Even in the highest animals there remains traceable this relation between the aggregate life and the lives of com- ponents. Blood is a liquid in which, along with nutritive matters, circulate innumerable living units — the blood cor- puscles. These have severally their life-histories. During its first stage each of them, then known as a white cor- puscle, makes independent movements like those of an amoeba; and though in its adult stage as a red, flattened disc^ it is not visibly active, its individual life continues. Nor is this individual life of the units provable only where free flotation in a liquid allows its signs to be readily seen. Sundry mucous surfaces, as those of the air passages, are covered with what is called ciliated epithelium — a layer of minute cells packed side by side, and each bearing on its exposed end several cilia continually in motion. The wavings of these cilia are essentially like those of the monads which live in the passages running through a sponge; and just as the joint action of these ciliated sponge monads propels the current of water, so does the joint action of the ciliated epithelium cells move forward the mucous secretion covering them. If there needs further proof of the individual lives of these epithelium cells, we have it in k SOCIRTT IS AN ORGANISM. 473 tHe fact that wlien detached and placed in fluids they ''move abont with considerable rapidity for some time^ by the con- tinued vibrations of the cilia with which they are fur- nished/' On thus seeing that an ordinary living organism may be regarded as a nation of units that live individually^ and have many of them considerable degrees of independence, we shall perceive how truly a nation of human beings may be regarded as an organism.
§ 219. The relation between the lives of the units and the life of the aggregate, has a further character common to the two cases. By a catastrophe the life of the aggregate may be destroyed without immediately destroying the lives of all its units; while, on the other hand, if no catastrophe abridges it, the life of the aggregate immensely exceeds in length the lives of its units.
In a cold-blooded animal, ciliated cells perform their motions with perfect regularity long after the creature they are part of has become motionless; muscular fibres retain their power of contracting under stimulation; the cells of secreting organs go on pouring out their product if blood is artificially supplied to them; and the components of an entire organ, as the heart, continue their co-operation for many hours after its detachment. Similarly, arrest of those commercial activities and govei*nmental co-ordinations, etc., which constitute the corporate life of a nation, may be caused, say by an inroad of barbarians, without immediately stopping the actions of all the units. Certain classes of these, especially the widely-diffused ones engaged in food- production, may, in the remoter districts, long survive and carry on their individual occupations.
Conversely, in both cases, if not brought to a close by vio- lence, the life of the aggregate greatly exceeds in duration the lives of its units. The minute living elements com- posing a developed animal, severally evolve, play their 474 THB HfDUCnONB OF BOOIOLOGT.
parfcB, decajj and are replaced, while the animal as a whole continues* In the deep layer of the skin, cells are formed by fission which, as they enlarge, are thrust outwards, and becoming flattened to form the epidermis, eyentually exfoliate, while the younger ones beneath take their places. Liver-cells, growing by imbibition of matters from which they separate the bile, presently die, and their vacant seats are occupied by another generation« Even bone, though so dense and seemingly inert, is permeated by blood-vessels carrying materials to replace old components by new ones. And the replacement, rapid in some tissues and in others slow, goes on at such rate that during the continued exist- ence of the entire body, each portion of it has been many times over produced and destroyed. Thus it is also with a society and its units. Integrity of the whole and of each large division is perennially maintained, not- withstanding the deaths of component citizens. The fabric of living persons which, in a manufacturing town, produces some commodity for national use, remains after a century as large a &bric, though all the masters and workers who a century ago composed it have long since disappeared. Even with the minor parts of this industrial structure the like holds. A firm that dates from past generations, still carrying on business in the name of its founder, has had all its members and employes changed one by one, perhaps several times over; while the firm has continued to occupy the same place and to maintain like relations to buyers and sellers. Throughout we find this. Governing bodies, gene- ral and local, ecclesiastical corporations, armies, institutious of all orders down to guilds, clubs, philanthropic associa- tions, etc., show us a continuity of life exceeding that of the persons constituting them. Nay, more. As part of the same law, we see that the existence of the society at large exceeds in duration that of some of these compound parts. Private unions, local public bodies, secondary national insti- tutions, towns carrying on special industries, may decay, while the nation^ maintaining its integrity^ eyplyes in mass and structure.
In both cases, too, the mutually-dependent functions of the various divisions, being severally made up of the actions of many units, it results that these units dying one by one, are replaced without the function in which they share being sensibly affected. In a muscle each sarcous element wearing out in its turn, is removed and a substitution made while the rest carry on their combined contractions as usual; and the retirement of a public official or death of a shopman, perturbs inappreciably the business of the depart- ment, or activity of the industry, in which he had a share.
Hence arises in the social organism, as in the individual organism, a life of the whole quite unlike the lives of the units; though it is a life produced by them.
§ 220. From these likenesses between the social organism and the individaal organism, we must now turn to an ex- treme unlikeness. The parts of an animal form a concrete whole; but the parts of a society form a whole that is dis- crete. While the living units composing the one are bound together in close contact, the living units composing the other are free, not in contact, and more or less widely dis- persed. How, then, can there be any parallelism?
Though this difference is fundamental and apparently puts comparison out of the question, yet examination proves it to be less than it seems. Presently I shall have to point out that complete admission of it consists with main- tenance of the alleged analogy; but we will first observe how one who thought it needful, might argue that even in this respect there is more kinship than a cursory glance shows.
He might urge that the physically-coherent body of an animal is not composed all through of living units; but that it consists in large measure of differentiated parts which the vitally active parts have formed, and which thereafter become semi-vital and in some cases almost un- vital. Taking 476 THE INDUOTIOKS OP SOCIOLOGT.
as an example tlie protoplasmic layer underlying the skin, he might say that while this consists of truly living units, the cells produced in it, changing into epithelium scales, become inert protective structures; and pointing to the in- sensitive nails, hair, horns, and teeth, arising from this layer, he might show that such parts, though components of the organism, are hardly living components. Carrying out the argument, he would contend that elsewhere in the body there exist such protoplasmic layers, from which grow the tissues composing the various organs — layers which alone remain fully alive, while the structures evolved from them lose their vitality in proportion as they are specialized: m- stancing cartilage, tendon, and connective tissue, as showing in conspicuous ways this low vitality. From all which he would draw the inference that though the body forms a coherent whole, its essential units, taken by themselves, form a whole which is coherent only throughout the protoplasmic layers.
And then would follow the argument that the social organism, rightly conceived, is much less discontinuous than it seems. He would contend that as, in the individual organism, we include with the fully living parts, the less living and not living parts which co-operate in the total activities; so, in the social organism, we must include not only those most highly vitalized units, the human beings, who chiefly determine its phenomena, but also the various kinds of domestic animals, lower in the scale of life, which under the control of man co-operate with him, and even those far inferior structures the plants, which, propa- gated by human agency, supply materials for animal and human activities. In defence of this view he would point out how largely these lower classes of organisms, co-existing with men in societies, affect the structures and activities of the societies — how the traits of the pastoral type depend on the natures of the creatures reared; and how in settled societies the plants prtducing food, materials for textile A SOCIBTT IS AN OBQAKISM. 477 fabrics^ etc., determine certain kinds of social arrangements and actions. After wliicli he might insist that since the physical characters^ mental natures^ and daily activities, of the haman units, are, in part, moulded by relations to these animals and vegetals, which, living by their aid, and aiding them to Uve, enter so much into social life as even to be cared for by legislation, these lower living things cannot rightly be excluded from the conception of the social organism. Hence would come his conclusion that when^ with human beings, are incorporated the less vitalized beings, animal and vegetal, covering the surface occupied by the society, an aggregate results having a continuity of parts, more nearly approaching to that of an individual organism; and which is also like it in being composed of local aggregations of highly vitalized units, imbedded in a vast aggregation of units of various lower degrees of vita- lity, which are, in a sense, produced by, modified by, and arranged by, the higher units.
But without accepting this view, and admitting that the discreteness of the social organism stands in marked con- trast with the concreteness of the individual organism, the objection may still be adequately met.
§ 221. Though coherence among its parts is a pre- requisite to that co-operation by which the life of an indi- vidual organism is carried on; and though the members of a social organism, not forming a concrete whole, cannot main- tain co-operation by means of physical influences directly propagated from part to part; yet they can and do main- tain co-operation by another agency. Not in contact, they nevertheless affect one another through intervening spaces, both by emotional language, and by the language, oral and written, of the intellect. For carrying on mutually- dependent actions, it is requisite that impulses, adjusted in their kinds, amounts, and times, shall be conveyed from part to part. This requisite is fulfilled in living bodies by '478 TEE IKDUCTIOKS OV SOCIOLOGT.
molecular waves^ that are indefinitely diffosed in low types^ and in higli types are carried along definite channels (the function of which has been significantly called inter- nuneialj. It is fulfilled in societies by the signs of feelings and thoughts^ conveyed from person to person; at first in vague ways and only at short distances, but afterwards more definitely and at greater distances. That is to say, the inter-nuncial function, not achievable by stimuli physi- cally transferred, is nevertheless achieved by language.
The mutual dependence of parts which constitutes organ- ization is thus effectually established. Though discrete instead of concrete, the social aggregate is rendered a living whole« § 222. But now, on pursuing the course of thought opened by this objection and the answer to it, we arrive at an implied contrast of great significance — a contrast fundamentally affecting our idea of the ends to be achieved by social life.
Though the discreteness of a social organism does not prevent sub-division of f imctions and mutual dependence of parts, yet it does prevent that differentiation by which one part becomes an organ of feeling and thought, while other parts become insensitive. High animals of whatever class are distinguished from low ones by complex and well-inte- grated nervous systems. While in inferior types the minute scattered ganglia may be said to exist for the benefit of other structures, the concentrated ganglia in superior types are the structures for the benefit of which the rest may be said to exist. Though a developed nervous system so directs the actions of the whole body as to preserve its integrity; yet the wel&re of the nervous system is the ultimate object of all these actions: damage to any other organ being serious only because it immediately or remotely entails that pain or loss of pleasure which the nervous system suffers. But the discreteness of a society negatives differentiations car- A SOCIBTT IS AN ORGANISM. 479 ried to thiB extreme. In an individnal organism. tlie minate living nnits^ most of them permanently localized, growing up, working, reproducing, and dying away in their re- spective places, are in successive generations moulded to their respective functions; so that some become specially sentient and others entirely insentient. But it is otherwise in a social organism. The units of this, out of contact and much less rigidly held in their relative positions, can- not be so much differentiated as to become feelingless units and units which monopolize feeling. There are, indeed, slight traces of such a differentiation. Humaii beings are unlike in the amounts of sensation and emotion producible in them by like causes: here great callousness, here great susceptibility, is characteristic. In the same society, even where its members are of the same race, and still more where its members are of dominant and subject races, there exists a contrast of this kind. The mechanically -working and hard-living units are less sensitive than the mentally-working and more protected units. But while the regulative structures of the social organism tend, like those of the individual organism, to become seats of feeling, the tendency is checked by this want of physical cohesion which brings fixity of function; and it is also checked by the continued need for feeling in the mechanically-working units for the do^ discharge of their functions.
Hence, then, a cardinal difference in the two kinds of organisms. In the one, consciousness is concentrated in a small part of the aggregate. In the other, it is diffused throughout the aggregate: all the units possess the capaci- ties for happiness and misery, if not in equal degrees, still in degrees that approximate. As, then, there is no social sensorium, it results that the welfare of the aggregate, con- sidered apart from that of the units, is not an end to be sought. The society exists for the benefit of its members; not its members for the benefit of the society. It has ever 480 THE INDUCTIONS OF SOCIOLOOT.
to be remembered that great as may be the efforts made for the prosperity of the body politic, yet the claims of the body politic are nothing in themselyes, and become something only in so far as they embody the claims of its component individuals.
§ 223. From this last consideration, which is a digression rather than a part of the argument, let us now return and sum up the various reasons for regarding a society as an organism.
It undergoes continuous growth; as it grows, its parts, becoming unlike, exhibit increase of structure; the unlike parts simultaneously assume activities of unlike kinds; these activities are not simply different, but their differ- ences are so related as to make one another possible; the reciprocal aid thus given causes mutual dependence of the parts; and the mutually-dependent parts, living by and for one another, form an aggregate constituted on the same general principle as an individual organism. The analogy of a society to an organism becomes still clearer on learning that eveiy organism of appreciable size is a society; and on further learning that in both, the lives of the units continue for some time if the life of the aggregate is suddenly arrested, while if the aggregate is not destroyed by violence its life greatly exceeds in duration the lives of its units. Though the two are contrasted as respectively discrete and concrete, and though there results a difference in the ends subserved by the organization, there does not result a differ- ence in the laws of the organization: the required mutual influences of the parts, not transmissible in a direct way, being transmitted in an indirect way.
Having thus considered in their most general forms the reasons for regarding a socieiy as an organism, we are pre- pared for following out the comparison in detail. We shall find that the further we pursue it the closer does the analogy appear.
CHAPTER III.
SOCIAL GROWTH.
^ 224. SociBTiBB, like living bodies^ begin as germs- originate from masses which are extremely minute in com- parison with the masses some of them eventuallj reach. That out of small wandering hordes such as the lowest races now form^ have arisen the largest societies, is a conclusion not to be contested. The implements of pre-historic peo- ples, ruder even than existing savages use, imply absence of those arts by which alone large aggregations of men are made possible. Religious ceremonies that survived among ancient historic races, pointed back to a time when the progenitors of those races had flint knives, and got fire by the friction of wood^ and so must have lived in such small clusters as are alone possible before the rise of agriculture.
The implication is that by processes of integration, direct and indirect, there have in course of time been produced social aggregates a million times in size the aggregates which alone existed in the remote past. Here, then, is a growth reminding us, by its degree, of growth in living bodies.
§ 225. Between this trait of organic evolution and the answering trait of super-organic evolution, there is a fur- ther parallelism: the growths in aggregates of different classes are extremely various.
Glancing over the entire assemblage of animal types, I I 482 THB IKDUCnOVS OP 8OCIOL0OT.
we see tliat the members of one large class, the Protozoa, scarcely erer increase beyond that microscopic size with which every higher animal begins. Among the mnlti- tndinons and varied Coelentercday the masses range from that of the small Hydra to that of the large Mednsa. The annnlose and molloscons types, respectively show as immense contrasts between their snpenor and inferior members. And vertebrate animaLi, much larg^ on the average than the rest, display among themselves enormous differences.
Kindred varieties of growth strike ns when we contem- plate the entire assembUge of human societies. Scattered over many regions there are minute hordes — still extant samples of the primordial type of society. We have Wood- Yeddahs living sometimes in pairs, and only now and then assembling; we have Bushmen wandering about in families and forming larger groups but occasionally; we have Fuegians clustered by the dozen or the score. Tribes of Australians, of Tasmanians, of Andamanese, are variable within the limits of perhaps twenty to fifty. And similarly, if the region is inhospitable, as with the Esquimaux, or if the arts of' life are undeveloped, as with the Digger- Indians, or if adjacent higher races are obstacles te growth^ as with Indian Hill-tribes like the Juangs, this limitation to primitive size continues. Where a fruitful soil affords much food, and where a more settled life, leading te agriculture, again increases the supply of food, we meet with larger social aggregates: instance those in the Polynesian Islands and in many parts of Africa. Here a hundred or two, here several thousands, here many thousands, are held together more or less completely in one mass. And then in the highest societies instead of partially-aggregated thousands we have completely-aggregated millions.
§ 226. The growths of individual and social organisms are allied in another respect. In each case size augments by SOCIAL GEOWTH. 483 two processes^ wbich go on sometimes separately^ sometimes together. There is increase by simple multiplication of unitSj causing enlargement of the group; there is increase by union of groups^ and again by union of groups of groups. The first parallelism is too simple to need illus- tration; but the facts which show us the second must be set forth.
Organic integration^ treated of at length in the Principles of Biology, §§ 180 — 211^ must be here summarized to make the comparison intelligible. The compounding and re-com- pounding as shown us throughout the vegetal kingdom^ may be taken firsts as most easily followed. Plants of the lowest orders are minute cells, some kinds of which in their myriads colour stagnant watei*s, and others compose green films on damp surfaces. By clustering of such cells are formed smaU threads, discs^ globes, etc., as well as amor- phous masses and laminated masses. One of these last, called a thallus when scarcely at all differentiated, as in a sea- weed, and a frond in cryptogams that have some structure, is an extensive but simple group of the protophytes first named. Temporarily united in certain low cryptogams, fronds become permanently united in higher cryptogams: then forming a series of foliar surfaces joined by a creeping stem. Out of this comes the phsonogamic axis — a shoot with its foliar organs or leaves. That is to say, there is now a permanent cluster of clusters. And then, as these axes develop lateral axes, and as these again branch, the com- pounding advances to higher stages. In the animal- kingdom the like happens; though in a less regular and more disguised manner. The smallest animal, like the smallest plant, is a minute group of living molecules or physiological units. There are many forms and stages showing us the clustering of these smallest animals. Sometimes, as in the compound Vorticell-oB and in the Sponges, their individualities are scarcely at all masked; but as evolution of the compo- site aggregate advances, the individualities of the component aggregates become less distinct. In some Oceienterata, though they retain considerable independence, which they show by moving about like Amoahod when separated^ they have their individualities mainly merged in that of the aggregate formed of them: instance the common Hydnu Tertiary aggregates similarly result from the massing of secondary ones. Sundry modes and phases of the process ure observable among coelenterate. types. There is the branched hydroid, in which the individual polypes preserve their identities, and the polypidom merely holds them toge- ther; and there are forms, such as Veletla, in which the polypes have been so modified and fused, that their indivi- dualities were long xmreeognized. Again, among the Moi' luscoida we have feebly-united tertiary aggregates in the Salpid(Bj while we hare, in the Botryllidce, masses in which the tertiary aggregate, greatly consc^dated, obscures the individualities of the secondary aggregates. So, too, is it with certain annuloid types; and, as I have endeavoured to show, with the Armulosa generally. {Prin, of BioL, § 205.) Social growth proceeds by an analogous compounding and re-compounding. The primitive social group, like the primitive group of physiological units with which organic evolution begins, never attains any considerable size by simple increase. Where, as among Fuegians, the supplies of wild food yielded by an inclement habitat will not enable more than a score or so to live in the same place — where, as among Andamanese, limited to a strip of shore backed by impenetrable bush, forty individuals is about the number that can find prey without g^ing too for from their temporary abode — ^where, as among Bushmen, wander- ing over barren tracts, small hordes are alone possible, and even families ^' are sometimes obliged to separate, since the same spot will not afford sufficient sustenance for all;'* we have extreme instances of the necessary limitation of simple groups, and the necessary formation of migrating groups when the limit is passed. Even in tolerably pro* 80CUL QROWTH. 485 ductivo habitats, fission of the gronps is eventually necessi- tated in a kindred manner. Spreading as its number increases, a primitive tribe presently reaches a diffusion at which its parts become incoherent; and it then gradually separates into tribes that become distinct as fast as their continually-diverging dialects pass into different languages. Frequently nothing further happens than repetition of this. Conflicts of tribes, dwindling or extinction of some, growths and spontaneous divisions of others, continue. The formation of a larger society results only by combina- tion of these smaller societies; which occurs without obliterating the divisions previously caused by separations. This process may be seen now going on among various un- civilized races, as it once went on among the ancestors of the civilized races. Instead of absolute independence of small hordes, such as the lowest savages show us, more advanced savages show us slight cohesions among larger hordes. In North America each of the three* great tribes of Gomanches consists of various bands, having such feeble combination only, as results from the personal character of the great chief. So of the Dakotahs there are, according to Burton, seven principal bands, each including minor bands, numbering altogether, according to Catlin, forty-two; and in like manner the five Iroquois nations had severally eight tribes. Closer unions of these slightly-coherent original groups, arise under favourable conditions, but only now and then become permanent. A common form of the pro- cess is that described by Mason as occurring among the Karens. " Each village, with its scant domain, is an inde- pendent state, and every chief a prince; but now and then, a little Napoleon arises, who subdues a kingdom to himself, and builds up an empire. The dynasties, however, last only with the controlling mind.'* The like happens in Africa. Livingstone says — " Formerly all the Maganja were united under the government of their great Chief, Undi; * * * but after Undies death it fell to pieces. * * * This has been the