Living creatures are usually composed of systems which interrelate. Leviathan is no
exception, and of all the different systems the DIGESTIVE SYSTEM is one of the
most obvious examples.

Our daily contact with this system is probably extensive (most of us eat three meals
a day). We are in it as we walk down the street. Each shop is a little compartment
stuffed with nourishment, each kitchen a stomach, each meal yet another stage in
the digestive process of the superorganism, passing nourishment yet deeper into the
bodies of the individuals (where the whole process is repeated in the gut). Farmers,
shopworkers, cooks, builders, factory-workers and a host of specialists are all
elements of the system, along with all the plants, animals, chemicals and minerals
which are its raw material.

Evolving over the years, systems of great complexity grew hand in hand with an
increase in population. The awesome logistics of feeding a human and animal
population, many of which were becoming less directly connected to the land, and
keeping the material fabric of the growing membranes in good order, was solving in
various ways . We can see, in the archaeological record, many examples of the
evolution of market economies from early command economies or the development
of specialist craft areas from earlier simple workshops. Networks of roads and
pathways developed to link the fields, farms and quarries, to the great stomachs in
the centre of the communities, where the raw materials were divided up and
worked upon. From these stomachs the specialist housewives and artisans carried
small portions to all the parts of the superorganism, in a dispersal of nourishment.

Thus in a modern Leviathan we find huge areas of land, masses of specialised structures
and machinery and vast numbers of specialised workers devoted to the metabolism
of the superorganism. The 'system' comprising of many 'organs' resembles that of
multicellular creatures, linked at many points with other systems, forming them
into a whole living body.