Here is another proverb which the Church has long since claimed, at least in its import, for her own: _One man, no man_.[188] I should find it very hard indeed to persuade myself that whoever uttered it first, attached to it no deeper meaning than Erasmus gives him credit for—namely, that nothing important can be effected by a single man, destitute of the help of his fellows.[189] The word is a far more profound one than this, and rests on that great truth upon which the deeper thinkers of antiquity laid so much stress—namely, that _in the idea_ the state precedes the individual, man not being merely accidentally _gregarious_, but essentially _social_. The solitary man, it would say, is a monstrous conception, so utterly maimed and crippled must he be; the condition of solitariness involving so entire a suppression of all which belongs to the development of that wherein the true idea of humanity resides, of all which differences man from the beasts of the field; and in this sense _One man_ is _no man_; and this, I am sure, the proverb from the first intended. Nor may we stop here. This word is capable of, and seems to demand, a still higher application to man, as a destined member of the kingdom of heaven. But he can only be in training for this, when he is, and regards himself, as not alone, but the member of a family. As _one man_ he is _no man_; and the strength and value of what is called Church teaching is greatly this, that it does recognise and realize this fact, that it contemplates and deals with the faithful man, not as isolated, but as one of an organic body, with duties which flow as moral necessities from his position therein; rather than by himself, and as one whose duties to others are indeed only the exercise of private graces for his own benefit. And all that are called Church doctrines, when they really understand themselves, have their root and their real strength in that great truth which this proverb declares, that _One man is no man_, that only in a fellowship and communion is or can any man be aught. And then there is another proverb, which Plato so loved to quote against the sophists, the men who flattered and corrupted the nobler youth of Athens, promising to impart to them easy short cuts to the attainment of wisdom and knowledge and philosophy; and this, without demanding the exercise of any labour or patience or self-denial on their parts. But with the proverb, _Good things are hard_,[190] he continually rebuked their empty pretensions; with this he made at least suspicious their promises; and this proverb, true in the sense wherein Plato used it, and that sense was earnest and serious enough, yet surely reappears, glorified and transfigured, but recognisable still, in the Saviour’s words: “The kingdom of heaven is taken by violence, and the violent take it by force.”[191] [Sidenote: Witnesses for the truth.]