262 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



existing structures, either by incorporation of the increment 

 with them, or by their extension through it. Every further 

 elaboration of the arrangements entails an additional obstacle 

 to this ; and when rigidity is reached, such modifications of 

 them as increase of mass would involve, are impossible, and 

 increase is prevented. 



Nor is this all. Controlling and administrative instru 

 mentalities antagonize growth by absorbing the materials for 

 growth. Already when pointing out the evils which accom 

 pany the benefits gained by political organization, this effect 

 has been indirectly implied. Governmental expenditure, 

 there represented as deducting from the lives of producers 

 by taking away their produce, has for its ulterior result de 

 ducting from the life of the community : depletion of the 

 units entails depletion of the aggregate. Where the abstrac 

 tion of private means for public purposes is excessive, the 

 impoverishment leads to decrease of population ; and where 

 it is less excessive, to arrest of population. Clearly those 

 members of a society who form the regulative parts, together 

 with all their dependents, have to be supplied with the means 

 of living by the parts which carry on the processes of pro 

 duction and distribution ; and if the regulative parts go on 

 increasing relatively to the other parts, there must eventually 

 be reached a point at which they absorb the entire surplus, 

 and multiplication is stopped by innutrition. 



Hence a significant relation between the structure of a 

 society and its growth. Organization in excess of need, pre 

 vents the attainment of that larger size and accompanying 

 higher type which might else have arisen. 



447. To aid our interpretations of the special facts 

 presently to be dealt with, we must keep in mind the fore 

 going general facts. They may be summed up as fol 

 lows : 



Cooperation is made possible by society, and makes society 



