the lower

_Annulosa_, is the possession of similar pairs of ganglia. These pairs

of ganglia, though connected by nerves, are very incompletely dependent

on any general controlling power. Hence it results that when the body is

cut in two, the hinder part continues to move forward under the

propulsion of its numerous legs; and that when the chain of ganglia has

been divided without severing the body, the hind limbs may be seen

trying to propel the body in one direction while the fore limbs are

trying to propel it in another. But in the higher _Annulosa_, called

_Articulata_, sundry of the anterior pairs of ganglia, besides growing

larger, unite in one mass; and this great cephalic ganglion having

become the co-ordinator of all the creature's movements, there no longer

exists much local independence. Now may we not in the growth of a

consolidated kingdom out of petty sovereignties or baronies, observe

analogous changes? Like the chiefs and primitive rulers above described,

feudal lords, exercising supreme power over their respective groups of

retainers, discharge functions analogous to those of rudimentary nervous

centres. Among these local governing centres there is, in early feudal

times, very little subordination. They are in frequent antagonism; they

are individually restrained chiefly by the influence of parties in their

own class; and they are but irregularly subject to that most powerful

member of their order who has gained the position of head-suzerain or

king. As the growth and organization of the society progresses, these

local directive centres fall more and more under the control of a chief

directive centre. Closer commercial union between the several segments

is accompanied by closer governmental union; and these minor rulers end

in being little more than agents who administer, in their several

localities, the laws made by the supreme ruler: just as the local

ganglia above described, eventually become agents which enforce, in

their respective segments, the orders of the cephalic ganglion. The

parallelism holds still further. We remarked above, when speaking of the

rise of aboriginal kings, that in proportion as their territories

increase, they are obliged not only to perform their executive functions

by deputy, but also to gather round themselves advisers to aid in their

directive functions; and that thus, in place of a solitary governing

unit, there grows up a group of governing units, comparable to a

ganglion consisting of many cells. Let us here add that the advisers and

chief officers who thus form the rudiment of a ministry, tend from the

beginning to exercise some control over the ruler. By the information

they give and the opinions they express, they sway his judgment and

affect his commands. To this extent he is made a channel through which

are communicated the directions originating with them; and in course of

time, when the advice of ministers becomes the acknowledged source of

his actions, the king assumes the character of an automatic centre,

reflecting the impressions made on him from without.

Beyond this complication of governmental structure many societies do not

progress; but in some, a further development takes place. Our own case

best illustrates this further development and its further analogies. To

kings and their ministries have been added, in England, other great

directive centres, exercising a control which, at first small, has been

gradually becoming predominant: as with the great governing ganglia

which especially distinguish the highest classes of living beings.

Strange as the assertion will be thought, our Houses of Parliament

discharge, in the social economy, functions which are in sundry respects

comparable to those discharged by the cerebral masses in a vertebrate

animal. As it is in the nature of a single ganglion to be affected only

by special stimuli from particular parts of the body; so it is in the

nature of a single ruler to be swayed in his acts by exclusive personal

or class interests. As it is in the nature of a cluster of ganglia,

connected with the primary one, to convey to it a greater variety of

influences from more numerous organs, and thus to make its acts conform

to more numerous requirements; so it is in the nature of the subsidiary

controlling powers surrounding a king to adapt his rule to a greater

number of public exigencies. And as it is in the nature of those great

and latest-developed ganglia which distinguish the higher animals, to

interpret and combine the multiplied and varied impressions conveyed to

them from all parts of the system, and to regulate the actions in such

way as duly to regard them all; so it is in the nature of those great

and latest-developed legislative bodies which distinguish the most

advanced societies, to interpret and combine the wishes of all classes

and localities, and to make laws in harmony with the general wants. We

may describe the office of the brain as that of _averaging_ the

interests of life, physical, intellectual, moral; and a good brain is

one in which the desires answering to these respective interests are so

balanced, that the conduct they jointly dictate, sacrifices none of

them. Similarly, we may describe the office of a Parliament as that of

_averaging_ the interests of the various classes in a community; and a

good Parliament is one in which the parties answering to these

respective interests are so balanced, that their united legislation

allows to each class as much as consists with the claims of the rest.

Besides being comparable in their duties, these great directive centres,

social and individual, are comparable in the processes by which their

duties are discharged. The cerebrum is not occupied with direct

impressions from without but with the ideas of such impressions. Instead

of the actual sensations produced in the body, and directly appreciated

by the sensory ganglia, or primitive nervous centres, the cerebrum

receives only the representations of these sensations; and its

consciousness is called _representative_ consciousness, to distinguish

it from the original or _presentative_ consciousness. Is it not

significant that we have hit on the same word to distinguish the

function of our House of Commons? We call it a _representative_ body,

because the interests with which it deals are not directly presented to

it, but represented to it by its various members; and a debate is a

conflict of representations of the results likely to follow from a

proposed course--a description which applies with equal truth to a

debate in the individual consciousness. In both cases, too, these great

governing masses take no part in the executive functions. As, after a

conflict in the cerebrum, those desires which finally predominate act

on the subjacent ganglia, and through their instrumentality determine

the bodily actions; so the parties which, after a parliamentary

struggle, gain the victory, do not themselves carry out their wishes,

but get them carried out by the executive divisions of the Government.

The fulfilment of all legislative decisions still devolves on the

original directive centres: the impulse passing from the Parliament to

the Ministers and from the Ministers to the King, in whose name

everything is done; just as those smaller, first-developed ganglia,

which in the lowest vertebrata are the chief controlling agents, are

still, in the brains of the higher vertebrata, the agents through which

the dictates of the cerebrum are worked out. Moreover, in both cases

these original centres become increasingly automatic. In the developed

vertebrate animal, they have little function beyond that of conveying

impressions to, and executing the determinations of, the larger centres.

In our highly organized government, the monarch has long been lapsing

into a passive agent of Parliament; and now, ministries are rapidly

falling into the same position. Nay, between the two cases there is a

parallelism even in respect of the exceptions to this automatic action.

For in the individual creature it happens that under circumstances of

sudden alarm, as from a loud sound close at hand, an unexpected object

starting up in front, or a slip from insecure footing, the danger is

guarded against by some quick involuntary jump, or adjustment of the

limbs, which occurs before there is time to consider the impending evil

and take deliberate measures to avoid it: the rationale of which is that

these violent impressions produced on the senses, are reflected from the

sensory ganglia to the spinal cord and muscles, without, as in ordinary

cases, first passing through the cerebrum. In like manner on national

emergencies calling for prompt action, the King and Ministry, not having

time to lay the matter before the great deliberative bodies, themselves

issue commands for the requisite movements or precautions: the

primitive, and now almost automatic, directive centres, resume for a

moment their original uncontrolled power. And then, strangest of all,

observe that in either case there is an after-process of approval or

disapproval. The individual on recovering from his automatic start, at

once contemplates the cause of his fright; and, according to the case,

concludes that it was well he moved as he did, or condemns himself for

his groundless alarm. In like manner, the deliberative powers of the

State discuss, as soon as may be, the unauthorized acts of the executive

powers; and, deciding that the reasons were or were not sufficient,

grant or withhold a bill of indemnity.[28]

Thus far in comparing the governmental organization of the body-politic

with that of an individual body, we have considered only the respective

co-ordinating centres. We have yet to consider the channels through

which these co-ordinating centres receive information and convey

commands. In the simplest societies, as in the simplest organisms, there

is no "internuncial apparatus," as Hunter styled the nervous system.

Consequently, impressions can be but slowly propagated from unit to unit

throughout the whole mass. The same progress, however, which, in

animal-organization, shows itself in the establishment of ganglia or

directive centres, shows itself also in the establishment of

nerve-threads, through which the ganglia receive and convey impressions

and so control remote organs. And in societies the like eventually

takes place. After a long period during which the directive centres

communicate with various parts of the society through other means, there

at last comes into existence an "internuncial apparatus," analogous to

that found in individual bodies. The comparison of telegraph-wires to

nerves is familiar to all. It applies, however, to an extent not

commonly supposed. Thus, throughout the vertebrate sub-kingdom, the

great nerve-bundles diverge from the vertebrate axis side by side with

the great arteries; and similarly, our groups of telegraph-wires are

carried along the sides of our railways. The most striking parallelism,

however, remains. Into each great bundle of nerves, as it leaves the

axis of the body along with an artery, there enters a branch of the

sympathetic nerve; which branch, accompanying the artery throughout its

ramifications, has the function of regulating its diameter and otherwise

controlling the flow of blood through it according to local

requirements. Analogously, in the group of telegraph-wires running

alongside each railway, there is a wire for the purpose of regulating

the traffic--for retarding or expediting the flow of passengers and

commodities, as the local conditions demand. Probably, when our now

rudimentary telegraph-system is fully developed, other analogies will be

traceable.

Such, then, is a general outline of the evidence which justifies the

comparison of societies to living organisms. That they gradually

increase in mass; that they become little by little more complex; that

at the same time their parts grow more mutually dependent; and that they

continue to live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of

their units appear and disappear; are broad peculiarities which

bodies-politic display in common with all living bodies; and in which

they and living bodies differ from everything else. And on carrying out

the comparison in detail, we find that these major analogies involve

many minor analogies, far closer than might have been expected. Others

might be added. We had hoped to say something respecting the different

types of social organization, and something also on social

metamorphoses; but we have reached our assigned limits.