_The absence of a common purpose is the chief source of unhappiness in any collection of individuals._ Lacking it, and the common standard of justice which is one of its chief agents, men become more and more separate units, each fighting for his own rights. Yet paradoxically, if an organic unity is to develop within any body of free men, drawn from a free society to serve its military institutions, and if the fairest use is to be made of their possibilities, the processes of the institution must embody respect for the dignity of the individual, for his rights, and not less, for his desire for worthwhile recognition. The profile of every man depends upon the space which others leave him. "Of himself," said Napoleon, "a man is nothing." But every man also contributes with his every act to the level of what his group may attain. One of the foremost leaders in the United States Navy in World War II said this about the integrity of personality: "Every person is unique. Human talents were never before assembled in exactly the same way that they have been put together in yourself. Nothing like you ever happened before. No one can predict with accuracy how you will grow in your particular combination of skills if allowed complete freedom of movement." If there is one word out of place in that statement, it is "complete;" no one has complete freedom but a buccaneer, and it is for the exercise of it that organized society swings him from a gibbet. It is only when personal freedom of action operates within an area limited by the rights and welfare of others that subordination, in its best sense, takes place. To direct a body of men toward the acceptance of this principle, so that thereby they may attain social coherence as a group and greater strength of personal character, is the most solid contribution that an officer can make to the arms of his country.