964 
Froceedings of the Royal Society 
Chapter IL— Biological Principles. 
§ 29. Widely current in economic literature are conceptions whicli 
seem to have more or less biological character — one hears of “ parasit- 
ism,” of “ competition,” of laws of population,” of the “ social organ- 
ism,” and even of its “ circulatory,” and ‘‘ nutritive organs,” and so on, 
besides many others which though not necessarily couched in current 
biological language, yet readily hear translation. It is here proposed 
to criticise and, to some extent, systematise this aspect of economics. 
At starting, we meet the difficulty, that past economic literature 
necessarily shares the character of past literature' in general, and 
more or less completely ignores physiological, zoological, and anthro- 
pological facts altogether. It is necessary to postulate the results 
of all these sub-sciences most clearly, and the biologist, avoiding 
misleading “ comparisons between man and nature,” must w'ork 
forward from the actual living “man and his place in nature,” 
without particular respect to the authority of any time-honoured 
theories of “human nature,” or of the “economic man.” 
In passing from the physical to the biological aspects of economics, 
our producers and consumers are no longer regarded as automata, 
and generalised along with machines ; but are looked on as speci- 
mens of a species of living organism, to he generalised with the rest 
of organic nature, terminating the greatest line of genealogical 
ascent, and supremely successful in the struggle for existence and 
domination, in virtue of peculiarly high evolution of the nervous 
system. 
Our biological studies then commence with a knowledge of the 
statical aspects of Homo ; with an organised census,"^ in which the 
quantity and quality of the population are carefully recorded : the 
* The reader may at first suppose that it is here attempted to discuss ques- 
tions essentially sociological under biology — but this “materialism” (u § 12) 
will be carefully guarded against. All that concerns only the objective and 
bodily side of a man is purely biological ; and this may he summed up for a 
number of men, looked at simply as a herd or mass, without leaving the field 
of pure biology. Sociology, on the other hand, concerns itself with indivi- 
dualities of a higher order : — with aggregates of men integrated into wholes 
for definite functions ; as firm, bank, company, regiment, post office, and only 
considers the individual components in their relations to these. The census, 
then, is primarily biological, but also of course has sociological elements of 
high importance ; — but these await separate and subsequent discussion. 
