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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



" Freedom we call it, for holier 



Name of the soul"s there is none ; 



Surelier it labors, if slowlier, 

 Than the metres of star or of sun ; 



Slowlier than life into breath, 



Surelier than time into death, 

 It moves till its labor be done." • 



The highest of organisms is the social organ- 

 ism. To Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has done so 

 much for the whole doctrine of evolution, and for 

 all that is connected with it, we owe the first 

 clear and rational statement of the analogy be- 

 tween the individual and the social organism, 

 which, indeed, is more than an analogy, being in 

 many respects a true identity of process, and 

 structure, and function. Our main business is 

 with one property which the social organism has 

 in common with the individual — namely, this, 

 that it aggregates molecular motions into molar 

 ones. The molecules of a social organism are the 

 individual men, women, and children, of which it 

 is composed. By means of it, actions which, as 

 individual, are insignificant, are massed together 

 into the important movements of a society. Co- 

 operation, or band-work, is the life of it. Thus it 

 is able to " originate events independently of for- 

 eign determining causes," or to act with freedom. 

 Freedom in a society, then, is a very different 

 thing from anarchy. It is the organic action of 

 the society as such ; the union of its elements in 

 a common work. As Mr. Spencer points out, 

 society does not resemble those organisms which 

 are so highly centralized that the unity of the 

 whole is the important thing, and every part must 

 die if separated from the rest, but rather those 

 which will bear separation and reunion, because, 

 although there Is a certain union and organiza- 

 tion of the parts in regard to one another, yet the 

 far more important fact is the life of the parts 

 separately. The true health of society depends 

 upon the communes, the villages and townships, 

 infinitely more than on the form and pageantry 

 of an imperial government. If in them there is 

 band-work, union for a common effort, converse 

 in the working out of a common thought, then 

 the Republic is, and needs not to be made with 

 hands, though Caesar have his guns in every cita- 

 del. None the less it will be part of the business 

 of the Republic, as she grows in strength, to re- 

 move him. So long as two or three are gathered 

 together, freedom is there in the midst of them, 

 and it is not until society is utterly divided into 

 its elements that she departs : 

 " Courage yet ! my brother or my sister ! 

 Keep on 1 Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs ; 



1 Swinburne, " Songs before Sunrise." 



That is nothing-, that is quelled by one or two failures, or 



any number of failures, 

 Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by 



any unfaithfulness, 

 Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal 



statutes. 

 Eevolt ! and still revolt ! revolt ! 

 What we believe in waits latent forever through all the 



continents, and all the islands and archipelagos of the 



sea; 

 What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits 



in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows 



no discouragement, 

 Waiting patiently, waiting its time. 



When liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, 



nor the second or third to go, 

 It waits for all the rest to go— it is the last. 

 When there are no more memories ofheroes and martyrs, 

 And when all life, and all the souls of men and women, are 



discharged from any part of the earth, 

 Then only shall liberty, or the idea of liberty, be discharged 



from that part of the earth, 

 And the infidel come into full possession." > 



So far our cosmic conception is external. 

 Starting with organic action, as that which has 

 effected the evolution of life, and all the works of 

 life, we have found it to have the character of 

 freedom, or action from within, and in the case 

 of the social organism we have seen that freedom 

 is the organic action of society as such, which is 

 what we call the Republic. The Republic is the 

 visible embodiment and personification of free- 

 dom in its highest external type. 



But the Republic is itself still further personi- 

 fied, in a way that leads us back with new light 

 to the conception of the internal cosmos. The 

 practice of band-work, or comradeship, the or- 

 ganic action of society, has so moulded the nature 

 of man as to create in it two specially human 

 faculties — the conscience and the intellect. Con- 

 science is an instinctive desire for those things 

 which conduce to the welfare of society ; intellect 

 is an apparatus for connecting sensation and ac- 

 tion, by means of a symbolic representation of 

 the external world, framed in common, and for 

 common purposes, by the social intercourse of 

 men. Conscience and reason form an inner core 

 in the human mind, having an origin and a nature 

 distinct from the merely animal passions and per- 

 ceptions ; they constitute the soul or spirit of 

 man, the universal part in every one of us. In 

 these are bound up, embalmed and embodied, all 

 the struggles and searchings of spirit of the count- 

 less generations which have made us what we are. 

 Action which arises out of that inner core, which 

 is prompted by conscience and guided by reason, 

 is free in the highest sense of all ; this at least is 



1 Whitman, "Leaves of Grass," p. 363. 



