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organic theory of society. Simply it is not necessary to rely on biology for a justification of political theory, perhaps because political theory is biological in its own right.

The special importance and influence of machinery in the life of society need not be dwelt upon ; but very briefly, indeed so briefly as probably to seem apocalyptic, I would suggest that the invention and the use of machinery have had a relation to the contract theory in a way which is full of interest. Thus, in the first place, as with every other term, machinery as a fact and its use as an attitude among men are much more general and fundamental in modern life than the ordinary applications of the word imply ; and, in the second place, the original social contract, in so far as only a formal principle or fiction, or, in other words, as only an indirection for the rational and essentially law- respecting character of natural man, does but give to man a thoroughly mechanicalistic view of his environment. According to the contract theory, at least as we have come to interpret it, natural man is freed from implicit subjection to any formulated law, whether in science, religion, or political life, but only to be in turn subjected to the institutions of nature. Even his own institu- tions he comes to regard naturalistically, that is, as only locally and temporally significant. This, however, is not all ; or, rather, in this lies something more. Not merely is man subject only to the mechanism of nature, but also because the law by which he judges or measures her is a merely formal principle, being, in so far as having any particular content, only a working hypothesis, the nature that rules him is a moving, which is to say, an evolv- ing or productive, mechanism, assuming ever new and more effective forms ; and man, accordingly, is a mechanic, not a soldier. Here my simple words law only a formal principle, nature a moving and productive mechanism, and man a mechanic, not a soldier are, indeed, almost apocalyptic, being overloaded with meaning ; politically even with the meaning of the French Revolution, which enacted so faithfully Rousseau's call for a return to nature and showed so clearly the institutions of the social life, the guillotine among others, moving productively, that is, made useful for the establishment of a new order, for the