clear, kindly gaze offered no encouragement to pretentiousness or
any other idle characteristic. Dyce Lashmar, it might have been
noticed, betrayed a certain deference before Lord Dymchurch, and was
not wholly at his ease; however decidedly he spoke, his accent
lacked the imperturbable confidence which usually distinguished it.

"The title itself I take to be meaningless," was his reply to the
other's question. "How can there possibly be antagonism between the
individual and the aggregate in which he is involved? What rights or
interests can a man possibly have which are apart from the rights
and interests of the body politic without which he could not exist?
One might just as well suppose one of the cells which make up an
organic body asserting itself against the body as a whole."

Lord Dymchurch reflected, playing, as he commonly did, with a seal
upon his watchguard.

"That's suggestive," he said.

Dyce might have gone on to say that the suggestion, with reference
to this very book of Herbert Spencer's, came from a French
sociologist he had been reading; but it did not seem to him worth
while.

"You look upon the State as an organism," pursued Lord Dymchurch. "A
mere analogy, I suppose?"

"A scientific fact. It's the final stage of evolution. Just as cells
combine to form the physiological unit, so do human beings combine
to form the social-political unit the State. Did it ever occur to