Amid the discords that necessarily attend any attempts to make utterly selfish settlements of one kind or another now that the war is over, many are sincerely considering some form of cooperation as a remedy for seeming inequalities of opportunity. On the one hand, the old systems of domination seem struggling still to perpetuate themselves. On the other hand, mob force would try to establish a new domination just as insidious as the old. As yet, many of those who are reasoning on the subject of cooperation have only faintly recognized what the term truly means.
Cooperation, as discussed in the books and magazine articles on the subject, is usually considered to be a very special method of human endeavor. To say, for instance, as one writer does, that "cooperation is less than a century old" is to limit the term in a way that must prove futile. If the method of cooperation, whether in industry or in government, is to be confined to the mere program of some few materialists, the remedy will be no better than the various "isms" which have been so vehemently urged upon the attention of the world. The true idea of cooperation has eternally existed; and always those with real spiritual understanding have proved something of its effectiveness. Human confusion can give way only to the true idea, which is exactly what Principle produces and establishes in perfect order, no more and no less.
The difficulty with the ordinary human concepts of cooperation is that they start with the premise that mere human beings have to cooperate with mere human beings. In other words, they leave Principle entirely out of account. Without the operation of Principle, which is simply activity in accord with Principle, there can be no real cooperation. The constant flux of groups of people, seeking to arrange an approximate mortal equality on a material basis, gives no assurance that any satisfactory equilibrium can be achieved. The attempted balance of people against people rests on the sheer supposition which is all there is to mortality, and thus has no enduring quality. When one knows that divine intelligence is the sole cause for true action, he is ready to understand and practice real cooperation. The genuine man, created and sustained by divine Mind, lives in accord with Principle.
