244 SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL 



as free and effective personalities within it, is the very 

 essence of civilization. A higher organism differs from 

 a lower just in these two ways : it is more effective as a 

 whole, more intensely at one with itself, less indifferent to 

 its parts, more capable of concentrating itself at any point 

 and making it, as it were, the centre of interest and activity 

 and the temporary "seat of the soul," and, at the same 

 time, its elements are much more unique in structure and 

 effective in function. This is precisely the phenomenon 

 which we observe when we contrast the ancient and rudi- 

 mentary, with the modern and developed State. The State 

 which assumed every function to itself and denied all to 

 the individual, the oligarchic or monarchic despotism, 

 always had the most limited functions ; and though it 

 claimed to do everything, it could really perform very little. 

 To do more, it had to make room for the individual and 

 call forth his powers. On the other hand, an individual rich 

 in resources of intelligence and will, who, by some mis- 

 fortune, found himself a member of a crude and unorgan- 

 ized state, would find his powers restricted by it. In order 

 to express his resources he must first lift his social environ- 

 ment to his own level. A highly organized State is really 

 a treasury of resources on which the individual can draw 

 in doing his work and developing his character. "Our 

 mother, the State," is no sentimental expression. It ex- 

 presses, rather, as Plato shows, the authority which super- 

 intends the individual at his birth, fosters him in his 

 childhood, guides and protects him his life through, gives 

 him his station and its duties, and puts into him the power 

 to fulfil them. It is the stable background of all his wel- 

 fare, and just as truly the indispensable condition of his 

 rational well-being as are the earth and air of his physical 



