FUNCTION. 163 



organs. That the heart may act, it must from instant to in- 

 stant be excited by discharges from certain ganglia ; and 

 the discharges from these ganglia are made possible, only by 

 the conveyanco to them, from instant to instant, of the 

 blood which the heart propels. 



It is not easy to find an adequate expression for this double 

 re-distribution of functions. It is not easy to realize a trans- 

 formation through which the functions thus become in one 

 sense separated and in another sense combined, or even in- 

 terfused. Here, however, as before, an analogy drawn from 

 social organization helps us. If we observe how the increas- 

 ing division of labour in societies, is accompanied by a closer 

 co-operation ; and how the agencies of different social actions, 

 while becoming in one respect more distinct, become in an- 

 other respect more minutely ramified through each other ; 

 we shall understand better the increasing physiological co- 

 operation that accompanies increasing physiological division 

 of labour. Note, for example, that while local 



divisions and classes of the community have been grow- 

 ing unlike in their several occupations, the carrying on of 

 their several occupations has been growing dependent on 

 the due activity of that vast organization by which sus- 

 tenance is collected and diffused. During the early stages 

 of social development, every small group of people, and often 

 every family, obtained separately its own necessaries; but 

 now, for each necessary, and for each superfluity, there ex- 

 ists a combined body of wholesale and retail distributors, 

 which brings its branched channels of supply within reach 

 of all. While each citizen is pursuing a business that does not 

 immediately aim at the satisfaction of his personal wants, his 

 personal wants are satisfied by a general agency that brings 

 from all places commodities for him and his fellow T -citizens 

 — an agency which could not cease its special duties for a few 

 days, without bringing to an end his own special duties and 

 those of most others. Consider, again, how each 



of these differentiated functions is everywhere pervaded by 



