human nature which it will be well, however,
to first call to mind. The one is the power of habit:--the tendency to
continue to do things in the same way; the other is the possibility of
mental and moral deterioration. The effect of the first in social
development is to continue habits, customs, laws and methods, long after
they have lost their original usefulness, and the effect of the other
is to permit the growth of institutions and modes of thought from which
the normal perceptions of men instinctively revolt.

Now the growth and development of society not merely tend to make each
more and more dependent upon all, and to lessen the influence of
individuals, even over their own conditions, as compared with the
influence of society; but the effect of association or integration is to
give rise to a collective power which is distinguishable from the sum of
individual powers. Analogies, or, perhaps, rather illustrations of the
same law, may be found in all directions. As animal organisms increase
in complexity, there arise, above the life and power of the parts, a
life and power of the integrated whole; above the capability of
involuntary movements, the capability of voluntary movements. The
actions and impulses of bodies of men are, as has often been observed,
different from those which, under the same circumstances, would be
called forth in individuals. The fighting qualities of a regiment may be
very different from those of the individual soldiers. But there is no
need of illustrations. In our inquiries into the nature and rise of
rent, we traced the very thing to which I allude. Where population is
sparse, land has no value; just as men congregate together, the value of
land appears and rises--a clearly distinguishable thing from the values
produced by individual effort; a value which springs from association,
which increases as association grows greater, and disappears as
association is broken up. And the same thing is true of power in other
forms than those generally expressed in terms of wealth.

Now, as society grows, the disposition to continue previous, social
adjustments tends to lodge this collective power, as it arises, in the
hands of a portion of the community; and this unequal distribution of
the wealth and power gained as society advances tends to produce greater
inequality, since aggression grows by what it feeds on, and the idea of
justice is blurred by the habitual toleration of injustice.

In this