CONSCIOUS EQUILIBRIA IN THE SUPERORGANIC WORLD 229 



here ; such pressure can have no action on the emotional nature. 

 The emotional nature can be disciplined only by a power which 

 is moral. The individual must be able to consciously recognise 

 the justice of such a controlling power. Such a power will be 

 worse than useless if it cannot impose itself, not by brute force, 

 but by moral suasion, by the confidence which it inspires in the 

 fundamental justice of its principles. The individual, left to 

 himself, carmot dictate such a law to himself. He cannot 

 estabUsh a control over his emotional nature, for the latter 

 has been developed by a power far surpassing the individual. 

 Society must intervene here and give to the emotional nature 

 an equilibrium similar to that which the organic constitution 

 of every individual gives to his organic nature. 



As a matter of fact, at every period of history we find pre- 

 vailing a dim recognition of the respective value of the different 

 services rendered to society by different categories of indi- 

 viduals. And, concurrently with this estimate of the social 

 value of the various classes of society, we find an estimate 

 prevaihng of the legitimate aspirations of each class. The 

 working-man has set before him, by the tacit consent of society, 

 a certain standard of hfe. If he does not rise to the level thus 

 indicated, he is considered to be a failure, to have sunk below 

 his natural condition. But if the working-classes, on the other 

 hand, set up pretensions which are excessive, which cannot be 

 satisfied without obviously infringing the rights of others, these 

 pretensions will be checked by that moral power, the pressure 

 of which is not less formidable because invisible — i.e., public 

 opinion — ^that is to say, the conscience of society. The working- 

 man, individually, is not prevented from improving his material 

 condition ; but it is very generally considered that his social 

 sphere is a sphere sui generis, which is not the sphere of a man 

 with a University education. Within that sphere he may seek 

 to improve his condition ; but if the working-man is content 

 with certain conditions of life, it is not because his individual 



