Let our diagram become a picture
of the organic life of John. Then A might represent his physical life,
B his business life, C his civil, D his domestic; and we should have
asserted that each of these several functions in the life of John
assists all the rest. His physical health favors his commercial and
political success, while at the same time making him more valuable in
the domestic circle. But home life, civic eminence, and business
prosperity also tend to confirm his health. In short, every one of
these factors in the life of John mutually affects and is affected by
all the others.
But when thus supplied with meaning, Figure 3 evidently fails to
express all it should say. B is intended to exhibit the business life
of John. But this is surely not lived alone. Though called a function
of John, it is rather a function of the community, and he merely
shares it. I had no right to confine to John himself that which
plainly stretches beyond him. Let us correct the figure, then, by
laying off another beside it to represent Peter, one of those who
shares in the business experience of John. This common business life
[Fig. 4]
of theirs, B, we may say, enables Peter to gratify his own adventurous
disposition, E; and this again stimulates his scientific tastes, F.
But Peter's eminence in science commends him so to his townsmen that
he comes to share again C, the civic life of John.
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