278 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 



he now to try and develop his 'individuality,' his self 

 which is not the same as other selves? Where is it? 

 What is it ? " If any one doubts that anything more than 

 an empty form will remain of his personality after its social 

 content has been removed, let him try the experiment? 

 Let him ask what language he would speak, what habits 



he would have, what ideas of right and wrong^he would 

 entertain, what religious creed he would hold ? As there 

 is no cell or fibre of his physical organism which has not 

 been borrowed and elaborated from his natural environ- 

 ment, so there is no element of his individuality which he 

 does not owe to this social world within and upon which 

 alone his rational nature can be sustained. May I suggest 

 a small exercise in Book-keeping? Will_you set down_ 

 on one side all the services you have done to society, and_ 

 jut a goocTprice orTeVery one of them ; and, on the 



side, will you set_down^alljhat society hasdone for you ? It 

 is an exercise, I believe, which would prove every " mere" 



individual to be ? indeed ? a bankrupt. 



Now, what follows from all this ? Manifestly, it seems 

 to^ me, that the indifference ofjhe individual to his sociaj_ 

 obligations is in no sense Justifiable. His duties towards 

 jociety^are only comparable to the duties of the child to 

 the mother who has carried him undef her heaTtyioFlie~ 

 is born, nnnrisJhf.H 1 Hey^loj^ecHn^o_in^rvaduality within the 

 social matrix. He owes to his city and the State a service, 

 tha never jg-ows weary, a loyalty that never fails, a love 

 that forgets all faults, or rather, remembers them only to 

 endeavour to remove them. Nay, he owes everything to 

 them except the bare potentiality of becoming arational 



would never be_rgalized without 



his city and the State. 



