physiological organism, acts for it, and rules the individual
components with a rod of iron. Even the blood-corpuscles can't hold a
public meeting without being accused of "congestion"--and the brain,
like other despots whom we have known, calls out at once for the
use of sharp steel against them. As in Hobbes's "Leviathan," the
representative of the sovereign authority in the living organism,
though he derives all his powers from the mass which he rules, is
above the law. The questioning of his authority involves death, or
that partial death which we call paralysis. Hence, if the analogy of
the body politic with the body physiological counts for anything, it
seems to me to be in favour of a much larger amount of governmental
interference than exists at present, or than I, for one, at all desire
to see. But, tempting as the opportunity is, I am not disposed to
build up any argument in favour of my own case upon this analogy,
curious, interesting, and in many respects close, as it is, for it
takes no cognizance of certain profound and essential differences
between the physiological and the political bodies.

Much as the notion of a "social contract" has been ridiculed, it
nevertheless seems to be clear enough, that all social organization
whatever depends upon what is substantially a contract, whether
expressed or implied, between the members of the society. No society
ever was, or ever can be, really held together by force. It may seem
a paradox to say that a slaveholder does not make his slaves work
by force, but by agreement. And yet it is true. There is a contract
between the two which, if it were written out, would run in these
terms:--"I undertake to feed, clothe, house, and not to kill, flog,
or otherwise maltreat you, Quashie, if you perform a certain amount of
work." Quashie, seeing no better terms to be had, accepts the bargain,
and goes to work accordingly. A highwayman who garottes me, and then