THEJSOURCES OF ENERGY 75 



obtains the oxygen that must be distributed along with the food- 

 stuffs; and the excretory organs that remove the degraded food 

 substances and expel them from the body. It has been necessary 

 to consider these things separately, but that is only our method 

 of analysis of a single phenomenon, and it must be repeated that 

 all these activities are co-ordinated and are really one. Nothing 

 in the way of mechanisms that we can make or devise exhibits 

 the unification of activities expressed in the life of a normal 

 animal. The modern State — which has, rather foolishly, been 

 called an organism — is said to represent the greatest achievement 

 of men, but no one can attempt to analyse its activities dis- 

 passionately, as we have analysed those of the living animal, and 

 see in them anything other than a tissue of disharmonies. The 

 scientifically organised State has still to come into existence. 

 Think of the distribution of foodstuff to the functioning animal 

 body. In severe manual work the bloodvessels of the muscles 

 dilate so as to permit of a more abundant supply of nutritive 

 material and oxygen, and a rapid removal of waste products. In 

 intensive mental work the blood-supply to the brain is similarly 

 speeded up. In digestion the same thing occurs with relation to 

 the intestinal circulation. Such regulations are as yet hardly at 

 all evident in the activities of the modern State. 



