our own complicated and more perfect one, the progress has ever been of the same nature. Whilst he will also perceive that this coalescence of like parts, as seen in the concentration of particular manufactures in particular districts, and this separation of agents having separate functions, as seen in the more and more minute division of labour, are still going on.

Significant of the alleged analogy is the further fact consequent upon the above, that the sensitiveness exhibited by societies of low and high structure differs in degree, as does the sensitiveness of similarly-contrasted creatures. That peculiar faculty possessed by inferior organisms of living on in each part after being cut in pieces, is a manifest corollary to the other peculiarity just described; namely, that they consist of many repetitions of the same elements. The ability of the several portions into which a polyp has been divided, to grow into complete polyps, obviously implies that each portion contains all the organs needful to life; and each portion can be thus constituted only when those organs recur in every part of the original body. Conversely, the reason why any member of a more highly-organized being cannot live when separated from the rest is, that it does not include all the vital elements, but is dependent for its supplies of nutriment, nervous energy, oxygen, &c., upon the members from which it has been cut off. Of course, then, the earliest and latest forms of society, being similarly distinguished in structure, will be similarly distinguished in susceptibility of injury. Hence it happens that a tribe of savages may be divided and subdivided with little or no inconvenience to the several sections. Each of these contains every element which the whole did-is just as self-sufficing, and quickly assumes the simple organization constituting an independent tribe. Hence, on the contrary, it happens, that in a community like our own no part can be cut off

TENDENCY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT.

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or injured without all parts suffering. Annihilate the agency employed in distributing commodities, and much of the rest would die before another distributing agency could be developed. Suddenly sever the manufacturing portion from the agricultural portion, and the one would expire outright, whilst the other would long linger in grievous distress. This interdependence is daily shown in commercial changes. Let the factory hands be put on short time, and immediately the colonial produce markets of London and Liverpool are depressed. The shop-keeper is busy or otherwise, according to the amount of the wheat crop. And a potato-blight may ruin dealers in consols.

Thus do we find, not only that the analogy between a society and a living creature is borne out to a degree quite unsuspected by those who commonly draw it, but also, that the same definition of life applies to both. This union of many men into one community-this increasing mutual dependence of units which were originally independent-this gradual segregation of citizens into separate bodies, with reciprocally subservient functions-this formation of a whole, consisting of numerous essential partsthis growth of an organism, of which one portion cannot be injured without the rest feeling it-may all be generalized under the law of individuation. The development of society, as well as the devolopment of man and the development of life generally, may be described as a tendency to individuate-to become a thing. And rightly interpreted, the manifold forms of progress going on around us, are uniformly significant of this tendency.

Returning now to the point whence we set out, the fact that public interests and private ones are essentially in unison, cannot fail to be more vividly realized, when so vital a connection is found to subsist between society and its members. Though it would be dangerous to place implicit trust in conclusions founded upon the analogy

just traced, yet harmonizing as they do with conclusions. deducible from every-day experience, they unquestionably enforce these. When, after observing the reactions entailed by breaches of equity, the citizen contemplates the relation in which he stands to the body politic-when he learns that it has a species of life, and conforms to the same laws of growth, organization, and sensibility that a being does-when he finds that one vitality circulates through it and him, and that whilst social health, in a measure, depends upon the fulfilment of some function in which he takes part, his happiness depends upon the normal action of every organ in the social body-when he duly understands this, he must see that his own welfare and all men's welfare are inseparable. He must see that whatever produces a diseased state in one part of the community, must inevitably inflict injury upon all other parts. He must see that his own life can become what it should be, only as fast as society becomes what it should be. In short, he must become impressed with the salutary truth, that no one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

CHAPTER XXXI.

SUMMARY.

§ 1. By bringing within narrow compass the evidences that have been adduced in support of the Theory of Equity now before him, the reader will be aided in coming to a final judgment upon it.

At the head of these evidences stands the fact that, from whatever side we commence the investigation, our

CONVERGENCE OF THE ARGUMENTS.

499

paths alike converge toward the principle of which this theory is a development. If we start with an à priori inquiry into the conditions under which alone the Divine Idea-greatest happiness-can be realized, we find that conformity to the law of equal freedom is the first of them (Chap. III.). If, turning to man's constitution, we consider the means provided for achieving greatest happiness, we quickly reason our way back to this same condition; seeing that these means cannot work out their end, unless the law of equal freedom is submitted to (Chap. IV.). If, pursuing the analysis a step further, we examine how subordination to the law of equal freedom is secured, we discover certain faculties by which that law is responded to (Chap. V.). If, again, we contemplate the phenomena of civilization, we perceive that the process of adaptation under which they may be generalized, can never cease until men have become instinctively obedient to this same law of equal freedom (Chap. II.). To all which positive proofs may also be added the negative one, that to deny this law of equal freedom is to assert divers absurdities (Chap. VI.).

§ 2. Further confirmation may be found in the cir cumstance that preëxisting theories, which are untenable as they stand, are yet absorbed, and the portion of truth. contained in them assimilated, by the theory now proposed. Thus the production of the greatest happiness, though inapplicable as an immediate guide for men, is nevertheless the true end of morality, regarded from the Divine point of view; and as such, forms part of the present system (Chap. III.). The moral-sense principle, also, whilst misapplied by its propounders, is still based on fact; and, as was shown, harmonizes when rightly interpreted, with what seem conflicting beliefs, and unites with them to produce a complete whole. Add to this, that the phi

losophy now contended for, includes, and affords a wider application to, Adam Smith's doctrine of sympathy (p. 115); and lastly, that it gives the finishing development to Coleridge's "Idea of Life" (p. 476).

3. The power which the proposed theory possesses of reducing the leading precepts of current morality to a scientific form, and of comprehending them, in company with sundry less acknowledged precepts, under one generalization, may also be quoted as additional evidence in its favour. Not as heretofore by considering whether, on the whole, manslaughter is productive of unhappiness, or otherwise-not by inquiring if theft is, or is not, expe dient-not by asking in the case of slavery what are its effects on the common weal-not by any such complex and inexact processes, neither by the disputable decisions of unaided moral sense, are we here guided; but by undeniable inferences from a proved first principle. Nor are only the chief rules of right conduct and the just ordering of the connubial and parental relationships thus determined for us; this same first principle indirectly gives distinct answers respecting the proper constitution of gov ernments, their duties, and the limits to their action. of an endless labyrinth of confused debate concerning the policy of these or those public measures, it opens short and easily-discerned ways; and the conclusions it leads to are enforced, both generally, by an abundant experience of the fallacy of expediency decisions, and specially, by numerous arguments bearing on each successive question. Underlying, therefore, as this first principle does, so wide a range of duty, and applied as it is by a process of mental admeasurement nearly related to the geometricalnamely, by ascertaining the equality or inequality of moral quantities (p. 128)-we may consider that a system of ethics synthetically developed from it, partakes of the

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