ABSTRACT
The fundamental problem I propose to consider in these lectures is this: how can we combine that degree of individual initiative which is necessary for progress with the degree of social cohesion that is necessary for survival? I shall begin with the impulses in human nature that make social co-operation possible. I shall examine first the forms that these impulses took in very primitive communities, and then the adaptations that were brought about by the gradually changing social organisations of advancing civilisation. I shall next consider the extent and intensity of social cohesion in various times and places, leading up to the communities of the present day and the possibilities of further development in the not very distant future. After this discussion of the forces that hold society together I shall take up the other side of the life of Man in communities, namely, individual initiative, showing the part that it has played in various phases of human evolution, the part that it plays at the present day, and the future possibilities of too much or too little initiative in individuals and groups. I shall then go on to one of the basic problems of our times, namely, the conflict which modern technique has introduced between organisation and human nature, or, to put the matter in another way, the divorce of the economic motive from the impulses of creation and possession. Having stated this problem, I shall examine what can be done towards its solution, and finally I shall consider as a matter of ethics the whole relation of individual thought and effort and imagination to the authority of the community.
