434 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 



pressions. This inability to maintain a balance in the use of 

 verbal symbols, which characterizes every man, character- 

 izes, by consequence, aggregates of men ; and the desynony- 

 mization of words is the ultimate effect. 



Should any difficulty be felt in understanding how these 

 mental changes exemplify a law of physical transformations 

 that are wrought by physical forces, it will disappear on con- 

 templating acts of mind as nervous functions. It will be 

 seen that each loss of equilibrium above instanced, is a loss of 

 functional equality between some two elements of the nerv- 

 ous system. And it will be seen that, as in other cases, this 

 loss of functional equality is due to differences in the inci- 

 dence of forces. 



154. Masses of men, in common with all other masses, 

 show a like proclivity similarly caused. Small combinations 

 and large societies equally manifest it; and in the one, as in 

 the other, both governmental and industrial differentiations 

 are initiated by it. Let us glance at the facts under these 

 two heads. 



A business partnership, balanced as the authorities of its 

 members may theoretically be, practically becomes a union 

 in which the authority of one partner is tacitly recognized as 

 greater than that of the other or others. Though the share- 

 holders have given equal powers to the directors of their 

 company, inequalites of power soon arise among them ; and 

 usually the supremacy of some one director grows so 

 marked, that his decisions determine the course which the 

 board takes. Nor in associations for political, charitable, lit- 

 erary, or other purposes, do we fail to find a like process of 

 division into dominant and subordinate parties ; each having 

 its leader, its members of less influence, and its mass of un- 

 influential members. These minor instances in which unor- 

 ganized groups of men, standing in homogeneous relations, 

 may be watched gradually passing into organized groups of 

 men standing in heterogeneous relations, give us the key to 



