Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

314
CHAPTER VII
VI. SOCIAL LAW
1. NECESSITY OF SOCIAL LIFE - 2. LIFE OF ISOLATION.
VOW OF SILENCE -3. FAMILY-TIES.
766. Is social life founded in nature?
Necessity of Social Life.
"Certainly; God has made man for living in society. It is not without a purpose that God has
given to man the faculty of speech and the other faculties necessary to the life of relation."
767. Is absolute isolation contrary to the law of nature?
"Yes, since man instinctively seeks society, and since all men are intended to help forward the
work of progress by aiding one another."
768. Does man, in seeking society, only yield to a personal feeling, or is there, in this feeling,
a wider providential end?
"Man must progress; he cannot do so alone, because, as he does not possess all faculties, he
needs the contact of other men. In isolation he becomes brutified and etiolated."
No man possesses the complete range of faculties. Through social union men complete one another, and
thus mutually secure their well-being and progress. It is because they need each other's help that they
have been formed for living In society, and not in isolation.
Life of Isolation.
769. We can understand that the taste for social life, as a general principle, should be
founded in nature, as are all other tastes; but why should a taste for absolute isolation be
regarded as blameable, if a man finds satisfaction in it?
"Such satisfaction can only be a selfish one. There are also men who find satisfaction in
getting drunk; do you approve of them ? A mode of life, by the adoption of which you
condemn yourselves not to be useful to any one, cannot be pleasing to God."
770. What is to be thought of those who live in absolute seclusion in order to escape the
pernicious contact of the world?