Chapter IX

The Fundamental Qualities of an Organism.

In order to illustrate the fundamental characteristics of an organic structure in general, we will begin with comparing it with what it most resembles, namely, a complicated mechanism. The likeness is so striking that the very dissimilarities become instructive.

First of all we notice the parts of which the machine is composed. What these parts are to the machine the members and organs are to the organism. Every part, like every organ, has a certain duty to perform which it incessantly repeats. The work of the machine is divided among the parts as that of the organism among the organs. As the organ, so the part of the machine can do its share only when in right position and in right order.

The most obvious similarities are now exhausted. The parts of the machine are actuated by external, but the organs by internal, forces. The organism is a living machine. No organism, whether organic or mechanic, labors for its own sake. Every such apparatus exists for somebody’s use. But while those that employ a machine stand in outer relation to the same, those who utilize an organism are beings that themselves constitute the organic machine-parts. These are not composed of dead atoms, but of living individuals. The organism is a society which puts the organic machinery into service. It is the social tie that connects the individuals which otherwise would be a multitude of isolated beings.

In all organisms there are as many organs as actual wants among the individuals that compose it. Because these individuals are kindred, they have common needs and are therefore able to use the same organ. Every particular individual requires the assistance of all the organs and must therefore stand in such relation to them all that he can utilize the work of any one. But he himself enters as a working member only in one organ, whose work is the only one he can immediately press into his service, and even this only in certain cases. All other organs stand in more or less distant relation to him. How, then, will he be able to utilize them? Only so that the organs make themselves present in his own organ, and, so to speak, reach him their different products. Like every citizen in a community, each organ ought to have a system of circulation throughout all the other organs to transfer the results of its work where it is needed. If, however, each organ were provided with such a distribution agency this would be an extravagance inconsistent with the concentration of forces that the very idea of an organism implies. Instead of many such systems we find therefore in every organism but one, whose sole purpose is to circulate the products of the various organs, and thus, so to speak, make each organ represented in every part of the whole community. We find that every organic building is constructed in this way to suit the individuals that form its building-material, and so of course it must be, since it was built for that purpose by the same individuals.

The consequence is that the degree of development an organism possesses is closely related to the state of evolution reached by the individuals which constitute it. The more perfected the organism, the higher and more developed also are the necessities it is able to satisfy.

The way in which independent living beings build such an organic machine may be defined as “division of labor.” Every organism is a union, founded on the division of labor, between a multitude of kindred individuals which thus combine their isolated forces. But a large mass of individuals cannot merge at once into an all-embracing entity. This result can only be reached by a series of higher and lower intermediary units, each defined by its particular share of the total labor.

A closer study of the organisms will show that they all without exception are composed in this way.

The cells in any organism in nature combine into higher and higher units as follows:

The primary unions of the cells are the tissues, where all the cells perform the same function in the same way. Of these tissues is formed the nearest higher unit, the organ. As the tissue was a union of cells, the organ is a union of tissues. Then we have a system of organs. To each such higher system a more comprehensive function is assigned. By distributing the total labor among the different systems these merge into the organism which unites the whole cell-mass into one well-organized community of working cell-individuals.

Human society is similarly composed. The difference is only that in one case the citizens are cells, and in the other they are men. Of an organism in nature we only see the members and organs, but not the cells; in human society, on the other hand, we only observe the cells or the human individual, but not the body of society. The cells combine into a solid body; humanity is spread over a surface. Human individuals, because of their greater perfection, move in space more freely and independently of each other than do the cells in their realm. These and other differences do not, however, disturb the general organic structure. This has everywhere the same fundamental qualities. Society is essentially only a vastly enlarged copy of the same model that man traces in his own bodily organism.

Through a similar division of labor the work of the community is split into trades, corresponding to the tissues in the natural organism. As the cells in one tissue, so the men in one trade are incessantly occupied with the same work. Out of several trades are formed the social organs. A social organ consequently is a certain community or district performing a certain part of an industry. This has been called “territorial division of labor.” Several such communities make up an organ-system or an industry. A few such larger units merge into the single unit, the entire mass of human individuals as a whole.

The cells of the individuals in an organism are consequently at once building-material and builders, and in their latter capacity are endowed with wants and aspirations that with natural necessity force them to organization without conscious plan or purpose. Necessity is the teacher that tells them how to organize. Some speak of a social instinct that man does or should possess; but its existence has never been shown. On the contrary, it is only by those needs that can only be satisfied by a community that men are driven to unite socially. Similarly with the cells. Only by building up an organism are they able to satisfy their common wants. What society is to human individuals, the natural organism is to the cells. No trade or industry can be found in the state that does not serve to provide for some common want of the people, and no tissue nor organ exists in the natural organism but for satisfying collective needs of the cells. These collective needs are at the same time the higher needs of the individuals. The organism provides the power that the isolated individual does not possess. Organization allows that specializing of effort which so essentially contributes to the productivity of labor. The more limited the operations each individual has to perform, the more rapidly and perfectly are they done.

Although the cell lives in a world inaccessible to our immediate comprehension, we still possess means to ascertain that it has the same fundamental qualities as man. We observe manifestations of life in the cell corresponding to those of sensitivity, feeling and will-power in man. The cell’s comprehending faculty has been termed irritability and its power of action spontaneity. From certain physiological phenomena the conclusion has also been drawn that the cell likewise possesses memory.