CH. XIX.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 251 



occupations to supply the wants of the whole community. 

 In the United States considered as a whole, the division ol 

 labour is perhaps not quite so extreme as in western Europe, 

 owing to the sparseness of population and the purely agricul- 

 tural activity of large sections of the country : still, the 

 industrial differentiation is very great, and to supply the 

 wants of each portion of the community a vast number c* 

 mutually dependent and highly complicated occupations is 

 indispensably necessary. Obviously the heterogeneous com- 

 munity cannot so well bear the abstraction of units from its 

 mutually dependent parts, as the homogeneous community 

 could bear the abstraction of units from its relatively in- 

 dependent and self-sufticing parts. The difference is much 

 the same as the difference between cutting off portions of 

 a worm and cutting off portions of a vertebrate • animaL 

 You may take one of the lower worms and slice away at 

 it for some time without destroying it, but in the case 

 of the vertebrate a comparatively small loss of parts entails 

 destruction. In society the principle 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 maintenance of 

 the community. There were no great organized industries, 

 manufacturing or commercial, so linked together that the 

 destruction of any one might cause general financial 

 disaster. But in any large modern community industry has 

 \)ecome 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 

 communities as compared with the industrial isolation of 

 ancient states. Though the time has perhaps never been, 

 since Mediterranean civilization began, when a war could 



