The right relation of spirit and body in the animal gives health and beauty and power, and in our human life the right relation of the social spirit and body is as important. A healthy, growing, social life constantly re-creates its body as does the physical life, and our American civilisation shows this beyond all others in its rapid adoption of new material forms and processes. The constant demand for easier and swifter mechanism is as natural and healthful in society as it is in a physical body, and physical evolution has moved on that line continually.
The passing over of individual effort to the automatic action of machinery is analogous to the constant passing over of conscious cerebral action to the less expensive automatic management of lower brain centres—the development of “habit.” The body is not the man, and brick and mortar are not Society; but their connection is as intimate and vital. And as the soul of a man is grievously injured or equally benefited by the condition and use of his body, so is Society affected for good or ill by the mechanical forms in which it lives, their condition and their use.
Recognising as the first quality distinguishing the social body from the physical, that it is made by common action and open to common use, and recognising that the proper use of the body has a reactive effect in developing the soul, we have here a means of promoting social growth so prodigious in its scope and speed as to be fairly dizzying. We have, as usual, felt this great social truth, even though not understanding it, and our groping efforts in its pursuance are seen in two main lines: that which urges to “truth in art” in our common crafts; to making things beautiful, true, good, that all may be improved by them, and in our blind but earnest effort to provide “better housing for the poor,” with all that that implies.
We have seen that the slum tends to make the criminal, and that the school, bath, playground, museum, library, art gallery, free access to the best products of society, tend to make the better citizen; but we have not seen the large and simple principle involved.
Each thing made is an embodiment of social energy, and transmits it to the user, be it a fork or a fiddle. A noble and beautiful work ennobles and beautifies the beholder, listener, reader, occupant,—the user. All especially general social structures, or those glorious deposits of energy known as works of art, as well as all the materials of knowledge, are valuable in proportion to their free and public use.
The more people circulate in their great social body the more socialised they become. This we are doing much to promote in our free schools, libraries, museums, etc., but we do not begin to appreciate the possibilities involved, being impeded, as usual, by our prior concepts, Want theory and Pay concept in particular. The increased facilities of travel of our time, for instance, which should be enlarging the mind of the public as well as increasing its wealth, are greatly restricted in application by these errors. The people who administer our railroads are allowed by popular consent to “own” them; and as owners, regarding their property as bound in the first instance to “pay” them, they maintain as high a list of charges as “the traffic will bear.” When we recognise locomotion as a prime social necessity, these ribbons of steel and their rolling-stock as part of the social body, and traffic and travel as social advantages rather than individual,—yes, social necessities,—then we shall encourage the widest possible use of these facilities.
We have but to recognise the vital connection between the growing social body and the growing social soul, and that the soul not only makes the body, but is made by it, to apply our immense material gain to our whole people. The results will be what our discouraged and patient minds are apt to call “too good to be true.”
IX: THE NATURE OF WORK (I)
Summary
Familiarity of Work confusing to true thoughts, our general attitude due to false concepts. Veblen’s theory. Theory of Hebrew religion. Occasional dim perception of value of work. Effect of ego concept and pay concept. Effect of organic concept. Effect of Want Theory. Main thesis of author on Work. Physical organic action. Heart, as illustration. Social organic action. Individual consciousness no obstacle. Social circulation. Men not self-supporting. Waste, parasitism, disease. Evolution of Work. Universal transmission of energy. Appearance of consciousness. Feeling and action. Pleasure in sensation and action. Society the greatest life-form, greatest action, greatest pleasure. Social nourishment for worker, and true adjustment. Accumulation of social energy. Limitation of individual animal. Geometrical increase in social efficiency up to the sixth power. Increase of stimulus. Increase of interest. Storage and transmission of society energy. Work of art. Devotion to country. Bee and Ant. Proper human relation and action. Child’s instinct to work. Resistless working instinct of great specialist. Radium. The teacher, scientific discoverer, etc. Our workers not supplied with social energy. Extinction of London labourer. Want Theory again. Our dinner. Social nutrition collective. Discharge of surplus energy not an exertion.