COMPULSION OF NATURE-ACTION 31 r 



ileges, and performing one's social obligations as best 

 one may to a common end, or be a dead-head passen- 

 ger, a parasite, or a wilful enemy of society, with no 

 right to exist there, save social negligence. 



Social freedom is merely the right to select, or be 

 selected, for the service one is best able to perform. 

 In return for, or in anticipation of that service, society 

 must provide ways and means whereby that service may 

 be effectively and happily performed, or itself suffer 

 self-destructive penalties. Here, as elsewhere, the ob- 

 ligation to serve, and the right to be served, is the 

 categorical imperative to existence. 



VI. The Conservation of Menial Rightness Through 



Education 



Social life derives its power largely from voluntary 

 services intelligently performed. In self-protection, so- 

 ciety may justly use its power to eject from, or refuse 

 admission to itself; but the human will, acting under 

 the compulsion of egoistic intelligence is the only 

 agency that can bring social power into action, or pre- 

 serve the organic cohesion of social life. As society 

 grows in volume and diversity, a more and more elab- 

 orate cooperation is necessary, and more intelligence in 

 both leaders and followers is required to direct it and 

 keep it in self-sustaining motion. 



This new kind of mental Tightness, and the under- 

 standing of these larger social purposes, so essential 

 to intelligent action, is not inborn or transmitted 

 through the usual channels of germinal inheritance. It 

 must be reacquired by each leader and follower, either 

 by the slow and costly method of trial and experiment, 



