" Each person must be conceived as tied in with
all his fellows. We have seen how in the case of the watch we were
almost obliged to abandon the thought of a single object and to speak
of it as a kind of centre of constitutive relations. A plexus of ties
runs in every direction, and where these cross there is the watch. So
it is among human beings. If we try for a moment to conceive a person
as single and detached, we shall find he would have no powers to
exercise. No emotions would be his, whether of love or hate, for they
imply objects to arouse them, no occupations of civilized life, for
these involve mutual dependency. From speech he would be cut off, if
there were nobody to speak to; nor would any such instrument as
language be ready for his use, if ancestors had not cooperated in its
construction. His very thoughts would become a meaningless series of
impressions if they indicated no reality beside themselves. So empty
would be that fiction, the single and isolated individual. The real
creature, rational and conjunct man, is he who stands in living
relationship with his fellows, they being a veritable part of him and
he of them. Man is essentially a social being, not a being who happens
to be living in society. Society enters into his inmost fibre, and
apart from society he is not.
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