legraph-wires to
nerves is familiar to all. It applies, however, to an extent not
commonly supposed. Thus, throughout the vertebrate sub-kingdom, the
great nerve-bundles diverge from the vertebrate axis side by side with
the great arteries; and similarly, our groups of telegraph-wires are
carried along the sides of our railways. The most striking parallelism,
however, remains. Into each great bundle of nerves, as it leaves the
axis of the body along with an artery, there enters a branch of the
sympathetic nerve; which branch, accompanying the artery throughout its
ramifications, has the function of regulating its diameter and otherwise
controlling the flow of blood through it according to local
requirements. Analogously, in the group of telegraph-wires running
alongside each railway, there is a wire for the purpose of regulating
the traffic--for retarding or expediting the flow of passengers and
commodities, as the local conditions demand. Probably, when our now
rudimentary telegraph-system is fully developed, other analogies will be
traceable.

Such, then, is a general outline of the evidence which justifies the
comparison of societies to living organisms. That they gradually
increase in mass; that they become little by little more complex; that
at the same time their parts grow more mutually dependent; and that they
continue to live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of
their units appear and disappear; are broad peculiarities which
bodies-politic display in common with all living bodies; and in which
they and living bodies differ from everything else. And on carrying out
the comparison in detail, we find that these major analogies involve
many minor analogies, far closer than might have been expected. Others
might be added. We had hoped to say something respecting the different
types of social organization, and something also on social
metamorphoses; but we have reached our assigned limits.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 28: It may be well to warn the reader against an error fallen
into by one who criticised this essay on its first publication--the
error of supposing that the analogy here intended to be drawn, is a
specific analogy between the organization of society in England, and the
human organization. As said at the outset, no such specific analogy
exists. The above parallel is one between the most-developed systems of
governmental organization, individual and social; and the vertebrate
type is instance