THE MECHANICS OF SOCIETY 2 5 I
and this form of indirection may, in contradistinction to the moral indirection already considered be called physical indirection. So, too, the terms that are applied to the various grades of moral indirec- tion cunning, sagacity, shrewdness, strategy, diplomacy are not generally applied to physical indirection, although there are many etymological usages that acutely suggest the identity of princi- ple. Cunning is often a synonym of dexterity. Art has the two derivatives, artful and artificial. From craft comes crafty. A machination becomes a machine. The usual generic term for this exercise of the intellectual faculty is ingenuity. An ingeni- ous act is an invention. The product of invention is art. Art is the basis of culture and the measure of civilization. All art is thus telic. It consists in the utilization of the materials and forces of nature. As supplemented by scientific discovery and crystallized in machinery, it constitutes the great mainspring of human progress. As already remarked, the greater part of all that has been thus far achieved has been the work of strictly egoistic individual action. The vast dynamic results have been the immediate and direct effects of this action upon the imping- ing environment. It was not contemplated by the individual, and so far as he is concerned, it was incidental and unintended. Still it was the necessary result of his effort to satisfy desire.
But, as has also been hinted, this individual telesis is not all that is to be expected from the human race, endowed as it is with a highly developed, and as I believe, Galton and Kidd to the contrary notwithstanding, still rapidly developing intellectual faculty. There is possible another step resulting in a social or collective telesis. The individual has grappled with physical forces and with psychic forces and has laid them tribute to his will. It remains for society in its collective capacity to grapple with the social forces and to render them in like manner subject to the social will. Hut to do this society must wake to conscious- ness even as the individual has done. It must develop a social intellect capable of exercising both the forms of indirection described. Society must become cunning, shrewd, strategic and diplomatic in compassing its own interests, but especially it must
