een's philosophy alike in ethics and in politics.

The term organic is so much used and abused that it is best to state
simply what it means. A thing is called organic when it is made up of
parts which are quite distinct from one another, but which are destroyed
or vitally altered when they are removed from the whole. Thus, the human
body is organic because its life depends on the functions performed by
many organs, while each of these organs depends in turn on the life of
the body, perishing and decomposing if removed therefrom. Now, the
organic view of society is equally simple. It means that, while the life
of society is nothing but the life of individuals as they act one upon
another, the life of the individual in turn would be something utterly
different if he could be separated from society. A great deal of him
would not exist at all. Even if he himself could maintain physical
existence by the luck and skill of a Robinson Crusoe, his mental and
moral being would, if it existed at all, be something quite different
from anything that we know. By language, by training, by simply living
with others, each of us absorbs into his system the social atmosphere
that surrounds us. In particular, in the matter of rights and duties
which is cardinal for Liberal theory, the relation of the individual to
the community is everything. His rights and his duties are alike defined
by the common good. What, for example, is my right? On the face of it,
it is something that I claim. But a mere claim is nothing. I might claim
anything and everything. If my claim is of right it is because it is
sound, well grounded, in the judgment of an impartial observer. But an
impartial observer will not consider me alone. He will equally weigh the
opposed claims of others. He will take us in relation to one another,
that is to say, as individuals involved in a social relationship.
Further, if his decision is in any sense a rational one, it must rest on
a principle of some kind; and again, as a rational man, any principle
which he asserts he must found on some good result which it serves or
embodies, and as an impartial man he must take the good of every one
affected into account. That is to say, he must found his judgment on the
common good. An individual right, then, cannot conflict with the common
good, nor could any right exist apart from the common good.

The argument might seem to make the individual too subservient to
society. But this is to fo