Mr. Sj)ence/s Social Anatomy. 61 



social tissue itself. Men whose work is done are removed like 

 worn-out cells from the body. As even the older and solider 

 framework of the body is slowly removed, and our very bones 

 change ; so even the older and more fundamental institutions are 

 slowly consumed and renovated in a healthy state that breathes 

 and lives. As this process o£ consumption works in nerve and 

 brain more rapidly than anywhere else ; so in a healthy so- 

 ciety, thought and opinion show still more rapid change, as old 

 errors are abandoned and new knowledge gained. This respira- 

 tion in society as in the animal, brings higher life by removing 

 the effete and poisonous elements from our institutions. Buckle 

 said the best work of legislators had been in undoing the work 

 of their predecessors. Advancing knowledge and thought do, in- 

 deed, eat away old opinions as oxygen consumes the brain, but 

 like that, for good. No need to restrict thought. There may, in- 

 deed, be social stages to which knowledge is fatal, as free air is to 

 fish. But we need not on that account restrict thought, any more 

 than we enact laws to keep fish in the water. Few men are too eager 

 to come out into the higher air, and whoever will, let him. Some 

 think this is the way lungs have come. It is safe for society to 

 absorb its gills and develop lungs as fast as it will. Knowledge 

 and thought do indeed, like oxygen, burn out old errors ; but like 

 that, respect life, and harm nothing good. In state and body 

 alike the organism's own vitality is ever renewing the wasted tissue, 

 and giving us better than we lost. The respiration which con- 

 sumes is yet the breath of life. 



With all these parallels between the animal and social struc- 

 ture, we should note one contrast, to which Mr. Spencer refers. 

 Consciousness does not become centralized in the state. There is 

 no social sensorium. In the social body, unlike the animal, con- 

 sciousness is retained in each individual cell. So much does in- 

 dividualization seem to be one of the ends of nature. Constitut- 

 ing one body, we yet remain separate persons. Growing ever more 

 organized in one social structure, we become ever more personal too. 

 These two processes go on side by side, — the organization of the 

 whole and the perfection of the parts. 



