Felix Adler on the meanings of groups in our lives. The excerpt also includes a terse definition of "spiritual" as he presented it late in life.
…. Every social group -- the family group, the school group, the vocational group -- is a functional group. It has a certain meaning for life to be produced in its members. These meanings are successive, those of the smaller groups broadening out into the larger.
In each case the meaning or object for which the group exists is twofold--the concrete object imposed by nature, and the ideal or spiritual object. (I use the word "spiritual" in the following sense. The law of the jungle is: Live at the expense of other life. The law to be derived from Hedonism is: Live and let live. The spiritual law is: Live in promoting life.) Thus the natural object of the family is to replace the generation now existing by a new generation. Mountains, rocks, and seas remain for thousands of years; human beings after a short duration wither and pass away. The family recruits the ranks in order that the species may not die off.
Again, the natural object of the school, considered as a social group, is to serve as an organ for the transmission of the knowledges, skills, and insights of the past, through the present generation to future generations. The ideal or spiritual object in each case is to produce in the members of the group the functional attitude which I have just described: the will to do one's part in such a manner as to enable one's associates in the group to do their part with the greatest possible excellence. It is this relation that counts most in the development toward personality. Personality, so far as it is attainable, consists in this attitude of mind, nay, of one's whole being, towards the being of others. To put it succinctly: the natural purpose for which the group exists is the occasion (I had almost said the pretext) for the envisagement of the ideal purpose. The natural object is commonly considered the product, the personal relations the by-product; from the spiritual point of view the reverse is true -- the personal relations are the true product, the natural object is the by-product. The formula which I have used in expressing my ethical thought is: Seek to elicit the best in others, and you will thereby challenge and bring to light the hidden best in yourself. That best in others I may now explicitly define as the best performance of function. And in order to elicit that in others every one will discover that it is necessary to transform himself, to reconsider perpetually the manner in which he performs his part, and to improve on it.
In this way, I may add, the conflicting claims of egoism and altruism are transcended. Egoism leads to the over-emphasis of the self and its separateness; altruism leads to the under-estimation of the self in its relation to others. A distinguished scientist quoted the other day the phrase: Allis seruiens, ipse consumer. This expression has a noble sound, but taken too literally is really unsound, for genuine self-love is as indispensable as its antithesis. The two, in fact, are inseparable. Genuine service implies spiritual growth.
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Excerpt from Felix Adler, "Personality: How to Develop It In the Family, The School, and Society." Originally printed in the Report of the Fourth International Moral Education Congress, Rome, 1926. Reprinted in Essays in Honor of John Dewey on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, October 20, 1929, reprinted 1970, Octagon Books, New York.