Consequently we cannot be satisfied with the general statement that
society and the state is organic to the individual. The question is one
of specific causations. Just what response does _this_ social
arrangement, political or economic, evoke, and what effect does it have
upon the disposition of those who engage in it? Does it release
capacity? If so, how widely? Among a few, with a corresponding
depression in others, or in an extensive and equitable way? Is the
capacity which is set free also directed in some coherent way, so that
it becomes a power, or its manifestation spasmodic and capricious? Since
responses are of an indefinite diversity of kind, these inquiries have
to be detailed and specific. Are men's senses rendered more delicately
sensitive and appreciative, or are they blunted and dulled by this and
that form of social organization? Are their minds trained so that the
hands are more deft and cunning? Is curiosity awakened or blunted? What
is its quality: is it merely esthetic, dwelling on the forms and
surfaces of things or is it also an intellectual searching into their
meaning? Such questions as these (as well as the more obvious ones about
the qualities conventionally labelled moral), become the starting-points
of inquiries about every institution of the community when it is
recognized that individuality is not originally given but is created
under the influences of associated life. Like utilitarianism, the theory
subjects every form of organization to continual scrutiny and criticism.
But instead of leading us to ask what it does in the way of causing
pains and pleasures to individuals already in existence, it inquires
what is done to release specific capacities and co-ordinate them into
working powers. What sort of individuals are created?
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