cer's "The Man versus the State."

"Yes," answered Dyce, "and I think it a mistake from beginning to end."

"How so?"

Lord Dymchurch was about thirty, slight in build, rather languid in his
movements, conventionally dressed but without any gloss or scrupulous
finish, and in manners peculiarly gentle. His countenance, naturally
grave, expressed the man of thought rather than of action; its traits,
at the same time, preserved a curious youthfulness, enhanced by the
fact of his wearing neither moustache nor beard; when he smiled, it was
with an almost boyish frankness, irresistible in its appeal to the good
will of the beholder. Yet the corners of his eyes were touched with the
crow's foot, and his hair began to be brindled, tokens which had their
confirmation on brow and lip as often as he lost himself in musing. He
had a soft voice, habitually subdued. His way of talking inclined to
the quietly humorous, and was as little self-assertive as man's talk
can be; but he kept his eyes fixed on anyone who conversed with him,
and that clear, kindly gaze offered no encouragement to pretentiousness
or any other idle characteristic. Dyce Lashmar, it might have been
noticed, betrayed a certain deference before Lord Dymchurch, and was
not wholly at his ease; however decidedly he spoke, his accent lacked
the imperturbable confidence which usually distinguished it.

"The title itself I take to be meaningless," was his reply to the
other's question. "How can there possibly be antagonism between the
individual and the aggregate in which he is involved? What rights or
interests can a man possibly have which are apart from the rights and
interests of the body politic without which he could not exist? One
might just as well suppose one of the cells which make up an organic
body asserting itself against the body as a whole."

Lord Dymchurch reflected, playing, as he commonly did, with a seal upon
his watch-guard.

"That's suggestive," he said.

Dyce might have gone on to say that the suggestion, with reference to
this very book of Herbert Spencer's, came from a French sociologist he
had been reading; but it did not seem to him worth while.

"You look upon the State as an organism," pursued Lord Dymchurch. "A
mere analogy, I suppose?"

"A scientific fact. It's the final stage of evolution. Just as cells
combine to form the physiological unit, so do human beings combine to
form the social-political unit the State. Did it ever occur