Mutualism

“ The mind to tolerate or even to make use of each other by cooperation does not compel us to admit association. Not until the feelings have been changed in force and direction, not until the crossing and clashing of many desires has neutralized opposing impulses and achieved a kind of artificial parallelism of wills, must we predicate the presence of society with all its characteristic workings.
We may regard the shaping received by the feelings and desires of the individual in the course of community life as due partly to Social Influence and partly to Social Control. ”

“ Good name, the ties of country, brotherhood, even oaths, and all that man holds sacred, were fallen in estimation. Such was the destiny to which a great and flourishing commercial town was subjected, where one hundred thousand industrious men had been brought together by the single tie of mutual confidence,—every one indispensable to his neighbor, yet every one distrusted and distrustful,—all attracted by the spirit of gain, and repelled from each other by fear,—all the props of society torn away, where social union was the basis of all life and all existence. ”

“ What man seeks a quarrel with another with whom he is on terms of mutual advantage? The first thought is, Can I afford to give up our friendship and intercourse? And if this question were proposed by nations sustaining to each other those relations which we advocate, the answer would be. ”

“ A chain of mutual dependence, too often unrecognized, binds together the members of the human family, whether they belong to the same community or dwell on opposite sides of the earth. The links of this chain are made up of the articles which constitute our daily food, our clothing, homes, fuel, light, our means of communication and transportation, and only by continuous coöperation are they kept together. ”

“ But in actual life it is oftener the latter that is prominent in our relations with our fellow-men. We—the category of co-operation—is at least as fundamental in all human thought and language as I and thou, the categories of mutual exclusion. That you and I are mutually complementary factors in a wider whole of common interests, is at least as early a discovery of mankind as that our private interests and standpoints collide. ”

“ This principle, he said, was but another name for the inter-dependence, coöperation, mutual trust, which had been the root of all real human progress—without which human beings must have remained a race of selfish and warring savages, little better than beasts of prey. ”

“ Men come together, as it were by instinct, into society; and, thus [102] associating themselves together, it is soon discovered, not only that there are various desires in the different members of the community, which are now readily met by coöperation and mutual exchange, but also that there are very different powers in the different individuals in relation to those obstacles which are to be surmounted. ”

“ They no sooner perceived the same feelings in each other, than there arose in their hearts a gnawing jealousy, the bond of union was broken, and as, in general, three happy people can with difficulty reside under one roof, since union is the daughter of mutual necessity, so it fell out with the partnership, the three united inheritors for life separated, only promising to each other not to betray the secret. ”

“ In other friendships you must proceed bridle in hand; in the more exalted one, the offices and benefits which support other intimacies do not deserve even to be named. The perfect union of the friends causes them to hate and banish all those words that imply division and difference, such as benefit, obligation, gratitude, entreaty, thanks, and the like. All is in common with them; and, if in such a friendship one could give to the other, it would be him who received that would benefit his companion. ”

“ That mutual competition is one law of Nature, we see too plainly. But is there not, besides that law, a law of mutual help? True it is, as the wise man has said, that the very hyssop on the wall grows there because all the forces of the universe could not prevent its growing. ”

“ If they could make this treaty, they at the same time make that other to love equity, moderation, and all the virtues for their own sake, without any consideration of advantage. But if we cultivate friendships for the sake of their profits, emoluments, and advantages which may be derived from them, if there is to be no affection which may make the friendship desirable for its own sake, on its own account, by its own influences, by itself and for itself, is there any doubt at all that in such a case we must prefer our farms and estates to our friends? ”

“ It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. ”

“ They are recognizing the fact that, not competition, but co-operation, reciprocity, is the great, the true power,—to climb, not by attempting to drag, to keep down one's fellows, but by aiding them, and being in turn aided by them, thus combining, and so multiplying the power of all instead of wasting a large part one against the other. ”

“ The most valuable element of union, mutual kindness, the feelings of sympathy, the fraternal bonds, which now happily unite us, will have been extinguished for ever. One section will stand in menacing and hostile array against the other. The collision of opinion will be quickly followed by the clash of arms. ”

“ Well, first and foremost, that every individual creature shall come to its own particular and in [270] dividual fullness of being.—Very nice, very pretty—but how? Well, through a living dynamic relation to other creatures.—Very nice again, pretty little adjectives. But what sort of a living dynamic relation?—Well, not the relation of love, that's one thing, nor of brotherhood, nor equality. The next relation has got to be a relationship of men towards men in a spirit of unfathomable trust and responsibility, service and leadership, obedience and pure authority. ”

“ Still, the relations of friendship and kinship are not themselves born, nor do they die and all friends abroad and kin at home live and move and have their being only in these. Does it destroy or even weaken the meaning or the reality of friendship to have it said that the relation is as universal as particular or local, and as eternal as temporal? Is a relationship worth less than any one of its manifestations? Why, the universality of the relationship gives meaning or reality to any manifestation. ”

“ We may add that in such a union, beyond the mere material benefit, there naturally arises a moral influence of considerable power; and of this we have experienced the advantage; our connection having been sufficiently close to give to each of us, in a great measure, the benefit of the experience, knowledge, and judgment, of all the others, and to secure to each that friendly advice of which every one, some time or other, stands in need. ”

“ We should be bound together by essential union—a union of heart and soul. How can this be brought about? By being true and honest one towards another, that there may be real confidence in our midst. Because one man may differ from another, even though with one called to preside over him, is that to say that such a man is rebellious? ”

“ I have been taught that the marriage alliance should be held sacred as a body corporate united in its parts for communion with self.”
Isolita. “If we consult our mutual advantage, it is not from extending injury but help to others, and 472with the flow of recurrent reciprocation, we in turn are filled to overflowing with grateful emotions of joy. We certainly should not disdain good instruction from any source, which offers experienced advantage for aiding our endeavors in perfecting the attainment of a happy union. ”

“ He therefore recommends to you, as the safest and surest road to consequence and fame, to effect, without loss of time, a perfect reconciliation with your friends and fellow-settlers; convincing them, by your mildness and generosity, and still more by a strict attention to justice, that you are worthy of their confidence; exert all your powers in establishing perfect union and friendship among your own nation, and you will convince those at a distance that you are capable and worthy of cementing a general union for good purposes. ”

“ The relations of men to each other, when they are carrying on the struggle for existence near each other, consist in mutual reactions (antagonisms, rivalries, alliances, coercions, and coöperations) , from which result societal concatenations and concretions, that is, more or less fixed positions of individuals and subgroups towards each other, and more or less established sequences and methods of interaction between them, by which the interests of all members of the group are served. ”

“ It is to our common advantage to have agreement at these points. Out of our habitual adjustments to one another, a body of mutual understanding and agreement grows up which constitutes the intellectual and moral order of life. ”

“ Associations in all professions, and for all purposes, spring up as the natural products of this soil, but only the more to make it evident, that the strongest bond of union is a—supernatural one, and depends principally upon that which is highest and best in man. ”

“ There's No living in This World without an Exchange of Civil Offices, and the Need we have One of Another, goes a Great Way toward the Making of us Love One Another. How is this Amity, and Communication to be entertain'd now, but by the Commerce of Giving and Receiving? ”

“ And so, in encouraging and assisting other peoples to be free on the basic principle of mutuality in the solution of our common social, economic, and cultural problems, we help to advance our own national interests. ”

“ To an intelligent discussion of any subject, a definition is a sine qua non. What is meant by "alliance," "union," a "better understanding," a "closer relationship," "interfusion," an "entente," and terms of like import? It is in vain that the citizens of both countries may wish or hope for a better understanding, or that a better feeling, or a closer relation, or union, should exist between them. It is said that idle wishes are the most idle of all idle things. ”

“ There may, perhaps, also be obscure workmen, or humble citizens—perhaps, also, alas! great criminals.
“‘However, this may be, my most earnest desire is that my descendants should combine together, and, reconstituting one family, by a close and sincere union, put into practice the divine words of Christ, “Love ye one another.”
“‘This union would have a salutary tendency; for it seems to me that upon union, upon the association of men together, must depend the future happiness of mankind. ”

“ For it is by the alliance of common habits, quite as much as by the bonds of a common humanity, that we are all of us linked together; and the result of being above the necessity of depending on other people's opinions, and that of being below it, are pretty much the same. ”

“ I have attempted to show that in like response to the same given stimulus we have the beginning, the absolute origin, of all concerted activity—the inception of every conceivable form of co-operation; while in unlike response, and in unequal response, we have the beginning of all those processes of individuation, of differentiation, of competition, which in their endlessly varied relations to combination, to co-operation, bring about the infinite complexity of organized social life. ”

“ The bonds that unite us as one People, — a substantial community of origin, language, belief, and law (the four great ties that hold the societies of men together) ; common national and political interests ”

“ Upon such a foundation are built the earliest alliances: the object of which is the mutual protection and safety from threatening misfortunes, and the welfare of each individual. And thus the social instinct develops from pleasure. ”

“ The very sacredness of the relation in which two men stand to one another when one of them rescues the other from vice separates that relation from any connection with the work of the social busybody, the professional philanthropist, and the empirical legislator. ”

“ The enlargement of human association, on the other hand, increases sympathy and coöperation among men, and paves the way to the cultivation of the mutual respect and regard which is the basis of social virtue. ”

“ Let both neighbors combine for every neighborly purpose, and pull together, if need be, against the rest of the world, as good neighbors should; but let each give up, once for all, the arrogant, mischievous pretension of lording it over the hearthstone and dictating the domestic economy of the other. ”

“ Each appears as the means of the other and as being brought about by the other, which is expressed as their mutual interdependence; a relation, by virtue of which they appear as mutually connected and indispensable, yet remaining outside of each other. ”

“ Tho’ we are to treat all mankind as neighbour and brethren, as occasion offers; yet as we can only live in the actual society of a few, and are more particularly related to some than others; so when our intercession is made an exercise of love and care for those amongst whom our lot is fallen, or who belong to us in a nearer relation, it then becomes the greatest benefit to ourselves. ”

“ If increased intercourse means, as is constantly contended, an increase of friendship and of mutual understanding among nations, the man who devoted a vast wealth to linking two peoples together would rise at once to the level of the great benefactors of mankind. ”