Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/18

 4 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

presence of a moral law whose behests the individual must obey. But his critics have not been slow to point out that the sense of duty is the sense of must do not of must do this or that. And this sense of the impossibility of not acting is the most funda- mental characteristic of our nature. Particular forms of action we can decline, but no man can cease to be an active being can refuse to expend his energy and live. Change must go on within him, and, in spite of anything he may do, it does go on within him ; for nature is constantly renewing within him the means for a self-directing existence ; and the power to forecast and to plan is restored side by side with the power to build and execute. Each man is outfitted as an organism which shall both behold and do.

Early men escaped many of the difficulties which have befallen their successors. Each individual among them was both initiator and executor; each made his own plans, and himself carried them into effect. His possibilities and his activities were nearly equal. His normal relation to the world can be written in an equation. His usual activity was of a kind to call forth all his powers. Hence, little energy was misap- plied. There was little crime, little morbidness, little of harm- ful indulgence in his life. And, though a barbarian, he was free from the extreme vices of civilized life. But there came a time in his development when he found himself in the possession of energy not required in the work necessary to gain food, cloth- ing, and shelter, and in keeping the peace with his neighbor. This superabundance of activity expressed itself first in play, we are told. And when it became a common holding, public games were instituted ; for games were not only forms of enjoyment ; they were also useful as a preparation for the chase and for war. Unused activity became a weakened imitation of the most impressive forms of social life, and play was molded to social ends. In more developed conditions this free energy became art, and served the state and the common religion, often being organized to social use by the leaders of the people. Here again it is worth noting that the forms of expression freely fol- lowed were but reexpressions of the enforced acts of plowing