effect reforms we have not first to labor at the gigantic task of
affecting national opinion and securing the majorities necessary for
national action. In any district a hundred or two hundred men can at
any time form co-operative societies for production, purchase, sale, or
credit, and can link themselves by federation with other organizations
like their own to secure greater strength and economic efficiency. By
following this policy steadily we simplify our economic system, and
reduce to fewer factors the forces in conflict in society. We beget the
predominance of one principle, and enable that general will for good,
which Rousseau theorized about, to find agencies through which it can
manifest freely, so changing society from the static condition begot by
conflict and obstruction to a dynamic condition where energies and
desires manifest freely.

The general will, as Rousseau demonstrated, always intends the good, and
if permitted to act would act in a large and noble way. The change from
static to dynamic, from fixed forms to fluid forms, has been coming
swiftly over the world owing to the liberation of thought, and this in
spite of the obstruction of a society organized, I might almost say,
with egomania as the predominant psychological factor. The ancient
conception of Nature as a manifestation of spirit is incarnating anew in
the minds of modern thinkers, and Nature is not conceived of as
material, but as force and continual motion; and they are trying to
identify human will with this arcane energy, and let the forces of
Nature have freer play in humanity. We begin to catch glimpses of
civilizations as far exceeding ours as ours surpasses society in the
Stone Age. In all our democratic movements, in these efforts towards
the harmonious fusion of human forces, humanity is obscurely intent on
mightier collective exploits than anything conceived of before. The
nature of these energies manifesting in humanity I shall try to indicate