GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

760 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THB MODERNS
imposed from without; it grows from within in response
to the needs of its members. Moreover, as Burke insisted, 1
it derives its characteristics from the needs of its members.
Burke was also right in pointing out that, because it is
a living growth resembling an organism rather than a
machine, a society cannot be violently and rapidly changed
without being destroyed, or at least seriously damaged in
the process. Society, then, is a growth; further, it has a
character, so that it is permissible always provided that
we bear in mind the fact that we are using a metaphor
to ask, what does it want, what are its claims, what is
its destiny? Moreover, if we are still careful to remember
that we are using metaphorical expressions, we are entitled
to add that a society is a whole and not a mere accumulation
of persons. Secondly, society, as has already been pointed
out, is necessary to the fulfilment of the individual's per*
sonality. It is necessary in two ways. In the first place,
there is the fact upon which I have already enlarged,*
that it i& only in contact with his fellows that a man can
develop his personality and realize all that he has it in
him to be. A man on a desert island, a man in the wilder-
ness, a man in prison, is a man maimed, since his specifically
human qualities remain undeveloped through lack of
opportunities for their exercise. But this is not all that is
meant by the statement that it is only in society that the
individual can realize his full nature.
VALUE OF THE DEVELOPED PERSONALITY.
As to the ultimate end of human existence there is, as I
think the discussions of Part II have conclusively shown,
no general agreement. 1 have suggested in Chapter XII
that there may not be one end but several, and that the
good life consists in the pursuit of any one or more of a
number of absolute values. 9 Whatever view we take on
this issue, we cannot, I think, withhold our agreement from
* Sec Chapter XIV, pp. 574, 575.
See Chapter Igpp. 34, 35.
See Chapter Xft, pp. 455, 496.