The wholesome working of the human organism, is so perfect in its analogy to the healthy relations of members of a community, that no reader should pass it by without very careful thought.

John says:—­

“I am not going to be dependent upon any man.  I am going to live my own life, in my own way, as I expect other men to live theirs.  If they will leave me alone, I will leave them alone,” and John flatters himself that he is asserting his own strength of personality, that he is emphasizing his individuality.  The truth is that John is warping himself every day by his weak dependence upon his own prejudices.  He is unwilling to look fairly at another main’s opinion for fear of being dependent upon it.  He is not only warping himself by his “independence,” which is puffed up with the false appearance of strength, but he is robbing his fellow-men; for he cannot refuse to receive from others without putting it out of his own power to give to others.  Real giving and receiving must be reciprocal in spirit, and absolutely dependent upon each other.

It is a curious and a sad study to watch the growing slavery of such “independent” people.

James, on the other hand, thinks he cannot do anything without asking another man’s advice or getting another man’s help; sometimes it is always the same man, sometimes it is one of twenty different men.  And so, James is steadily losing the power of looking life in the face, and of judging for himself whether or not to take the advice of others from a rational principle, and of his own free will, and he is gradually becoming a parasite,—­an animal which finally loses all its organs from lack of use, so that only its stomach remains,—­and has, of course, no intelligence at all.  The examples of such men as James are much more numerous than might be supposed.  We seldom see them in such flabby dependence upon the will of an individual as would make them conspicuous; but they are about us every day, and in large numbers, in their weak dependence upon public opinion,—­their bondage to the desire that other men should think well of them.  The human parasites that are daily feeding on social recognition are unconsciously in the process of losing their individuality and their intelligence; and it would be a sad surprise to them if they could see themselves clearly as they really are.

Public opinion is a necessary and true protection to the world as it is, because if it were not for public opinion, many men and women would dare to be more wicked than they are.  But that is no reason why intelligent men should order their lives on certain lines just because their neighbors do,—­just because it is the custom.  If the custom is a good custom, it can be followed intelligently, and because we recognize it as good, but it should not be followed only because our neighbors follow it.  Then, if our neighbors follow the custom for the same intelligent reason, it will bring us and them into free and happy sympathy.