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recently issued, 1 he denies that society can be properly called a super- organism, as Mr. Spencer proposes, and insists that it is in very truth an organism. But what manner of organism does he make it out to be ? An organism consisting entirely of a " social nervous system " and "social intercellular structure." Is there any such animal or plant as that ? How much of the body of an animal consists of "intercellular structure " ? Is not this expression to the biologist a contradiction of terms? What is " structure " in biology? Is it not wholly cellular (or vascular, in which the most highly developed cells are differenti- ated into vessels)? It is true, there are fluids of various kinds flowing through the animal body in various physiological capacities, but the blood is full of corpuscles, i. e., cells, and the lymphatics and secre- tions are not "structures." There are also some structures in the animal body that for physiological reasons are devoid of sensitive nerves, but they are all made up of cells. Lilienfeld and Worms both agree that individual men constitute the cells of the social organism, and both take this in a literal biological sense, that they represent the "real" cells as made known by Schleiden and Schwann. But the first of these authors maintains that the individual men in society taken together only constitute the nervous system of society, and that soci- ety is devoid of all the other systems of the animal body. In their stead we have the intercellular structure, which, as he says, is produced by the nervous system, or, as the biologists would say, secreted by it. And what is this intercellular structure of society ? As I understand him it consists chiefly of the material (and perhaps spiritual) capital of society, the product of human labor and thought. Sometimes he seems to give it somewhat the scope that Mr. Spencer gives to society itself, as including the soil, water, air, flora, and fauna, in short, the environment of society. But if this is all intercellular structure and is only the product of the nervous system and no part of that system itself, where is the consistency of speaking, as both our authors do, of telegraph lines as analogues of nerves ?
Another question that will sometimes obtrude is : What are the limits of the social organism ? Is it all of society, /. t., the whole aggregate of individual men (social cells), or are there many societies? If the latter, how are these social organisms bounded and delimited? Are the lines political, or national, or racial, or ethnic, or linguistic ?
1 " L'Organismo Sociale un Superorganismo? " Estratta dalla Riforma Sociale, Fac. 3, anno III, Vol. VI, Tornio, 1896.
