6 MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 



Our knowledge, so far as it goes, points to the con- 

 clusion that division of labor is not only co-extensive 

 with life, but also coeval with it. Indeed, we should be 

 on the side of all the probabilities, in assuming that the 

 simplest possible form of living matter presupposes this 

 principle. We are not, of course, to confound the prin- 

 ciple with life itself, nor with the cause of life ; it is only 

 a condition or means to an end. The universal corre- 

 late of division of labor is union of the laborers. It 

 always means specialization, and always implies organ- 

 ization. 



Thus the paradox resolves itself. As Herbert Spencer 

 long ago pointed out in his Social Statics, ''progress is 

 toward complete separateness and complete union," and 

 *'the highest individuation is joined with the greatest 

 mutual dependence." 



As you see, the principle is one which may re-inaugu- 

 rate itself, as often as a new order of units is evolved 

 with needs that can be most economically and efficiently 

 served by a co-operative union. We do not know how 

 many times this may have happened before the cell 

 order of beings arose ; but the general course of devel- 

 opment following this stage, we are now very confident 



about. 



Some of these cells, finding independent nomadic life 

 congenial, have persistently declined every temptation 

 to part with individual freedom. They have kept their 

 freedom, but with it the low estate of unaided individual 

 effort. Precious freedom that, which excludes all those 

 larger possibilities of life which we see unfolded in the 

 organic world. 



Others preferred company to isolation, and herded 



