So in the economic field, no man is economically independent or ever will be. But we want his powers knit into an orderly system that is not dependent upon a protective tariff, on somebody's whim who pays his salary, or on political "pull." We want people to be independent in the sense that they get their living by connection with a well-ordered economic system. Even then, of course, we are not independent. A planet may run into us and we shall then be wrecked in spite of the fact that we are not dependent upon charity or a protective tariff.
Obviously literal independence is also impossible in moral and personal relations. We are never independent of society, never capable of going it alone. The only question is, On what do we depend? Do we depend on one person, or one particular kind of entertainment or stimulation? Or can we find our food in any of a vast number of places and persons which in the natural order are fairly sure to be available? Or in the absence of all finite persons can we find our food in God? That is the fundamental question in relation to personal independence. Its answer states the degree in which our personal history is orderly and not catastrophic.
If one is habitually trying to order his own life in this way, the principles by which he lives will guide his attempts at social treatment and give him continuity and steadiness.
2. Presence of mind in social treatment
All our diagnostic duties, whether as doctor or social worker, are part of our search for truth, physical, economic, mental, and moral, as the basis for medical-social treatment. I have used again and again the figure of chains, each of them starting with the individual's present misfortune, need, or sorrow, as a central link, and radiating in different directions as we trace out the relevant physical and economic facts, the chain of the patient's relationships to family and friends, some of whom he is apt to forget, and finally the chain of mental and moral causes which lead up to the present moment. I believe in that method with all my heart. I also believe it can be employed so one-sidedly, so exclusively, as to spoil social work. The criticism of social work which recurs most often and most justly, I think, is that we are not human enough, not big enough people to do social work, that we have not vision, that we get into mechanical and routine methods which spoil the whole adventure. I know that this is true. We fail because it is difficult for us to drive in span two strongly contrasted ideals only one of which I have yet laid great stress on. Truth and the following out of the links of truth, physical, economic, etc., is a process which we might call looking for the background of the fact that presents itself close to you. We need to see that background. We must not get our perspective distorted. It is the doctor's commonest fault, that he sees only the disease that is just now before him, and nothing of its "background," economic, mental, or moral. Hence he does not make a fundamental diagnosis or prescribe fundamental treatment.
We need in our dispensary work to find truth. Yes; but we need to find joy also in our work; we need to see the foreground. We do not want to have attached to us the stigma and the weakness which we think of in professional work. We are accustomed to believe that professional philanthropists find no joy in their work, which they do as a matter of routine, for pay, without vision and without a sense of the unexpected and momentary values which are precious.
The process of tracing chains, of looking off and away from the patient's present pain, sorrow or poverty for its causes and relations, tends to make us look over the head of the present fact. We all know people who always look over our heads when they talk, and we know how little they get into touch with us. We must not stare into the physical, economic, or mental background so constantly or so fixedly that we cannot see the present fact before us. That is preoccupation. I have often accused myself and my assistants of going about their work with a care-worn air, because we are thinking so much of the fine, helpful plans which we are making and the truths which we are going to discover, or of bothersome details which we have not got round to finishing up. But we shall do no good in the long run unless we enjoy our work. There may be some professions where a man or a woman can be of use who does not draw joy from work, but certainly social work is not such a profession. We have with Stevenson the duty of happiness:
"If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness,"
—What are we to do? We must wake up—