THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



I cells being joined in a higher unity, and assuming dif- 

 I 1 ferent forms in consequence of the division of work. 

 — The complicated modern state, with its remarkable 

 achievements, may be regarded as the highest stage of 

 individual perfection which is known to us in organic 

 nature. But we can only understand the structure of 

 this extremely complex "organism of the highest order," 

 and its social forms and functions, when we have a 

 sociological knowledge of the various classes that com- 

 pose it, and the laws of their association and division of 

 labor; and when we have made an anthropological 

 study of the nature of the persons who have united, 

 under the same laws, for the formation of a community 

 and are distributed in its various classes. The familiar 

 arrangement of these classes, and the settling of the 

 rank in the mass and the governing body, show us how 

 this complex social organism is built up step by step. 



But we have to look in the same way on the cell-state, 

 which is made up from the separate individualities in 

 human society or in the kingdom of the tissue-animals, 

 or the branches in the kingdom of the tissue-plants. 

 Their complex organism, composed of various organs 

 and tissues, can only be understood when we are ac- 

 quainted with their constituent elements, the cells, 

 and the laws according to which these elementary organ- 

 isms unite to form cell-communities and tissues, and are 

 in turn modified in the divers organs in the division of 

 labor. We must, therefore, first establish the scale of 

 the morphonta, and the laws of their association and 

 ergonomy, according to which the several stages or con- 

 ditions of morphological individuality build on each 

 other. Three such stages may be at once distinguished: 

 (i) the cell (or, more correctly, the plastid), (2) the person 

 (anim^al) or branch (vegetal), and (3) the stem or cormus. 

 But we shall find that there are further subordinate 

 stages under each of these three. It is only in the case 



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