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 CHAPTER IX.

ORGANIZATION—INDIVIDUALIZATION.

The experience of man has been such, in respect to organization, that all prudent and careful men and women are beginning to have fears for the welfare of a cause when it assumes the shape of an organization; and they have just ground for fear; for the experience of the past has been such as to justify them in supposing that evils arise out of organizations. Their tendency usually has been to beget a party feeling, or that which corresponds in the organization to selfishness in the individual. It is natural that every individual should love himself better than others, and when individuals associate together, they acquire a spirit of individuality—a selfishness which pertains to their particular society or organization. Individuals who unite in religious organizations entertain a sort of selfishness in reference to their particular denomination. The Presbyterian, for instance, likes Presbyterians a great deal better than Methodists, and the Methodists likes Methodists a great deal better than Presbyterians, and prefers to bestow his favors upon Methodists. In fine, the general tendency of this kind of organization is to lay in men and women the foundation of a selfishness in addition to their natural or individual selfishness.