[172] Of course the Greeks had the philosophical conception of general flux, but I do not know that they applied it to society with such distinctness as to give anything worth calling an idea of progress. [173] My Religion, 45. CHAPTER XXXV GOVERNMENT AS PUBLIC WILL GOVERNMENT NOT THE ONLY AGENT OF PUBLIC WILL—THE RELATIVE POINT OF VIEW; ADVANTAGES OF GOVERNMENT AS AN AGENT—MECHANICAL TENDENCY OF GOVERNMENT—CHARACTERISTICS FAVORABLE TO GOVERNMENT ACTIVITY—MUNICIPAL SOCIALISM—SELF-EXPRESSION THE FUNDAMENTAL DEMAND OF THE PEOPLE—ACTUAL EXTENSION OF STATE FUNCTIONS. In the growth of public will any agency amenable to public opinion may serve as an instrument; and this means, of course, any sort of rational activity, personal as well as institutional. Thus the work of a secluded scientist, like Pasteur or Edison, taken together with the general acceptance and application of his results, is as much an act of public will as the proceedings of a legislature, and often more—because they may show a more public spirit and a wider knowledge and foresight. What is necessary is that somewhere there shall be effectual purpose and endeavor based on a large grasp of the situation. In short, public will is simply a matter of the more efficient organization of the general mind: whatever in the way of leadership or mechanism contributes to the latter has a share in it; and we may naturally expect it to progress rather by the quickening and coördination of many agencies than by the aggrandizement of any particular one.[174] The view which many hold that public will must be chiefly if not wholly identified with the institution of government is a just one only in a certain narrow sense. That is to say, the mechanism of government is indeed the most definite and authoritative expression of public choice, and if public will is to be limited to what is decided by a count of voices and carried out, if necessary, by force, then the government is its only agent. But only a small part of the will of society is of this sort. In a larger sense it is a diversified whole, embracing the thought and purpose of all institutions and associations, formal and informal, that have any breadth of aim, and even, as I have said, of secluded individuals. Surely the true will of humanity never has been and is not likely to be concentrated in a single agent, but works itself out through many instruments, and the unity we need is something much more intricate and flexible than could be secured through the state alone. Like other phases of organization, government is merely one way of doing things, fitted by its character for doing some things and unfitted for doing others.