PSYCHIC ASPECTS OF
SOCIAL EVOLUTION
By
THEODORE SCHROEDER
OF THE NEW YORK BAR
REPRINT FROM
The Liberal Tewieto,
Vol. 2–No. 11–Pages 9-13–June 1917
No. 12–Pages 16-21–July 1917
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
1917
PSYCHIC ASPECTS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION
By THEoDoRE SchRoEDER, New York City. .
AWWIIHEN Lester F. Ward wrote his “Psychic Factors of Civilization”
§ § he could say that: “It has been proved that in matters relating
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㺠to the mind, experience is not a reliable guide.” Now this is not
so true as then. Through the recent psycho-analytic method we
now have more efficient-modes of interpreting mental experience. From
such work we may acquire a pretty clear insight into mental processes,
causation, and evolution.
Modern psychologists have developed new concepts which compel
the reinterpretation of social phenomena and theories, from the standpoint
of genetic and evolutionary psychology. In this manner we can acquire
a synthetic view of such widely divergent theories as socialism and
anarchism, with all that is between. From this should come increased
efficiency for the adjustment of seemingly conflicting social forces with
the natural evolutionary processes.
In the past our sense of social values was habitually expressed in
the obvious and current materials of exchange. Because of this, it was
inevitable that sociologists should at first concern themselves most con-
sciously with the visible non-human factors of social intercourse.
This habitual mode of thought and conduct created its corresponding
materialistic predispositions toward social problems. In consequence of
these predispositions we act as though we accepted the doctrine of eco-
nomic determinism as the whole truth, even though we expressly repudiate
it and its socialistic accompaniments.
Thus it also comes that we have almost neglected to take into account
the imperatives of the human mind. These are of quite as much im-
portance as the thing judged, if we desire to understand comparative
economic, moral and social valuations. This general undervaluation of
the mental factors, combined with an infantile lust for power, induces
the very prevalent superstition that our social ills can be corrected by legal
enactments more efficiently than by changing the mental processes through
enlarging human understanding.
THE GENESIS OF SOCIAL THEORIES.
The psycho-analysts have made it plain that in their mental activities
most people, most of the time, guilelessly proceed to supply intellectualistic
theories, and partially selected facts, in explanation or justification of
their inevitable, and often unconscious, desires and dislikes. It is also
known to the psycho-analyst that these explanatory facts usually have
little to do with the formation of the impulse being defended. Each
choice is the result of a pre-existing imperative, which merely induces
us to seize upon this latest fact, as the explanation of our conduct, only
because the genesis and true mental processes involved in our choosing
are unknown to us. Such intellectualistic justifications usually influence
others only while they are in need of a like inadequate and relatively
untrue defense for impulses which possess them, and which they too do
not understand psychogenetically.


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It appears to me that practically all theories about government are
chiefly of this character. We first have a craving or aversion, and then
invent, or adopt, a general phrase or theory to answer to our needs; to
explain or justify our evident necessity. Because this defensive theory
satisfies our needs we believe it good and true, and desire that others shall
accept it as good and true, even though it did not cause the condition it is
used to justify. Unconsciously we desire this only for our own sake and
verbally we justify it for their sake.
Therefore, we extend our urge and the makeshift defensive theory
to a larger range of activities and try to give it social importance. When
others adopt our theory we get the added joy of having our importance
exalted. Where first we were content to persuade we now become pre-
pared to coerce. Coupled with what is perhaps an abnormally intense
feeling, our desire evolves to an important and infallible general dogma
to be imposed upon all people, under all conditions, that is, if we can
acquire the power to impose it.
INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM.
From the resulting conflict come doctrines of individualism and
collectivism which were invented merely to formulate and justify desire
and dislike. Both doctrines have been made plausible by reference to
partially selected materials from experience.
When a person is predisposed to find an argument for an evolution
from individualism to collectivism he needs but to point to the individ-
ualistic aspect of primitive society and then to the enlargement of our
economic interdependence and a corresponding increase in the statutory
regulation of conduct. Thus it can be shown quite conclusively, to all
who are similarly predisposed, that our evolution is toward Socialism.
If one is predisposed to find a justification for a contrary conception,
it is but necessary to emphasize the fact that in primitive society there
was a practical absence of conceded individual rights and that most
legislation now is a recognition and protection of such individual rights.
Furthermore, with increasing protective legislation of individual rights,
there are also an increasing number of personal liberties to which is
attached the conceded claim of right for their exemption from any legis-
lative interference.
\Upon either of these incomplete aspects of the facts, the conclusions
have the added defect of dealing only with the outward and visible signs
of Social evolution. What is equally, if not more, important is an under-
standing of the behavior of the psychologic factors and determinants,
which find expression in increasing state activities and a corresponding
increase in the conscious resistance of these.
As we proceed with our study of the origin and behavior of our
consciousness of social relations we will now bear in mind that these
relations each have a dual aspect. The one is from the viewpoint of indi-
vidual action and interest, while the other is from the viewpoint of group
action and interest, and in fact these are but parts and aspects of
the same whole. Next we must realize that there is a separable and
parallel evolution in the consciousness of each of these aspects, the indi-
vidualistic and collectivistic.
MENTAL PROCESS OF EVOLUTION. tº
Evolution as to individualism is from infantile unconscious aversion
to the restraints of our energies, through a growth in the acceptance of
checks, toward the avoidance of anti-social conduct and in the conscious
assumption of responsibilities and a desire to serve others. In the process
of maturing, these changes tend toward a different individualism, one
highly conscious of the source and mechanism by which the lust-for power
finds a relative justification, in its superior understanding of human rela-
tions, and a consequent superior capacity for intelligent adjustment
through enlarged, voluntary social service. In this connection I do not
mean “moral” superiority but superiority only in the sense of later
evolutionary development.
When viewed separately and from a relatively immature viewpoint,
this consciousness of the individualistic aspect of social relations tends to
the promulgation of arbitrary individualistic doctrines, as to the province
of the state and corresponding political action.
On the other hand, we see also a co-relative evolution in our con-
sciousness of that aspect which emphasizes human interdependence and
insist upon emphasizing the collectivistic aspect of social relations. Here
we discover an evolution from the infantile and relatively simple, blind,
sentimental appreciation of family ties, expanding and approaching to a
human solidarity in sentimentalism, up to a high degree of consciousness
of the elements and nature of inter-human relations.
With emphasis on human interdependence, dissociated from the
other elements, the tendency is toward equally arbitrary and intellectual-
istic theories or dogmas of collectivism and socialism, concurring with a
corresponding course of political action.
According to the degree of approach to extreme human primitiveness,
we find a proportionate unconsciousness of the actually prevailing factors
of human interdependence as well as those of independence. In conse-
quence of this situation, the individual automatically acts under the un-
conscious control of impulses which are more or less blind emotional
cravings for, Ór aversions to, things as they are. In the intellectualization
of these impulses and the justification of the resultant conduct, there will
at first enter only the crudest considerations of narrow expediency, which
later will be formulated in fine phrases and pretentious principles, in turn
developing to more mature conscious motives with increasing desires and
efficiency for human service.
CONDITIONS OF A BUDDING CONSCIOUSNESS.
At one time the individual is dominated by an impulse which induces
acts such as if he believed that all other social units exist only for his use
and interests. Consequently the infantile urge to action, as yet unchecked
by a conscious desire to compromise with the realities of a situation,
frequently compels a relative disregard of others, in their claim for equal
indulgence, or rights. Of course, sooner or later this will be disputed.
Under the guise of conceding equality of rights, those rights will be so
defined as to permit the achievement of the old invasive ends.
The intellectualization and defense of such individualistic action
tends toward the arbitrariness and absolutism of an infantile kind of
anarchism. Society, or the State, exists only for the individual. If he
can dominate it, then society owes him all that he craves, quite inde-
pendently of his value to the group. If it interferes with his personal lust
for power, it should be abolished, by force if necessary. If this is not
practical the invasion must be avenged.
This same relatively unconscious and undeveloped condition, when
resulting in group action, impels toward an unconscious automatism,
which seems to imply that the individual has no rightful existence except
as an instrument for promoting sentimental or actual group welfare.
This group is large or small according to the inclusiveness of the social
sentimentalism, which marks the beginnings of a social consciousness and
which often, by its very blindness and intensity, determines who are
society’s dominant individuals. In this aspect it could be said, by such
relatively undeveloped people, that the individual exists only for the
group, or the State, and all may be coerced to serve it. Here we often
see the half-conscious identification of the State and its dominant indi-
vidual or group.
According to our predisposition,-our emotional or material interests
and the necessities of our defensive urge in behalf of these—we naturally
select such materials as seem to justify us, and we quite as naturally
avoid those aspects of life and that social experience which seem to give
support to persons having opposing interests and predispositions. Already
we begin to see that these seeming differences are but different and
equally deficient aspects of the same facts and that social life must be
viewed as determined by an interaction and adjustment of these seemingly
conflicting attitudes and tendencies.
MECHANISM OF GROWING CONSCIOUSNESS.
In a very primitive stage we find proportionately an extreme indefi-
niteness in the consciousness of either individual or group interests, as
such. At that stage of development the inherent tendency to act, as if
omnipotent, has not been sufficiently checked by consciousness of the
conflict with the environment, which includes a like urge in other humans.
Consequently the individual has not yet been conscious of any clear
differentiation between personal and others' interests. Here then we are
contemplating a condition in which there is a maximum of actual, material
and psychic independence of other humans and a minimum of conscious-
ness of such interdependence as actually does exist.
In consequence of this situation the individual, when his seeming
interests so prompt him, automatically acts upon the unconscious implica-
tion that the group exists not at all, or exists only for the purpose of
ministering to his ego. So the relatively infantile lust for power induces
the ignoring of a like craving in the human portion of the environment.
When this attitude becomes a matter of consciousness then theories of
individualism are formed to express and to justify it.
Of course, the conduct of the other members of the group is likewise
determined. In consequence they tend to react concurrently and similarly
upon the individual who conspicuously aggresses upon their seeming
interests. This concurrent reaction is as though the individual, who is
suppressed by it, existed only as a means to the individual life fulfillment
of the others, and they intellectualize their interests as a moral duty due
to the group. In the lowest stages of development, this concerted action
by many, is only a collective action in defense of narrow personal interests
of each member of the group. In the lower stages under consideration
there is little or no consciousness of group interests, as such. There may
be a group sentimentalism, a herd feeling.
DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
In the infantile consciousness there is a very imperfect differentiation
as between individuals, and less as between personal interests and seeming
or actual group interests. From the practical absence of mutuality of
consciousness, the group-action is best explained by a more synchronous
similarity of sentimental interest, not yet differentiated in consciousness.
This similarity in the reaction of many, toward the aggressing individuals,
induces a sympathetic feeling of coherence between those similarly
situated.
That is only another way of saying that in these particular and
momentarily dominant attitudes there exists a feeling as if there were
approximately a personal identity between those engaged in concerted
action. This similarity of feeling or reciprocity in sentimentalism is
the beginning of a mutuality of consciousness, but is far from that stage
of development in which we are actually conscious of more than the
superficial and obvious in social relations and of the content of other
persons’ state of consciousness.
For the want of a sufficiently developed intellectual acumen to
discern the many points of difference, this blind feeling of unity obscures
the individualistic aspects of the situation. When those influenced by it
become sufficiently conscious of this feeling aspect to give it verbal
formulation, without discovering or considering the individualistic aspects,
they call it a group interest, though it may be only a collection of quite
separate and individual interests, with possibly not a single assignable
objective element of cohesion. For such relatively indiscriminating minds
the supposedly subjective elements of unification are largely illusory,
or a mere matter of similarity of feelings, implying no likeness of under-
standing as to the relations involved.
INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM.
So a growth in the consciousness of individual importance is depend-
ent upon a growing consciousness of differentiation from others and is apt
to be Synchronous with the growth in actual but relatively unconscious
interdependence in human relations. Growing consciousness of the im-
portance of the individual tends toward conduct, and conceded claims
of right, which, if taken alone, may seem to be a growth toward
individualism. On the other hand, a growing interdependence and a
growing consciousness thereof and the corresponding increase in conscious
group action and the recognition of its frequent expediency, if separated
from the individualistic aspect of the situation, might seem to make for
more compulsory collectivism.
In the clearer vision these different designations, “Individualism’
and “Collectivism” are now seen to be mere descriptive symbols of dif-
y
ferent aspects, equally incomplete, of the same facts. When the
situation is seen or emphasized from the ego-centric view point it has
one appearance and its corresponding designation. When seen from
the viewpoint, or with emphasis upon the aspects of our growing complex-
ity, interdependence and the growth of State interference, the other desig-
nation is used. It is only a question of which aspect of the evolution of
individual human consciousness occupies the center of attention, and re-.
ceives the preponderance of emphasis. The choice of aspects, upon which
the attention will be centered, is, of course, determined by our interests,
either unconscious emotional or conscious material interests, and probably
a mingling of both, with a preponderance of the first in most persons.
On the side of enlarged State control there will always be those
who dominate the Government, supported by those relatively inefficient
ones who can't make good in the conflict of social forces and who thus,
in fantasy and feelings, identify themselves with some more masterful
spirit, exercising governmental power. Through the feeling-identifica-
tion with such substitute, the more infantile ones secure a symbolic
satisfaction of their own lust for power. Another mode of such infantile
satisfaction is the pursuit of superfluous and, therefore, useless pelf;
and of the adulation which comes to the conspicuous “successes” in osten-
tatious waste amid the unintelligent crowd.
APPROACHING THE SYNTHETIC VIEW.
Now social conflicts are seen to arise mainly from the pursuit of
conflicting personal ends, conceived according to very narrow, that is,
infantile standards. As we progress every conflict must find its relatively
amicable solution less upon the basis of blind forces, so satisfying to the
infantile lust for power, whether exercised by or against the authority of
the State. The solution must also come more and more from the vantage
ground of a higher intellectual level, characterized by greater mutuality
of understanding and such as shall impart to all the contestants a more
equal, accurate, mature kind of desire, checked and satisfied by means of
a more mature sense of justice, and of mutual responsibility. Then,
instead of using a superior cunning, or physical force, for securing a
temporary, narrowly conditioned personal advantage, we will see striving
toward a superior sense of justice, used as a means to satisfy a self-regard
which can be progressively better satisfied by feeding also the equally
self-regarding cravings of others.
When all social relations, and our conception of them, are seen to
be living, changing and growing factors, we become conscious of the
folly of formulating absolute doctrines as to the relative provinces of the
individual and the State. Evolution in our consciousness of the behavior
of the psychic human energy is but an enlargement in the scope and
definiteness of our understanding of these human relations, as different
aspects of the same facts. The requirements of social comfort and peace
demand a better balanced attitude and above all a constant attempt to
enlarge our understanding of the behavior of these human forces in
action, and a wider diffusion of that knowledge.
POLITICAL THEORIES OF JUSTICE.
As we develope toward the relatively impersonal viewpoint, the de-
sire to coerce others, by artificial means, diminishes even in those places
where our despotism was formerly believed to be most benevolent. So
the conceded claims of right to be free from coercion extend synchro-
nously with the growth of the motive to serve. Now we seek advantage,
not by virtue of blind physical force or an unequal cunning, but are pro-
gressively more content with a simple square deal, and the elimination of
advantage. Our conception of this square deal tends to be more thor-
oughly based upon a broadening and more deliberately sought mutual-
ity of consciousness, and is freely awarded, partly as the result and partly
by the method of insuring to others an equally enlightened understanding
of human relations and an equally refined sense of justice.
If now we see “individualism” and “collectivism” as but different
and equally incomplete aspects of the same process, we will understand
that our intellectual evolution is but a changing and a growing conscious-
ness of both these aspects of social evolution, which in time must be
coördinated.
This mental evolution consists primarly of growth in our conscious-
ness of the existence and nature of personal relations and a growth to-
ward the more exact appreciation of social values, according to object-
ively derived standards. The objective factors change, and the related
problems grow in complexity, perhaps quite as fast as our advancing
consciousness of their nature and essence. If this should be permanently
true, we may never achieve a much closer solution of social problems
than at present, though we may achieve greater equality in the advantage
of intelligence in relation to such problems, and this is probably the best
means if not the only means toward better solutions. This growth in
the consciousness of the ever-changing factors of human relations dissi-
pates the old conceptions of individualism and collectivism, as dogmas
that are no longer fit regulators of social intercourse. Instead we study
the behavior of forces that impel toward the formulation of these dog-
1112.S.
As we view social evolution, from the standpoint of its origin in
mental states, we see that these vary according to the modifications of
the primitive emotion, which modifications are due to coördinated ex-
perience. Through such experiences the economic factor of our environ-
ment comes to play a part. As we grow in the evolutionary understand-
ing of the laws of individual and group behavior, as a play of the emo-
tions as well as of economic force, and see the result as an interaction
of these two forces, then we get a clearer light for securing a more per-
manent harmonious adjustment.
THROUGH SERVICE TO LIBERTY.
As we grow in a consciousness of our mutual dependence, the de-
sire for a comfortable adjustment tends to inhibit the conduct which
invites resentment. Thus an intelligent self-interest minimizes our in-
vasive acts, and so lessens the temptation and the seeming justification
for a State control of individual conduct.
A growing consciousness, in others, of our newer and less anti-social
behavior and of their own genetic psychology, tends to minimize the de-
sire to find an excuse for State interference or personal participation
therein. Thus the trend of our evolution is in the direction of a greater
desire to render voluntary social service, as the more intelligent means
e: Arº
to self-service, and as a means of minimizing the seeming necessity for
coerced social service or enforced abstinence from anti-social conduct.
As we grow away from the infant’s exclusively self-centered in-
terest, there comes first an extension of the selfishness to include those
with whom there is a more or less blind emotional identification, as the
family, clan, church, club, town or country. If accompanied by a corre-
sponding enlargement of the understanding as to human relations, then
these expanding groups are being selected more according to social, hu-
manistic, elements of unification and less according to such irrelevant
facts as geography, creed or race.
GROWTH OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
As the sentimental, personal, family and patriotic interests tempt us
to seek advantage for our group, at the expense of those outside, so the
mature understanding of human relations leads to the repudiation of the
emotionally satisfying privilege, and lures us to be content with mere
justice, according to more enlightened standards. This, of course, means
a justice which will preclude the disinheritance and disemployment of
any human being.
- The assumed responsibility for the narrower family and social
groups, now expands to a full understanding of the larger natural
responsibility of each for all, and is accompanied by a consciously
assumed responsibility for the abolition of privileged and unfortunate
classes.
Here comes also corresponding expansion of the family devotion,
toward a conscious, deliberate consecration to the cause of this more
enlightened justice, even for those outside our former groupings. Now
we see that an enlargement of the understanding of all is the most
efficient means for insuring that finer and higher justice, even for our-
selves. All other means are viewed as a mere exchange of masters and
giving of privileges to those who formerly were the victims of privilege.
THE MEANING OF SERVICE.
Here one must labor with courage and without much expectation
of being immediately or generally understood. You must have the
courage to oppose both the privileged who fear to be disinherited, and
the disinherited who wish to become privileged. You must know that
to expect gratitude means that you do not deserve it and that to feel
bitterness means that you invite bitterness from other infants like your-
self. When you have attained the attitude of the intellectually mature
person, you will feel the same intensity of interest in the humblest fruits
of enlightened justice, which is now felt by the modern Croesus, in the
satisfaction of his infantile lust for power, by the ostentatious waste of
the unjustly acquired fruits of more worthy men's toil. Indeed the
interest and feeling is the same, the only difference is in the accom-
panying sense of justice, and a consequent change in the matters that
give satisfaction.
Thus far I have endeavored to suggest the evolutionary behavior
of the psychic forces involved in our social evolution. From an under-
standing of these we may formulate a view of a remote social ideal
toward which we grow. Even to formulate this ideal, as something
toward which we may strive, will enable us to adjust ourselves more
efficiently to the evolutionary forces and conditions, which are pushing us
in that direction.
By desiring to serve others we eliminate our own tendencies toward
conduct that is anti-social, and at the same time we lessen the temptation
of others to use coercive measures against us. Our desire to serve will
tend to promote our reliance on appeals to the understanding, rather
than appeals to force, for securing approval of our conceptions of social
utility and for the attainment of our more personal ends. Also, the
more inclusive our understanding—our mutuality of consciousness—the
more our ends will become identical with social ends, and conflicts between
personal purposes and group purposes will be progressively minimized.
From such considerations we see that by a growth in understanding,
that is a development in both self-consciousness and a mutuality of
consciousness, we inevitably drift toward a state of society in which the
extreme of collectivism, in the objects of service voluntarily rendered,
progressively approaches an identity with anarchism. This illustrates
the meeting of extremes wherein the most impersonal service, and a
growth toward voluntary socialism as the more intelligent means of
Self-service, merge into anarchism. Because this conception of the
impersonal life seems to be the synthesis of individualism and collectiv-
ism and perhaps the ultimate and unattainable goal of our social evolu-
tion, it may be worth while to formulate it more in detail.
THE NEWER ANARCHISM.
This impersonal life perhaps is a new anarchist ideal; not a mere
infantile aversion to things as they are, but an ideal based upon a large
understanding of our relation to objective realities, and an adjustment
with them as the result of consciously seeking self-service through the
equal service of each by all and all by each. w
It is at the other extreme of the evolutionary scale from that infantile
anarchism which is so often exploited in newspapers, and which simply
rebels helplessly and hopelessly against the realities to which its votaries
fail of adjustment, because they will not consider them and so cannot
understand or use them. This newer conception is an objectively
derived ideal, the godhood ambition of an intellectually mature man, who
does not deceive himself about its attainments, or his own limitations,
nor fails of adjustment to the realities of his actual situation. This
anarchism, in the degree of its self-consciousness and mutuality of con-
Sciousness, is a most remote evolutionary development from the uncon-
Scious ego-centric godhood cravings of the infant, who would creater
and re-shape his universe by mere force of will into a conformity with
his infantile wishes.
Likewise, in the evolutionary scale, this ideal of the relatively im-
personal life is very far removed from that unconscious collectivism of
primitive people, or its near neighbor, the coerced social service of com—
pulsory philanthropy and State socialism. In our day the craving to
promote compulsory co-operation usually is more a matter of infantile
aversion and infantile modes of satisfying the natural lust for power,
t
*as *
than a matter of sympathetic and thorough understanding of fundamental
and mature conceptions of democracy.
Legislative coercion is permanently effective only in so far as there
is a truly intelligent public opinion to insure its enforcement, and legis-
lative coercion tends to become unnecessary in proportion to the existence
of such intelligent public opinion. Therefore, the higher degrees of
social consciousness prompt us to put more emphasis upon promoting
social ends through understanding than by coercion.
So the sorrow and pain, which come from the conflict between
the environment and our infantile craving to ignore it, will progressively
decrease as we grow toward the impersonal ideal, by a constant applica-
tion of the pragmatic test under constantly changing and progressively
more diverse and exacting conditions. This corresponds to our intel-
lectual evolution and is acquired through the progressive enlargement
of our desire for experience and for understanding of our relations
with remote and diverse varieties of mankind, as a means to that more
perfect adjustment, which can come only through more perfect mutuality
of consciousness.
THE IMPERSONAL IDEAL.
I have characterized this ideal as the impersonal life, not because
the personal considerations are excluded, but because others and all of
them are vainly yet aggressively sought to be included; not because it is
less selfish but more inclusively and intelligently selfish; not that it
excludes the more intimate personal relations, but that it refuses to
consider them as the whole, and consequently we see all personal relations
as mere aspects of the wider relations of each to all, and see all through
each. Then the service tends also to become impersonal as to its
beneficiary with the same satisfaction to the benefactor.
In our social organism the impersonal life cannot be approached,
except through the growth of a relatively conscious intelligent submission
to the beneficent reign of natural law, which includes that of the psyche,
when each of us seeks universally and thoroughly to understand all the
rest, and when natural law is cheerfully accepted as Supreme and there-
fore is allowed to operate free from cunning human interference, designed
to control the application of its power, or the unequal distribution of its
fruits. Then the impersonal life will not involve self-sacrifice but self-
help, with the help of each for all. It will not be a blind devotion to
individuals at the price of injustice to or neglect of the mass, but a
devotion to principles; not a priori, but empirically and objectively
derived principles which merely declare the behavior of natural forces
and which automatically distribute equality of benefit to all who under-
stand, and who, because they understand, consciously and eagerly adjust.
Thus, and thus only, can we live in perfect harmony through and for
automatic natural justice, that is, conceptions of justice derived from the
widest possible experience and understanding of inter-human relations,
which includes a knowledge of that natural law determining our psycho-
logic imperatives.
Then, there will be no rewards or privileges because none would
be willing to accept or to bestow them; there will be neither masters nor
slaves, because none would be willing to bestow the homage or to receive
the fruits of servitude; tyranny will have lost its sting and slavery its
glory. The rich would then dispense with their riches, because no longer
impoverished of sympathetic understanding; and the poor will have dis-
appeared through their acquisition of these riches of understanding; then,
too, they will no longer be willing to supplant their former exploiters nor
the former objects of envy, even though opportunity offered, because
all will then see in such conduct the ignominy of the most deplorable
infantilism. *
Thus we grow toward the mutuality of consciousness which condi-
tions development toward the impersonal life, and its approximate
realization; and this is the only means by which our conception and
realization of justice and liberty become more mature, refined and stable.
Thus developed, all will be guided by an enlightened selfishness which
finds its most satisfactory pleasure only when every other person's selfish
cravings are previously considered and equally satisfied.
When approaching the impersonal life, you will see all yet overlook
all; being without blinding special friendships you will yet be the friend
of all; without doing personal charity to any, you will cheerfully devote
your whole life to the impersonal service of all; while looking with like
emotional indifference and desire for understanding, upon the compli-
ments or condemnation of fools or knaves, of friends or enemies, you
can ignore the fellowship-claim of the infantile pharisee and yet extend
your fellowship to him.
So, too, will pass self-righteousness and moral judgments and enter
the reign of an unmoral peace and intelligent good will, as we travel by
the light of understanding toward more perfect justice as the only condi-
tion of greater liberty, under natural law.
This is the ideal of the impersonal life toward which we grow even
unconsciously, and which it would be well for humanity consciously to
pursue, even though it probably can never be fully realized.