Community

When we survey our lives and endeavors, we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other human things. We notice that our whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We cat food that others have produced, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language that others have created. Without language our mental capacities would be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals, we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from birth, would remain primitive and beastlike in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has, not so much in virtue of his individuality but rather as a member of a great human community, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.