Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/518

 504 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

headway. Fairy tale, legend, and saga boldly suited the lot of man to his desert, and the fiction and drama of today, as well as most of our history and biography, do not hesitate to do the same. What better witness could there be to the divorce of lit- erature from life than the fact that the case of a righteous man, stricken by calamity, is still held to present "a problem"?

III.

Solidarity. Many thinkers have flattered themselves that the phenomena of interdependence present solid ground for an appeal on behalf of a social line of conduct. Max Nordau, after shattering the traditional bases of obedience, brings for- ward the social solidarity as the cornerstone of the morality of the future. This morality of solidarity which "has a reasonable answer to every question" meets the inquiry: "What reward, what punishment, will follow my actions?" And to this it gives the satisfying reply: "As you are a part of humanity, its pros- perity is your prosperity, and its sufferings your sufferings. If you do that which is good for humanity, you do good to your- self ; but if you do that which is injurious to it, you inflict an injury upon yourself. A flourishing humanity is your paradise, a decaying humanity your hell."

But the facts of solidarity have long been urged. St. Paul, in the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians, referring to the association of men to an organism, says :

For the body is not one member, but many.

If the foot shall say, " Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body," is it, therefore, not of the body ?

And the eye cannot say unto the hand, " I have no need of thee ; " nor again the head to the feet, " I have no need of you."

And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Says Marcus Aurelius : " For we are made for cooperation like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and the lower teeth." " If thou didst ever see a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, lying anywhere apart from the rest of the body,