CONTRASTS WITH THE VITAL ORGANISM. 383 



;an. such a country support a human society. Hence the 

 members of the body politic are not to be regarded as 

 separated by intervals of dead space ; but as diffused 

 through a space occupied by life of a lower order. In our 

 conception of a social organism, we must include all that 

 lower organic existence on which human existence, and 

 therefore social existence, depends. And when we do 

 this, we see that the citizens who make up a community, 

 may be considered as highly vitalized units surrounded 

 by substances of lower vitality, from which they draw 

 their nutriment : much as in the cases above instanced. 

 Thus, when examined, this apparent distinction in great 

 part disappears. 



3. That while the ultimate living elements of an indi 

 vidual organism, are mostly fixed in their relative positions, 

 those of the social organism are capable of moving from 

 place to place, seems a marked disagreement. But here, 

 too, the disagreement is much less than would be supposed. 

 For while citizens arc locomotive in their private capacities, 

 they arc fixed in their public capacities. As farmers, man 

 ufacturers, or traders, men carry on their business at the 

 same spots, often throughout their whole lives ; and if they 

 go away occasionally, they leave behind others to discharge 

 their functions in their absence. Each great centre of pro 

 duction, each manufacturing town or district, continues 

 always in the same place ; and many of the firms in such 

 town or district, are for generations carried on either by 

 the descendants or successors of those who founded them. 

 Just as in a living body, the cells that make up some im 

 portant organ, severally perform their functions for a time 

 and then disappear, leaving others to supply their places ; 

 so, in each part of a society, the organ remains, though the 

 persons who compose it change. Thus, in social life, as 

 in the life of an animal, the units as well as the larger 

 agencies formed of them, are in the main stationary as 

 18 



