And if we choose to know and will, then “The moral solution is the distributive ownership of small properties. These take the form of independent farms, of local businesses, of homes owned by the occupants, where individual responsibility gives significance to prerogative over property. Such ownership provides a range of volition through which one can be a complete person, and it is the abridgment of this volition for which monopoly capitalism must be condemned along with communism.” Chapter 8: The Power of the Word The author introduces the message of the chapter by a reference to Saint John. He writes, “The central teaching of the New Testament is that those who accept the word acquire wisdom”. The main argument here is the critique of modern semanticists. He observes, “In recognizing that words have power to define and to compel, the semanticists are actually testifying to the philosophic quality of language which is the source of their vexation.” And then he goes on to identify two dangerous phenomena: The attack upon the symbolic operations of language and the decay of honorifics (in forms of address!) The author declares that he is “ready to assert that we can never break out of the circle of language and seize the object barehanded, as it were, or without some ideational operation.” Which is why “It is difficult, therefore, to overrate the importance of skill in language.” And, “Poetry offers the fairest hope of restoring our lost unity of mind.” In conclusion, the author suggests, “Since man necessarily uses both the poetical and the logical resources of speech, he needs a twofold training. The first part must be devoted to literature and rhetoric, the second to logic and dialectic.” Chapter 9: Piety and Justice “Piety is a discipline of the will through respect. It admits the right to exist of things larger than the ego, of things different from the ego. And, before we can bring harmony back […] we shall have to regard with the spirit of piety three things: nature, our neighbors—by which I mean all other people—and the past.” Regarding nature, the author warns, “Triumphs against the natural order of living exact unforeseen payments… Our planet is falling victim to a rigorism, so that what is done in any remote corner affects—nay, menaces—the whole. Resiliency and tolerance are lost.” Regarding neighbors, “Knowledge disciplines egotism so that one credits the reality of other selves…