The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinkerLloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Philosophy
The will to doubt : $b An essay in philosophy for the general thinker
Lloyd, Alfred H. (Alfred Henry)
Belief and doubt; Philosophy -- Introductions
From all this it appears that the labour involved in the maintenance and
development of human life is divided between the person and the social
classes in some such way as follows. The class life stands for analysis
and special development and establishment; personal life for synthesis
and vitality. The factional life of the class is specialistic, and reaps
for human nature all the familiar advantages of specialism; the personal
life is general or universal, and saves human nature from the disruption
and the stagnation to [p.164] which specialism and its formal
establishment always tend. The factional life is mediative and
instrumental; the personal life is initiative and purposive. And while
so to define the distinction between person and class, or in general to
regard their relation as one of whole to part, even with the
qualifications that were promptly added, may involve some unavoidable
abstraction, and so some limitation of the view; nevertheless the view
is as real and significant at least as the conditions upon which it
rests. Even though persons may be differentiated from each other in an
indefinite number of ways, no two being personal, materially, in the
same way, no two having the same factional restraints, still the
relation of whole to part, subject only to the distinctions of
development and of dynamic or static character, remains significantly
the typical relation of the person to the class. The person may be only
a part of the class, as parts are merely counted, but in interest and
possibility, in the fullest reach of his vitality, the person is larger
than the class. And, if this be the typical relation, then not only is
the story of the person seen to be inseparable from that of the class,
but also there is clearly a real place in social life at once for the
person and for the class. Factional life lacks completeness and
vitality, and personality, the living, integral expression of the unity
of experience, supplies these defects. True, a conflict of classes or
factions may always be counted on, since the unity of the total life,
which of course includes the classes, will prevent their ever being
indifferent to each other, and this conflict will make for both
completeness and vitality, but [p.165] negatively, indirectly, always as
if from outside. Only through the person can vitality and completeness
be secured positively and directly and immediately. Personality, on the
other hand, lacks definiteness and practical efficiency, and only the
special mechanical life of the class can supply these needs. So in the
two together we see a most indispensable co-operation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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