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Meanwhile, if any such correspondence exists, it is clear that physiology and sociology will more or less interpret each other. Each affords its special facilities for inquiry. Relations of cause and effect clearly traceable in the social organism, may lead to the search for analogous ones in the individual organism; and may so elucidate what might else be inexplicable. Laws of growth and function disclosed by the pure physiologist, may occasionally give us the clue to certain social modifications otherwise difficult to understand. If they can do no more, the two sciences can at least exchange suggestions and confirmations; and this will be no small aid. The conception of “the physiological division of labour,” which political economy has already supplied to physiology, is one of no small value. And probably it has others to give.

In support of this opinion, we will now cite cases in which such aid is furnished. And in the first place, let us see whether the facts of social organization do not afford additional support to some of the doctrines set forth in the foregoing parts of this article.

One of the propositions supported by evidence was that in animals the process of development is carried on, not by differentiations only, but by subordinate integrations. Now in the social organism we may see the same duality of process; and further, it is to be observed that the integrations are of the same three kinds. Thus we have integrations which arise from the simple growth of adjacent parts that perform like functions: as, for instance, the coalescence of Manchester with its calico-weaving suburbs. We have other integrations which arise when, out of several places producing a particular commodity, one monopolizes more and more of the business, and leaves the rest to dwindle: witness the growth of the Yorkshire cloth-districts at the expense of those in the west of England; or the absorption by Staffordshire of the pottery-manufacture, and the consequent decay of the establishments that once flourished at Worcester, Derby, and elsewhere. And we have those yet other integrations which result from the actual approximation of the similarly-occupied parts: whence result such facts as the concentration of publishers in Paternoster Row, of lawyers in the Temple and neighbourhood, of corn-merchants about Mark Lane, of civil engineers in Great George Street, of bankers in the centre of the city. Finding thus that in the evolution of the social organism, as in the evolution of individual organisms, there are integrations as well as differentiations, and moreover that these integrations are of the same three orders; we have additional reason for considering these integrations as essential parts of the developmental process, needed to be included in its formula. And further, the circumstance that in the social organism these integrations are determined by community of function, confirms the hypothesis that they are thus determined in the individual organism.

Again, we endeavoured to show deductively, that the contrasts of parts first seen in all unfolding embryos, are consequent upon the contrasted circumstances to which such parts are exposed; that thus, adaptation of constitution to conditions is the principle which determines their primary changes; and that, possibly, if we include under the formula hereditarily-transmitted adaptations, all subsequent differentiations may be similarly determined. Well, we need not long contemplate the facts to see that some of the predominant social differentiations are brought about in an analogous way. As the members of an originally-homogeneous community multiply and spread, the gradual separation into sections which simultaneously takes place, manifestly depends on differences of local circumstances. Those who happen to live near some place chosen, perhaps for its centrality, as one of periodical assemblage, become traders, and a town springs up; those who live dispersed, continue to hunt or cultivate the earth; those who spread to the sea-shore fall into maritime occupations. And each of these classes undergoes modifications of character fitting to its function. Later in the process of social evolution these local adaptations are greatly multiplied. In virtue of differences of soil and climate, the rural inhabitants in different parts of the kingdom, have their occupations partially specialized; and are respectively distinguished as chiefly producing cattle, or sheep, or wheat, or oats, or hops, or cider. People living where coal-fields are discovered become colliers; Cornishmen take to mining because Cornwall is metalliferous; and the iron-manufacture is the dominant industry where ironstone is plentiful. Liverpool has assumed the office of importing cotton, in consequence of its proximity to the district where cotton goods are made; and for analogous reasons Hull has become the chief port at which foreign wools are brought in. Even in the establishment of breweries, of dye-works, of slate-quarries, of brick-yards, we may see the same truth. So that, both in general and in detail, these industrial specializations of the social organism which characterize separate districts, primarily depend on local circumstances. Of the originally-similar units making up the social mass, different groups assume the different functions which their respective positions entail; and become adapted to their conditions. Thus, that which we concluded, a priori, to be the leading cause of organic differentiations, we find, a posteriori, to be the leading cause of social differentiations. Nay further, as we inferred that possibly the embryonic changes which are not thus directly caused, are caused by hereditarily-transmitted adaptations; so, we may actually see that in embryonic societies, such changes as are not due to direct adaptations, are in the main traceable to adaptations originally undergone by the parent society. The colonies founded by distinct nations, while they are alike in exhibiting specializations caused in the way above described, grow unlike in so far as they take on, more or less, the organizations of the nations they sprung from. A French settlement does not develop exactly after the same manner as an English one; and both assume forms different from those which Roman settlements assumed. Now the fact that the differentiation of societies is determined partly by the direct adaptation of their units to local conditions, and partly by the transmitted influence of like adaptations undergone by ancestral societies, tends strongly to enforce the conclusion, otherwise reached, that the differentiation of individual organisms, similarly results from immediate adaptations compounded with ancestral adaptations.