Page:Karl Kautsky - Ethics and The Materialist Conception of History - tr. J. B. Askew (1906).pdf/73

 of all. Unless the stronger ones fight now for themselves, they fight for the good of the weaker; when the more experienced look out for their own safety, find out for themselves feeding grounds, they do it also for the inexperienced. It then becomes possible to introduce a division of labour among the united individuals, which, fleeting though it be, yet increases their strength and their safety. It is impossible to watch the neighbourhood with the most complete attention and at the same time to feed peacefully. Naturally, during sleep, all observation of any kind comes to an end. But in unity one watcher suffices to render the others safe during sleep or while eating.

Through the division of labour the union of individuals becomes a body with different organs to co-operate to a given end, and this end is the maintenance of the collective body—it becomes an organism. With that is by no means implied that the new organism or society is a body in the same way as an animal or a plant, but it is an organism of its own kind, which is far more widely distinguished from these two than the animal from the plant. Both are made up from cells without power of self-motion and without consciousness of their own; society, on the other hand, from individuals with their own power of self-movement and consciousness. If, however, the animal organism has as a whole a power of self-motion and consciousness, they are lacking, nevertheless, to society as well as to the plants. But the individuals which form the society can entrust individuals among their members with functions through which the social forces are submitted to a uniform will, and uniform movements in the society are produced.

On the other hand the individual and society are much more loosely connected than the cell and the whole organism in both plant and animal. The individual can separate itself from one society and join another, as emigration proves. That is impossible for a cell; for it the separation from the whole is death, if we leave certain cells of a particular kind out of account, such as the sperma and eggs, in the