The essential value of the social organization resides in the fact that the work of the individual, in so far as it is adapted to it, accrues to the benefit of the collective whole. For this it is absolutely essential that the members of the collectivity should be able to have intercourse with one another in order that every part of the general activity may be communicated to the others. This intercourse is obtained through language in the most general sense.
We have already learned that the essence of language consists in the co-ordination of concept to sign. The social application of language demands that the signs co-ordinated to the concepts in use should be the same for all the members of the social organization. Only in this way can the members make themselves mutually understood. But intelligible means of communication and division of labor impart to the social knowledge that is set down in writing a kind of independent existence. Many centuries ago the possibility ceased for one person to store in his memory the entire stock of human knowledge. Nowadays we have men who are versed only in single parts of separate sciences, and the aggregate knowledge appears at first to be a unity existing only in thought. But because this knowledge is set down in signs which endure far beyond the life of the individual and at the appropriate moment can unfold its entire power even after a long period of inactivity, it has acquired an existence of a social character independent of the individual. For although it survives the individual, it cannot survive the death of human society.
As the socialization of all mankind advances to ever greater unities, the linguistic limitations sprung from former stages of evolution prove to be a hindrance. The mother tongue, of course, forms the first and most important entry for the individual to the common store of knowledge. But in view of the linguistic limitation of which I have just spoken the efforts in our day are carried on with renewed zeal to create a universal auxiliary language ([p. 100]) by means of which intercourse should be made possible beyond the language boundaries. There have already been gratifying results.[I]
60. Civilization.
Everything which serves the social progress of mankind is appropriately called civilization or culture, and the objective characteristic of progress consists in improved methods for seizing and utilizing the raw energies of nature for human purposes. Thus it was a cultural act when a primitive man discovered that he could extend the radius of his muscle energy by taking a pole in his hand, and it was another cultural act when a primitive man discovered that by throwing a stone he could send his muscle energy a distance of many meters to the desired point. The effect of the knife, the spear, the arrow, and of all the other primitive implements can be called in each case a purposive transformation of energy. And at the other end of the scale of civilization the most abstract scientific discovery, by reason of its generalization and simplification, signifies a corresponding economy of energy for all the coming generations that may have anything to do with the matter. Thus, in fact, the concept of progress as here defined embraces the entire sweep of human endeavor for perfection, or the entire field of culture, and at the same time it shows the great scientific value of the concept of energy.
If we consider further that, according to the second fundamental principle, the free energy accessible to us can only decrease, but not increase, while the number of men whose existence depends directly on the consumption of a due amount of free energy is constantly on the increase, then we at once see the objective necessity of the development of civilization in that sense. His foresight puts man in a position to act culturally. But if we examine our present social order from this point of view, we realize with horror how barbarous it still is. Not only do murder and war destroy cultural values without substituting others in their place, not only do the countless conflicts which take place between the different nations and political organizations act anticulturally, but so do also the conflicts between the various social classes of one nation, for they destroy quantities of free energy which are thus withdrawn from the total of real cultural values. At present mankind is in a state of development in which progress depends much less upon the leadership of a few distinguished individuals than upon the collective labor of all workers. Proof of this is that it is coming to be more and more the fact that the great scientific discoveries are made simultaneously by a number of independent investigators—an indication that society creates in several places the individual conditions requisite for such discoveries. Thus we are living at a time when men are gradually approximating one another very closely in their natures, and when the social organization therefore demands and strives for as thorough an equalization as possible in the conditions of existence of all men.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Sometimes on suddenly awaking from a profound sleep a person finds himself for the moment deprived of his personal stock of memories, unable to recall where and in what circumstances he is. No one who has experienced such a condition can ever forget the terrifying sense of helplessness it brings.