ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS 



the vertebrate a comparatively small loss of 

 parts entails destruction. In society the prin- 

 ciple is the same. The Romans could lose 

 army after army, while the few who remained 

 at home could carry on all the agricultural and 

 commercial operations necessary to the main- 

 tenance of the community. There were no 

 great organized industries, manufacturing or 

 commercial, so linked together that the destruc- 

 tion of any one might cause general financial 

 disaster. But in any large modern community 

 industry has become so heterogeneous that it 

 is difficult for one part to take on the functions 

 of another part, and so completely integrated 

 that a sudden and considerable withdrawal of 

 men from the ordinary pursuits of life can 

 hardly take place without causing widespread 

 suffering. And the contrast is made still greater 

 by the industrial federation of modern commu- 

 nities as compared with the industrial isolation 

 of ancient states. Though the time has per- 

 haps never been, since Mediterranean civiliza- 

 tion began, when a war could continue very 

 long in one community without tending to set 

 up disturbance in some other, yet this interac- 

 tion of different states was far less conspicuous 

 in ancient than it is in modern times. The 

 Hannibalic war might go on for seventeen years, 

 and Athens or Alexandria not be much the 

 worse off for it. But before the war of secession 



VOL. Ill 3^9 



