Page:Gilman human-work 1904.pdf/309

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XIV

CONSUMPTION (I)

We have laid down certain propositions in the preceding chapters, namely, that men are part of a great Social Organism; that as parts of it they are continually supplied with its stimulus and nourishment; that as parts of it so nourished and so stimulated, they must discharge the swelling current of social energy in social action, which is Work; and that the business of a conscious and intelligent Society is so to produce and distribute social wealth as to maintain and increase this flood of energy, the discharge of which in our highly specialised industries is supreme delight. Against these propositions will be at once erected that common bulwark of ancient superstition, man's selfishness. We generally believe, and as generally act on the belief, that the individual selfishness of man is such that nothing would induce him to act for the good of society, even though that good plainly included himself.

This theory of our selfishness is not borne out either by the scientific facts of our sociological position or the everyday facts of life about us.

The theory dates from a time when men were still mainly individual animals, when it was true. Being imbedded in that heavy, slow-going, ancient brain, and hammered in by each subsequent generation, it has re-

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