MECHANICAL EQUILIBRIA IN THE ORGANIC WORLD 219 



strongly coherent will show a diminislied rate of suicide ; and 

 the diminution of the rate of suicide will be greater according 

 as the integration and coherence of society are greater. A 

 society, on the other hand, which is but loosely integrated, in 

 which coherence is reduced to a minimum, will show an increased 

 rate of suicide. 



In the living organism the desires of the individual must be 

 proportionate to the means of satisfying them. If the indi- 

 vidual wants exceed the individual's power of giving effect to 

 them, of fulfilling them, of transforming them into concrete 

 reaUties, these wants will become the source of proportionately 

 great suffering. And as actions which are painful have an 

 inevitable tendency not to reproduce themselves, desires which 

 do not admit of the possibility of realisation will, in the course 

 of time, cease to manifest themselves ; life, which constitutes 

 the sum total of our desires, cannot fail to have its vitality 

 reduced in proportion as those desires are suppressed. 



In the realm of animal life inferior to that of man, the question 

 of the capacity of the organism to satisfy its wants does not 

 arise. For in the whole of this sphere the equilibrium between 

 the needs of the organism and the capacity for assimilation 

 possessed by the organism is maintained by the individual con- 

 stitution itself. Once the individual has satisfied its material 

 needs, the limit of its desires is reached. The wastage of the 

 tissues is automatically repaired by rest and food ; and the con- 

 stitution of the individual sets a limit to its wants which cannot 

 be passed. Once the individual animal has eaten sufficiently 

 and rested sufficiently, there is for the time an end to its desires ; 

 for the latter, being all of them dependent on the body, cannot 

 exceed the physiological capacity of the body. An automatically 

 adjusted equilibrium is thus reached between the needs of the 

 organism and its capacities. 



In the case of man matters are not so simple ; for the greater 

 number of the needs of man are not dependent on the body, are 



