The writings of the ancient gentlemen were not susceptible of proof.
Then came Christ, talking sense. He grasped the nature of Society and preached its laws. Ye are all members of one body and of one another. You shall love your neighbour as yourself; that is, recognise him as really part of what you are part of—all one self; and the love of self becomes mutual love as we see what Self is to a Human Creature—Our Self. Christ saw and said all this, and did it, which is more; lived,—as far as one individual could,—true to his social relation, faithfully fulfilling his function to that great living thing, though its immediately surrounding constituents very naturally killed him.
That great Christian concept of mutual love and service is good ethics; it is scientific; its truth and value can be proved; it works. Had we grasped and applied it a good many painful centuries might have been saved us.
But we, our minds still darkened by the beast-concept of Egoism, trying to personally own the human soul and save our piece to all eternity without caring what became of the rest of it; we, with our personal God and his personal Son, and our personal damnation or salvation to consider, have very generally ignored the theory and practice of Christ, and made of him merely an article of faith by which to maintain our precious Egos forever and ever. And this in the face of his “Whoso saveth his life shall lose it; but whoso loseth his life for my sake [man’s sake, the sake of the whole] shall find it!”
When we realise the nature of society we shall come nearer to understanding the teachings of Christ than we have done in twenty centuries of sublimated self-seeking. In recognising it we rise at one step from the dark and narrow limits of the personal life, that poor animal existence, with its common animal wants and their fulfilment; with its animal loves and hates, hoped and fears, pains and pleasures; with its brief period of animal life, cut up into changeful patches of infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, and age, and take our true place in social life, which is immortal. Whether it dies off the earth in a million years or so we do not know yet; since it was born it has not died, but grown and grown continually. This wide, rich, glowing field of consciousness includes the animal life and maintains it in a higher and better condition than ever before, but its real distinctive range of feeling is far beyond that.
All noble and beautiful emotions we call “Human” are social and immortal. All the distinguishing abilities, the power and skill and ingenuity that we call “Human,” are social and immortal. “I” am born, grow up, and die. “I” am a transient piece of meat, enjoying food and sleep and mating, hunting and fighting.
But “We” are more than that. We together constitute another “I,” which is Human Life. That was born gradually, many long ages back, and is now slowly growing up. In that human life, that common, mutual, social life, are all things that make us human. When we enter consciously into that great life we are indeed immortal, “saved,” indeed, from primeval limitations of the animal ego.
VII: THE SOCIAL SOUL
Summary
Our “common sensorium” the “human heart.” All human feelings common. Action and reaction between body and spirit. Cat and Sheep. Mob spirit, civic spirit, etc. Effect of institutions. Effect of industries. Confusion from Ego Concept. Prominence of painful processes. Widening social consciousness. Collective pleasure greatest. Team-work. Effect of position of women. Sex combat in industry. Altruism and Omniism. “Self” an extensible term. Organic relation. Progressive injury of egoism. Effect of special industries on altruism. Sailor, farmer, miner. Household labour. Men more altruistic than women. Religion has not understood altruism, which is a natural social instinct. Man with tail. Nature of “charity,” transfusion of blood. Selfishness and socialness. My soul, our soul. Social needs. Inefficiency of personal gratification. Longitudinal extension of the soul’s life not satisfactory. Must widen our life, our soul. The Social Passion. Names do not affect facts. Social life evolves social love. Social instinct in duty, in work. Social ascetics. Human nature Social nature.