Readjustment

“ In the process of readjustment many people will temporarily suffer, and a few people will be annihilated. But things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be. Why, therefore, should we deceive ourselves? ”

“ Principles unintelligently urged make a great deal of trouble in the free consideration of social readjustment, for they are frequently as recalcitrant and obscurantist as the primitive taboo, and are really scarcely more than an excuse for refusing to reconsider one's convictions and conduct. ”

“ They meet the individual at the point of some crisis, some experience or breakdown calling for readjustment, but from this point they work backward into the history of the case and follow its development into the future. ”

“ On the introduction of a foe so inimical to many of our pre-existing ideas the balance of power among them was upset, and a readjustment became necessary, which is still far from having attained the next settlement that seems likely to be reasonably permanent. ”

“ We shall encounter difficulties greater than any we have ever faced in our national history, We shall have to adapt ourselves to the strange stimuli of a new environment and undergo the travails of constrant adjustment and readjustment. ”

“ The wider or larger self which means inclusion instead of denial of relationships is identical with a self which enlarges in order to assume previously unforeseen ties.
In such crises of readjustment—and the crisis may be slight as well as great—there may be a transitional conflict of 'principle' with 'interest.' It is the nature of a habit to involve ease in the accustomed line of activity. It is the nature of a readjusting of habit to involve an effort which is disagreeable—something to which a man has deliberately to hold himself. ”

“ The consequence of that adjustment, when complete, will be that actions which are right—that is, are beneficial to the individual and to society—will always be pleasurable, not only in their consequences, but also immediately and in themselves. ”

“ The practicability of every reform is determined absolutely and always by “the circumstances of the case,” and only those who put themselves into the midst of affairs, either by action or by observation, can know what those circumstances are or perceive what they signify. ”

“ Here a word must be said about the subjective aspect of society, which, in its objective aspect, as we have seen, is merely the struggle and process of adjustment. What is the relation of adjustment to sympathy and to understanding, to communication and to concerted purpose, to the evolution of a social constraint through which the community controls and shapes the individual, to cooperation and to social organization? ”

“ Could you, to-morrow, reduce all men to one uniform and perfect level, in condition, in property, and in privileges, not a week would pass away without producing changes utterly destructive of perfect equality. ”

“ Where the mind is absorbed in some one object of reform, this constant devotion to duty is almost, if not quite, impossible. The mind becomes so warped in one direction that it loses the habit, and almost loses the power, of turning in any other. Hence we rarely hear the word duty from the lips of the reformer. ”

“ I wish to speak here of the so-called rudeness of reform; and to say that I think we should call this roughness rather than rudeness. A true reformer honors human nature by recognizing in it a higher power than is shown in its average action. ”

“ But before the crucial question of justice which divides modern society, namely, whether we shall lay emphasis upon adjustment of rewards to previous abilities, habits, possessions, character, or shall lay stress upon needs, and the possibility of bringing about a greater measure of equality, the doctrine which would find its standard in an a priori reason is helpless. ”

“ The abstract principle of increase getting more, and concrete humanity less, than justice, the next step was, naturally, to deny the possibility of permanent improvement in this world, and to regard every partial improvement as a labour of Sisyphus. ”

“ The fact that people are so different makes possible an adjustment whereby the ability and interest of the labourer may be in proportion to the difficulty of the undertaking to which he is assigned.
Perhaps nothing makes a larger contribution to the happiness and contentment of the world than this adjustment of the individual to his vocation, and yet the problem of securing such an adjustment is complicated by an enormous number of practical difficulties. ”

“ And, since any failure of adjustment may be as fatal as non-adaptation or starvation, there will be a struggle, at first perhaps unconscious, but in course of time becoming conscious, to maintain adjustment and to perfect it. This struggle for adjustment is the beginning of social life and is the differentiating mark of all true social phenomena. ”

“ We seek other conditions, by reason we do not understand the use of our own; and go out of ourselves, because we know not how there to reside."
But nevertheless it becomes a necessity for us to understand the wishes of those who demand a change of condition, and it is necessary that they should understand the compensations as well as the limitations of every condition. ”

“ Third, we shall see in these theories a picture of a system of ordering human conduct and adjusting human relations resting upon the ultimate basis and derived therefrom by the absolute process. In other words, they all picture, not merely an ordering of human conduct and adjustment of human relations, which we have actually given, but something more which we should like to have, namely, a doing of these things in a fixed, absolutely predetermined way, excluding all merely individual feelings or desires of those by whom the ordering and adjustment are carried out. ”

“ To which there comes the undeniable corollary that every law which serves to alter men's modes of action—compelling, or restraining, or aiding, in new ways—so affects them as to cause in course of time an adjusted nature. ”

“ Hence, in the ratio in which the pure intelligence is unfolded, and feelings of obligation arise, or conscience is developed, and becomes the practical rule of action, the individual acquires the right of self-control, and only in that ratio. ”

“ For this law of progress is carried out by means of the acquisition of knowledge, of which inference and assent are the immediate instruments. Supposing, then, the advancement of our nature, both in ourselves individually and as regards the human family, is, to every one of us in his place, a sacred duty, it follows that that duty is intimately bound up with the right use of these two main instruments of fulfilling it. ”

“ The scales of earthly justice are poised in their quivering equilibrium, not by huge hundred-weights, but by infinitesimal grains, needing the most wary caution, the most considerate patience, the most delicate touch, to arrange or readjust. Few of our errors, national or individual, come from the design to be unjust ”

“ Now we have surmised that at this stage our subject has been modified, both physically and mentally, to a certain extent in approach to the human type, and there is precisely one special modification which would have been of paramount importance in view of the problem of advance in progress. ”

“ He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision. And these qualities he requires and exercises exactly in proportion as the part of his conduct which he determines according to his own judgment and feelings is a large one. ”

“ Each step in the Reform movement, whether theological, social, or political, is educational in its effects even beyond the circle in which the step is taken. My advice would be: Seek justice; but refuse no point which may be conceded, for each concession gives you additional means and strength to enforce your claim. ”

“ The substitution of action based on knowledge for action based on feeling is made possible in the individual and in society by the development of higher centers of control and the power of choice through inhibition and legislation. ”

“ Your responsibility is increased, and that not to such an extent as to crush you under its weight. It's of great consequence, I consider it, to have one's responsibility thus gradually increased. It fits one for a farther increase, when he has successfully carried his previous burden. ”

“ The change was so great as to be impracticable in the eyes of most men; he, on the other hand, contended that it was to be of incalculable benefit to humanity, and, therefore, no difficulty, however great, should be allowed to stand in the way. ”

“ All progress in the social Self is the substitution of higher tribunals for lower; this ideal tribunal is the highest; and most men, either continually or occasionally, carry a reference to it in their breast. ”

“ Reform is born of need, not pity. ”

“ The phases seem to follow each other by an inherent necessity, and as if independent of the reason and will of the men affected, but the changes are always produced by a strain towards better adjustment of the mores to conditions and interests of the society, or of the controlling elements in it. ”

“ Obstacles are placed in the way of every alteration, it is true; but again to quote the words of one of the greatest practical physiologists that has ever lived, "surely no question of mere (pecuniary) gain to any or to every class ought to be allowed to stand for ever in the way, when the lives and happiness of multitudes of our fellow-creatures and the tranquillity and real prosperity of the country are at stake. ”

“ Adherence to rigid order, and unconditional obedience to reasonable demands, and a mild discipline, with strict control, and a regular system by which one was set to watch another, were the means used for arousing to the utmost a spirit of emulation and giving a sharp spur to ambition. ”

“ And it is, as far as I have been able to learn, the practice of all countries.' The same will, the same positive action, the same purpose, and, it may be added, the same predicament or position of the actors, must exist in each class of cases. There must be intent and act, prompted by, and tending to, a practicable, or at least a probable result, and not mere endurance or submission to uncontrollable necessity in either case. ”

“ And if this be true of the physical constitution of man, in how much higher degree is it true of his mental constitution? All our physical parts we bring with us into the world; but the mind develops afterwards. ”

“ And it may well be that there is something to be said in favour of modifying them—in fact it must be so, for all human things need at times to be revised and readapted to special and local conditions. ”

“ All benevolent persons, whether deeply-thinking on, or deeply-feeling, the woes, difficulties, and dangers of our present social system, are agreed that either great improvements are needed, or a thorough reform. ”

“ Every theory of education, every discipline, from that of the arithmetician to that of the prize-fighter, every proposed reward for virtue or punishment for vice, implies the belief, embodied in sundry proverbs, that the use or disuse of each faculty, bodily or mental, is followed by an adaptive change in it—loss of power or gain of power according to demand. ”

“ As it grows older, and growth brings with it the power of more fully appreciating the consequence of actions, its responsibility increases in the home, in the school, in business, social, religious, and political circles it is held accountable for its conduct, in proportion as the power of estimating the consequences of actions is assumed. ”

“ Adoption of the principles just cited into commanding rank in our standards of social action will assure steady approach to more worthy conditions. The details of progressive adjustment must come from experiments, just as in the case of improvements in printing presses or in dynamos. ”

“ From what quarter are we to seek help in our problem? The old doctrine is insufficient, and yet we cannot make shift without it. If the received ideas do not suffice, it must be our task to seek out new and better guides. ”

“ However honest and faithful in their engagements they may be, they will by no means submit to any alterations of the system to which they have been brought up without great trouble, altercation, and complaints of the injustice with which they are treated. ”

“ In every case he would be asking, ‘If we were to begin the world afresh, how should we proceed?’ He would always consider what is the best thing to be done, and next how can it be done irrespectively of everything conventional. ”

“ The success or failure of this effort to assure individual adjustment to the social norm and conformity to its practices varies with the prosilitizing enthusiasm of the society and with the ration of adaptability and self-consciousness of its individual members. ”