IOC) THE SOCIAL OKGAXISM. 



the greater perfection of structure, is much less conspicn 

 ous at tlie periphery of the vascular system. On main, 

 lines of railway, we have, perhaps, a score trains in each 

 direction daily, going at from thirty to fifty miles an hour ; 

 as, through the great arteries, the blood rushes rapidly in 

 successive gushes. Along high roads, there move vehicles 

 conveying men and commodities with much less, though 

 still considerable, speed, and with a much less decided 

 rhythm ; as, in the smaller arteries, the speed of tho blood 

 is greatly diminished, and the pulse less conspicuous. In 

 parish -roads, narrow, less complete, and 7nore tortuous, the 

 rate of movement is further decreased and the rhythm 

 scarcely traceable; as in the ultimate arteries. In those 

 still more imperfect by-roads which lead from these parish- 

 roads to scattered farmhouses and cottages, the motion is 

 yet slower and very irregular ; just as we find it in the 

 capillaries. While along the field-roads, which, in their 

 unformed, unfenccd state, arc typical of Innuur, the move 

 ment is the slowest, the most irregular, and the most infre 

 quent ; as it is, not only in the primitive Inctinfrof animal &amp;gt; 

 and societies, but as it is also in those fitcuwn in which the 

 vascular system ends among extensive families of inferior 

 creatures. 



Thus, then, we find between the distributing system:-! 

 of living bodies and the distributing systems of bodies pol- 



~ ~ 



itic, wonderfully close parallelisms. In the lowest forms of 

 individual and social organisms, there exist neither prepar 

 ed nutritive matters nor distributing appliances; and in 

 both, these, arising as necessary accompaniments of the 

 differentiation of parts, approach perfection as this differen 

 tiation approaches completeness. In animals, as in socie 

 ties, the distributing agencies begin to show themselves nt 

 the same relative periods, and in the fame relative positions. 

 In the one, as in the other, the nutritive materials circula 

 ted, are at first crude and simple, gradually become bettei 



