Excerpt from Rural Reconstruction in Ireland: A Record of Co-Operative OrganisationNation of the personal to the natural and an orchestration of human activity for the common good. These ideals so thrust aside come at last to be regarded cynically as fitting for Paradise, but very unsuitable for Earth. Nothing could be more hopeful for the triumph over the minds of men of spiritual ideals than a move ment which aims at superseding individualism in the economic Sphere by co-operation. It may seem at first thought incongruous to associate the material activities described in this volume with anything spiritual, but if we re¿ect a little we will find it is not so. The great religions had their origin in a descent from Heaven to Earth and the incarnation in bodily form of a ray from the Divine mind, and spiritual and cultural ideas, if they are to exist as real power, must in like manner descend and clothe themselves in a material form and distribute the loaves and fishes to the multi tude. The idea of nationality is a cultural idea, but a man very soon becomes cynical about nationality in practice if his neighbor or his employer accepting the same national ideals do in fact relegate him to poverty in the pursuit of their own interests. The co-operative movement in large measure binds together the economic interests of Irishmen, so that purchase, manufacture and sale become less and less personal enterprises and more and more communal or national activities. It illustrates in a practical way the truth that the personal and economic interests of the majority are served best by their incorporation in communal enter prises. So the mind of the citizen is predisposed to subordinate his own interests and to identify them with the interests of the nation. I believe that whatever may be the temporary strength of other movements in Ireland, the co-operative movement, dealing as it does with the daily lives of men, must finally have an in¿uence greater than any other in its effect upon the character of the Irish nation. It occupies itself with things men must do under whatever government they exist, whatever religion they profess, whatever cultural interests they may have, and because it deals with the permanent human occupations the principles.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.