The social organism does not walk about on legs. It spreads and flows over the surface of the earth, its members walking in apparent freedom, yet bound indissolubly together and thrilling in response to social stimulus and impulse. Before Society grew at all we were but human animals, maintaining and reproducing ourselves like any other animals, but with no _connection_, no common life. They were of no faintest use to one another, but quite the contrary, being legitimate competitors for a free supply, and so naturally hating and destroying one another. As Society grows the connection between its members grows and thickens and differentiates. Men are of increasing use to one another, no longer competitors in any legitimate sense, but combiners in common production and distribution, and so naturally helping and loving one another. Those who still compete and destroy are but survivals from the earlier period, mischievous relics and back-numbers. All Social evolution is the story of the development and improvement of the connective tissues of Society, from language, the great psychic medium, to steel rail and wire, the infinitely multiplying physical medium. This connection and interaction of the human animals is the most conspicuous fact about them, and that connection is by every test organic. Another and similar reason for our denial of the social organism is the fact of the temporary detachableness of the individual human being. Men visibly walk about on their own feet, going apparently where they will, and no examination discloses a Siamese band between one man and his brother man. So when the sociologist says there is no such thing as a separate human creature,—that a solitary human creature is a contradiction in terms,—the average individualist replies, “See Robinson Crusoe!” This answer shows great lack of biological knowledge. The splendid growth of education in our day, which is beginning to teach our children dynamics as well as statics, laws as well as facts, will soon remove this ignorance. If I say, “There is no such thing as a tree without roots,” it might be replied, “But there is! See my Christmas tree?” Yes, it is there for a little, but it is not really a tree, it is timber; it cannot last, nor grow, nor reproduce its kind. I may say, “There is no such thing as a man without a head,” and someone reply, “But there is! See this gentleman on the dissecting table and his head on the tray yonder.” That is not a man, it is a corpse. I may say, “There is no such thing as a finger without a hand,” and it be replied, “See this one here in alcohol!” That again is not a finger, it is but a corpse. If you join a severed finger quickly enough, it will grow on again. If you return a severed man to his society soon enough, he will grow on again. So in this perfectly true statement, “There is no such thing as a solitary human creature; it is a contradiction in terms”; the presentation of a man on an island or in a prison cell is no answer.