CHAPTER VIII: THE DISTRIBUTING SYSTEM.

§ 244. In the last chapter but one, where the relations between the three great systems of organs were described, it was pointed out that neither in an animal nor in a society can development of the sustaining system or of the regulating system go on without concomitant development of the distributing system. Transition from a partially-coherent group of tribes which are severally self-sufficing, to a completely-coherent group in which industrial differences have arisen, cannot take place without the rise of an agency for transferring commodities; any more than a cluster of similar polypites can be changed into such a combination as we see in Diphyes, without some modification facilitating conveyance of nutriment from its feeding members to its swimming members. A mediæval society formed of slightly-subordinated feudal states, each having besides its local lord its several kinds of workers and traders within itself, just as an annelid is formed of segments, each having besides its ganglia its own appendages, brachiæ, and simply alimentary tract; can no more pass into an integrated society having localized industries, without the development of roads and commercial classes, than the annelid can evolve into a crustacean or insect, characterized by many unlikenesses of parts and actions, without the growth of a vascular system.

Here, then, we have to observe the implied parallelisms Edition: current; Page: [506] between the distributing systems, individual and social, in their successive stages.

§ 245. Protozoa of the rhizopod type are without channels of communication from part to part. The close proximity of the parts, the likeness of function among the parts, and their great variability of relative position, make a distributing system alike useless and impracticable. Even such animal aggregates as Myxomycetes, which are of considerable extent but are homogeneous, have no permeable lines for the distribution of nutriment. So is it with low societies. Tribes that are small, migratory, and without division of labour, by each of these characters negative the formation of channels for intercourse. A group of a dozen or two, have among themselves such small and indefinite communications as scarcely to make tracks between huts; when migratory, as they mostly are, the beaten paths they begin forming at each temporary abode are soon overgrown; and even where they are settled, if they are scattered and have no unlikenesses of occupations, the movements of individuals from place to place are so trifling as to leave but faint traces.

Animal aggregates of which the parts, differently related to conditions, assume different functions, must have channels for transfer which develop as the aggregates grow. Through the mere double-walled sac constituting a hydra, nutritive matter absorbed by the inner layer, may reach the outer layer without visible openings: passing, as we may assume, along lines of least resistance which, once opened, are continually followed and made more permeable. With advance to larger aggregates having parts further from the stomach, there comes first a branching stomach—a gastric cavity that sends ramifications throughout the body. Distribution of crude nutritive matters through such gastric sinuses occurs in the Medusæ and again in the Planariæ. But in those higher types characterized by a peri-visceral sac containing the filtered nutriment, this, which is the Edition: current; Page: [507] rudiment of a vascular system, becomes the cavity out of which there diverge channels ramifying through the tissues—lacunæ probably formed by the draughts of liquid caused by local demands, and established by the repetitions of such draughts. With societies, as with living bodies, channels of communication are produced by the movements which they afterwards facilitate: each transit making subsequent transits easier. Sometimes lines opened by animals are followed; as by the Nagas, who use the tracks made through the jungle by wild beasts. Similarly caused, the early paths of men are scarcely better than these. The roads of the Bechuanas are “with difficulty to be distinguished from those made by the quaghas and antelopes.” Throughout Eastern Africa “the most frequented routes are foot-tracks like goat-walks.” And in Abyssinia, a high road “is only a track worn by use, and a little larger than the sheep-paths, from the fact of more feet passing over it.” Even with such social growth as produces towns carrying on much intercourse, there is at first nothing more than an undesigned production of a less resistant channel by force of much passing. Describing the road between the old and new capitals of the Bechuanas, Burchell says—“This consists of a number of footpaths wide enough only for a single person, and running either parallel to each other, or crossing very obliquely. I counted from twelve to about eighteen or twenty of these paths, within the breadth of a few yards.”

In animal organisms, ascending from the stage in which there is a mere oozing of nutritive liquids through the most permeable places in the tissues, to the stage in which occasional currents move feebly through indefinite sinuses, we come at length to the stage in which there are regular motions of blood along vessels having definite walls. As before pointed out, the formation of a true vascular system begins in the central regions and spreads to the periphery. At first there arises in the peri-visceral sac a short open-mouthed tube, by the rhythmical contractions of which Edition: current; Page: [508] agitation is kept up in the surrounding liquid, now entering one end of this pulsating tube and now the other; and gradually this primitive heart, elongating and giving off smaller contractile vessels which ramify into the lacunæ, originates a vascular system. The like happens with channels of communication through the social organism: indefinite lacunæ, as we see that they are all at the outset, first acquire definite boundaries in the parts where there is most traffic. Of East African roads, which are commonly like goat-walks, Burton says that “where fields and villages abound they are closed with rough hedges, horizontal tree-trunks, and even rude stockades, to prevent trespassing and pilferage.” So, too, in Dahomey, though the roads are mostly footpaths, yet “the roads to the coast, except in a few places, are good enough for wheeled vehicles,” while “the road, six or seven miles long, separating the two capitals, may compare with the broadest in England.” And from the capital of Ashantee, described as having broad, clean streets, there radiate towards distant parts of the territory eight pathways, cut by successive kings through the forest—doubtless replacing the primitive paths made by traffic. Ignoring Roman roads, which were not produced by local evolution, we may trace in our own history this centrifugal development of channels of communication. The paving of the central parts of London did not begin till after the eleventh century; and, having got as far outwards as Holborn at the beginning of the fifteenth century, it spread into some of the suburbs during the sixteenth century. In Henry VIIIth’s reign a way, when too deep and miry to be traversed, was “merely abandoned and a new track selected.” Up to about 1750 the great north road from London was a turnpike for the first 100 miles, and “north of that point there was only a narrow causeway fit for pack-horses, flanked with clay sloughs on either side.” At the same time, in North-England and Mid-England, the roads were “still for the most part entirely unenclosed.” Then Edition: current; Page: [509] macadamization, an improvement belonging to our own century, beginning with main lines of communication, gradually extended itself first to all turnpike roads, then to parish roads, and finally to private roads.

Further analogies may be indicated. With increased pressure of traffic has come, in addition to the road, the railway; which, in place of a single channel for movement in both directions, habitually has a double channel—up-line and down-line—analogous to the double set of tubes through which, in a superior animal, blood proceeds from the centre and towards the centre. As in the finished vascular system the great blood-vessels are the most direct, the divergent secondary ones less direct, the branches from these more crooked still, and the capillaries the most tortuous of all; so we see that these chief lines of transit through a society are the straightest, high roads less straight, parish roads more devious, and so on down to cart-tracks through fields. One more strange parallel exists. In considerably-developed animals, as many Mollusca, though the vascular system is so far complete in its central parts that the arteries have muscular coats, and are lined with “pavement epithelium,” it remains incomplete at its peripheral parts: the small blood-vessels terminate in lacunæ of the primitive kind. Similarly in the developed distributing system of a society, while the main channels are definitely bounded and have surfaces fitted for bearing the wear and tear of great traffic, the divergent channels carrying less traffic are less highly structured; and the redivergent ones, becoming less finished as they ramify, everywhere end in lacunæ—unfenced, unmetalled tracks for cart, horse, or pedestrian, through field or wood, over moor and mountain.

Notice must also be taken of the significant fact that in proportion as organisms, individual and social, develop largely the appliances for conflict with other organisms, these channels of distribution arise not for internal sustentation Edition: current; Page: [510] only, but partly, and often mainly, for transferring materials from the sustaining parts to the expending parts. As in an animal with a large nervo-muscular system, arteries are formed more for carrying blood from the viscera to the brain and limbs than for carrying blood from one viscus to another; so in a kingdom with activities predominantly militant, the chief roads are those made for purposes of offence and defence. The consumption of men and supplies in war, makes more necessary than all others the roads which take them; and they are the first to assume definiteness. We see this in the above-named royal roads in Ashantee; again in the ancient Peruvian royal roads for conveying troops; and we are reminded of the relation in the empire of the Romans, between finished roads and military activity at remote points. The principle, however, remains the same: be it in the commercial railways of England or the military railways of Russia, the channels arise between places of supply and places of demand, though the consumption may be here in peace and there in war.

§ 246. When from the channels which carry, in the one case blood-corpuscles and serum, and in the other case men and commodities, we turn to the movements along them, we meet with further analogies.

Devoid of canals for distribution, animals of low types show us nothing but an extremely slow, as well as irregular, diffusion through the tissues; and so in primitive societies, where nothing beyond a small amount of barter goes on, the exchanged products are dispersed very gradually and in indefinite ways: the movements are feeble, and do not constitute anything like circulation. On ascending to such a type as an ascidian, having a peri-visceral sac with pulsating vessel in it, we see a distribution of nutriment which cannot be called circulation, but which approaches to it. The pulsations, setting up in the surrounding fluid such waves as send feeble currents through the sinuses and Edition: current; Page: [511] lacunæ, presently undergo a reversal, causing movement in the opposite direction. This alternation of waves, now setting towards a certain part which thereupon becomes congested, and presently setting away from it towards parts which have been drained, is analogous to the first movements of distribution in developing societies. We do not begin with constant currents in the same directions; but we begin with periodical currents, now directed to certain spots and then away from them. That which, when established, we know as a fair, is the commercial wave in its first form. We find it in slightly-advanced societies. The Sandwich Islanders met on the Wairuku river at stated times to exchange their products; and the Fijians of different islands, assembled occasionally at a fixed place for barter. Of course, with the increase of population the streams of people and commodities which set at intervals to and from certain places, become more frequent. The semi-civilized African kingdoms show us stages. On the Lower Niger, “every town has a market generally once in four days,” and at different parts of the river a large fair about once a fortnight. In other cases, as at Sansanding, besides some daily sale there was a great market once a week, to which crowds from the surrounding country came. And then in the largest places, such as Timbuctoo, constant distribution has replaced periodic distribution. So, too, in the Batta territory, Sumatra, there are assemblings for traffic every fourth day; and in Madagascar, besides the daily market in the capital, there are markets at longer intervals in the provincial towns. Ancient American societies displayed this stage passing into a higher. Among the Chibchas, along with constant traffic, the greatest traffic was at eight-day intervals; and Mexico, besides daily markets, had larger markets every five days, which, in adjacent cities, were at different dates: there being meanwhile merchants who, Sahagun says, “go through the whole country . . . buying in one district and selling in others”—so fore-shadowing Edition: current; Page: [512] a more developed system. Clearly these occasional assemblings and dispersings, shortening their intervals until they reach a daily bringing of products by some and buying by others, thus grow into a regular series of frequent waves, transferring things from places of supply to places of demand. Our own history shows how such slow periodic repletions and depletions, now in this locality and now in that, pass gradually into a rapid circulation. In early English times the great fairs, annual and other, formed the chief means of distribution, and remained important down to the seventeenth century, when not only villages but even small towns, devoid of shops, were irregularly supplied by hawkers who had obtained their stocks at these gatherings. Along with increased population, larger industrial centres, and improved channels of communication, local supply became easier; and so, frequent markets more and more fulfilled the purpose of infrequent fairs. Afterwards in chief places and for chief commodities, markets themselves multiplied; becoming in some cases daily. Finally came a constant distribution such that of some foods there is to each town an influx every morning; and of milk even more than one in the day. The transitions from times when the movements of people and goods between places were private, slow, and infrequent, to times when there began to run at intervals of several days public vehicles moving at four miles an hour, and then to times when these shortened their intervals and increased their speed while their lines of movement multiplied, ending in our own times when along each line of rails there go at high speed a dozen waves daily that are relatively vast; sufficiently show us how the social circulation progresses from feeble, slow, irregular movements to a rapid, regular, and powerful pulse.

§ 247. If from the channels of communication and the movements along them, we turn to the circulating currents Edition: current; Page: [513] themselves, and consider their natures and their relations to the parts, we still meet with analogies.

Relatively simple in a low animal, the nutritive fluid becomes in a high animal relatively complex—a heterogeneous combination of general and special materials required by, and produced by, the several parts. Similarly, the currents of commodities, if they can be so called, which move from place to place in a low society, are little varied in composition; but as we advance to high societies, the variety of components in the currents continually increases. Moreover, the parallelism of composition holds in another way; for in both cases relative simplicity is joined with crudity, whereas relative complexity in both cases results from elaboration. In low animal types the product of a rude digestion is carried in an unprepared state through extensions of the gastric cavity to the neighbourhoods of the parts which need it; but in developed types the products are refined before they are distributed—protein substances of several kinds, fats, sugar, etc. And while the blood is thus made heterogeneous by containing many matters fitted for use, and while its heterogeneity is increased by the swarms of white and red corpuscles which take part in the processes of purification, etc., it is made more heterogeneous still by the inorganic constituents which aid molecular change, as well as by the effete products of molecular change on their ways to places of exit. If, in like manner, with the currents in a low society, we contrast the currents in an advanced society, we see that here, too, the greater heterogeneity is mainly caused by the many kinds of manufactured articles fitted for consumption; and though certain waste products of social life do not return into the circulating currents, but are carried off by under-ground channels, yet other waste products are carried off along those ordinary channels of circulation which bring materials for consumption. Next we have to note the special Edition: current; Page: [514] actions which the local structures exert on the general current of commodities. While in a living body the organs severally take from the blood everywhere carried through them, the materials needed for their sustentation, those which are occupied in excretion and secretion also severally take from the blood particular ingredients, which they either cast out or compound. A salivary gland forms from the matters it appropriates, a liquid which changes starch into sugar and by doing this aids the subsequent preparation of food; the gastric follicles elaborate and pour out acids, etc., which help to dissolve the contents of the stomach; the liver, separating certain waste products from the blood, throws them into the intestine as bile, along with that glycogen it forms from other components which is to be re-absorbed; and the units of these several organs live, grow, and multiply, by carrying on their several businesses. So is it with social organs. While all of them, under restrictions to be hereafter specified, absorb from the distributed supply of commodities shares needful for their sustentation, such of them as carry on manufactures, large or small, also select from the heterogeneous streams of things that run everywhere, the materials which they transform; and afterwards return into these streams the elaborated products. Ignoring for the moment the familiar aspect of sale and purchase, under which these transactions present themselves to us, and contemplating simply the physical process, we see that each industrial structure, allowing various materials to pass through its streets untouched, takes out of the mixed current those it is fitted to act upon; and throws into the circulating stock of things, the articles it has prepared for general consumption.

The fact that competition is common to the two cases must also be observed. Though commonly thought of as a phenomenon exclusively social, competition exists in a living body—not so obviously between parts that carry on the same function, as between parts that carry on different Edition: current; Page: [515] functions. The general stock of nutriment circulating through an organism has to support the whole. Each organ appropriates a portion of this general stock for repair and growth. Whatever each takes diminishes by so much the amount available for the rest. All other organs therefore, jointly and individually, compete for blood with each organ. So that though the welfare of each is indirectly bound up with that of the rest; yet, directly, each is antagonistic to the rest. Hence it happens that extreme cerebral action so drafts away the blood as to stop digestion; that, conversely, the visceral demand for blood after a heavy meal often so drains the brain as to cause sleep; and that extremely violent exertion, carrying an excessive amount of blood to the motor organs, may arrest digestion, or diminish thought and feeling, or both. While these facts prove that there is competition, they also prove that the exalted function of a part caused by demands made on it, determines the flow of blood to it. Though, as we shall hereafter see, there is in the higher organisms a kind of regulation which secures a more prompt balancing of supplies and demands under this competitive arrangement, yet, primarily, the balancing results from the setting of blood towards parts in proportion to their activities. Morbid growths, which not only draw to themselves much blood but develop in themselves vascular structures to distribute it, show us how local tissue-formation (which under normal conditions measures the waste of tissue in discharging function) is itself a cause of increased supply of materials. Now we have daily proof that in a society, not only individuals but classes, local and general, severally appropriate from the total stock of commodities as much as they can; and that their several abilities to appropriate, normally depend on their several states of activity. If less iron is wanted for export or home consumption, furnaces are blown out, men are discharged, and there flows towards the district a diminished stream of the things required for nutrition: causing arrest Edition: current; Page: [516] of growth and, if continued, even decay. When a cotton famine entails greater need for woollens, the increased activity of the factories producing them, while it leads to the drawing in of more raw material and sending out of more manufactured goods, determines towards the cloth districts augmented supplies of all kinds—men, money, consumable commodities; and there results enlargement of old factories and building of new ones. Evidently this process in each social organ, as in each individual organ, results from the tendency of the units to absorb all they can from the common stock of materials for sustentation; and evidently the resulting competition, not between units simply but between organs, causes in a society, as in a living body, high nutrition and growth of parts called into greatest activity by the requirements of the rest.

§ 248. Of course, along with these likenesses there go differences, due to the contrast named at the outset between the concreteness of an individual organism and the discreteness of a social organism. I may name, first, a difference which accompanies the likeness last dwelt upon.

If the persons forming a body-politic were mostly fixed in their positions, as are the units forming an individual body, the feeding of them would have to be similarly effected. Their respective shares of nutriment, not simply brought to their neighbourhood, would have to be taken home to them. A process such as that by which certain kinds of food are daily carried round to houses by a class of locomotive units, would be the universal process. But as members of the body politic, though having stationary habitations and working places, are themselves locomotive, it results that the process of distribution is effected partly in this way and partly by their own agency. Further, there results from the same general cause, a difference between the ways in which motion is given to the circulating currents in the two cases. Physical cohesion of the parts in an individual living Edition: current; Page: [517] body, makes possible the propulsion of the nutritive liquid by a contractile organ; but lacking this physical cohesion, and lacking too the required metamorphosis of units, the body-politic cannot have its currents of commodities thus moved: though remotely produced by other forces, their motion has to be proximately produced by forces within the currents themselves.

After recognizing these unlikenesses, however, we see that they do but qualify the essential likenesses. In both cases so long as there is little or no differentiation of parts there is little or no need for channels of communication among the parts; and even a differentiation, when such only that the unlike parts remain in close contact, does not demand appliances for transfer. But when the division of labour, physiological or sociological, has so far progressed that parts at some distance from one another co-operate, the growth of channels of distribution, with agents effecting distribution, becomes necessary; and the development of the distributing system has to keep pace with the other developments. A like necessity implies a like parallelism between the progressing circulations in the two cases. Feeble activities, small amounts of exchange, obstacles to transfer, unite in preventing at first anything more than very slow and irregular repletions and depletions, now at one place now at another; but with multiplication of parts increasingly specialized in their functions, increasingly efficient therefore, and combining to produce an increased amount of general life, there goes an increased need for large distributions in constant directions. Irregular, weak, and slow movements at long intervals, are changed into a regular rapid rhythm by strong and unceasing local demands. Yet more. With the advance of the aggregate, individual or social, to a greater heterogeneity, there goes advancing heterogeneity in the circulating currents; which at first containing few crude matters, contain at last many prepared matters. In both cases, too, structures Edition: current; Page: [518] which elaborate the requisites for sustentation, stand to these currents in like relations—take from them the raw materials on which they have to operate, and directly or indirectly deliver into them again the products; and in both cases these structures, competing with one another for their shares of the circulating stock of consumable matters, are enabled to appropriate, to repair themselves, and to grow, in proportion to their performances of functions.

Stated most generally, the truth we have to carry with us is that the distributing system in the social organism, as in the individual organism, has its development determined by the necessities of transfer among inter-dependent parts. Lying between the two original systems, which carry on respectively the outer dealings with surrounding existences, and the inner dealings with materials required for sustentation, its structure becomes adapted to the requirements of this carrying function between the two great systems as wholes, and between the sub-divisions of each.