We live in the world as it is and not in the world as it should be. That
sentence becomes the refrain of this discussion.

The normal modern married woman has to make the best of a bad position,
to do her best under the old conditions, to live as though she was under
the new conditions, to make good citizens, to give her spare energies as
far as she can to bringing about a better state of affairs. Like the
private property owner and the official in a privately owned business,
her best method of conduct is to consider herself an unrecognized public
official, irregularly commanded and improperly paid. There is no good in
flagrant rebellion. She has to study her particular circumstances and
make what good she can out of them, keeping her face towards the coming
time. I cannot better the image I have already used for the thinking and
believing modern-minded people of to-day as an advance guard cut off
from proper supplies, ill furnished so that makeshift prevails, and
rather demoralized. We have to be wise as well as loyal; discretion
itself is loyalty to the coming State.


3.10. ASSOCIATIONS.

In the previous section I have dealt with the single individual's duty
in relation to the general community and to law and generally received
institutions. But there is a new set of questions now to be considered.
Let us take up the modifications that arise when it is not one isolated
individual but a group of individuals who find themselves in
disagreement with contemporary rule or usage and disposed to find a
rightness in things not established or not conceded. They too live in
the world as it is and not in the world as it ought to be, but their