SUBMISSION TO LEADERSHIP 361 



III. Social Cleavage and the Delimitation of Social 



Units 



Whenever for any reason, geographic, racial, or 

 psychic, these problems become insoluble, and with 

 growth they always tend to approach that point, social 

 cleavage, or fission, or subdivision into smaller, more 

 centralized groups takes place. These new social 

 groups may then enter into cooperative relations with 

 one another on a different level. The process is similar 

 to that which takes place in living and non-living 

 things when they reach the limits to their power of 

 growth. For, as we have already seen, every sys- 

 tem, or individualized thing, such as an atom, nucleus, 

 cell, animal, or plant, has these definite limitations to 

 its size and coherency. They can become larger only 

 when their cooperative instruments have sufficient 

 power to cover those increased dimensions, or to act 

 constructively under those new conditions. The di- 

 mension of any system is the expression of the coop- 

 erative action of its constituent parts, as well as the 

 measure of their power to cooperate. 



In any case, the greater the progress of social 

 growth, the more intelligence, the more toleration, the 

 more sense of obligation, confidence, and mutual serv- 

 ice is required to preserve that which has been gained 

 by mutual service. Not only a higher order of in- 

 telligence in the social leaders, to solve the more tech- 

 nical problems of life, but a better and more universal 

 understanding in the masses that will make it possible 

 to reach, and to keep some underlying agreement, how- 

 ever elemental it may be, as to the basic purposes of 

 life, and the basic ways and means of achieving them. 



