Page:Gilman human-work 1904.pdf/89

V

THE NATURE OF SOCIETY (I)

The concept that society is an organic form of life is not new to the world.

The popular mind, confronted with many conspicuous proofs of human solidarity, admitted the idea to one of those thought-tight compartments in which we keep such concepts as we are unable or unwilling to think through and hold in logical relation to our others. There it has remained, enlarging somewhat in course of time and loud events, and tending to modify such conduct as came its way to the social benefit. But since a much larger brain era was governed by the egoistic concept, and vital affairs far more directed by it, we still consciously act as individualists, and still construe Human life in terms of the individual. Let us now use the temporary power of the brain to think in defiance of its own previously held ideas; and study the organic nature of Society.

The proposition is that Society is the whole and we are the parts: that that degree of organic development known as human life is never found in isolated individuals, and that it progresses to higher development in proportion to the evolution of the social relation; that a man is, individually, a complete animal, with sufficient ability to attain the necessities of an animal