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Now suppose news came to hand of a flood or war, that would cut you off from the outer world for some time, you would keep on in exactly the same way, only you would build more substantial shelters and take more elaborate means for supplying your wants from the resources around you, and there would be wants that you would experience on a long stay, that could have been passed over for a short one, and the things on which your energies would be directed, but not the nature of your relations towards each other, would be modified. You would still be the party of friends, and the ways of property and law would have no place among you. And now supposing that your stay was prolonged indefinitely, do you think that you would want to change all this, and map things out, saying, "this is for me exclusively," and "that is for him exclusively," to go each for himself against the rest, and lay out a commercial system, jealously measuring everything by which one benefited another, and demanding liquidated security for a reward as a condition of doing it? No! Whatever difference there might be in the things to be undertaken for supplying your respective needs, you would conduct yourselves in the same free and happy way as when you first set out. And the fruits of your toil and skill, and of your way of life, would soon be comfort for all such as the few have by the woe of the many now.
If quarrels or difficulties arose, you would adjust them freely like all other matters. Why should you pick out a few and bind yourselves that what they call right shall be right, and what they call wrong shall be wrong? People whose conduct is chosen for them are "selfish," because the only thing left them to think on is the immediate convenience or inconvenience of the result. People who choose their conduct for themselves exercise their social feelings in doing so, and are satisfied with any sacrifices they make to please their sympathies.
If a dispute arises among associates, it does not follow that the majority should prevail. Perhaps both majority and minority can carry out their views independently. The majority may be barely more than indifferent, while the minority are very decided, and in
