far above the heads of men that they can not tip-toe and touch it. Any confusion at any time may rationally be accounted an unresolved struggle, even if the events in it do not get to the end of their action in the period of a brief lifetime. The general movements of the world are so intricate and involved-they are made up of so many elements and affect so many and diverse peoplesthat a single mind, however capable, only grasps a few of their massed consequences, and then only for a moment; and it is not able, therefore, to put on them any appropriate value. But we do come to know a progress which is inherent and an adversity which is not remediless.

CHAPTER XI.

RELIGION AND THE COMMUNAL LIFE.

The Overlap of Life Units.

THE little plumularia of many seashores is composed of a mass of tiny structures, each having a life of its own and at the same time performing a functional part in the life of the larger organism, which is a colonial unit.

The compound coral is also an assemblage of organic units. It is a life within a life showing very complete and complicated mutual dependencies.

The millions of cells of the human body are classified. Over and above the fact of cell individuality, the cells are known to have a structural and functional belonging. One set constructs the bony framework, another the connective tissues, another undertakes the enormous work of nutrition; but in no moment of that detailed division of labor is there a forgetfulness of their vital co-ordinations with the larger unit to which they belong. The red corpuscles have

in view the life of the body-they build all the structures. The white corpuscles fight disease. They throw themselves against an enemy with utter abandon-one against a thousand. It is their hilarious business to die for the life of the body. When a fever rages the lucocytes are waging war. Only in a mathetic sense, therefore, can it be said that the living body is the sum of its living cells. The body is a distinct life unit composed of unicellular life units. The biological situation may be described as an overlap of life units. Nothing is separate, nothing apart, nothing segregated. Life forms are wrapped about each other-the smaller transfused through the larger everywhere.

This is one of the first lessons to be learned in biology, and the sociologist never makes any headway until he becomes familiar with it. Individuals and families are interfused into that distinct organism we call the state; and in the same way that bees are put together to constitute the hive. The hive instinct endows each insect with the best it knows of itself. A single bee gives itself, without reserve, to the hive, without knowledge, perhaps, that such a giving is the supremest expression of self-preservation.

The New Testament law of human service is this same law brought up into the domain of man's life, and not a new thing. "He that loveth his life shall lose it" states broadly a great natural law, which did not drop down out of the sky, but came up out of the ground.

The self-seeking life is narrow and self-destructive. Our richest personal findings are in our outgivings of effort for others. We are a part-an integral part of the larger life of the family and society. We are fitted in as the bee is fitted in. We can think of a bee with the crass capacity to fly out from the hive and never return. It would then take to itself all the sweet of every flower and have nothing to carry back to the hive. What glorious freedom-and what insanity and suicide of life! The bee, however, has no will to execute such a feat.

Refusal to accept associative obligations is revolt against a cosmic law. Its supposed advantages are a deceit—it is a blundering to a fall. The larger outside values to the individual are his social co-ordinations. "For no man liveth to himself, no man dieth to himself." That statement can be verified as true from an examination of any physical aspect of creation.

Socialisms.

The communal life is the basal life anywhere. Individualism is not an increasing separatenessit is an increasing identity with community advantages. It is the capacity to make use of the world's accumulations.

The last fifty years has brought to the notice of scholars a decided uprising of discontent with those phases of the social order which have expressed themselves on a selfish or individual basis; which have undervalued collective advantages and overvalued individual rights; which have so magnified individual rights as to defeat individual happiness. There has been a growing interest in the communal advantage, as a survival, for the reason that it makes itself an offering to each individual born into it. As the social complexes approach perfection, personal privileges and gifts multiply geometrically. When it comes to pass that gas and water and coal and pavements and roadways and telephones and free mail delivery and the parcels post and schools and churches and libraries and art museums and public parks can be enjoyed by all, at the rates which the poor can afford, then the poor are as rich as the rich in these things.