X. 



THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 



SIR JAJVIES MACINTOSH got great credit for the 

 saying, that " constitutions are not made, but grow." 

 In our day, the most significant thing about this saying is, 

 that it was ever thouo-ht so sis^nificant. As from the sur- 

 prise displayed by a man at some famihar fact, you may 

 judge of his general culture ; so from the admiration 

 which an age accords to a new thought, its average degree 

 of enlightenment may be inferred. That this apophthegm 

 of Macintosh should have been quoted and re-quoted as it 

 has, shows how profound has been the ignorance of social 

 science. A small ray of truth has seemed brilliant, as a 

 distant rushlight looks like a star in the surrounding dajk- 

 ness. 



Such a conception could not, indeed, fail to be startling 

 when let fall in the midst of a system of thought to which 

 it was utterly alien. Universally in Macintosh's day, things 

 were explained on the hypothesis of manufacture, rather 

 than that of growth : as indeed they are, by the majority, 

 in our own day. It was held that the planets were sever- 

 ally projected round the sun from the Creator's hand; with 

 exactly the velocity required to balance the sun's attrac- 

 tion. The formation of the Earth, the separation of sea 

 from land, the production of animals, were mechanical 



