iv] THE SECOND GRADE 93 



between cells and men, body and state, has been too 

 often and too far pressed; its incompleteness is at 

 once grasped with the realization that no such general 

 does or can exist for the cell-battalions to obey. 



What the bond is that keeps them together, what 

 the force that orders them this is still one of the 

 most mysterious problems of life. We must first 

 grasp the extent to which minor individualities can 

 persist within the major see how that centralized 

 empire, the body of one of the higher animals, was 

 in its origin a federation, not a tyranny. 



In Clathrina, the cells' independence is largely 

 realized by mere inspection. The collar-cells only 

 touch each other with the lower part of their bodies, 

 and when the sponge contracts, as it does in un- 

 favourable conditions, they after drawing in their 

 collars and flagella out of harm's way are actually 

 forced over each other, so that instead of a single 

 unbroken layer there is an irregular collection of 

 cells filling up almost the whole of the central cavity. 

 Whether when the sponge expands again they always 

 fit themselves in between their former neighbours 

 cannot well be proved or disproved, but seems at 

 least unlikely. 



The amoeboid cells wander as they please, and 

 the outer or dermal cells, though to be of use to 

 the sponge as protective and contractile tissue they 

 must constitute a single continuous sheet, and so 



