20 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



path of evolution to enable protoplasm to do better and 

 quicker work, it seems at last that such problems as 

 variations of all kinds, healthy or morbid, may really find 

 solutions in the study of sociology as a mixed biological, 

 physiological, and pathological science. And since all 

 developmental diseases are truly variations from the average 

 or normal type, it looks as if in the future such a study might 

 enable the pathologist to discern the real nature of malig- 

 nancy, and all the disorders connected with the endocrine 

 organs, which are the regulators of development and orderly 

 growth. No study of any science coming finally under the 

 inclusive head of biology can leave us in doubt of the 

 entire interdependence of all parts of an organism, 

 however much such interdependence is masked during 

 normal or static conditions. But when there is a grave 

 state of disorder these relations become obvious. It is 

 so in a " body," and it is so in a state. 



During the late condition of Europe such phenomena 

 were to be seen very clearly. Variation after variation 

 followed on stress, and as the nations responded to the strain 

 put upon them, it was seen how energy was diverted from 

 its normal channels and poured, regardless of economic 

 considerations, into new and enlarged growths of offensive 

 organs. There is no need to labour these points. It must 

 have been obvious to every one that we were then (as we 

 are now) in the presence of biological factors dealing with 

 variation, and likely to present, if kept in unrestrained 

 action, all the phenomena of developmental disease. For 

 the essence of all development is symbiotic equilibrium, 

 balance, and symmetry. Without, in this place, applying 

 biology any further to the study of the social organism, it 

 may be asked whether such phenomena do not enable us 

 to grasp, if not in detail, at least in their broad outlines, the 



