SOME FORCES OF THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 503 



will necessarily be somewhat materialistic in terminology, because 

 we are dealing with material things and material forces, the 

 writer does not wish his words to seem to be conditioned by any 

 metaphysical system. 



Practically speaking, we are dealing with concrete things 

 stones, bricks, men and women, society. The materialist says 

 they evolved themselves ; the idealist says they were made by an 

 outside agent ; but for the purposes of this paper it is all one and 

 the same, because any structure, whether self-created or manu- 

 factured by intelligence, is largely conditioned by the substance 

 out of which it is made. 



Now, how is society conditioned by that out of which it is 

 made ? How do the general properties of matter enter into the 

 natural history of its development ? That, I think, is a very 

 interesting and a vitally important question if it could be an- 

 swered in its entirety, but no one can do this for us yet. All we 

 can do is to pick out a few characteristics so obvious that perhaps 

 they will seem only trite. But granting they are so, still, it some- 

 times happens that the familiar and the commonplace take on 

 new features when looked at from fresh standpoints. 



The first thing, then, to be noted in regard to circumscribing 

 conditions is that the inherent strength of materials puts a limit 

 to the possible size of any structure, whether artificial or natural. 

 As an example, consider a cannon : The actual size of a big gun 

 is not limited by its weight, for much heavier ordnance than any 

 now made could be handled by modern machinery ; what stands 

 in the way is the tensile strength of the metal employed. As 

 soon as the pressure of the exploded powder upon a square inch 

 of the internal surface of the gun is greater than the elastic limit 

 of the steel, the metal will give way by stretching. This will 

 enlarge the surface of the chamber, which will thus offer fresh 

 portions for the action of the pressure, and so the operation will 

 go on until rupture takes place. There is thus a certain powder 

 pressure beyond which no thickness of metal, however great, can 

 prevent bursting; this limiting size is already nearly reached 

 in recently built cannon, and nothing but the discovery of some 

 new metal or alloy stronger than steel will enable us to build 

 guns materially larger than those now made. 



Another instance is found in bridge work. As the spans grow 

 longer, the proportionate load they can carry grows smaller. It is 

 easy to calculate from the known properties of iron just how long 

 a span must be to barely sustain itself. Nothing longer than this 

 could stand, because, when the weight of the bridge puts a stress 

 on its members greater per square inch than the breaking stress 

 per inch, the bridge must fall, even without any extraneous load. 

 In living creatures the same condition is found. No land animal 



