Human need

“ Step by step, as the human race has advanced in civilization, its needs have become more numerous and more varied. Purely material requirements being satisfied, other and higher demands arise. The spiritual and social aspirations make their appearance. ”

“ For the world needs at this moment a thousand things before it can be made tolerable again; and all of those can be summed up into one paramount need, which is for men and women who will observe faithfully the laws of their being. ”

“ The grand doctrine, that every human being should have the means of self-culture, of progress in knowledge and virtue, of health, comfort, and happiness, of exercising the powers and affections of a man—this is slowly taking its place as the highest social truth. That the world was made for all, and not for a few; that society is to care for all, that no human being shall perish but through his own fault ”

“ Why?—as well ask why life is the sphere of duty and the nursery of virtues! For if all men were equal, if there were no suffering and no ease, no poverty and no wealth, would you not sweep with one blow the half, at least, of human virtues from the world? If there were no penury and no pain, what would become of fortitude ”

“ Hitherto the life-blood has been gradually chilling in your veins, as you sat aloof within your circle of gentility, while the rest of the world was fighting out its battle with one kind of necessity or another. Henceforth you will at least have the sense of natural and healthy effort for a purpose, and of lending your strength—be it great or small—to the united struggle of mankind. ”

“ But when once society has ensured for man the opportunity for satisfying his primary needs—once it has ensured him a healthy body and a wholesome life, his advance in the refinements of social morality, in the conception and satisfaction of his secondary and more distinctly human desires, is solely and entirely a matter of education. ”

“ As individual, he needs bread; as social, he needs power. As body, he is born from the loins; as spirit, he is born from the social organism. In the process of finding food, clothing, shelter, to meet the needs of himself as individual, he discovers that illimitable social side of himself the material necessities of life do not supply. Here he finds power, a more subtle and universal element, ready to serve his higher need. This is the provision for the social side of man’s nature ”

“ Work is the inevitable condition of human life, the true source of human welfare. ”

“ For this reason, above all, the dangers of social life demand that the necessary skill and care shall be devoted to guarding the human heart against the depravity which springs from fresh needs.
Man’s proper study is that of his relation to his environment. ”

“ That which, when we become capable of reflection, we term conscience, consists in pleasure in forms of action furthering the welfare of society—forms gradually moulded to habit with the development of social relations,—and in a corresponding pain at the realization of having failed of such action; the knowledge of the demand, by society as a whole or by a part of society, of action in accord with the general welfare, and the sense of the justice of this demand, constituting the feeling of obligation and duty. ”

“ Thus we meet with a fundamental philosophy of life in which it is not the satisfaction of needs, appetites, and desires, but the opposite theory which is thought to lead to welfare. Renounce what you want; do what you do not want to do; pursue what is repugnant ”

“ Our present state, like his, is God's appointment, and only for a season; and the discipline of sorrow and conflict may be no less needful for us than it was for him, and the result no less a blessing.
How much worldly good is necessary for any of us? how much wealth, honor, happiness? Most of our wants are artificial and unreal. We create them, or imagine them, and then complain that they are not supplied. Our first needs—our only absolute needs—are food and raiment ”

“ The need of the twentieth century will be men. In every department of the world's life or labour, that is the great want. In religion, in politics, in science, in commerce, in philanthropy, in government, all other necessities are unimportant by comparison with this one. ”

“ On the other hand, they need food and other necessities of ordinary life, and for these things are dependent on the living. Hence the desirableness of securing their good will by showing them respect and supplying their needs, or else of somehow getting rid of them. ”

“ Perhaps it is unnecessary to say that these things that I have been saying, or trying to say, about the flexibility and the potentiality of the human race in its present crisis, in its present struggle to maintain and add to its glory on the earth, are all beyond the range of possibility, and the present strength of manhood. ”

“ One of the eminently noteworthy things that constantly repeat themselves in history is that where a social need is discovered and a remedy found for it, it is not long before the need increases to such a degree as to outstrip the original remedy. ”

“ We have made splendid progress in external things, in material forms and methods of production and distribution. We have travelled far and deep in scientific study, climbed high in art, and grown through grand religions. Our one great need—a need that grows daily greater in the vivid light of these swift-moving years—is for a better kind of people. ”

“ But these deficiencies and others which no doubt are ours will not debar us, let us hope, from being permitted to join the grand onward march of humanity, and particularly of that portion of the human family inhabiting the New World, towards higher conditions of physical and moral welfare. ”

“ But utter it with your entire nature, hands, brain, heart, and soul, addressing themselves to God, to the resources God has placed at your call, and to the need of the community for the service you can render, and then your prayer will bring the bread which feeds the total nature up to its full strength! Industry, intelligence [Pg 86] and moral purpose, cooperating with the divine bounty and with the needs of men, will work out the highest type of character and make one’s daily employment sacramental in its influence upon his own heart and upon the lives of others. ”

“ Are the feelings of the heart nothing? Are the consciousness of independence, and the power of pursuing the occupation and habits of life which we prefer, nothing? Is the prospect of happier days, and of an improved situation for ourselves or our children, nothing? Where also are family endearments, and social intercourse, and willing services, and grateful returns? Where, above all, are moral improvement, and the light of religious truth, and the hope full of immortality? ”

“ What the exigencies of the modern age demand, more than aught else, is a new movement for the moral elevation of the race. Now the basic facts of man's moral nature, though insufficiently illustrated in practice, are universally admitted among civilized human beings. ”

“ Where now shall we place the Good? To what objects shall we apply it? To those which are in our own power? Then is health not good, and whole limbs and life? and are not children and parents and country? ”

“ But though doubtless ambitious—and what sin is there in that?—he has known how to subordinate his ambition to the dictates of his conscience in all matters, which, according to his lights, he believes affect the welfare of Society. ”

“ Yet we, mind you, in the face of these abilities, have assumed them to be our inferiors, and have organized for them frankly a society for the improvement of their condition! That we can mitigate their sufferings and inconveniences, lessen their cold or their hunger, I willingly admit; but I am not of so bold an intellect as to believe that we can improve their condition, or that their condition, take it for all in all, can be improved upon. ”

“ Yet need is the controlling thing, too, but not the need as we see it, but as He sees it, who sees all, and feels most deeply. The need is best met, the service best given, the sacrifice most healing in its power, as each grows out of obedience. ”

“ SOCIAL ORDER AND HUMAN WILL.—We have seen that the material environment of a man, the extent of his mastery over nature and of his emancipation from the dictation of pressing bodily needs, is a factor of enormous importance in determining what he shall become and what sort of a life he shall lead. That his social setting is equally significant is obvious. ”

“ But each of these parties must of necessity take in, in some measure, the principles of the other. Each wishes to cover the whole ground; to hold fast and to advance. Only, one lays the emphasis on keeping, and the other on advancing. I too think the musts are a safe company to follow, and even agreeable. But if we are Whigs, let us be Whigs of nature and science, and so for all the necessities. Let us know that, over and above all the musts of poverty and appetite, is the instinct of man to rise, and the instinct to love and help his brother. ”

“ Make sure that every human being has the necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, proper medical care, and proper education. More, give them the luxuries, too—let no man be without anything that is poorer in quality or less in quantity than the possessions of any other. ”

“ How large a section of this world do you care for, in such a vital, responsible way, that you are thinking about its welfare, forming schemes for its improvement, bending your energies toward its advancement? ”

“ And yet, of course, we should deceive ourselves if we supposed that this was the motive of these men, that our welfare was the centre of their heart's desire. We in our turn dedicate to the future, and often to a distant future, an immense portion of our energies. ”

“ After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature. ”

“ It is this and this only, which can enable us to meet as we should, all the changes and chances of this mortal life—to carry along with us into whatever calling or profession we may choose, all the requisite knowledge, ability and will, to render it most conducive not only to our own subsistence, comfort and happiness, so far as these are dependant thereon, but to the general good of the whole community in which we live. ”

“ The world is full of such men. Every living man propounds the question to himself, how to reconcile the demands of welfare, and of his personal existence, with conscience and reason; and from this universal labor, slowly but uninterruptedly, new forms of life, which are more in accord with the requirements of reason and of conscience, are worked out. ”

“ That which we bestow on fortune, the duties of a charge, the good offices expected from our station, the care of the body, and attention to dress; that which we give to friendship, society, recreation, and custom, all appear essential and indispensable: we even dare not encroach upon or limit these; we carry them beyond the bounds even of reason and necessity; and as life is too short, and our days too rapid to suffice for all, whatever we retrench is from the cares of our salvation: in the multiplicity of our occupations we are sure to sacrifice those which we ought to bestow on eternity. ”

“ I mean, in nothing that shall carry forward the improvement of the head and the heart, either in the individual or society, or that shall add to the conveniences of life, or the better providing for the welfare of communities of men. ”

“ The fact is that the total work and duty of collective humanity,—the production of a maximum of true recollection, rest and detachment, effected in and through a maximum of right dispersion, action, and attachment; above all a maximum of ethico-spiritual transformation of the world and, in and through such work, of each single worker,—is too high for any single soul, or even class or vocation, to hope to exhaust. ”

“ And all that meets the necessities, and supplies the wants of man; all that removes the evils, incident to his fallen nature, in his organic condition, as a physical, intellectual and moral agent; and in his accidental conditions, as child, son or daughter, husband, wife or parent, subject, magistrate or state, to promote and secure his highest welfare in time, and his hopes in eternity, is truth. Man the subject, truth the means and the highest state of happiness, in all these several conditions, the end. ”

“ Whatever difference there might be in the things to be undertaken for supplying your respective needs, you would conduct yourselves in the same free and happy way as when you first set out. And the fruits of your toil and skill, and of your way of life, would soon be comfort for all such as the few have by the woe of the many now. ”

“ At its best it is practical, ethical, social, pragmatic, altruistic, humanitarian. Now all these things are good, are especially needed at the present day, are part of the divine Will or they would not have become so dominant in humanity. ”

“ Let those who would study well this social question, or who in public trusts are charged with its solution, be most careful here. Every motive in the minds of these people, whether of instinct, desire, or duty, must be addressed. ”

“ Every one now seems to learn with satisfaction that society is beginning [pg 140] to adapt the individual to the general needs, and that it is at the same time the happiness and sacrifice of each one to consider himself as a useful member and instrument of the whole. ”

“ Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind to engage? to how many the studies which took their rise from her have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in sickness, society in solitude? ”

“ These requirements are for each individual his needs. The next question we have to ask is this: Does our present society guarantee to every member of it his needs? If it does not, it must be condemned. ”

“ Its invariable foundations are (1) the need we have of each other, and our social instincts, (2) the lasting and indestructible idea and sentiment of right and justice. The need and instinct, of which he finds many proofs, begin society; justice crowns the work. ”