BIOLOGY IN OUR ARTS CURRICULUM. 107 
one cell does not try to usurp the functions of another cell? How 
is it that one organ is never of opinion that another organ has 
too much power? How is it that one cell does not loaf on the 
industry of others, but each does its own work honestly? It is of 
no use to say that the social organism is young, and that all these 
things will disappear in time, because then we should have to 
compare the social organism of to-day with an individual lower 
in the scale than any now existing, and all the beautiful analogies 
of nerves and vessels would disappear. The fallacy of the 
analogy, as a guide to political science, is indeed so apparent 
when we compare a highly differentiated nation like India with 
the much less differentiated one of the United States of America, 
that Iam surprised it should have been adopted by the writer 
of an article on the “Science of History” in the Westminster 
Review for January of last year. This writer proceeds to investi- 
gate what he calls the “physiology of history” under numerous 
heads, in which he thinks he has dissected and examined a 
“social organism” as a biologist would dissect and examine an 
animal; but, in my opinion, he has only given new names to old 
things, and has not advanced science much. 
The term “social organism” is not, I think, a happy one, 
because it is misleading. What is meant to be understood by 
this term is not so much a single organism as a number of 
groups of organisms, each group occupying a separate locality, 
-and differing from one of the organs that make up an individual, 
in that it is more or less self-supporting, and capable of forming 
a new “social organism.” The social groups, or communities, as 
I should prefer to call them, more nearly resemble what we call 
species ; while the nation, which may consist of one or more 
communities, might represent the political genus, and might 
include extinct as well as existing communities. For example, 
the various communities of England in the fifteenth century may 
be said to be extinct, and to be represented by the communities 
of England, the United States, and the Colonies at the present 
day. It is the business of the science of history to explain why 
those communities became extinct, and how the present ones 
were developed ; and asa help towards a scientific solution of 
the problem, I may point out that the action of selection on each 
individual, through his external physical surroundings, is the 
chief determinant of the character of the community, whether, 
for instance, it shall be commercial, agricultural, pastoral, or 
manufacturing, as was dimly seen by Montesquieu and Buckle. 
The action of selection on society at large determines the course 
of politics and the spread of religious opinions. National 
character is due to-both, together with the inherited effects of 
selection on former generations. 
But you may say, some of the best historians have denied 
the possibility of a science of history. That is true, but those 
historians have not studied biology, and without a knowledge 
of biology it is impossible to construct a science of history. Let 
us examine these objections. Mr. Freeman says that there can 
