The Nature of Society yy 



sifted ideas, radiating out of creative social 

 ideals, and passed as an accumulating heritage 

 from generation to generation. It is life risen 

 from the physical and become immortal in the 

 things of the spirit; it is the dream of man- 

 kind finding expression through genius and 

 achieving the control of nature. On the bio- 

 logical side it is the individual, the product of 

 the egoistic struggle for survival, driving with 

 the full force of his animal inheritance to 

 bend the world to his service, yet held even- 

 tually by the net that humanity, through its 

 long experience, has woven and is weaving. 

 This net of the social environment binds the 

 natural egoism to the service of the family, 

 the community, the nation, and the world, set- 

 ting at last to the strongest a limit to his selfish- 

 ness, so that a Saul becomes a Paul, a robber 

 baron becomes a people's king, and a financial 

 adventurer becomes the founder of a new eco- 

 nomic order. And as yet the titanic forces of 

 world socialization, clashing in their conflicting 

 currents, have only begun their work. 



Our knowledge of physical heredity, valu- 

 able though it may be, is not sufficient to 

 explain the course of development of the indi- 

 vidual soul. The oppositions and correlations 



