Even were there no more to be pointed out, it would be clear enough that we are not here dealing with a figurative resemblance, but with a fundamental parallelism in principles of structure. We have but begun to explore the analogy, however. The further we inquire, the closer we find it to be. For what, let us ask, is implied by mutual dependence — by exchange of services? There is implied some mode of com munication between mutually-dependent parts. Parts that perform functions for one another's benefit, must have appli ances for conveying to one another the products of their respective functions, or for giving to one another the benefits (when these are not material products) which their respective functions achieve. And obviously, in proportion as the organization becomes high, the appliances for carrying on the intercourse must become involved. This we find to hold in both cases. In the lowest types of individual organ isms, the exchange of services between the slightly-differen tiated parts is effected in a slow, vague way, by an irregular diffusion of the nutrient matters jointly elaborated, and by an irregular propagation of feeble stimuli, causing a rude co-ordi nation in the actions of the parts. It is thus, also, with small and simple social aggregates. No definite arrangements for 304 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
interchanging services exist; but only indefinite ones. Barter of products — food, skins, weapons, or what not — takes place irregularly between individual producers and consumers throughout the whole social body: there is no trading or dis tributing system, as, in the rudimentary animal, there is no vascular system. So, too, the social organism of low type, like the individual organism of low type, has no appli ances for combining the actions of its remoter parts. When co-operation of them against an enemy is called for, there is nothing but the spread of an alarm from man to man throughout the scattered population; just as in an unde veloped kind of animal, there is merely a slow undirected diffusion of stimulus from one point to all others. In either case, the evohition of a larger, more complex, more active organism, implies an increasingly-efficient set of agen cies for conveying from part to part the material products of the respective parts, and an increasingly-efficient set of agen cies for making the parts co-operate, so that the times and amounts of their activities may be kept in fit relations. And this, the facts everywhere show us. In the individual organ ism as it advances to a high structure, no matter of what class, there arises an elaborate system of channels through which the common stock of nutritive matters (here added to by ab sorption, there changed by secretion, in this place purified by excretion, and in another modified by exchange of gases) is distributed throughout the body for the feeding of the various parts, severally occupied in their special actions; while in the social organism as it advances to a high structure, no matter of what political type, there develops an extensive and com plicated trading organization for the distribution of commod ities, which, sending its heterogeneous currents through the kingdom by channels that end in retailers' shops, brings within reach of each citizen the necessaries and luxuries that have been produced by others, while he has been producing his commodity or small part of a commodity, or performing some other function or small part of a function, beneficial to the rest. Similarly, development of the individual organism, be its class what it may, is always accompanied by develop ment of a nervous system which renders the combined actions of the parts prompt and duly proportioned, so making possible PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 3Q5 the adjustments required for meeting the varying contingen cies; while, along with development of the social organism, there always goes development of directive centres, general and local, with established arrangements for inter-changing information and instigation, serving to adjust the rates and kinds of activities going on in different parts.
Now if there exists this fundamental kinship, there can be no rational apprehension of the truths of Sociology until there has been reached a rational apprehension of the truths of Bi ology. The services of the two sciences are, indeed, recipro cal. We have but to glance back at its progress, to see that Biology owes the cardinal idea on which we have been dwell ing, to Sociology; and that having derived from Sociology this explanation of development, it gives it back to Sociology greatly increased in defiiiiteness, enriched by countless illus trations, and fit for extension in new directions. The lumi nous conception first set forth by one whom we may claim as our countryman by blood, though French by birth, M. Milne- Edwards — the conception of "the physiological division of labour," obviously originates from the generalization pre viously reached in Political Economy. Recognition of the advantages gained by a society when different groups of its members devote themselves to different industries, for which they acquire special aptitudes and surround themselves with special facilities, led to recognition of the advantages which an individual organism gains when parts of it, originally alike and having like activities, divide these activities among them; so that each taking a special kind of activity acquires a special fitness for it. But when carried from Soci ology to Biology, this conception was forthwith greatly ex panded. Instead of being limited to the functions included in nutrition, it was found applicable to all functions what ever. It turned out that the arrangements of the entire or ganism, and not of the viscera alone, conform to this funda mental principle — even the differences arising among the limbs, originally alike, were seen to be interpretable by it. And then mark that the idea thus developed into an all-em bracing truth in Biology, returns to Sociology ready to be for it, too, an all-embracing truth. For it now becomes manifest that not to industrial arrangements only does the principle of 21 306 ™E STUDY OP SOCIOLOGY.
the division of labour apply, but to social arrangements in general. The progress of organization, from that first step by which there arose a controlling chief, partially distinguished by his actions from those controlled, has been everywhere the same. Be it in the growth of a regulative class more or less marked off from classes regulated — be it in the partings of this regulative class into political, ecclesiastical, etc. — be it in those distinctions of duties within each class which are sig nified by gradations of rank; we may trace everywhere that fundamental law shown us by industrial organization. And when we have once adequately grasped this truth which Bi ology borrows from Sociology and returns with vast interest, the aggregate of phenomena which a society at any moment presents, as well as the series of developmental changes through which it has risen to them, become suddenly illuminated, and the rationale comparatively clear.
After a recognition of this fundamental kinship there can be no difficulty in seeing how important, as an introduction to the study of social life, is a familiarization with the truths of individual life. For individual life, while showing us this division of labour, this excbange of services, in many and varied ways, shows it in ways easily traced; because the structures and functions are presented in directly-perceivable forms. And only when multitudinous biological examples have stamped on the mind the conception of a growing inter dependence that goes along with a growing specialization, and have thus induced a habit of thought, will its sociological applications be duly appreciated.
Turn we now from the indirect influence which Biology exerts on Sociology, by supplying it with rational conceptions of social development and organization, to the direct influence it exerts by furnishing an adequate theory of the social unit — • Man. For while Biology is mediately connected with Soci ology by a certain parallelism between the groups of phenom ena they deal with, it is immediately connected with Soci ology by having within its limits this creature whose prop erties originate social evolution. The human being is at once the terminal problem of Biology and the initial factor of Sociology.
PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 3Q7 If Man were uniform and unchangeable, so that those attributes of him which lead to social phenomena could be learnt and dealt with as constant, it would not much concern the sociologist to make himself master of other biological truths than those cardinal ones above dwelt upon. But since, in common with every other creature, Man is modi fiable — since his modifications, like those of every other creature, are ultimately determined by surrounding condi tions — and since surrounding conditions are in part consti tuted by social arrangements; it becomes requisite that the sociologist should acquaint himself with the laws of modifica tion to which organized beings in general conform. Unless he does this he must continually err, both in thought and deed. As thinker, he will fail to understand the increasing action and reaction of institutions and character, each slowly modifying the other through successive generations. As actor, his furtherance of this or that public policy, being unguided by a true theory of the effects wrought on citizens, will proba bly be mischievous rather than beneficial; since there are more ways of going wrong than of going right. How needful is enlightenment on this point, will be seen on remembering that scarcely anywhere is attention given to the modifications which a new agency, political or other, will produce in men's natures. Immediate influence on actions is alone contem plated; and the immeasurably more important influence on the bodies and minds of future generations, is wholly ig nored.
Yet the biological truths which should check this random political speculation and rash political action, are conspicu ous; and might, one would have thought, have been recog nized by everyone, even without special preparation in Biol ogy. That faculties and powers of all orders, while they grow by exercise, dwindle when not used; and that alterations of nature descend to posterity; are facts continually thrust on men's attention, and more or less admitted by each. Though the evidence of heredity, when looked at in detail, seems ob scure, because of the multitudinous differences of parents and of ancestors, which all take their varying shares in each new product; yet, when looked at in the mass, the evidence is over whelming. Not to dwell on the countless proofs furnished by 308 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
domesticated animals of many kinds, as modified by breeders, the proofs furnished by the human races themselves are amply sufficient. That each variety of man goes 011 so repro ducing1 itself that adjacent generations are nearly alike, how ever appreciable may sometimes be the divergence in a long series of generations, is undeniable. Chinese are recognizable as Chinese in whatever part of the globe we see them; every one assumes a black ancestry for any negro he meets; and no one doubts that the less-marked racial varieties have great degrees of persistence. On the other hand, it is unquestion able that the likenesses which the members of one human stock preserve, generation after generation, where the condi tions of life remain constant, give place to unlikenesses that slowly increase in the course of centuries and thousands of years, if the members of that stock, spreading into different habitats, fall under different sets of conditions. If we assume the original unity of the human race, we have no alternative but to admit such divergencies consequent on such causes; and even if we do not assume this original unity, we have still, among the races classed by the community of their lan guages as Aryan, abundant proofs that subjection to different modes of life, produces in course of ages permanent bodily and mental differences: the Hindu and the Englishman, the Greek and the Dutchman, have acquired undeniable contrasts of nature, physical and psychical, which can be ascribed to nothing but the continuous effects of circumstances, material, moral, social, on the activities and therefore on the constitu tion. So that, as above said, it might have been expected that biological training would scarcely be needed to impress men with these large facts, all-important as elements in sociological conclusions.
As it is, however, we see that a deliberate study of Biology cannot be dispensed with. It is requisite that these scattered evidences which but few citizens put together and think about, should be set before them in an orderly way; and that they should recognize in them the universal truths which living things exhibit. There requires a multiplicity of illustra tions, various in their kinds, often repeated and dwelt upon. Only thus can there be produced an adequately-strong convic tion that all organic beings are modifiable, that modifications PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 399 are inheritable, and that therefore the remote issues of any new influence brought to bear on the members of a commu nity must be serious.
To give a more definite and effective shape to this general inference, let me here comment on certain courses pursued by philanthropists and legislators eager for immediate good re sults, but pursued without regard to biological truths, which, if borne in mind, would make them hesitate if not desist.
Every species of creature goes on multiplying till it reaches the limit at which its mortality from all causes bal ances its fertility. Diminish its mortality by removing or mitigating any one of these causes, and inevitably its num bers increase until mortality and fertility are again in equi librium. However many injurious influences are taken away, the same thing holds; for the reason that the remaining in jurious influences grow more intense. Either the pressure on the means of subsistence becomes greater; or some enemy of the species, multiplying in proportion to the abundance of its prey, becomes more destructive; or some disease, encour aged by greater proximity, becomes more prevalent. This general truth, everywhere exemplified among inferior races of beings, holds of the human race. True, it is in this case vari ously traversed and obscured. By emigration, the limits against which population continually presses are partially evaded; by improvements in production, they are continually removed further away; and along with increase of knowl edge there comes an avoidance of detrimental agencies. Still, these are but qualifications of an inevitable action and reaction.
Let us here glance at the relation between this general truth and the legislative measures adopted to ward off certain causes of death. Every individual eventually dies from ina bility to withstand some environing action. It may be a me chanical force that cannot be resisted by the strengths of his bodily structures; it may be a deleterious gas which, ab sorbed into his blood, so deranges the processes throughout his body as finally to overthrow their balance; or it may be an absorption of his bodily heat by surrounding things, that is too great for his enfeebled functions to meet. In all cases, 310 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
however, it is one, or some, of the many forces to which he is exposed, and in presence of which his vital activities have to be carried on. He may succumb early or late, according to the goodness of his structure and the incidents of his career. But in the natural working of things, those having imperfect structures succumb before they have offspring: leaving those with fitter structures to produce the next generation. And obviously, the working of this process is such that as many will continue to live and to reproduce as can do so under the conditions then existing: if the assemblage of influences be comes more difficult to withstand, a larger number of the feebler disappear early; if the assemblage of influences is made more favourable by the removal of, or mitigation of, some unfavourable influence, there is an increase in the num ber of the feebler who survive and leave posterity. Hence two proximate results, conspiring to the same ultimate result. First, population increases at a greater rate than it would otherwise have done: so subjecting all persons to certain other destroying agencies in more-intense forms. Second, by intermarriage of the feebler who now survive, with the stronger who would otherwise have alone survived, the gen eral constitution is brought down to the level of strength re quired to meet these more-favourable conditions. Tbat is to say, there by-and-by arises a state of things under which a general decrease in the power of withstanding this mitigated destroying cause, and a general increase in the activity of other destroying causes, consequent on greater numbers, bring mortality and fertility into the same relation as before — there is a somewhat larger number of a somewhat weaker race.
There are further ways in which this process necessarily works a like general effect, however far it is carried. For as fust as more and more detrimental agencies are removed or mitigated, and as fast as there goes on an increasing survival and propagation of those having delicately-balanced constitu tions, there arise new destructive agencies. Let the average vitality be diminished by more effectually guarding the weak against adverse conditions, and inevitably there come fresh diseases. A general constitution previously able to bear with out derangement certain variations in atmospheric conditions PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 3H and certain degrees of other unfavourable actions, if lowered in tone, will become subject to new kinds of perturbation and new causes of death. In illustration, I need but refer to the many diseases from which civilized races suffer, but which were not known to the uncivilized. Nor is it only by such new causes of death that the rate of mortality, when decreased in one direction increases in another. The very precautions against death are themselves in some measure new causes of death. Every further appliance for meeting an evil, every ad ditional expenditure of effort, every extra tax to meet the cost of supervision, becomes a fresh obstacle to living. For always in a society where population is pressing' on the means of sub sistence, and where the efforts required to fulfil vital needs are so great that they here and there cause premature death, the powers of producers cannot be further strained by calling on them to support a new class of non-producers, without, in some cases, increasing the wear and tear to a fatal extent. And in proportion as this policy is carried further— in propor tion as the enfeeblemeiit of constitution is made greater, the required precautions multiplied, and the cost of maintaining these precautions augmented; it must happen that the in creasing physiological expenditure thrown on these enfeebled constitutions, must make them succumb so much the earlier: the mortality evaded in one shape must come round in another.
The clearest conception of the state brought about, will be gained by supposing the society thus produced to consist of old people. Age differs from maturity and youth in being less able to withstand influences that tend to derange the functions, as well as less able to bear the efforts needed to get the food, clothing, and shelter, by which resistance to these influences may be carried on; and where no aid is received from the younger, this decreased strength and increased lia bility to derangement by incident forces, make the life of age difficult and wearisome. Those who, though young, have weak constitutions, are much in the same position: their lia bilities to.derangement are similarly multiplied, and where they have to support themselves, they are similarly over- taxed by the effort, relatively great to them and made greater by the maintaining of precautions. A society of enfeebled people, 312 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
then, must lead a life like that led by a society of people who had outlived the vigour of maturity, and yet had none to help them; and their life must also be like in lacking that over flowing energy which, while it makes labours easy, makes enjoyments keen. In proportion as vigour declines, not only do the causes of pain multiply, while the tax on the energies becomes more trying, but the possibilities of pleasure decrease: many delights demanding, or accompanying, exertion are shut out; and others fail to raise the flagging spirits. So that, to sum up, lowering the average type of constitution to a level of strength below that which meets without difficulty the or dinary strains and perturbations and dangers, while it fails eventually to diminish the rate of mortality, makes life more a burden and less a gratification.
I am aware that this reasoning may be met by the criti cism that, carried out rigorously, it would negative social ameliorations in general. Some, perhaps, will say that even those measures by which order is maintained, might be op posed on the ground that there results from them a kind of men less capable of self-protection than would otherwise exist. And there will doubtless be suggested the corollary that no influences detrimental to health ought to be removed. I am not concerned to meet such criticisms, because I do not mean the conclusions above indicated to be taken without qualifica tion. Manifestly, up to a certain point, the removal of de structive causes leaves a balance of benefit. The simple fact that with a largely-augmented population, longevity is greater now than heretofore, goes far towards showing that up to the time lived through by those who die in our day, there had been a decrease of the causes of mortality in some directions, greater than their increase in other directions. Though a considerable drawback may be suspected — though, on observ ing how few thoroughly-strong people we meet, and how prevalent are chronic ailments notwithstanding the care taken of health, it may be inferred that bodily life now is lower in quality than it was, though greater in quantity; yet there has probably been gained a surplus of advantage. All. I wish to show is, that there are limits to the good gained by such a policy. It is supposed in the Legislature, and by the public at large, that if, by measures taken, a certain number of PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 313 deaths by disease have been prevented, so much pure benefit has been secured. But it is not so. In any case, there is a set-off from the benefit; and if such measures are greatly multiplied, the deductions may eat up the benefit entirely, and leave an injury in its place. Where such measures ought to stop, is a question that may be left open. Here my purpose is simply to point out the way in which a far-reaching biological truth underlies rational conclusions in Sociology; and also to point out that formidable evils may arise from ignoring it.
Other evils, no less serious, are entailed by legislative ac tions and by actions of individuals, single and combined, which overlook or disregard a kindred biological truth. Be sides an habitual neglect of the fact that the quality of a so ciety is physically lowered by the artificial preservation of its feeblest members, there is an habitual neglect of the fact that the quality of a society is lowered morally and intellectually, by the artificial preservation of those who are least able to take care of themselves.
If anyone denies that children bear likenesses to their pro genitors in character and capacity — if he holds that men whose parents and grandparents were habitual criminals, have tendencies as good as those of men whose parents and grandparents were industrious and upright, he may consist ently hold that it matters not from what families in a society the successive generations descend. He may think it just as well if the most active, and capable, and prudent, and con scientious people die without issue; while many children are left by the reckless and dishonest. But whoever does not espouse so insane a proposition, must admit that social ar rangements which retard the multiplication of the mentally- best, and facilitate the multiplication of the mentally-worst, must be extremely injurious.
For if the unworthy are helped to increase, by shielding them from that mortality which their unworthiness would naturally entail, the effect is to produce, generation after gen eration, a greater unworthiness. From diminished use of self- conserving faculties already deficient, there must result, in posterity, still smaller amounts of self-conserving faculties. The general law which we traced above in its bodily applica- 3H THE STUDY OP SOCIOLOGY.