406 THE SOCIAL ORGANISM. 



the greater perfection of structure, is mucli less conspicu 

 ous at the 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 vehiclea 

 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 the blood 

 is greatly diminished, and the pulse less conspicuous. In 

 parish-roads, narrow, less complete, and more 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, unfenced state, are typical of lacimcB^ the move 

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

 quent ; as it is, not only in"the primitive lacuncjeoi animals, 

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

 vascular system ends among extensive families of inferior 

 creatures. 



Thus, then, we find between the distributing systems 

 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 diistributing 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 at 

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

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

 ted, are at first crude and simple, gradually become bette? 



