XII 

 SOCIETY DEPENDS ON MAN 



IN the last lecture we were considering one aspect of a 

 common fallacy : the fallacy which represents the individual 

 man and the society in which he lives as two things rela- 

 tively independent of each other, having exclusive rights 

 and separate provinces, neither of which can be extended 

 except by invading the other. 



This view rests on a metaphor. It has been adopted 

 without examination. It has been assumed as a matter 

 of course that human relations are like relations between 

 physical things. It is entertained by men who are noT 

 conscious of possessing any theory of society ; and it rules 

 their practice all the more absolutely because they are not 

 aware of it. It produces both resistance to, and the advo- 

 cacy of, social changes on false issues. It prescribes no 

 higher duty to the wisest statesman than that of com- 

 promising between extremes, both of which are bad as 

 if there were no principle in civic and imperial matters 

 which is intrinsically good. He attempts to find some 

 via media, to mark the boundaries which should separate 

 Municipal or State enterprise from private enterprise. And 

 the attempt necessarily fails, for no such line exists. Man 

 and society, like a plant and its environment, enter too inti- 



