98 The General Sociological Errors 



of vital circulation. The cells at the mouth of the 

 tube transmit to those in the interior a raw pro- 

 duct which has not undergone any change. Higher 

 in the biological scale the process is not so simple. 

 The cells differentiate themselves more and more. 

 They specialize upon widely different functions 

 and exchange the products of their activities, but 

 it is always the phenomena of exchange, the vital 

 circulation, which constitutes association. 



It is important to note that distance plays only 

 a subordinate role; nearness may facilitate the 

 vital circulation between the parts, but it is the 

 vital circulation itself which is the essential of 

 association. 



Two living beings placed side by side without 

 any vital circulation between them form separate 

 individual organisms, and they might as well live 

 on opposite extremities of the earth. A bed of 

 oysters, for example, does not form a society. 



As we pass to the higher realm of the biological 

 scale, vital circulation passes through innumerable 

 forms and results in an ever increasing interde- 

 pendence of parts so that in the highest forms the 

 solidarity becomes so great that all parts suffer 

 with the suffering of any one, and if the suffering 

 of one part becomes too acute, the death of the 

 entire organism necessarily results. 



Biology and sociology form a single science 

 divided into two vast provinces. It is impossible 

 to say at what precise point biological phenomena 

 end and sociological phenomena begin. The 



