Man has a body and a spirit. By the one, he is individual; by the other,
he is social. As individual, he needs bread; as social, he needs power.
As body, he is born from the loins; as spirit, he is born from the social
organism. In the process of finding food, clothing, shelter, to meet the
needs of himself as individual, he discovers that illimitable social
side of himself the material necessities of life do not supply. Here he
finds power, a more subtle and universal element, ready to serve his
higher need. This is the provision for the social side of man’s nature;
for, as individual, he does not need it, and could not appropriate and
use it if he did. As an individual, he can only avail himself of the use
of power, through the attempt of the social whole of which he forms a
member. In the primitive, unrelated, unorganized state, man is satisfied
if he can secure food to satisfy his hunger, and a cave to shelter him
from the storm. He does not even utilize the winds to draw his boat,
until, through interdependence and mutual relations, he has reached a
high degree of social life. The servants of man, on his individual side,
are the foods of the field, the waters of the spring, the woods of the
forest, the fruits of the orchard, and the wool on the sheep’s back.
The servants of man, on his social side, are the driving power of the
winds, the transporting power of heat, and the thought-defying power of
the lightning. As individual, he is a citizen of the community where he
first sees the light. As social, he is a citizen of the world. Through
his body, he is naturally related to his ancestors; through his spirit,
he is related to the human race. The rude elements of food, clothing,
and shelter, he might secure as individual; but power, which waits to
serve his higher, nobler nature, he can only secure through society. As
individual, he is narrow, meager, local. As social, he is broad, rich,
universal. On his individual side, he is centripetal; on his social side,
centrifugal. Self-centered, self-contained, and self-included, on the
one side; while, upon the other, he is possessed of the conviction that
private right must be subordinated to public good. Tethered to the earth
on the one side, linked with the immensities on the other. On the one
side, his outlook is hard and literal and low; on the other, he seeks,
through intellect, to transcend the infinite in time and space and truth.
On the side of himself, as individual, he knows no right or wrong. On
the side of himself, as social, he recognizes the infinite in duty, and
seeks harmony through the infinite in love.
II.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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