--James Russell Lowell.


A Man's Relation to Society

This question of activity is a twofold problem. In the preceding chapter
we viewed it from the standpoint of the individual--as if he were the sole
occupant of the boat, rowing toward a purely selfish end; going, as it
were, in quest of the prize of life for purely personal aggrandizement.
Whereas, strictly speaking, no man exists in a purely individualistic
sense. He can not regard himself as separable from a social whole. Every
individual is a vital element of an organized force working toward a
mutual end. You are an integral factor, so to speak, of the social
problem, but your value is determined by your relation to other quantifies
in the complex system with which you are identified. As a segregated unit,
you diminish in value.

A combination of diverse and multi-form contributions assimilated from a
complex human life, your being looks to many sources for its development;
from the lowest phase of experience to the highest. These influences you
must acknowledge as emanating from a social system--influences which you
are totally powerless, alone, to exert upon yourself. For instance, a man
can not be his own educator in all that the term implies--he can not make
his own books, print his own newspapers; if he could he would have to look
outside of himself for the data necessary for his use. In other words, no
man lives to himself alone. He can no more be separated from the social
order of things and retain character value, than any one of a hundred
square inches of canvas in an oil painting, separated from the rest, would
constitute a picture. A single note in a musical composition, however