326 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
efficiency, moreover, requires that each should find his place in 
the various organizations to which he belongs, increase his effi- 
ciency for that place to the highest degree (with due regard to 
conflicting interests), and use his influence to strengthen the 
organization in its task of survival, growth and social utility, and 
in its attempt to form and attain the group-ideal of functioning 
in a larger social unity. 
III. The responsibility of society for the character of every per- 
sonality. Every member of a group is now very largely a social 
product. A society can have the kind of members it really 
wants. Social conscience, then, should be made to feel that it is 
responsible for the character of every individual. 
IV. The general ideal for every social quasi-personality (or unity) 
of social exemplifaction; i. e., to work out such an organized life 
and one so fruitful in securing the highest possible well-being of 
its members and of humanity as a whole, that it will spread by 
reflective imitation 2 on the part of other social unities. 
V. The social goal of functioning in a more inclusive unity 
(mentioned in II); but this goal is not to be confined to the 
national group as in the theories of Pearson, Carver and many 
German writers, but moves on in ever widening circles with the 
extension of co-operation and the expansion of the self-regarding 
sentiment until it embraces all humanity. 
The social philosophy briefly outlined, the outcome of a survey 
of many social philosophies written under greatly diverse condi- 
tions of thought and life, fused on a principle that seems to per- 
vade all forms of cosmic development, — that of adaptation, — 
suggests answers to the problems propounded in the Introduction 
concerning the what, the how, the whence, the whither and the 
1 The goal of exemplifaction has not been applied to the individual for such a 
goal might possibly lead to a narrow self-consciousness, pride, and arrogance, though 
this is not probable if balanced with emphasis on social efficiency. Indeed this ideal 
of exemplifaction furnishes a principle of judging conduct that is more practicable 
than Kant’s “ Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a univer- 
sal law of nature.” It is better for it makes place for the relativity which we have 
found is characteristic of all morality. An act might well be worthy of reflective 
imitation by others similarly situated and yet not such as could be used as the basis 
for a universal principle. 
2 See note 4, p. 324. 
