The socialized conscience / by Joseph Herschel Coffin.

  • Coffin, J. Herschel (Joseph Herschel), 1880-
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The socialized conscience / by Joseph Herschel Coffin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rate union of the Kafir clan. The claims of the clan entirely swamp the rights of the individual. The system of tribal solidarity, which has worked so well in its smoothness that it might satisfy the utmost dreams of the socialist, is a standing proof of the sense of corporate union of the clan. In olden days a man did not have any feeling of personal injury when a chief made him work for white men and then told him to give all, or nearly all of his wages to his chief; the money was kept within the clan, and what was the good of the clan was the good of the individual and vice versa. The striking thing about this unity of the clan is that it is not a thought-out plan im- posed from without by legislation upon an unwilling people, but it is a felt-out plan which arose sponta- neously along the line of least resistance. If one member of the clan suffered, all members suffered, not in sentimental phraseology, but in real fact.”1 The various activities which must be carried on in the clan are those pertaining to the necessities of life. They are the activities involved in the securing of food, in the avoidance of danger, in the adminis- tration of justice and in the performance of religious rites and ceremonies. These activities are carried on by the group as a whole. At first there is no division of labor; there are no settled occupations. Every member of the tribe contributes his part to the com- mon good by engaging in all the activities. These 'Quoted in Dewey and Tufts: Ethics, p. 19.