CHAPTER IX.
ORGANIZATION—INDIVIDUALIZATION.
The experience of man has been such, in respect to
organization, that all prudent and careful men and
women are beginning to have fears for the welfare of
a cause when it assumes the shape of an organization;
and they have just ground for fear; for the experience
of the past has been such as to justify them in supposing
that evils arise out of organizations. Their
tendency usually has been to beget a party feeling, or
that which corresponds in the organization to selfishness
in the individual. It is natural that every individual
should love himself better than others, and
when individuals associate together, they acquire a
spirit of individuality—a selfishness which pertains to
their particular society or organization. Individuals
who unite in religious organizations entertain a sort of
selfishness in reference to their particular denomination.
The Presbyterian, for instance, likes Presbyterians
a great deal better than Methodists, and the
Methodists likes Methodists a great deal better than
Presbyterians, and prefers to bestow his favors upon
Methodists. In fine, the general tendency of this kind
of organization is to lay in men and women the foundation
of a selfishness in addition to their natural or
individual selfishness.
