Nothing, apparently, is simpler, and yet really more complex, than the
physiological process by which, in the organized body, the proper
restorative food flows regularly to the spot where it is needed, among
the innumerably diverse and distant cells. In like manner, nothing is
simpler at the first glance, and yet more complex, than the economical
process by which, in the social organism, provisions and other
articles of prime necessity, flow of themselves to all points of the
territory where they are needed and within reach of each consumer. It
is owing to this that, in the social body as in the organized body,
the terminal act presupposes many others anterior to and co-ordinate
with it, a series of elaborations, a succession of metamorphoses, one
elimination and transportation after another, mostly invisible and
obscure, but all indispensable, and all of them carried out by
infinitely delicate organs, so delicate that, under the slightest
pressure, they get out of order, so dependent on each other that an
injury to one affects the operations of the rest, and thus suppresses
or perverts the final result to which, nearly or remotely, they all
contribute.
Pages:
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798