Passage -2
The sphere of individual action is not to be regarded as ethically inferior to that of social duty. On the contrary, some of the best of human activities are, at least in feeling, personal rather than social. As I have said before, prophets, mystics, poets, scientific discoverers, are men whose lives are dominated by a vision; they are essentially solitary men. When their dominant impulse is strong, they feel that they cannot obey authority if it runs counter to what they profoundly believe to be good. Although, on this account, they are often persecuted in their own day, they are apt to be, of all men, those to whom posterity pays the highest honour. It is such men who put into the world the things that we most value, not only in religion, in art, and in science, but also in our way of feeling towards our neighbour, for improvements in the sense of social obligation, as in everything else, have been largely due to solitary men whose thoughts and emotions were not subject to the dominion of the herd. If human life is not to become dusty and uninteresting, it is important to realise that there are things that have a value which is quite independent of utility. What is useful is useful because it is a means to something else, and the something else, if it is not in turn merely a means, must be valued for its own sake, for otherwise the usefulness is illusory. To strike the right balance between ends and means is both difficult and important.
Men who boast of being what is called ‘practical’ are for the most part exclusively pre-occupied with means. But theirs is only one half of wisdom. When we take account of the other half, which is concerned with ends, the economic process, and the whole of human life, takes on an entirely new aspect. We ask no longer: what have the producers produced, and what has consumption enabled the consumers in their turn to produce? We ask instead: what has there been in the lives of consumers and producers to make them glad to be alive? What have they felt or known or done that could justify their creation? Have they experienced the glory of new knowledge? Have they known love and friendship? Have they rejoiced in sunshine and the spring and the smell of flowers? Have they felt the joy of life that simple communities express in dance and song?
What does the author imply about the relationship between individual action and social duty?
