18 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i. 



are, in suudry respects, comparable to those discharged by the cerebral 



masses in a vertebrate animal The cerebrum co-ordinates 



the countless heterogeneous considerations which affect the present 

 and future welfare of the individual as a whole ; and the Legislature 

 co-ordinates the countless heterogeneous considerations which affect 

 the immediate and remote welfare of the whole community. We 

 may describe the office of the brain as that of averaging the interests 

 of life, physical, intellectual, moral, social ; and a good brain is one in 

 which the desires answering to their respective interests are so balanced, 

 that the conduct they jointly dictate sacrifice none of them. Similarly 

 we may describe the office of Parliament as that of averaging the 

 interests of the various classes in a community ; and a good Parlia- 

 ment is one in which the parties answering to these respective interests 

 are so balanced, that their united legislation concedes to each class as 

 much as consists with the claims of the rest." 



All this appears to be very just. But if the resemblances 

 between the body physiological and the body politic are 

 any indication, not only of what the latter is, and how 

 it has become what it is, but of what it ought to be, and 

 what it is tending to become, I cannot but think that 

 the real force of the analogy is totally opposed to the 

 negative view of State function. 



L> 



Suppose that, in accordance with this view, each 

 muscle were to maintain that the nervous system had no 

 right to interfere with its contraction, except to prevent 

 it from hindering the contraction of another muscle ; or 

 each gland, that it had a right to secrete, so long as its 

 secretion interfered with no other ; suppose every sepa- 

 rate cell left free to follow its own " interests," and 

 laissez-faire lord of all, what would become of the 

 body physiological ? 



The fact is that the sovereign power of the body 

 thinks for the physiological organism, acts for it, and 

 rules the individual components with a rod of iron. 

 Even the blood-corpuscles can't hold a public meeting 

 without being accused of " congestion " and the brain, 

 like other despots whom we have known, calls out at 



