Evolution Social and Organic

by Arthur M. Lewis

Spencer’s middle-class predilections come out strongly, and a very pretty physiological justification is provided for that wholly admirable section of the community.

The first step in the development of an embryo is its division into two main layers of cells—the mucous layer and the serous layer. The mucous layer, that fine inside skin of the body so to speak, absorbs nutriment. But that nutriment must be transferred to the serous layer which builds up the nerves and muscles. Presently there arises between these two a third—the vascular layer. Out of this third layer the chief blood vessels are developed and these vessels serve to transport the nutriment from the inner or mucous layer, which gathers it, to the outer or serous layer, which uses it for the whole organization’s upbuilding.

“Well,” says Spencer, “may we not trace a parallel step in social progress? Between the governing and the governed, there at first exists no intermediate class; and even in some societies that have reached considerable size, there are scarcely any but the nobles and their kindred on the one hand, and their serfs on the other; the social structure being such that transfer of commodities takes place directly from slaves to their masters. But in societies of a higher type, there grows up, between these two primitive classes, another—the trading or middle class. Equally at first as now, we may see that, speaking generally, this middle class is the analogue of the middle layer in the embryo.”

It is a pity to disturb this serene complacency, by pointing out that the real transporters of commodities are not the members of the middle class who, as a rule, do little and live well, but that section of the working class which mans freight trains, drives teams and shoves trucks. As for that “higher” class of cells which receives these commodities and consumes them while usefully engaged in building up the nervous and muscular system; such comparison could only apply to society’s brain workers, and it contains no justification for the useless parasitic type represented by such charming persons as Harry Thaw and Reggie Vanderbilt.

Another very interesting point is Spencer’s physiological vindication of profit. The limbs, glands, or other members of an animal are developed by exercise. But in order “that any organ in a living being may grow by exercise, there needs to be a due supply of blood.” All action implies waste; blood brings the materials for repair; and before there can be growth, the quantity of blood supplied must be more than is requisite for repair.

“In a society it is the same. If to some district which elaborates for the community particular commodities—say the woolens of Yorkshire—there comes an augmented demand; and if in fulfillment of this demand, a certain expenditure and wear and tear of the manufacturing organization are incurred; and if, in payment for the extra quantity of woolens sent away there comes back only such quantity of commodities as replaces the expenditure, and makes good the waste of life and machinery; there can clearly be no growth. That there may be growth, the commodities obtained in return must be more than sufficient for these ends; and just in proportion as the surplus is great will the growth be rapid. Whence it is manifest that what in commercial affairs we call profit, answers to the excess of nutrition over waste in a living body.”

This is “physiological” political economy with a vengeance and shows to what straits bourgeois apologists are reduced to find a justification of that exploitation of labor which is the only source of profit. In concluding this point Spencer seems to satirize his own position and at the same time gives something that looks very much like a socialist explanation of panics. He says: “And if in the body politic some part has been stimulated into great productivity, and afterwards can not get paid for all its produce, certain of its members become bankrupt, and it decreases in size.”

The truth of the whole matter is that Spencer is wholly at sea the moment he touches political economy, and in place of some elementary knowledge on that subject, we have the obsolete theories of the Manchester School proclaimed in the name of physiology.

Then follows a series of very ingenious comparisons. Following Liebig, he compares coins to blood corpuscles calling the later blood-discs to enhance the analogy and concludes: “throughout extensive divisions of the lower animals, the blood contains no corpuscles; and in societies of low civilization, there is no money.”

Then the development of blood vessels in lower animals is compared to the development of roads in primitive societies; their greater perfection in higher animals comparing with the railroads which more effectively convey food stuffs to the centers of population. Amid much that is fantastic and tedious, he says: “And in railways we also see, for the first time in the social organism, a system of double channels conveying currents in opposite directions as do the arteries and veins of a well-developed animal.”