VII. THE SUPERINDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY.
Professor Höffding criticises my view of "that superindividual soul-life which we call society," as based upon a mystical personification of society.
The superindividual motives of the human soul as I use the term, are actual realities, they are no less actual and concrete than are the image and the concept of a tree in my brain. I have sufficiently explained their origin and natural growth ("Ethical Problem," pp. 34-44), and feel that Professor Höffding's charge rests upon a misunderstanding. It appears to me that his term "sympathy," which he regards as the main element of ethical feelings leading to the adoption of the principle of general welfare, is much more liable to be interpreted in a mystical way. At least Schopenhauer's idea of sympathy (which he calls Mitleid) is undoubtedly a very mysterious thing, and its existence is supposed to be a direct manifestation of the metaphysical. I do not say that Professor Höffding uses the word sympathy in the sense of Schopenhauer's idea of Mitleid, but I am sure that if he attempts to explain its natural origin, he will (in order to remain positive and scientific) have to go over the same ground and arrive at the same conclusion as I did, although he may express himself in different words.
The truth is that man's ideas consist in representations of things and of relations without him, and these ideas are not the product of his individual exertions alone, they are the product of social work and of the common activity and intercourse of human society. This is true of language as a whole and of every single word which we use. This is true of all conceptual thought and most so of all ethical impulses. In spite of all individualism and in spite of the truth that lies in certain claims of individualism as to personal liberty and freedom of self-determination, I maintain that there is no individual in the sense of a separate ego-existence. That which makes of us human beings is the product of social life. I call the ideas and the impulses naturally developing in this way, superindividual, and if we could take them out of the soul of a man, he would cease to be a man. What is man but an incarnation of mankind! Social intercourse and common work produce the superindividual ideas and impulses in man, and these superindividual ideas and impulses in their action constitute the life of society.
This view is not "a mystical personification of society" under the simile of an organism, but it is a description of certain facts in the development of the human soul.
Society is not an aggregation of individuals, it is constituted by the superindividual element in the souls of individual men. The number of people in a society is for ethical purposes unessential. Professor Höffding accordingly makes an unimportant feature prominent, when he says:
"The idea of society, if it is to be scientifically employed, must always be so applied that at every point the definite group of individuals which it represents may be established."
If the greatest happiness of the greatest number among a definite group of individuals constitutes the morality of an act, would not the man who falls among thieves be under the moral obligation to renounce his property because the robbers constitute the majority?
If we leave the superindividual element out of sight, we shall naturally fall into the error of counting the individuals and deciding right and wrong by majority votes. The pleasure of a majority however does not constitute justice, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number is no criterion of that which is to be considered as morally good.
Society in the sense of a mere number of individuals will by and by create but does not constitute morality; nor can the majority of a society propose a criterion. The nature of moral goodness is not a matter of number nor of size nor of quantity. It must be sought in the quality of our ideas and motives. Moral are those ideas which tend to build up the life-totality of our souls so as to engender more and more of mankind in man, or still broader expressed, so as to keep man in harmony with the whole cosmos—with God.