140 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



lives of any of its component units; who are 

 severally born, grow, work, reproduce, and die, 

 while the body politic composed of them sur- 

 vives generation after generation, increasing 

 in mass, in completeness of structure, and in 

 functional activity." 



The four points of difference are : 



(i.) "That societies have no specific ex- 

 ternal forms." 



(2.) "That though the living tissue where- 

 of an individual organism consists, forms a 

 continuous mass, the living elements of a so- 

 ciety do not form a continuous mass; but are 

 more or less widely dispersed over some por- 

 tion of the earth's surface." 



(3.) "That while the ultimate living ele- 

 ments of an individual organism are mostly 

 fixed in their relative positions, those of the 

 social organism are capable of moving from 

 place to place." 



(4.) "The last and perhaps the most im- 

 portant distinction is, that while in the body 

 of an animal only a special tissue is endowed 

 with feeling, in a society all the members are 

 endowed with feeling." 



It is worthy of note that, while Spencer 

 finds the parallelisms to increase in significance 

 the more they are examined, the differences 



