296 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 



you have found yourselves have been your partners in the 

 attainment of them all. _All_these things, the best of life's 

 endowments^ ^rea_joint product. You owe them_to_ 

 yourseTnyou owe them also to the social life that throbs 

 within you. Society supplies nothing but opportunities : 

 but it supplies them all. You may use them or you may 

 abuse them, but you can neither do, nor have, nor be 

 anything without its constant fostering constant as that 

 ofjthe_air you breathe, and just as essential to your jife. 

 Here, then, is a benefactormcleeci 



And, as I tried to show in my last lecture, it is a bene- 

 factor which needs your help. The State is simply the 



product of man's rational effort, sustained only by the 



continued well-doing of its members. No man anywhere 



does a private wrong, or omits to do a private right thing 



Fut that society suffers. No man does well but the State, 



The powers of the State, or city, its capacity for 

 conceiving and carrying out good purposes, rise or fall 

 with the virtues of its members, as the water in the inland 

 lake rises with the rains which fill the hillside rills and 

 falls in time of drought. We sometimes inquire as to 

 the limits of the activity of a State or city : it is an idle 

 question. These depend on the intelligence and integrity 

 of its members. A corrupt or ignorant city can do little ; 

 and it is far better for everyone that its powers should be 

 kept low : an enlightened and just community can do, 

 much, increasing the happiness and the useful Functions 

 of its citizens at every stage of its own advance. Always 

 _m^city or_State the measure_of its power is that of the 

 wisdom and uprightness of its citizens^ 



It is not possible to reflect upon these matters, or to 

 penetrate even a little behind superficial appearances with- 



