rwise be brought
about. People without ideas experience no difficulty in harmonizing the
two tendencies. But if the ideas of Socialism and Individualism tended
to appear in the same brain they would neutralize each other or lead
action into an unprofitable _via media_. The separate initiative and
promulgation of the two tendencies encourages a much more effective
action, and best promotes that final harmony of the two extremes which
the finest human development needs.

There is more to be said. Not only are both alike indispensable, and
both too profoundly rooted in human nature to be abolished or abridged,
but each is indispensable to the other. There can be no Socialism
without Individualism; there can be no Individualism without Socialism.
Only a very fine development of personal character and individual
responsibility can bear up any highly elaborated social organization,
which is why small Socialist communities have only attained success by
enlisting finely selected persons; only a highly organized social
structure can afford scope for the play of individuality. The
enlightened Socialist nowadays often realizes something of the
relationship of Socialism to Individualism, and the Individualist--if he
were not in recent times, for all his excellent qualities, sometimes
lacking in mental flexibility and alertness--would be prepared to admit
his own relationship to Socialism. "The organization of the whole is
dominated by the necessities of cellular life," as Dareste says. That
truth is well recognized by the physiologists since the days of Claude
Bernard. It is absolutely true of the physiology of society. Social
organization is not for the purpose of subordinating the individual to
society; it is as much for the purpose of subordinating society to the
individual.

Between individuals, even the greatest, and society there is perpetual
action and reaction. While the individual powerfully acts on society, he
can only so act in so far as he is himself the instrument and organ of
society. The individual leads society, but only in that direction
whither society wishes to go. Every man of science merely carries
knowledge or invention one further step, a needed and desired step,
beyond the stage reached by his immediate predecessors. Every poet and
artist is only giving expression to the secret feelings and impulses of
his fellows. He has the courage to utter for the first time the intimate
emotion and aspiration which he