Spencer Heath Archive

Item 557

Thoughts concerning Citadel, Market & Altar

This writing is essentially a report of findings upon an objective examination of the relationships among men whereby they have thus far and in part emerged out of mere familial and tribal relationships and amenities into the system of heavily restricted yet essentially universal and impersonal exchange relationships in which the far wider and higher amenities of modern civilization have been achieved. The motivation for this examination and report has been inspired by a feeling for the beauty and beneficence of all that lifts men lifeward into freedom and length of days. Accordingly, the examination has been directed to the procession of increasing life in the successive genera­tions of men and almost exclusively to the social and non-political, the productive and non-coercive relationships among whole populations of men wherein their lives have been increasingly nourished and advanced. The organic society is discovered to consist in a whole population carrying on a system of reciprocal relations through measured and balanced energy exchanges among its members — a kind of metabolism — whereby it is enabled to perform an organic function that no other living thing performs, namely, the progressive and cumulative creation of environment, both cultural and material, conducive to its members’ higher life and greater length of days.