that of the interdependent physical functions of our separate bodies. As
early animal forms have few and simple functions, gradually evolving
those more delicate and complicated, so do early societies have few and
simple arts or trades, and similarly evolve them. As society progresses
the trades flow wider, dividing and subdividing as they go, until we
have the exquisitely sublimated special skill of the modern worker; and
at each step of the process the organic relation tightens as well as
widens; the specialist is less able to “take care of himself,” and the
others are less able to do without the specialist.
“Every man to his trade” voices our popular recognition of this law, and
“Jack-of-all-trades and master of none” shows the true merit of the
“all-around-man.”
We now come to a third, and in itself a fully sufficient proof of the
organic nature of society—not of the social organism as a useful figure,
an illustration, an analogy, but as a literal biological fact. Here are
a number of separate animal bodies. Each is a group of interactive
organs, each does business for itself with no need of combination with
another, save in the temporary union of sex with sex, and of mother with
child. These creatures are individuals. Here again is a number of
apparently separate animal bodies. But each has in his head an organ
_which cannot perform its functions alone_; an organ which for its
healthful use requires contact and exchange with similar organs lodged
in other bodies.
This organ is the brain. That degree of brain development which we call
“human” is only found in creatures socially related; it is not
individual brain power, but social. The human brain, for health and
usefulness, for its normal life, requires a number of human beings with
whom to feel, think, and act. We can, it is true, physically isolate a
human animal, and maintain his animal life; but his human life—_i. e._,
social life; his “feelings” and “thoughts,” the whole field of brain
activity—is injured.
The human brain is _the_ social organ; it is our medium of contact and
exchange. Set a man in absolute solitude and his brain is affected at
once. Cut off from the contact which enables it to freely receive and
discharge its supply of social energy, its action becomes increasingly
morbid. In proportion to the completeness and duration of the isolation
the brain is injured, and ultimately ruined.
We know the effect of solitary imprisonment, or of being cast away alone
on some remote island. Short of this we know the progressive effect of
degrees of isolation. The lighthouse keeper knows—they put two men in
lighthouses most removed from social touch; and even that is a
dangerously “short circuit” for the social organ to act in. The solitary
shepherd knows, on the wide waste plains of Australia or Texas. The
hermit or recluse of any age, the separate dwellers in old houses in the
country, any human creature who lives alone, is injuriously affected in
brain action.
This is not saying that mere privacy is harmful—that is a necessity for
the social brain; such temporary solitude as shall enable it to work out
its special contribution to our common thought, and to rest from the
forceful social currents. But however solitary the student or author,
the product of his labour is for others, and must reach them; his brain
must connect with the others, though at long range.
In this is another side of the proof of our mental collectivity. The
poet feels for humanity, the student studies for humanity; the
discoverer, inventor, all work for humanity. (This does not refer to the
pay they expect, and their attitude toward it, but to the work itself.)
All through our history we see the great-brained men who thought for the
world, moved by a quenchless impulse to transmit this thought to the
others, to pour out into the common stock the product of their brains.
This they did because they _must_—even when loss and injury, ostracism
or martyrdom followed. It is the compelling functional necessity of the
brain to discharge into other brains, as well as to seek from them its
vast and varied stimulus.
In more immediate and commonplace instances we see the same law. The
difficulty of “keeping a secret,” _i. e._, of voluntarily retaining
stimulus; the necessity of “relieving one’s mind”—a perfectly fit
phrase, as much so as its familiar physiological analogue; the value of
the confessional; and, commonest of all, the vivid interest of each
human brain in the affairs of the others; all these show the collective
nature of that organ.
The most ordinary woman, gossiping with her neighbours, manifests this
social necessity for contact and exchange, however low. “Mind your own
business!” we cry, and cry in vain. No brain advanced enough to be
called human can possibly find full use and exercise in contemplation of
one person’s business. It must concern itself in the business of the
others, their common business.
The human brain is a social organ. Human thought is a social function.
Approach this fact along lines of evolution. The brain, like all other
organs, is called for by conditions and developed by exercise. Simple
conditions, simple exertions—low brain. Enlarge and elaborate the
conditions—increase the exercises—and the brain develops. Observe here,
within human history, how we have developed the brain of the dog by such
change of condition and action.
In every form of animal life you find an exact relation between the
range of activities of the creature and his degree of brain development.
This is necessarily so, as the increase of activities is what produced
that degree of development. The simple activities of the clam need no
brain, and have none. The complex activities of the fox need a complex
brain, and have it. Everywhere this exact proportion is found until you
reach the human animal.
_There is no relation whatever between the individual human being’s
brain and his individual activities_. But there is the same inexorable
law of development by which alone to account for this highest of all
brains, and the same relation is plainly to be seen between the social
brain and its social activities. No conceivable activities of one biped,
through however many generations, could have developed the brain of the
architect, for instance. He has the power to think a church. He cannot
build a church—never could—never could have even wanted one!
The growth of many men, for many ages, brought their common needs, their
power of common action, and their brain power to co-ordinate it. You
need no power of co-ordination to run one individual animal; the need
for social activities developed the social brain. The single human
animal could have only needed a single shelter; could have so only built
a single shelter, and so have only thought a single shelter. The power
of one man to think for many men to do, is a distinctly human power, and
evolvable only by the common doing.
In our collective relation we have developed a capacity to think,
focussed perforce in some individual brain, for the working point of
Society is the individual; to think, to the advantage of thousands of
people for thousands of years. This organic capacity cannot be accounted
for on an individual basis.
The laws of natural evolution work to develop in each organism the
powers which it most needs; steadily raising the efficient type. The
human animal manifests powers of no earthly use to himself, relatable in
no way to his personal needs, inexplicable on any individual hypothesis,
but plainly useful to Society, relatable to the Social needs, perfectly
explicable by the Social hypothesis.
VI: THE NATURE OF SOCIETY (II)
_Summary_
_Social organism a natural life-form. Confusion from arbitrary and
superficial distinctions. Social functions not physically hereditary.
Village type. Earth-limits. Social life in Individual. Natural law under
“imperialism.” Mistakes of social functionaries. Why society was
developed. Tendency to revert. Wider consciousness and activity of
Society. Social Soul. Race memory. Joy a social quality. Size of social
feelings and actions. Early decoration. Fund of power. Social
consciousness in young persons. Happiness of right social relation.
Social nourishment, rest, exercise. What are limits of social organism.
No material really solid. Human connections. Detachment of human
individual only temporary. Apparent paradoxes. Ex-man. Smaller human
relations. Family, Church, Army, City, Nation. Appearance of
world-consciousness. Order of importance of function. Change in relative
value. Ethics the physics of social relation. Egoism right for
individual. No basis for ethics in individualism. Collectivism of
Christianity. Social life immortal._
VI
THE NATURE OF SOCIETY (II)
The Social Organism is as natural a life-form as fish, flesh, or fowl.
It has been naturally evolved, its processes and appearances are as
natural as those of any other part of creation. We do not recognise it
because of the interference of that ancestral brain; and we are further
confused in looking at it by our arbitrary classification, resting on
old and false ideas.
As physical geography is confused to a child’s mind by the demarcations
and contrasted colours of the map of political geography; so is the
natural organic relation of Society confused in our minds by our
superficial and artificial “social distinctions.” We have established
social distinctions and relations on lines of physical connection, such
as birth; whereas physical relationship has no similitude with social
relationship; or of political connection, as nation or party; whereas,
again, there is no resemblance; or on even more fantastic lines of sex,
of caste, of creed, or of the amount of money possessed.
These arbitrary distinctions are no more social and legitimately organic
than Indiana is yellow and Ohio blue. Legitimate social relationship is
functional. It is that relation in which we serve each other. Its
classification is on lines of industrial evolution, together with the
gradual development of those later functions of government, education,
art, and science which follow the industrial. In the evolution of
government the king was a normal functionary; his kingship being his
power to act as general chairman of his assemblage of people, and, in
very early days, as leader in battle. To make kingship hereditary was an
arbitrary classification; social functions not developing in lines of
physical heredity. You can no more make “a line of kings” than a line of
poets or surgeons. If you do it, arbitrarily, you injure society by
inferior service. That was the conspicuous result in the king line.
In pre-social times there was merely the protoplasmic mass of
undifferentiated human stock. Arising from this we have first the
sporadic growth of villages, resting on their common food activities,
and then the appearance of larger groups, and more and more diverse
functions, elaborating in mutual dependence.
The natural limits of an organic social relation are the limits of its
essential functions. These were once quite narrow—each little community
being self-supporting. To-day we are rapidly approaching a social
organism limited only by the earth. Our interdependent functions are now
international; and natural development on those lines is only prevented
by our false classification on unnatural lines, with the resultant
endeavour to maintain the self-supporting independence of the smaller
unit.
The more highly organised a society, the more range and force have its
component individuals. America is in the American. Athens was in the
Athenian. Where else? A member of some tiny social unit on a remote
island does not carry the same amount of social efficiency as a member
of a larger unit. This is the underlying natural law which makes for
general human unity, but which finds its misguided and injurious
expression in our doctrine of “imperialism.”
The normal line of enlargement is simply _an extension of functional
exchange_, a sharing of the highly specialised activities and advantages
of the larger society by the smaller. Every step of this really
beneficent process has been accompanied throughout history with the
utmost injury to all parties, by conquest and carnage, by insane pride
and cruelty; because we did not understand the process in which we were
the actors, but governed our conduct from ideals of egoism, localism,
and rapacity. This is especially plain in our time, because of the
enormous growth of industrial functions, and their inevitable spread
around the world.
The process is natural and in itself means increasing benefit to all
society; but, being grossly misunderstood by the highly specialised
individuals who carry out these processes, the beneficent results are
mingled with terrible evils. The social functionary who is evolved to
distribute some food, oil, or other necessity to a larger radius of
consumers than ever before, takes advantage of his position to
sequestrate a larger share for himself than was ever before possible.
The “master minds” who are able to manage these giant industries are
social products, called for and produced to meet the larger social needs
of our times, but they are still governed by economic theories suitable
to a South Sea Islander, and so we have that “malfeasance in office,” in
social office, which so shamefully blackens the face of nations to-day.
It is a fair inquiry to demand of the organic theory of Society a reason
for its development. Why should independent individuals have been led
into a combination which inevitably involves some personal loss and
injury, and has been made to involve such an enormous amount?
How are we to account for this higher life-form, in the iron economy of
nature? Many have seen the visible benefit to individuals which comes of
the Social relation. The fact that we help one another is plain enough;
but even that sum of benefit does not seem sufficient to justify the
social sacrifice; the loss of individual liberty, the life-long labour
at one thing; the growing distance between social man and the free,
simple, contented individual animal.
“I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid
and self-contained.
“I stand and look at them long and long.
“They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
“They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.
“They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.
“Not one is dissatisfied; not one is demented with the mania for
owning things.
“Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived a thousand
years ago.
“Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.”
—WHITMAN.
This reversionary tendency is strong in us all, the easy backsliding to
the physical freedom and independence of the hunter and fisher. The
immediate stimulus, the immediate action, the supply of one’s own needs
by one’s own efforts,—this is a delight to almost all of us; and some
are constantly straggling and dropping behind the procession, to revert
to the wood life of primitive man and his pre-primitive forbears, to
“turn and live with the animals.” Current literature is full of this
social reversion to-day, this “call of the wild,” this tempting
invitation to give it all up and go back to the beginning.
It is so much harder to pour your life’s energies a life long into the
Social pool, and perhaps get very little out—and then not what you want.
What deep inevitable gain has been at work for which relentless nature
has slowly driven us up the path of Social Evolution—a steeper,
bloodier, more agonising road than any other creature has had to tread?
The gain is this (and observe that it is precisely of the same nature as
that which has driven the contented annelid up to all the excitement,
difficulties, and perils of the higher mammalian): the Social Organism
manifests a wider range of consciousness and activity than any other
life-form. The human animal, alone, is but a beast; and has but the
narrow egoistic range of consciousness and activity. As part of Society
the human animal becomes the organ of a consciousness and an activity so
vast that in its limitless expansion we have been able to conceive of
Life, Death, and Immortality, of Time and Eternity, of Humanity, of
Liberty, Justice, and Love. What we call the human soul is developed in
the social relation. It is Human indeed, _i. e._, Social. It is Ours.
In the organic division of labour of a physical body, the life processes
are so developed that more exertion can be made and more sensation
received, than in the same amount of living matter in lower forms. A
hand, taken separately, would have a certain contractile power; but as
connected with the arm it has far more, as connected with the general
nervous system more yet.
In that transmission of energy which seems to be the business of the
universe an increasing complexity of mechanism is evidently called for
because it has been produced and maintained. Society is the most complex
mechanism of all. It can receive, store, and discharge more energy than
could its constituents in equal number, but unorganised.
The social consciousness is the widest and most sensitive receiver and
transmitter so far produced. “We look before and after, and pine for
what is not.” This is a social quality. As man grouped and grew together
came that development of race memory which gives to family, to nation,
to Humanity itself, its dignity and power. It is “Our” past, “Our”
present, “Our” future. The life of Humanity is one, and it is that life
which we as individuals feel; which makes us able to suffer more, enjoy
more, and do more than any other kind of living thing.
In failing to recognise the real nature of society and put ourselves in
right relation to it, we have largely checked the flow of social energy
and perverted the social instincts and social processes; therefore, to
our morbid egos, social relation often seems to bring us more pain than
pleasure. We admit that we cannot live out of it—the sufferings of the
hermit are greater than those of the misplaced social constituent; but
we live in it blindly, in cramped and distorted positions, rendering our
social service under the crushing pressure of the egoistic concept, and
getting but a faint and occasional sense of the potent joy of true
social relation.
The transcendent happiness possible to Humanity, to all humanity, by
virtue of its humanness, is a thing of which we practically know
nothing. Consider the range of sensation in an individual animal. This
is most strictly limited to his physical activities and such psychic
impressions and expressions as pertain to his narrow field of being. The
female animal has the joy of the maternal function, that great first
step beyond the Ego-consciousness; a pleasure and a pride partly
physical and partly psychic, but limited forever to the individual
young. The male animal sometimes shares a fraction of this parental
feeling. In certain creatures which live in groups or herds there seems
to be a very vivid common consciousness on some lines, as shown by the
instantaneous nervous transmission in a stampede; and in the highly
socialised bee and ant there appears as highly developed a collective
sensorium. But, though collective, it is on a low plane; the impressions
it receives and the expressions resultant all pertain to the physical
wants of the individual constituents, however elaborately these wants
are met.
With us, in our social relation, there is an enlargement of the
sensorium past any measurement we can yet make. The _size_ of our
sensations increases as more and more individuals are tuned to respond
to the same stimulus. There is room in what we call “the human heart”
for a passionate exaltation of feeling that finds no parallel below us.
This immense influx of stimulus prompts us, yes, forces us, to a
commensurate expression; and if this expression be true, it puts in
concrete form the intense feeling and then continually transmits it to
as many people as are sensitive to that form of expression.
Take an illustration on a very early and simple plane. A happy, primeval
squaw, not hungry, not cold, not afraid, and feeling in her already
growing social consciousness both the pleasant memory of these
conditions and the pleasant assurance of more, has more stimulus coming
in than her body can sit quiet under. No human being can ever be as
stationarily contented as a ruminating cow, his income of sensation is
too great. That small, perfect circle of life of the individual
beast,—hunger, effort, gratification, rest,—is changed to an endless
upreaching spiral in our social relation.
It is not only that our hunger is greater because one can hunger for
all; because no human being can be really satisfied till all are
satisfied; but that our stimulus is greater, and calls for endless
discharge. So our happy squaw is moved to transmit her press of feeling;
she must discharge it in action; and she does so in some decoration of
her jar or basket. This decoration is an embodied joy, and, being fixed
in visible form, it then transmits that joy to as many as behold it. It
is a little fountain of social energy.
A society, from its inception, multiplies the range and depth of
sensation, and commensurately, the working expression of its members.
From age to age, as this great common fund increases, is the power to
feel and the power to do increased. More and more people thrill to a
common impression; the rising wave of force prompts to ever greater
expression, reaching more and more people.
Thus, in a normal society, the individual life increases in sensation,
in power, and in joy in an ascending line that as yet suggests no limit.
In pain and degradation also, the pessimist will protest. Of course, as
an accompanying possibility. _But not as an essential condition._ Such
as exists is merely owing to our wholly unnecessary and mistaken action.
The pain is a transient and needless thing; the immense joy is in the
real nature of society.
The young human creature, as he begins to grow from the individual
animal period into social life, feels this intense current of force, the
vast and varied desires, the vaster energies; but he does not know what
it is, nor do his teachers. Ego-bound systems have cradled and nurtured
him, an egoistic family, an egoistic economy, an egoistic religion cut
off every avenue of growth; and the stimulus of the whole world throbs
and beats in vain, forced finally into some dog-trot routine, wherein he
thinks to “earn his own living,” to “support his own family,” to “save
his own soul.”
The tremendous thirst for happiness which the young human being feels is
perfectly natural. Young individual animals show no signs of such
disproportionate desires. The tremendous ambitions of young people are
equally natural. Human life is in them the multiplied and accumulated
life of all humanity for all time, and all it needs for the same peace
and poise which is the portion of “the lower animals” is free
expression.
The nature of Society is no mystery. Our relation to it is no mystery.
It is simple, orderly, healthy, and in its largest manifestations either
peacefully unconscious or sublimely happy. Every person who has by
blessed chance found his right place in social service, who has the
range of contact with his kind which he needs, and the range of activity
which he needs, may be as calmly happy as any browsing cow, as
ecstatically happy as any soaring lark.