sed through an inert substance, that can scarcely be
called living in the full sense of the word. It is thus with some of the
_Protococci_ and with the _Nostoceae_, which exist as cells imbedded in a
viscid matter. It is so, too, with the _Thalassicollae_--bodies made up
of differentiated parts, dispersed through an undifferentiated jelly.
And throughout considerable portions of their bodies, some of the
_Acalephae_ exhibit more or less this type of structure. Now this is very
much the case with a society. For we must remember that though the men
who make up a society are physically separate, and even scattered, yet
the surface over which they are scattered is not one devoid of life, but
is covered by life of a lower order which ministers to their life. The
vegetation which clothes a country makes possible the animal life in
that country; and only through its animal and vegetal products can such
a country support a society. Hence the members of the body-politic are
not to be regarded as separated by intervals of dead space, but as
diffused through a space occupied by life of a lower order. In our
conception of a social organism, we must include all that lower organic
existence on which human existence, and therefore social existence,
depend. And when we do this, we see that the citizens who make up a
community may be considered as highly vitalized units surrounded by
substances of lower vitality, from which they draw their nutriment: much
as in the cases above instanced.

3. The third difference is that while the ultimate living elements of an
individual organism are mostly fixed in their relative positions, those
of the social organism are capable of moving from place to place. But
here, too, the disagreement is much less than would be supposed. For
while citizens are locomotive in their private capacities, they are
fixed in their public capacities. As farmers, manufacturers, or traders,
men carry on their businesses at the same spots, often throughout their
whole lives; and if they go away occasionally, they leave behind others
to discharge their functions in their absence. Each great centre of
production, each manufacturing town or district, continues always in the
same place; and many of the firms in such town or district, are for
generations carried on either by the descendants or successors of those
who founded them. Just as in a living body, the cells that make up some
important organ severally perform their funct