Page:Philosophical Review Volume 25.djvu/688

672 action is one which must modify the idealist theory of the state all along the line. The theory sets out to show the correlation of society and the individual, but in truth it fails to grasp the full meaning of this very correlation. Granting that contact with institutions and established values,—the performance of the day's work,—is the greatest moralizing force on earth, the established order is not after all in every case the last word. To speak as if the individual were always ignorant, indolent, and one-sided as compared with the social system is at least as false as the individualism of isolation. It is as much the nature of society as of the individual to require reorganization, and the reorganization of the social system must proceed for the most part from the intelligent initiative of individuals. It is untrue in fact, and it is profoundly dangerous in practice, to fall into the supposition that the perfecting of institutions takes place by a sort of self-acting dialectic. One need not be a revolutionist to see that institutions, laws, and public morality may be profoundly stupid and profoundly indifferent to values which must be supported for the time being as individual ideals which are contrary to the discernible drift of the system. The system requires the disruptive force of the individual's initiative as much as the latter requires the stabilizing influence of the system.

On the side of the individual, it may be admitted to the full that any claims to value must be supported on the ground of objective achievement rather than of subjective feeling; a healthy moral activity requires a station with correlative rights and duties. But this is not sufficient. In the common estimation of men the individual who is content to fit into a niche, to become a cog in the machine, is deficient in individuality. The higher worth is conceded to the man who makes for himself and ultimately for others stations which were not only unseen but non-existent. Even though such creations of value take place on a small scale, as for the most part they must, they are nevertheless the most important aspect of individuality. They represent the individual's reaction upon the system, his own peculiar contribution to the order of things which, without that contribution, would somehow be defective. It is this power to