COMPULSION OF NATURE-ACTION 307 



Individual acts, or social procedures, are then sub- 

 ject to the inspection of intelligence, repeatedly made 

 to determine their saving and constructive value. Ac- 

 cording as they withstand or dissolve under these cor- 

 rosive tests they constitute a crumbling or an enduring 

 foundation for further social growth. And these tests 

 are not merely the occasional tests of the ultra wise 

 ones, but the every day tests of the common tissues of 

 mankind. 



The elemental virtues of social life, such as the 

 cooperative safeguarding of life and property, and the 

 recognition of mutual rights and obligations within the 

 circle of the family, tribe, and nation, have withstood 

 these tests so long and so often, that these virtues are 

 everywhere recognized, even by peoples of very limited 

 intelligence, as self-saving necessities. 



III. Mental Reorientation 



It is evident that this mental Tightness must be a 

 more or less stable attribute of the controlling major- 

 ity if cooperative social conduct is to endure, or extend 

 to larger groups, or a higher kind of social life be built 

 upon it within the limits of any group whatsoever. 



Nevertheless intelligent action may quickly reverse 

 itself, like an unconscious tropism under changing 

 temperature, whenever man clearly recognizes that the 

 further application of his methods would ultimately 

 defeat his self-constructive purposes. The reversal of 

 man's mental attitude and conduct toward slavery is 

 a case in point. 



Slavery was once an approved social institution. 

 It was as old, perhaps, as human society, and was uni- 



