52 THE MISUSE OF METAPHORS IN 



sustained by the right-thinking and the right-doing of the 

 individuals which constitute it. The relation between 

 man and his world is not that of mutual exclusion nor even 

 of mutual interaction. It is that of mutual inclusion. A 

 cross section of any individual character, at any stage of 

 its development, would show that its tissue is his social 

 world ; a cross section of any social world would show 

 that its cells and fibres are the rational activities of its 

 component individuals. 



Let us now observe what light this view throws upon 

 the working faith of the social reformer. It would seem 

 that, as character is simply environment, he can almost 

 mould it as he pleases ; and that as environment is char- 

 acter, and character is always an inward and private 

 possession, he can do almost nothing. The doctrine both 

 encourages and rebukes his efforts. But it does more it 



o 



indicates the direction which social action should take, and 

 the point of attack for the social reformer. 



What we have been describing is a process : a process 

 by which the outer world is formed anew within the indi- 

 vidual's mind and will, or by which the individual forms 

 himself through taking the world into himself as his own 

 content, and becomes a person with powers, rights, and 

 duties. At the beginning of the process the individual 

 and the world are only potentially one ; the world beats 

 against a mind that is not opened, and the good in it finds 

 little response in his blind and undisciplined will. The 

 individual is, as it were, an empty form, feeble in his 

 powers both of reception and reaction. And his world has 

 just as little order or meaning. But as we follow his his- 

 tory, he both borrows and gives to it significance. He 

 absorbs the truth of his environment more and more into 



