110 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



A STATE IS A PLEXUS OF ORGANIZATIONS. 



In the foregoing statement it is seen that the grand unit of social 

 organization, the state, is itself composed of many minor organi- 

 zations, forming units in a descending series, so that the state has a 

 compound structure. It also has a complex structure. Before de- 

 fining this complexity an illustration from biology may be in place. 



An animal is composed of many organs performing different 

 functions, — the organ of thought, the organs of breathing, the 

 organs of digestion, the organs of circulation, the organs of loco- 

 motion, and so forth. Running through all these organs and 

 forming a plexus with them, are the systems of tissues — the nervous, 

 vascular, and muscular systems — the whole forming a compli- 

 cated system of organs and tissues, rendering the organism exces- 

 sively complex in physical constitution. 



In the examination of the constitution of any particular state it 

 will usually be that one system of organization permeates and 

 pervades other systems in such a manner that the individual state 

 is excessively complex. Through the series of units into which 

 the state is organized for the purposes of government, both classes 

 and ranks are interwoven, and through the government units — the 

 classes and the ranks — corporations are interwoven. 



In the Muskoki Confederacy there are forty-nine tribes, each 

 one having a government of its own. But these forty-nine tribes 

 are organized in such a manner that a common government is 

 provided for the whole. Now, the confederacy is the grand unit, 

 the tribes are units of a second order. But the clans of one tribe 

 are also the clans of another, so that each clan is distributed 

 through many tribes, and each clan has a government of its own, 

 subsidiary to the government of the tribe, and again subsidiary to 

 the government of the confederacy. The organization for a clan 

 is woven through the organization for a tribe in such a manner as 

 to make the constitution of the state complex. 



In those states where the organizations which we have here 



