Mr. Silencers Social Anatomy. 57 



the animal arises a varied nervous system, with organs of sense 

 and will for the regulation of the whole ; so in the dominant class 

 in the state arises government with its varied means for obtaining 

 information and executing orders for the regulation of the whole. 

 So in social as in animal structure, Mr. Spencer traces three sys- 

 tems : first, the inner sustaining system, — alimentation in the ani- 

 mal, and productive industries in the state; second, the distributing- 

 system, — circulation in the animal and commerce in the state ; 

 third, the regulating system, — the nervous structure of the animal 

 and the government in the state. 



Mr. Spencer traces the analogies in detail. As the simple al- 

 imentary canal becomes divided into organs for mastication, disin- 

 tegration and the various processes of digestion ; so the rude in- 

 dustries of a savage tribe grow diverse in the arts of civilization, 

 with the same method. As for instance, the liver originating in 

 separate bile-secreting cells scattered along the intestine, becomes 

 at length concentrated in a viscus with direct and ramifying 

 branches ; so an industry commencing with separate workmen 

 scattered through the community, gradually becomes concentrated 

 in factories and a great manufacturing center. 



The distributing system shows still more remarkable parallels. 

 Commerce commences with shifting paths through forests and 

 prairies, like the unwalled and changing lacunas in animal tissue. 

 But with advance the paths grow straight, and fixed in fenced 

 roads, like the walled blood vessels ; and culminate in the double- 

 tracked railroads separating the outgoing and incoming currents, — 

 the arteries and veins of the social structure. These great chan- 

 nels of distribution in their ever-ramifying divisons grow smaller 

 in roads and lanes, and end in unfenced cart-tracks across the fields, 

 — the capillaries of commerce. As circulation commences in the 

 lower animals feeble and irregular, but culminates in the steady 

 pulse of the mammal ; so commerce commences in feeble barter, 

 and rising through the irregular fair, comes at last to the steady 

 pulse of the daily market. Here and there a manufacture, like a 

 secreting gland, draws from the current the crude material, which 

 it works over into more refined products and then returns to the 

 circulation. So in the animal and social economy alike, the sus- 

 tenance is carried where needed. 



