{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_22306/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_22306","id":"gutenberg_22306","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22306","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Sociology","Social psychology"],"text":"Produced by Robert J. Hall\n\n\n\n\nHUMAN TRAITS\n\nAND THEIR\n\nSOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE\n\n\nBY\n\nIRWIN EDMAN, Ph.D.\n\nINSTRUCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY\n\n\nBOSTON  NEW YORK  CHICAGO\n\nHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\nTHE RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\nThis book was written, originally and primarily, for use in\na course entitled \"Introduction to Contemporary Civilization,\"\nrequired of all Freshmen in Columbia College. It is\nan attempt to give a bird's-eye view of the processes of human\nnature, from man's simple inborn impulses and needs to the\nmost complete fulfillment of these in the deliberate activities\nof religion, art, science, and morals. It is hoped that the\nbook may give to the student and general reader a knowledge\nof the fundamentals of human nature and a sense of the possibilities\nand limits these give to human enterprise.\n\nPart I consists of an analysis of the types of behavior, a\nsurvey of individual traits and their significance in social\nlife, a brief consideration of the nature and development of\nthe self, individual differences, language and communication,\nracial and cultural continuity. Those fruits of psychological\ninquiry have been stressed which bear most strikingly on the\nrelations of men in our present-day social and economic\norganization. In consequence, there has been a deliberate\nexclusion of purely technical or controversial material, however\ninteresting. The psychological analysis is in general based\nupon the results of the objective inquiries into human behavior\nwhich have been so fruitfully conducted in the last twenty-five\nyears by Thorndike and Woodworth. To the work of\nthe first-mentioned, the author is particularly indebted.\n\nPart II is a brief analysis, chiefly psychological in character,\nof the four great activities of the human mind and imagination--religion,\nart, science, and morals. These are discussed as\nnormal though complex activities developed, through the\nprocess of reflection, in the fulfillment of man's inborn\nimpulses and needs. Thus descriptively to treat these spiritual\nenterprises implies on the part of the author a naturalistic\nviewpoint whose main outlines have been fixed for this generation\nby James, Santayana, and Dewey. To the last-named\nthe writer wishes to express the very special obligation\nthat a pupil owes to a great teacher.\n\nThe book as a whole, so far as can be judged from the experience\nthe author and others have had in using it during\nthe past year as a text at Columbia, should fit well into any\ngeneral course in social psychology. It has been increasingly\nrealized that the student's understanding of contemporary\nproblems of government and industry is immensely clarified\nby a knowledge of the human factors which they involve.\nThis volume supplies a brief account of the essential facts of\nhuman behavior with especial emphasis on their social\nconsequences. Part I may be independently used, as it has been\nwith success, in a general course in social psychology. Part II,\nthe \"Career of Reason,\" presents material which many\ninstructors find it highly desirable to use in introductory\nphilosophy courses, but for which no elementary texts are\navailable. The usual textbooks deal with the more metaphysical\nproblems to the exclusion of religion, art, morals, and science,\nhumanly the most interesting and significant of philosophical\nproblems. Where, as in many colleges, the introductory\nphilosophy course is preceded by a course in psychology, the\narrangement of the volume should prove particularly well\nsuited.\n\nThe illustrative material has been drawn, possibly to an\nunusual extent, from literature. The latter seems to give the\nstudent in the vivid reality of specific situations facts which\nthe psychologist is condemned, from the necessities of scientific\nmethod, to discuss in the abstract.\n\nThe book follows more or less closely that part of the syllabus\nfor the course in Contemporary Civilization, which is\ncalled \"The World of Human Nature,\" which section of the\noutline was chiefly the joint product of collaboration by\nProfessor John J. Coss and the author. To the former the author\nwishes to express his large indebtedness. Also to Miss Edith\nG. Taber, for her careful and valuable editing of the manuscript\nin preparation for the printer, he desires to convey his\ndeep appreciation.\n\nI. E.\n\n_Columbia University, June_ 1920.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nHUMAN TRAITS AND CIVILIZATION\n\n\nPART I--SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTYPES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR\n\nThe human animal--The number and variety of man's instincts--Learning\nin animals and men--The prolonged\nperiod of infancy--Consciousness of self and reaction to\nideas--Human beings alone possess language--Man the\nonly maker and user of tools.\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTYPES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND THEIR SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE--INSTINCT,\nHABIT, AND EMOTION\n\nInstinctive behavior--The necessity for the control of\ninstinct--Habitual behavior--The mechanism of habit--The\nacquisition of new modes of response--Trial and error\nand deliberate learning--Some conditions of habit-formation--Drill\n_versus_ attentive repetition in learning--Learning\naffected by age, fatigue, and health--Habit as a time-saver--Habit\nas a stabilizer of action--Disserviceable habits\nin the individual--Social inertia--The importance of the\nlearning habit--The specificity of habits--The conscious\ntransference of habits--Emotion.\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nREFLECTION\n\nInstinct and habit _versus_ reflection--The origin and nature of\nreflection--Illustration of the reflective process--Reflection\nas the modifier of instinct--Reflective behavior modifies\nhabit--The limits of reflection as a modifier of instinct and\nhabit--How instincts and habits impair the processes of\nreflection--The value of reflection for life--The social\nimportance of reflective behavior--Reflection removed from\nimmediate application: science--The practical aspect of\nscience--The creation of beautiful objects and the expression\nof ideas and feelings in beautiful form.\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE BASIC HUMAN ACTIVITIES\n\nFood, shelter, and sex--Physical activity--Mental\nactivity--Quiescence: fatigue--Nervous and mental fatigue.\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN\n\nMan as a social being--Gregariousness--Gregariousness\nimportant for social solidarity--Gregariousness may hinder the\nsolidarity of large groups--Gregariousness in belief--Gregariousness\nin habits of action--The effect of gregariousness\non innovation--Sympathy (a specialization of gregariousness)--Praise\nand blame--Praise and blame modify habit--Desire\nfor praise may lead to the profession rather than\nthe practice of virtue--The social effectiveness of praise and\nblame--Social estimates and standards of conduct--Importance\nof relating praise and blame to socially important\nconduct--Education as the agency of social control--Social\nactivity and the social motive.\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nCRUCIAL TRAITS IN SOCIAL LIFE\n\nThe interpenetration of human traits--The fighting instinct--Pugnacity\na menace when uncontrolled--Pugnacity as a\nbeneficent social force--The \"submissive instinct\"--Men\ndisplay qualities of leadership--Man pities and protects weak\nand suffering things--Fear--Love and hate--Love--Hate.\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE DEMAND FOR PRIVACY AND INDIVIDUALITY\n\nPrivacy and solitude--Satisfaction in personal possession: the\nacquisitive instinct--Individuality in opinion and belief--The\nsocial importance of individuality in opinion.\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE \"SELF\"\n\nOrigin and development of a sense of personal selfhood--The\nsocial self--Character and will--The enhancement of the\nself--Egoism _versus_ altruism--Self-satisfaction and\ndissatisfaction--The contrast between the self and others--Types\nof self--Self-display or boldness--Self-sufficient modesty--The\npositive and flexible self--Dogmatism and self-assertion--Enthusiasm--The\nnegative self--Eccentrics--The\nactive and the contemplative--Emotions aroused in the\nmaintenance of the self--The individuality of groups.\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nINDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES\n\nThe meaning of individual differences--Causes of individual\ndifferences--The influence of sex--The influence of race--The\ninfluence of immediate ancestry or family--The influence\nof the environment--Individual differences--Democracy\nand education.\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nLANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION\n\nLanguage as a social habit--Language and mental life--The\ninstability of language--Changes in meaning--Uniformities\nin language--Standardization of language--Counter-tendencies\ntoward differentiation--Language as emotional and\nlogical--Language and logic.\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nRACIAL AND CULTURAL CONTINUITY\n\nRestriction of population--Cultural continuity--Uncritical\nveneration of the past--Romantic idealization of the past--Change\nsynonymous with evil--\"Order\" _versus_ change--Personal\nor class opposition to change--Uncritical disparagement--Critical\nexamination of the past--Limitations of the\npast--Education as the transmitter of the past.\n\n\nPART II--THE CAREER OF REASON\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nRELIGION AND THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE\n\nThe religious experience--\"The reality of the unseen\"--Experiences\nwhich frequently find religious expression--Need and\nimpotence--Fear and awe--Regret, remorse: repentance\nand penance--Joy and enthusiasm: festivals and thanksgivings--Theology--The\ndescription of the divine--The divine\nas the human ideal--The religious experience, theology and\nscience--Mechanistic science and theology--Religion and\nscience--The church as a social institution--The social\nconsequences of institutionalized religion--Intolerance and\ninquisition--Quietism and consolation: other-worldliness.\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nART AND THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE\n\nArt _versus_ nature--The emergence of the fine arts--The aesthetic\nexperience--Appreciation _versus_ action--Sense\nsatisfaction--Form--Expression--Art as vicarious experience--Art\nand aesthetic experience in the social order--Art as an\nindustry--Art and morals.\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nSCIENCE AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD\n\nWhat science is--Science as explanation--Science and a\nworld view--The aesthetic value of science--The danger of\n\"pure science\"--Practical or applied science--Analysis of\nscientific procedure--Science and common sense--Curiosity\nand scientific inquiry--Thinking begins with a problem--The\nquality of thinking: suggestion--Classification--Experimental\nvariation of conditions--Generalizations, their\nelaboration and testing--The quantitative basis of scientific\nprocedure--Statistics and probability--Science as an instrument\nof human progress.\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nMORALS AND MORAL VALUATION\n\nThe pre-conditions of morality: instinct, impulse, and desire--The\nconflict of interests between men and groups--The levels\nof moral action: custom; the establishment of \"folkways\"--Morality\nas conformity to the established--The values of\ncustomary morality--The defects of customary morality--Custom\nand progress--Origin and nature of reflective morality--Reflective\nreconstruction of moral standards--The\nvalues of reflective morality--Reflection transforms customs\ninto principles--Reflective action genuinely moral--Reflection\nsets up ideal standards--The defects of reflective morality--The\ninadequacy of theory in moral life--The danger of\nintellectualism in morals--Types of moral theory--Absolutism--Relativistic\nor teleological morality--Utilitarianism--Moral\nknowledge--Intuitionalism--Empiricism--Ethics\nand life--Morality and human nature--Morals, law, and\neducation.\n\nINDEX\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nHUMAN TRAITS AND CIVILIZATION. Throughout the long\nenterprise of civilization in which mankind have more or less\nconsciously changed the world they found into one more in\nconformity with their desires, two factors have remained\nconstant: (1) the physical order of the universe, which we\ncommonly call Nature, and (2) the native biological equipment\nof man, commonly known as human nature. Both of\nthese, we are almost unanimously assured by modern science,\nhave remained essentially the same from the dawn of history\nto the present. They are the raw material out of which is\nbuilt up the vast complex of government, industry, science,\nart--all that we call civilization. In a very genuine sense,\nthere is nothing new under the sun. Matter and men remain\nthe same.\n\nBut while this fundamental material is constant, it may be\ngiven various forms; and both Nature itself and the nature of\nman may, with increasing knowledge, be increasingly controlled\nin man's own interests. The railroad, the wireless,\nand the aeroplane are striking and familiar testimonies to the\nefficacy of man's informed mastery of the world into which\nhe is born. In the field of physical science, man has, in the\nshort period of three centuries since Francis Bacon sounded\nthe trumpet call to the study of Nature and Newton discovered\nthe laws of motion, magnificently attained and appreciated\nthe power to know exactly what the facts of Nature\nare, what consequences follow from them, and how they may\nbe applied to enlarge the boundaries of the \"empire of man.\"\n\nIn his control of human nature, which is in its outlines as\nfixed and constant as the laws that govern the movements of\nthe stars, man has been much less conscious and deliberate,\nand more frequently moved by passion and ignorance than\nby reason and knowledge. Nevertheless, custom and law,\nthe court, the school, and the market have similarly been man's\nways of utilizing the original equipment of impulse and desire\nwhich Nature has given him. It is hard to believe, but as\ncertain as it is incredible, that the modern professional and\nbusinessman, moving freely amid the diverse contacts and\ncomplexities pictured in any casual newspaper, in a world of factories\nand parliaments and aeroplanes, is by nature no different from\nthe superstitious savage hunting precarious food, living in\ncaves, and finding every stranger an enemy. The difference\nbetween the civilization of an American city and that of the\nbarbarian tribes of Western Europe thousands of years ago\nis an accurate index of the extent to which man has succeeded\nin redirecting and controlling that fundamental human\nnature which has in its essential structure remained the same\nthrough history.\n\nMan's ways of association and cooeperation, for the most\npart, have not been deliberately developed, since men lived\nand had to live together long before a science of human relations\ncould have been dreamed of. Only to-day are we beginning\nto have an inkling of the fundamental facts of human\nnature. But it has become increasingly plain that progress\ndepends not merely on increasing our knowledge and application\nof the laws which govern man's physical environment.\nMachinery, factories, and automatic reapers are, after all,\nonly instruments for man's welfare. If man is ever to attain\nthe happiness and rationality of which philosophers and\nreformers have continually been dreaming, there must also\nbe an understanding of the laws which govern man himself,\nlaws quite as constant as those of physics and chemistry.\n\nEducation and political organization, the college and the\nlegislature, however remote they may seem from the random\nimpulses to cry and clutch at random objects with which a\nbaby comes into the world, must start from just such materials\nas these. The same impulse which prompts a five-year-old\nto put blocks into a symmetrical arrangement is the stuff\nout of which architects or great executives are made.\nPatriotism and public spirit find their roots back in the same\nunlearned impulses which make a baby smile back when\nsmiled at, and makes it, when a little older, cry if left too\nlong alone or in a strange place. All the native biological\nimpulses, which are almost literally our birthright, may, when\nunderstood, be modified through education, public opinion,\nand law, and directed in the interests of human ideals.\n\nIt is the aim of this book to indicate some of these more\noutstanding human traits, and the factors which must be\ntaken into account if they are to be controlled in the interests\nof human welfare. It is too often forgotten that the problems\nwhich are to be dealt with in the world of politics, of\nbusiness, of law, and education, are much complicated\nby the fact that human beings are so constituted that given\ncertain situations, they will do certain things in certain inevitable\nways. These problems are much clarified by knowing what\nthese fundamental ways of men are.\n\n\n\n\nHUMAN TRAITS AND THEIR\nSOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE\n\n\nPART I\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTYPES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR\n\nTHE HUMAN ANIMAL. Any attempt to understand what the\nnature of man is, apart from its training and education during\nthe life of the individual, must start with the realization that\nman is a human animal. As a human being he is strikingly\nset off by his upright posture and his large and flexible hand.\nBut chiefly he is distinguished by his plastic brain, upon\nwhich depends his capacity to perform the complex mental\nactivities--from administering a railroad to solving problems\nin calculus--which constitute man's outstanding and\nexclusive characteristic.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: The thinking process is discussed in detail in\nchapters III and XIV.]\n\nBut in his structure and functions man bears, as is now well\nknown, a marked resemblance to the lower animals. His\nrespiratory and digestive organs, for example, may be duplicated\nas far down in the animal scale as birds and chickens.[2]\nMan's whole physical apparatus and mode of life, save in\ncomplexity and refinement of operations, are the same as\nthose of any of the higher mammals. But more important for\nthe student of human behavior, man's mental life--that is,\nhis way of responding to and dealing with his environment--is\nin large part identical with that of the lower animals,\nespecially of the most highly developed vertebrates, such as the\nmonkey. They have, up to a certain point, precisely the\nsame equipment for adjusting themselves to the conditions of\nlife. Apart from education, both man and animal are endowed\nwith a set of more or less fixed tendencies to respond in\nspecific ways to specific stimuli. These inborn or congenital\ntendencies are generally known as reflexes or instincts.[1]\nThese are unlearned ways, exhibited by both human and\nanimal organisms, of responding promptly and precisely, and\nin a comparatively changeless manner to a given stimulus\nfrom the environment. These tendencies to act, while they\nmay be, and most frequently are of advantage to the organism,\nare not conscious or acquired. They are irresistible\nimpulses to do just such-and-such particular things in\nsuch-and-such particular ways when confronted with just\nsuch-and-such particular situations. In the well-known words of\nJames:\n\n[Footnote 2: With certain modifications accounted for in their historical\n\"descent\" with modification from a common ancestor. See Scott:\n_Theory of Evolution_.]\n\n[Footnote 1: The difference between the two is largely one of complexity.\nBy a reflex is meant a very simple and comparatively rigid response; by\nan instinct a series of reflexes such that when the first is set off, the\nremainder are set off in a regularly determinate succession.]\n\nThe cat runs after the mouse, runs or shows fight before the dog,\navoids falling from walls and trees, shuns fire and water, etc., not\nbecause he has any notion either of life or death, or of self-preservation.\nHe has probably attained to no one of these conceptions in\nsuch a way as to react definitely upon it. He acts in each case\nseparately, and simply because he cannot help it; being so framed that\nwhen that particular running thing called a mouse appears in his\nfield of vision he _must_ pursue; that when that particular barking and\nobstreperous thing called a dog appears there he _must_ retire, if at a\ndistance, and scratch if close by; that he _must_ withdraw his feet from\nwater, and his face from flame.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: James: _Psychology_, vol. II, p. 384.]\n\nSimilarly, the baby's reaching for random objects, and\nsucking them when seized, its turning its head aside, when it\nhas had enough food, its crying when alone and hungry, are\nnot, for the most part, deliberate methods invented by the\ninfant to maintain its own welfare, but are almost as automatic\nas the number of sounds omitted by the cuckoo clock at\nmidnight.\n\nWhy do men always lie down, when they can, on soft beds rather\nthan on hard floors? Why do they sit round the stove on a cold day?\n... Why does the maiden interest the youth so that everything\nabout her seems more important and significant than anything else\nin the world? Nothing more can be said than that these are human\nways, and that every creature _likes_ its own ways, and takes to the\nfollowing of them as a matter of course.... Not one man in a billion,\nwhen taking his dinner, thinks of utility. He eats because\nthe food tastes good, and makes him want more. If you ask him\n_why_ he should want to eat more of what tastes like that, instead of\nrevering you as a philosopher, he will probably laugh at you for a\nfool.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. II, p. 386.]\n\nThese inborn tendencies to act vary in complexity from the\nwithdrawing of a hand from a hot stove or the jerking of the\nknee when touched in a particular spot to startlingly involved\ntrains of action to be found in the behavior of certain of the\nlower animals. Bergson cites the case of a species of wasp\nwhich with a skill, unconscious though it be, resembling that\nof the expert surgeon, paralyzes a caterpillar without killing\nit, and carries it home for food for its young.[2] There are\nagain many cases of \"insects which invariably lay their eggs\nin the only places where the grubs, when hatched, will find the\nfood they need and can eat, or where the larvae will be able to\nattach themselves as parasites to some host in a way that is\nnecessary to their survival.\"[3] In many instances these complicated\ntrains of action are performed by the animal in a\nsituation absolutely strange to it, without its ever having seen\nthe act performed before, having been born frequently after\nits parents had died, and itself destined to die long before its\ngrubs will have hatched.\n\n[Footnote 2: Bergson: _Creative Evolution_, p. 172.]\n\n[Footnote 3: McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 24. (Except\nwhere otherwise noted, all references are to the fourth edition.)]\n\nTHE NUMBER AND VARIETY OF MAN'S INSTINCTS. Various attempts\nhave been made, notably by such men as James,\nMcDougall, and Thorndike, to enumerate and classify the\ntendencies with which man is at birth endowed, or which,\nlike the sex instinct, make their appearance at a certain stage\nin biological growth, regardless of the particular training to\nwhich the individual has been subjected. Earlier classifications\nwere inclined to speak of instincts as very general and as\nhalf consciously purposeful in character. Thus it is still\npopularly customary to speak of the \"instinct of self-preservation,\"\nthe \"instinct of hunger,\" and the \"parental instinct.\"\nThe tendency of present-day psychology is to note just what\nresponses take place in given specific situations. As a result\nof such observation, particularly by such biologists as Watson\nand Jennings,[1] instincts have come to be regarded not as\ngeneral and purposive but as specific and automatic. Thus it\nis no instinct of self-preservation that drives the child to\nblink its eyes at a blinding flash of light; it is solely and simply\nthe very direct and immediate tendency to blink its eyes in\njust that way whenever such a phenomenon occurs. It is no\ndeliberate intent to inhale the oxygen necessary to the sustenance\nof life that causes us to breathe. No more is it a conscious\nplan to provide the organism with nourishment that\nprompts us to eat our breakfast in the morning; it is simply\nthe immediate and irresistible enticement of food after a\nnight's fast. Not a deliberate motive of maternity prompts\nthe mother to caress and care for her baby, but an inevitable\nand almost invincible tendency to \"cuddle it when it cries,\nsmile when it smiles, fondle it and coo to it in turn.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: Watson: _Behavior_. H. S. Jennings: _Behavior of\nthe Lower Organisms_.]\n\nIn the last few years, as a result of the observation of\nanimals under laboratory conditions, there has been increasing\nevidence of a large number of specific tendencies to act in\nspecific ways, in response to specific given stimuli. As no\nstimuli are ever quite alike, and no animal organism is ever in\nexactly the same physico-chemical condition at two different\ntimes, there are slight but negligible differences in response.\nAllowing for these, animals may be said to be equipped with a\nwide variety of tendencies to do precisely the same things\nunder recurrent identical circumstances. The aim of the\nexperimental psychologist is to discover just what actions\noccur when an animal is placed in any given circumstances,\nprecisely as the chemist notes what reaction occurs when two\nchemicals are combined.\n\nWhile experiments with the human infant are more difficult\nand rare (and while it is among infants alone among humans\nthat original tendencies can be observed free from the\nmodifications to which they are so soon subjected by training and\nenvironment) careful observers find in the human animal also\na great number of these specific ways of acting. Just which of\nthe large number of observed universal modes of behavior are\noriginal and unlearned, is a matter still in controversy among\npsychologists. There is practically complete agreement\namong them, however, with respect to such comparatively\nsimple acts as grasping, reaching, putting things in the mouth,\ncreeping, standing and walking, and the making of sounds\nmore or less articulate. Most psychologists recognize even\nsuch highly complicated tendencies as man's restlessness in\nthe absence of other people, his tendency to attract their\nattention when present, to be at once pitying and pugnacious,\ngreedy and sympathetic, to take and to follow a lead.\n\nIn general, it may be said that man possesses not fewer\ninstincts than animals, but more. His superiority consists in\nthe fact that he has at once more tendencies to respond, and\nthat in him these tendencies are more flexible and more\nsusceptible of modification than those of animals. A chicken has\nat the start the advantage over the human; it can at first do\nmore things and do them better. But it is the human baby\nwho, though it cannot find food for itself at the start, can\neventually be taught to distinguish between the nutritive\nvalues of food, secure food from remote sources, and make\npalatable food from materials which when raw are inedible.\n\nAn inventory and classification of man's original tendencies\nis made more difficult precisely because these are so easily\nmodifiable and are, even in earliest childhood, seldom seen in\ntheir original and simple form.\n\nAt any given time a human being is being acted upon by a\nwide variety of competing and contemporaneous stimuli. In\nwalking down a street with a friend, for example, one may be\nattracted by the array of bright colors, of flowers, jewelry and\nclothing in the shop windows, blink one's eyes in the glare of\nthe sun, feel a satisfaction in the presence of other people and\na loneliness for a particular friend, dodge before a passing\nautomobile, be envious of its occupant, and smile benevolently\nat a passing child. It would be difficult in so complex\nand so characteristically familiar a situation to pick out\ncompletely and precisely the original human tendencies at work,\nand trace out all the modifications to which they have been\nsubjected in the course of individual experience. For even\nsingle responses in the adult are not the same in quality or\nscope as they were to start with. Even the simplest stimuli\nof taste and of sound are different to the adult from what\nthey are to the child. What for the adult is a printed page\nfull of significance is for the baby a blur, or at most chaotic\nblack marks on white paper.\n\nBut while it is difficult to disentangle out of even a simple,\neveryday occurrence the original unlearned human impulses\nat work, experimentation on both humans and animals seems\nclearly to establish that \"in the same organism the same\nsituation will always produce the same response.\" It also seems\nclear that in man these native unlearned responses to given\nstimuli are unusually numerous and unusually controllable.\nUpon the possibility of the ready modification of these original\nelements in man's behavior his whole education and social\nlife depend.\n\nLEARNING IN ANIMALS AND MEN. Men and animals are alike\nnot only in that they have in common a large number of tendencies\nto respond in definite ways to definite stimuli, but that\nthese responses may be modified, some strengthened through\nuse, and others weakened or altogether discarded through\ndisuse. In both also the survival and strengthening of some\nnative tendencies, the weakening and even the complete\nelimination of others, depends primarily upon the satisfaction\nwhich flows from their practice.\n\nIt must be remembered that any situation, while it calls\nforth on the part of the organism a characteristic response,\nmay also call out others, especially if the first response made\nfails to secure satisfaction, or if it places the animal in a\npositively annoying situation. There are certain situations--being\nfed when hungry, resting when weary, etc.--which are\nimmediate and original satisfiers; there are others such as bitter\ntastes, being looked at with scorn by others, etc., which\nare natural annoyers. The first type the animal will try various\nmeans of attaining; the second, various means of avoiding.\nThrough \"trial and error,\" through going through every response\nit can make to a given situation, the animal or human\nhits upon some response which will secure for it satisfaction or\nrid it of a positive annoyance. Once this successful response\nis hit upon, it tends to be retained and becomes habitual in\nthat situation, while other random responses are eliminated.\n\nAs will be pointed out in the following, man has developed\nin the process of reflection a much more effective and subtle\nmode of attaining desirable results, but a large part of human\nacquisition of skill, whether at the typewriter, the piano, the\ntennis court, or in dealing with other people, is still a matter\nof making every random response that the situation provokes\nuntil the appropriate and effective one is hit upon, and making\nthis latter response more immediately upon repeated experiences\nin the same situation. Once this effective response becomes\nhabitual it is just as automatic in character as if it had\nbeen made immediately the first time, and it is almost impossible\nwithout knowledge of the animal's or the human's\nearlier modes of response to detect the difference between an\nacquired response and one that is inborn.\n\nThis process of trial and error is perhaps best illustrated in\nthe behavior of the lower animals where careful experiments\nhave been conducted for the purpose of tracing the process of\nlearning. In the classic cases reported by Thorndike and\nWatson, when chickens, rats, and cats were placed in situations\nwhere the first response failed to bring satisfaction,\ntheir behavior was in each case marked by the following features.\nAt the first trial the animals in every case performed a\nwide variety of acts useless to secure the satisfaction they\nwere instinctively seeking, whether it was food in a box, or\nfreedom from confinement in a cage. Upon repeated trials\nthe act appropriate to securing satisfaction was performed with\nincreasing elimination of useless acts, and consequent decrease\nof the time required to perform the act requisite to secure\nfood, or freedom, or both, as the case might be. One of Thorndike's\nfamous cat experiments is best told in his own report:\n\nIf we take a box twenty by fifteen by twelve inches, replace its\ncover and front side by bars an inch apart, and make in this front\nside a door arranged so as to fall open when a wooden button inside\nis turned from a vertical to a horizontal position, we shall have means\nto observe such [learning by trial and error]. A kitten, three to\nsix months old, if put in this box when hungry, a bit of fish being\nleft outside, reacts as follows: It tries to squeeze through between\nthe bars, claws at the bars, and at loose things in and out of the box,\nstretches its paws out between the bars, and bites at its confining\nwalls. Some one of all these promiscuous clawings, squeezings, and\nbitings turns round the wooden button, and the kitten gains freedom\nand food. By repeating the experience again and again the animal\ngradually comes to omit all the useless clawings, and the like, and to\nmanifest only the particular impulse (_e.g._, to claw hard at the top of\nthe button with the paw or to push against one side of it with the\nnose) which has resulted successfully. It turns the button around\nwithout delay whenever put in the box. It has formed an association\nbetween the situation _confined in a box with a certain appearance_\nand the response of _clawing at a certain part of that box in a certain\ndefinite way_. Popularly speaking, it has learned to open a door by\npressing a button. To the uninitiated observer the behavior of the\nsix kittens that thus freed themselves from such a box would seem\nwonderful and quite unlike their ordinary accomplishments of finding\ntheir way to their food or beds.... A certain situation arouses,\nby virtue of accident or more often instinctive equipment, certain\nresponses. One of these happens to be an act appropriate to secure\nfreedom. It is stamped in in connection with that situation.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _Educational Psychology_, Briefer Course. p. 129.]\n\nPerhaps the most significant factor to be noted in this, and\nin similar cases, is that the successful response to a baffling\nsituation is acquired, and that this acquisition remains a more\nor less permanent possession of the human or animal organism.\nParticularly important for the problem and practice of\neducation is the mechanism by which these learned modes of\nbehavior are acquired. For, to attain skill, knowledge, intellect,\ncharacter, is to attain certain determinate habits of\naction, certain recurrent and stable ways of responding to a\nsituation. The reason why the cat in the box ceased to perform\nthe hundred and one random acts of clawing and biting,\nand after a number of trials got down to the immediately\nnecessary business of turning the button was because it had\nlearned that one thing only, out of the multitude of things it\ncould do, would enable it to get out of the box and get its\nfood. To say that it learned this is not to say that it consciously\nrealized it; it means simply that when placed in such\na situation again after having been placed in it a sufficient\nnumber of times, it will be set off to the turning of the button\nwhich gets it food, instead of biting bars and clawing at\nrandom--actions which merely serve further to frustrate its\nhunger. The animal has not consciously learned, but its nervous\nsystem has been mechanically directed.\n\nA large part of the education of humans as well as of animals\nconsists precisely in the modification of our original\nresponses to situations by a trial-and-error discovery of ways\nof attaining satisfactory and avoiding annoying situations.\nBoth animals and humans, when they have several times performed\na certain act that brings satisfaction, tend, on the recurrence\nof a similar situation, to repeat that action immediately\nand to eliminate with successive repetitions almost all\nthe other responses which are possible, but which are ineffective\nin the attainment of some specific satisfaction. The\nwhole training imposed by civilization on the individual is\nbased ultimately on this fundamental fact that human beings\ncan be taught to modify their behavior, to change their original\nresponse to a situation in the light of the consequences\nthat follow it. This means that while man's nature remains\non the whole constant, its operations may be indefinitely\nvaried by the results which follow the operation of any given\ninstinct. The child has its original tendency to reach toward\nbright objects checked by the experience of putting its hand\nin the flame. Later his tendency to take all the food within\nreach may be checked by the looks of scorn which follow that\nmanifestation of man's original greed, or the punishment and\nprivation which are correlated with it. Through experience\nwith punishment and reward, humans may be taught to do\nprecisely the opposite of what would have been their original\nimpulse in any given situation, just as the monkey reported\nby one experimenter may be taught to go to the top of his\ncage whenever a banana has been placed at the bottom.\n\nTHE PROLONGED PERIOD OF INFANCY. Probably the most\nsignificant and unique fact of human behavior is the period of\n\"prolonged infancy\" which is characteristic of human beings\nalone. Fiske and Butler in particular have stressed the\nimportance of this human trait. In the lower animals the period\nof infancy--that is, the period during which the young are\ndependent upon their parents for food, care, and training--is\nvery short, extending even in the highest form of ape to not\nmore than three months. This would appear, at first blush,\nto be a great advantage possessed by the lower animals.\nThey come into the world equipped with a variety of tendencies\nto act which, within a week, or, as in the case of chickens,\nalmost immediately after birth, are perfectly adapted to\nsecure for them food, shelter, and protection. They are\nmechanisms from the beginning perfectly adjusted to their\nenvironment.\n\nThe human infant, while it is born with a greater number of\ninstinctive activities than other animals, is able to make little\nuse of them just as they stand. For years after birth it is\nhelplessly dependent on others to supply its most elementary\nneeds. It must be fed, carried, and sheltered; it cannot by\nitself even reach for an object, and it cannot for nearly two\nyears after birth specifically communicate its wants to other\npeople. But this comparatively long helplessness of the human\ninfant is perhaps the chief source of human progress.\n\nThe human baby, because it can do so little at the start,\nbecause it has so many tendencies to act and has them all so\nplastic, undeveloped, and modifiable, has to a unique degree\nthe capacity to learn. This means that it can profit by the\nexperience of others and adjust itself to a great variety and\ncomplexity of situations. The chicken or the bird can do a\nlimited number of things perfectly, but it is as if it had a\nnumber of special keys opening special locks. The power of\nmodifying these instinctive adjustments, the capacity of\nlearning, is like being put in possession of a pass-key. As\nProfessor Dewey puts it, \"An original specialized power of\nadjustment secures immediate efficiency, but, like a railway\nticket, it is good for one route only. A being who, in order to\nuse his eyes, ears, hands, and legs, has to experiment in making\nvaried combinations of their reactions, achieves a control\nthat is flexible and varied.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey; _Democracy and Education_, p. 53.]\n\nThe more complex the environment is in which the individual\nmust live, the longer is the period of infancy needed in\nwhich the necessary habits and capacities may be acquired.\nIn the human being the period of infancy extends in a literal\nsense through the first five years of the individual's life. But\nin civilized societies it extends factually much longer. By the\nend of the first five years the child's physical infancy is over.\nIt can take care of itself so far as actually feeding itself, moving\nabout, and communicating with others is concerned. But\nso complex are the habits to which it must become accustomed\nin our civilization that it is dependent for a much\nlonger period. The whole duration of the child's education is\na prolongation of the period of infancy. In most civilized\ncountries, until at least the age of twelve, the child is literally\ndependent on its parents. And with every advance in civilization\nhas come a lengthening in the period of education, or\nlearning.\n\nIntellectually, the period of infancy might be said not\nreally to be over before the age of twenty-five, by which time\nhabits of mind have become fairly well fixed. The brain and\nthe nervous system remain fairly plastic up to that time, and\nif inquiry and learning have themselves become habitual,\nplasticity may last even longer. In the cases of the greatest\nintellects, of a Darwin, or a Newton, one might almost say\nthe period of infancy lasts to old age. To be still learning at\nsixty is to be still a child in the best sense of the word. It is\nstill to be open rather than rigid, still to be profiting by\nexperience.\n\nThe great social advantages of the prolonged period of\ninfancy lie in the fact that there is a unique opportunity both\nfor the acquisition by individuals and for the imposition on\nthe part of society of a large number of habits of great social\nvalue. The human being, born into a world where there are\nmany things to be learned both of natural law and human relations,\nis, as it were, fortunately born ignorant. He has instincts\nwhich are pliable enough to be modified into habits,\nand in consequence socially useful habits can be deliberately\ninculcated in the immature members of a society by their\nelders. The whole process of education is a utilization of\nman's prolonged period of infancy, for the deliberate acquisition\nof habits. This is all the more important since only by\nsuch habit formation during the long period of human infancy\ncan the achievements of civilization be handed down from\ngeneration to generation. Art, science, industrial methods,\nsocial customs, these are not inherited by the individual as\nare the instincts of sex, pugnacity, etc. They are preserved\nonly because they can be taught as habits to those beings who\ncome into the world with a plastic equipment of instincts\nwhich lend themselves for a long time to modification.\n\nCONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF AND REACTION TO IDEAS. A significant\ndifference between the actions of human beings and those of\nanimals is that human beings are conscious of themselves as\nagents. They may be said not only to be the only creatures\nwho know what they are doing, but the only ones who realize\ntheir individuality in doing it. Dogs and cats are not, so far\nas we can draw inferences from extended observation of even\ntheir most complex actions, conscious of themselves. It is\nnot very long, however, before the human animal begins to\nset itself off against the remainder of the universe, to discover\nthat it is something different from the chairs, tables, and\nsurrounding people and faces that at first constitute for it only a\n\"blooming, buzzing confusion.\" A human being performs\nactions with a feeling of awareness; he is conscious of himself.\nThis consciousness of self (see chapters VII and VIII) becomes\nmore acute as the individual grows older. It has consequences\nof the gravest character in social, political, and\neconomic life. It is a large factor at once in such different\nqualities of character as ambition, friendship, humility, and\nself-sacrifice, and is responsible in large measure for whatever\ntruth there is in the familiarly spoken-of conflict\nbetween \"the individual and society.\"\n\nHuman beings are, furthermore, susceptible to a unique\nstimulation to action, namely, ideas. Animals respond to\nthings only, that is, to things in gross:\n\nIt may be questioned whether a dog _sees_ a rainbow any more\nthan he apprehends the political constitution of the country in which\nhe lives. The same principle applies to the kennel in which he sleeps\nand the meat that he eats. When he is sleepy, he goes to the kennel;\nwhen he is hungry, he is excited by the smell and color of meat;\nbeyond this, in what sense does he see an _object?_ Certainly he does not\nsee a house--_i.e._, a thing with all the properties and relations of a\npermanent residence, _unless_ he is capable of making what is present\na uniform sign of what is absent--unless he is capable of thought.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _How We Think_, p. 17.]\n\nHuman beings can respond to objects as _signs_ of other\nthings, and, what is perhaps more important, can abstract\nfrom those gross total objects certain qualities, features, elements,\nwhich are universally associated with certain consequences.\nThey can respond to the meaning or bearing of an\nobject; they can respond to ideas.\n\nTo respond to ideas means to respond to significant similarities\nin objects and also to significant differences. It\nmeans to note certain qualities that objects have in common,\nand to classify these common qualities and their consequences\nin the behavior of objects. To note similarities and differences\nin the behavior of objects is to enable individuals to act\nin the light of the future. The printing on this page would be\nto a dog or to a baby merely a blur. To the reader the black\nimprints are signs or symbols. To the animal a red lantern is\na haze of light; to a locomotive engineer it is a sign to halt.\nTo respond to ideas is thus to act in the light of a future. It\nmakes possible acting in the light of the consequences that\ncan be foreseen. Present objects or features of objects are\nresponded to as signs of future or absent opportunities or\ndangers. Every time we read a letter, or act in response to\nsomething somebody has told us, we are responding not to\nphysical stimuli as such, but to those stimuli as signs of other\nthings.\n\nHUMAN BEINGS ALONE POSSESS LANGUAGE. The value of the\nperiod of infancy in the acquisition of habits and the unique\nability of human beings to respond to ideas is inseparably\nconnected with the fact that man alone possesses a language,\nboth oral and written. That is to say, men alone have an\ninstrument whereby to communicate to each other feelings,\nattitudes, ideas, information. To a very limited degree, of\ncourse, animals have vocal and gesture habits; specific cries of\nhunger, of sex desire, or distress. But they cannot, with their\nlimited number of vocal mechanisms, possibly develop language\nhabits, develop a system of sounds associated with definite\nactions and capable of controlling actions. Only human\nbeings can produce even the simplest system of written symbols,\nby which visual stimuli become symbols of actions, objects,\nemotions, or ideas. Biologists--in particular the experimentalist,\nWatson--find, in the capacity for language,\nman's most important distinction from the brute.\n\nLanguage may be said, in fact, to be the most indispensable\ninstrument of civilization. It is the means whereby the whole\nlife of the past has been handed to us in the present. It is the\nmeans whereby we in turn record, preserve, and transmit our\nscience, our industrial methods, our laws, our customs. If\nhuman relations were possible at all without a language, they\nwould have to begin anew, without any cultural inheritance,\nin each generation. Education, the transmitter of the\nachievements of the mature generation to the one maturing,\nis dependent on this unique human capacity to make seen\nmarks and heard sounds stand for other things. The extent\nto which civilization may advance is contingent upon the\ndevelopment of adequate language habits. And human beings\nhave perfected a language sufficiently complicated to\ncommunicate in precise and permanent form their discoveries of\nthe complex relations between things and between men.\n\nMAN THE ONLY MAKER AND USER OF TOOLS. One of the most\nimportant ways in which man is distinguished from the lower\nanimals is in his manufacture and use of tools. So far as we\nknow the ability to manufacture and understand the use of\ntools is possessed by man alone. \"Monkeys may be taught a\nfew simple operations with tools, such as cracking nuts with\na stone, but usually they merely mimic a man.\"[1] Man's\nuniqueness as the exclusive maker and user of tools is made\npossible by two things. The first is his hand, which with its\nfour fingers and a thumb, as contrasted with the monkey's\nfive fingers, enables him to pick up objects. The second is his\ncapacity for reflection, presently to be discussed, which\nenables him to foresee the consequences of the things he does.\n\n[Footnote 1: Mills: _The Realities of Modern Science_, p. 1.]\n\nThe use of tools of increasing refinement and complexity is\nthe chief method by which man has progressed from the life\nof the cave man to the complicated industrial civilization of\nto-day. Bergson writes in this connection:\n\nAs regards human intelligence, it has not been sufficiently noted\nthat mechanical invention has been from the first its essential\nfeature, that even to-day our social life gravitates around the\nmanufacture and use of artificial instruments, that the inventions which\nstrew the road of progress have also traced its direction. This we\nhardly realize, because it takes us longer to change ourselves than to\nchange our tools. Our individual and even social habits survive a\ngood while the circumstances for which they were made, so that the\nultimate effects of an invention are not observed until its novelty\nis already out of sight. A century has elapsed since the invention of\nthe steam engine, and we are only just beginning to feel the depths\nof the shock it gave us. But the revolution it has effected in industry\nhas nevertheless upset human relations altogether. New ideas\nare arising, new feelings are on the way to flower. In thousands of\nyears, when, seen from the distance, only the broad lines of the\npresent age will still be visible, our wars and our revolutions will count\nfor little, even supposing they are remembered at all; but the steam\nengine and the procession of inventions that accompanied it, will\nperhaps be spoken of as we speak of the bronze or of the chipped\nstone of prehistoric times: it will serve to define an age. If we could\nrid ourselves of all pride, if, to define our species, we kept strictly to\nwhat the historic and the prehistoric periods show us to be the\nconstant characteristic of man and of intelligence, we should not say\n_Homo sapiens_, but _Homo faber_.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bergson: _Creative Evolution_, pp. 138-39.]\n\nMan's intelligence, it has so often been said, enables him to\ncontrol Nature, but his intelligence in the control of natural\nresources is dependent for effectiveness on adequate material\ninstruments. One may subscribe, though with qualification,\nto Bergson's further statement, that \"intelligence, considered\nin what seems to be its original feature, is the faculty of\nmanufacturing artificial objects, especially tools to make\ntools, and of indefinitely varying the manufacture.\"\n\nAnthropologists distinguish the prehistoric epochs, by such\nterms as the Stone, Copper or Bronze, and Iron Ages, meaning\nthereby to indicate what progress man had made in the\nutilization of the natural resources about him. We date the\nremote periods of mankind chiefly by the mementos we have\nof the kinds of tools they used and the methods they had\ndeveloped in the control of their environment. The knowledge\nof how to start and maintain a fire has been set down\nas the practical beginning of civilization. Certainly next in\nimportance was the invention of the simplest tools. There\ncame in succession, though aeons apart, the use of chipped\nstone implements, bronze or copper instruments, and instruments\nmade of iron. In the ancient world we find the invention\nof such simple machines as the pulley, the use of rope,\nand the inclined plane.\n\nWithout tracing the history of invention, it will suffice for\nour purpose to point out that agriculture and industry, men's\nmodes of exploiting Nature, are dependent intimately on the\neffectiveness of the tools at their disposal. It is a far cry\nfrom the flint hatchet to the McCormick reaper and the modern\nsteel works, but these are two ends of the same process,\nthat process which distinguishes man from all other animals,\nand makes human civilization possible: that is, the use and\nthe manufacture of tools.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTYPES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND THEIR SOCIAL\nSIGNIFICANCE--INSTINCT, HABIT, AND EMOTION\n\nINSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOR. We have already noted the fact that\nboth men and animals are equipped with a wide variety of\nunlearned responses to given stimuli. In the case of human\nbeings, this original equipment varies from such a specific\nreaction as pulling away the hand when it is pinched or burned,\nto such general innate tendencies as those of herding or playing\nwith other people. In a later stage of this discussion we\nshall examine the more important of these primary modes of\nbehavior. At this point our chief concern is with certain\ngeneral considerations that apply to them all.\n\nThe equipment of instincts with which a human being is at\nbirth endowed must be considered in two ways. It consists,\nin the first place, of definite and unlearned mechanisms of\nbehavior, fixed original responses to given stimuli. These\nare, at the same time, the original driving forces of action.\nAn instinct is at once an unlearned mechanism for making a\nresponse and an unlearned tendency to make it. That is,\ngiven certain situations, human beings do not simply utilize\ninborn reactions, but exhibit inborn drives or desires to make\nthose reactions. There is thus an identity in man's native\nendowment between what he can do and what he wants to do.\nInstincts must thus be regarded as both native capacities and\nnative desires.\n\nInstincts define, therefore, not only what men can do, but\nwhat they want to do. They are at once the primary instruments\nand the primary provocatives to action. As we shall\npresently see in some detail, human beings may acquire\nmechanisms of behavior with which they are not at birth\nendowed. These acquired mechanisms of response are called\nhabits. And with the acquisition of new responses, new motives\nor tendencies to action are established. Having learned\nhow to do a certain thing, individuals at the same time learn\nto want to do it. But just as all acquired mechanisms of\nbehavior are modifications of some original instinctive\nresponse, so all desires, interests, and ideals are derivatives of\nsuch original impulses as fear, curiosity, self-assertion, and\nsex. All human motives can be traced back to these primary\ninborn impulses to make these primary inborn responses.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1:\nThe clearest statement of the status of instincts as both mechanisms of\naction and \"drives\" to action has been made by Professor Woodworth in his\n_Dynamic Psychology_. No one else, to the best of the author's knowledge,\nhas made the distinction with the same clarity and emphasis, though it has\nbeen suggested in the work of Thorndike and McDougall. In McDougall's\ndefinition of an instinct he recognizes both the responsive self and the\ntendency to make the response. An instinct is, for him, an inherited\ndisposition which determines its possessor, in respect to any object,\n\"to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or at least to\nexperience an impulse to such action.\"]\n\nTHE NECESSITY FOR THE CONTROL OF INSTINCT. The human\nbeing's original equipment of impulses and needs constitutes\nat once an opportunity and a problem. Instincts are the\nnatural resources of human behavior, the raw materials of\naction, feeling, and thought. All behavior, whether it be the\n\"making of mud pies or of metaphysical systems,\" is an\nexpression, however complicated and indirect, of some of the\nelements of the native endowments of human beings.\nInstinctive tendencies are, as we have seen, the primary motives\nand the indispensable instruments of action. Without them\nthere could be no such thing as human purpose or preference;\nwithout their utilization in some form no human purpose\nor preference could be fulfilled. But like other natural\nresources, men's original tendencies must be controlled and\nredirected, if they are to be fruitfully utilized in the interests\nof human welfare.\n\nThere are a number of conditions that make imperative the\ncontrol of native tendencies. The first of these is intrinsic\nto the organization of instincts themselves. Human beings\nare born with a plurality of desires, and happiness consists in\nan equilibrium of satisfactions. But impulses are stimulated\nat random and collide with one another. Often one impulse,\nbe it that of curiosity or pugnacity or sex, can be indulged\nonly at the expense or frustration of many others just as natural,\nnormal, and inevitable. There is a certain school of\nphilosophical radicals who call us back to Nature, to a life of\nunconsidered impulse. They paint the rapturous and passionate\nmoments in which strong human impulses receive\nsatisfaction without exhibiting the disease and disorganization\nof which these indulgences are so often the direct antecedents.\nA life is a long-time enterprise and it contains a diversity\nof desires. If all of these are to receive any measure of\nfulfillment there must be compromise and adjustment between\nthem; they must all be subjected to some measure of control.\n\nA second cause for the control of instinct lies in the fact that\npeople live and have to live together. The close association\nwhich is so characteristic of human life is, as we shall see,\npartly attributable to a specific gregarious instinct, partly to\nthe increasing need for cooeperation which marks the increasing\ncomplexity of civilization. But whatever be its causes,\ngroup association makes it necessary that men regulate their\nimpulses and actions with reference to one another. Endowed\nas human beings are with more or less identical sets of\noriginal native desires, the desires of one cannot be freely\nfulfilled without frequently coming into conflict with the\nsimilar desires of others. Compromise and adjustment must be\nbrought about by some intelligent modification both of action\nand desire. The child's curiosity, the acquisitiveness or sex\ndesire or self-assertiveness of the adult must be checked and\nmodified in the interests of the group among which the individual\nlives. One may take a simple illustration from the\neveryday life of a large city. There is, for most individuals,\nan intrinsic satisfaction in fast and free movement. But that\ndesire, exhibited in an automobile on a crowded thoroughfare,\nwill interfere with just as normal, natural, and inevitable\ndesires on the part of other motorists and pedestrians.\n\nStill another imperative reason for the control of our instinctive\nequipment lies in the fact that instincts as such are inadequate\nto adjust either the individual or the group to contemporary\nconditions. They were developed in the process\nof evolution as useful methods for enabling the human animal\nto cope with a radically different and incomparably simpler\nenvironment. While the problems and processes of his life\nand environment have grown more complex, man's inborn\nequipment for controlling the world he lives in has, through\nthe long history of civilization, remained practically\nunchanged. But as his equipment of mechanisms for reacting\nto situations is the same as that of his prehistoric ancestors,\nso are his basic desires. And the satisfaction of man's primary\nimpulses is less and less attainable through the simple,\nunmodified operation of the mechanisms of response with\nwhich they are associated. In the satisfaction of the desire\nfor food, for example, which remains the same as it was under\nprimitive forest conditions, much more complex trains of\nbehavior are required than are provided by man's native\nequipment. To satisfy the hunger of the contemporary citizens\nof New York or London requires the transformation of\ncapricious instinctive responses into systematic and controlled\nprocesses of habit and thought. The elaborate systems of\nagriculture, transportation, and exchange which are necessary\nin the satisfaction of the simplest wants of men in civilization\ncould never be initiated or carried on if we depended on the\ninstincts with which we are born.\n\nThere are thus seen to be at least three distinct reasons why\nour native endowment of capacities and desires needs control\nand direction. In the life of the individual, instinctive\ndesires must be adjusted to one another in order that their\nharmonious fulfillment may be made possible. The desires and\nnative reactions of individuals must be checked and modified\nif individuals are to live successfully and amiably in group\nassociation, in which they must, in any case, live. And, finally,\nso vastly complicated have become the physical and the\nsocial machinery of civilized life that it is literally impossible\nto depend on instincts to adjust us to an environment far different\nfrom that to which they were in the process of evolution\nadapted. In the light of these conditions men have found\nthat if they are to live happily and fruitfully together, certain\noriginal tendencies must be stimulated and developed, others\nweakened, redirected, and modified, and still others, within\nlimits possibly, altogether repressed. Individuals display at\nonce curiosity and fear, pity and pugnacity, acquisitiveness\nand sympathy. Some of these it has been found useful to\nallow free play; others, even if moderately indulged, may\nbring injury to the individual and the group in which his own\nlife is involved. Education, public opinion, and law are\nmore or less deliberate methods society has provided for the\nstimulation and repression of specific instinctive tendencies.\nCuriosity and sympathy are valued and encouraged because\nthey contribute, respectively, to science and to cooeperation;\npugnacity and acquisitiveness must be kept in check if people\nare not simply to live, but to live together happily.\n\nBut the substitution of control for caprice in the living-out\nof our native possibilities is as difficult as it is imperative. As\nalready noted, instincts are imperious driving forces as well\nas mechanisms. While we can modify and redirect our native\ntendencies of fear, curiosity, pugnacity, and the like, they\nremain as strong currents of human behavior. They can be\nturned into new channels; they cannot simply be blocked.\nIndeed, in some cases, it is clearly the social environment that\nneeds to be modified rather than human behavior. Though\nit be juvenile delinquency for a boy to play baseball on a\ncrowded street, it is not because there is intrinsically anything\nunwholesome or harmful in play. What is clearly demanded\nis not a crushing of the play instinct, but better facilities\nfor its expression. A boy's native sociability and gift for\nleadership may make him, for want of a better opportunity, a\ngangster. But to cut off those impulses altogether would be\nto cut off the sources of good citizenship. The settlement\nclubs or the Boy Scout organizations in our large cities are\ninstances of what may be accomplished in the way of providing\na social environment in which native desires can be freely and\nfruitfully fulfilled.\n\nSocial conditions can thus be modified so as to give satisfaction\nto a larger proportion of natural desires. On the other\nhand, civilization in the twentieth century remains so divergent\nfrom the mode of life to which man's inborn nature\nadapts him that the thwarting of instincts becomes inevitable.\nImpulses, in the first place, arise capriciously, and one\nof the conditions of our highly organized life is regularity and\ncanalization of action. Our businesses and professions cannot\nbe conducted on the spontaneous promptings of instinct.\nThe engineer, the factory worker, the business man, cannot\nallow themselves to follow out whatever casual desire occurs\nto them whenever it occurs. Stability and regularity of procedure,\ndemanded in most professions, are incompatible with\nrandom impulsive behavior. To facilitate the effectiveness\nof certain industries, for example, it may be necessary to\ncheck impulses that commonly receive adequate satisfaction.\nThus it may be essential to enforce silence, as in the case of\ntelephone operators or motormen, simply because of the demands\nof the industry, not because there is anything intrinsically\ndeserving of repression in the impulse to talk.\n\nAgain, the mere fact that a man lives in a group subjects\nhim to a thousand restraints and restrictions of public opinion\nand law. A child may come to restrain his curiosity when he\nfinds it condemned as inquisitiveness. We cannot, when we\nwill, vent our pugnacity on those who have provoked it; we\ncannot be ruthlessly self-assertive in a group; or gratify our\nnative acquisitiveness by appropriating anything and everything\nwithin our reach.\n\nBut because there are all these social forces making for the\nrepression of instincts, it does not mean that these latter\ntherefore disappear. If any one of them is unduly repressed,\nit does not simply vanish as a driving force in human behavior.\nIt will make its enduring presence felt in roundabout\nways, or in sudden extreme and violent outbursts. Or, if it\ncannot find even such sporadic or fruitive fulfillments, \"a\nbalked disposition\" will leave the individual with an uneasiness\nand irritation that may range from mere pique to serious\nforms of morbidity and hysteria. A man may for eight or ten\nhours be kept repeating the same operation at a machine in a\nfactory. He may thereby repress those native desires for\ncompanionship and for variety of reaction which constitute\nhis biological inheritance. But too often postponed satisfaction\ntakes the violent form of lurid, over-exciting amusements\nand dissipation. The suppression of the sex instinct\nnot infrequently results in a morbid pruriency in matters of\nsex, a distortion of all other interests and activities by a\npreoccupation with the frustrated sex motive. Assaults and\nlynchings, and the whole calendar of crimes of violence with\nwhich our criminal courts are crowded, are frequent evidence\nof the incompleteness with which man's strong primary instincts\nhave been suppressed by the niceties of civilization.\nThe phenomenal outburst of collective vivacity and exuberance\nwhich marked the reported signing of the armistice at\nthe close of the Great War was a striking instance of those\nimmense primitive energies which the control and discipline\nof civilization cannot altogether repress.\n\nThere has been, furthermore, a great deal of evidence adduced\nin recent years by students of abnormal psychology\nconcerning the results of the frustration of native desires.\nWhen the individual is \"balked\" in respect to particular\nimpulses or desires, these may take furtive and obscure\nfulfillments; they may play serious though obscure and unnoticed\nhavoc with a man's whole mental life. Unfulfilled desires\nmay give rise to various forms of \"complex,\" distortions of\nthought, action, and emotion of which the individual himself\nmay be unaware. They may make a man unduly sensitive,\nor fearful, or pugnacious. He may, for example, cover up a\nsense of mortification at failure by an unwarranted degree of\nbluster and brag. A particular baffling of desire may be\ncompensated by a bitterness against the whole universe or by\na melancholy of whose origin the victim may be quite unconscious.\nThese maladjustments between an individual's desires\nand his satisfactions are certainly responsible for a\nconsiderable degree of that irritation and neurasthenia which are\nso frequently observable in normal individuals.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: While the evidence in this field has been taken\nlargely from extremely pathological cases, the distortions and\nperversions of mental behavior, noticeable in such cases, are\nsimply extreme forms of the type of distortion that takes place\nin the case of normal individuals whose desires are seriously\nfrustrated. See the very clear statement on the subject of\n\"repressions\" and \"conflicts\" in R. B. Hart's _Psychology of\nInsanity_.]\n\nThe facts enumerated above should make it clear why it is\ndifficult to modify, much less completely to overcome, these\nstrong original drives to action. They serve to emphasize\nthe fact that by control of instinctive responses is not meant\ntheir suppression. For just as instinctive tendencies are our\nbasic instruments of action, so instinctive desires are our\nbasic ingredients of happiness. Just as all we can do is\nlimited by the mechanisms with which we are endowed, so what\nwe want is ultimately determined by the native desires with\nwhich we are born. The control of action and of desire is\njustified in so far as such control will the more surely promote\na harmonious satisfaction of all our desires. A society whose\narrangements are such that instincts are, on the whole, being\nrepressed rather than stimulated and satisfied, is frustrating\nhappiness rather than promoting it. At the very least, a life\nwhose natural impulses are not being fulfilled is a life of\nboredom. The ennui which is so often and so conspicuously associated\nwith the routine and desolate \"gayeties\" of society,\nthe listlessness of those bored with their work or their play, or\nboth, are symptoms of social conditions where the native\nendowments of man are handicaps rather than assets, dead\nweights rather than motive forces. It means that society is\nworking against rather than with the grain. Discontent,\nranging from mere pique and irritability to overt violence, is\nthe penalty that is likely to be paid by a society the majority\nof whose members are chronically prevented from satisfying\ntheir normal human desires. No one who has seen whole\nlives immeasurably brightened by the satisfaction of a suitable\nemployment, or melancholy and irritability removed by\ncompanionship and stimulating surroundings, can fail to\nrealize how important it is to happiness that human instincts\nbe given generous opportunity for fulfillment.\n\nOne may say, indeed, that the evils of too complete repression\nof individual impulses are more than that they produce\nnervous strain, dissatisfaction, and, not infrequently, crime.\nHappiness, as Aristotle long ago pointed out, is a complete\nliving-out of all a man's possibilities. It is most in evidence\nwhen people are, as we say, doing what they like to do. And\npeople like to do that which they are prompted to do by the\nnature which is their inheritance. Freshness, originality, and\nspontaneity are perhaps particularly valued in our own\ncivilization because of the multiple restraints of business and\nprofessional occupations. Even under the most perfect social\narrangements there will always exist among men conflicts of\ndesire. Their control over their environment will, of necessity,\nbe imperfect, as will their mastery of their own passions\nand their clear adjustment to one another. That complete\nagreement between man's desires and the environment in\nwhich alone they can find their satisfaction remains at\nbest an ideal. But it is an ideal which indicates clearly the function\nof control. This is obviously not to crush native desires, but\nto organize their harmonious fulfillment. Where men have\nan opportunity to utilize their native gifts they will be satisfied\nand interested; where native capacities and desires are\ncontinually balked, men will be discontented though\nwell-regimented machines.\n\nHABITUAL BEHAVIOR. Except for purposes of analysis, life on\nthe purely instinctive level may be said scarcely to exist in\ncontemporary society, or for that matter, since the beginnings\nof recorded history. As has been already pointed out,\nwhile men are born with an even wider variety of tendencies\nto act than animals, these are much more plastic and modifiable,\nmore susceptible of training, and much more in need of it\nthan those of the sub-human forms. Even among animals\nunder conditions of domestication, instinct tends largely to be\nreplaced by habitual or acquired modes of behavior. The\nhuman being, born with a nervous system and a brain in extremely\nunformed and plastic condition, is so susceptible to\nevery influence current in his environment that most of his\nactions within a few years after birth are, when they are not\nthe result of deliberate reflection, secondary or habitual rather\nthan genuinely instinctive. That is, few of the simplest actions\nof human beings are not in some degree modified by experience.\nThey may appear just as automatic and immediate\nas if they were instinctive, and indeed they are, but they are\nlearned ways rather than the unlearned ways man has as his\npossession at birth.\n\nTHE MECHANISM OF HABIT. The implications of habitual behavior\ncan better be understood after a brief analysis of the\nmechanism of such action. An instinct has been defined as a\ntendency to act in a given way in response to a given stimulus.\nWhat happens when a stimulus prompts the organism\nto respond in a given way, is that some sensory nerve, whether\nof taste or touch or sound, sight, smell, or muscular sensitivity,\nreceives a stimulus which passes through the spinal cord\nto a motor nerve through which some muscle is \"innervated\"\nand a response made. In the simplest type of reflex action,\nsuch as the winking of an eye in a blinding light, or the\nwithdrawing of a hand from flame, such is the physiology of the\nprocess. But where an immediate adjustment cannot be\nmade by an instinctive response, where satisfaction is not\nsecured by the passage of a sensory stimulus to an immediate\nmotor response, the nervous impulse is, as it were, deflected\nto the brain area, auditory, visual, or whatever it may be,\nwhich is associated with that particular type of sensation.\nThe path to the brain area is far from simple; the nervous impulse,\nwhich might be compared to an electric current, must\npass through many nerve junctions known as \"synapses,\" at\nwhich points there is some not completely understood chemical\nresistance offered to the passage of the nerve current. On\npassing through the network of nerves in the brain area, the\ncurrent passes back again through a complicated maze of connections\nto a motor nerve which insures a muscular response.\nThe first time a stimulus passes through this network the\nresistance offered at the nerve junction or synapse is very high;\nat succeeding repetitions of the stimulus the resistance is\nreduced, the nerve current passes more rapidly and fluently\nover the paths it has already traveled, and the action resulting\nbecomes as direct and automatic as if it were an original\nreflex action.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: See McDougall: _Physiological Psychology_.]\n\nTHE ACQUISITION OF NEW MODES OF RESPONSE. Expressed in\nless technical language this means simply that human beings\ncan learn by experience, and that they tend to repeat actions\nthey have once learned. Where an animal is perfectly adjusted\nto its environment, all stimuli issue in immediate and\nnicely adjusted responses. This happens only where the\nenvironment is very simple and stable, and where in\nconsequence no complexity of structure or action is necessary. In\nthe clam and the oyster, and in some of the lower vertebrates,\nperhaps, instinctive activity is almost exclusively\npresent. But in the case of man, so complicated are the\nsituations to which he is exposed that random instinctive\nresponses will not solve his problems. He must, as with his\nhighly modifiable nervous system he can, acquire new modes\nof response which will, in the complexity of new situations\nserve as effectively as his original tendencies to act would\nserve him in a simpler and stabler environment. A human\nbeing in a modern city cannot live by instinct alone; he must\nacquire an enormous number of habits to meet the variety of\ncomplex situations he meets in daily life. A monkey exists\nwith fairly fixed native tendencies to act. But civilization\ncould never have developed if in man new ways could not be\nacquired to meet new situations, and if these new ways could\nnot be retained and made habitual in the individual and the\nrace.\n\nTRIAL AND ERROR AND DELIBERATE LEARNING. Whenever, as\nhappens a large number of times daily in the life of the average\nman, old ways of response, inborn or formerly acquired,\nare inadequate to meet a new situation, there are two methods\nof acquiring a new and more adequate response. One is the\nmethod of trial and error, already discussed, whereby animals\nand humans try every possible instinctive response to a\nsituation until one brings satisfaction and is retained as a habitual\nreaction when that situation recurs. The other is a delay in\nresponse, during which delay reflection, a consideration of\npossible alternatives, and a conscious decision, take place.\nThe technique of this latter process will be discussed more\nspecifically in the next chapter.\n\nWhether acquired by trial and error, or through reflection,\nlearned acts are, the first time they are performed, frequently\nimperfect, only partly effective, and performed with some\ndifficulty. With successive repetitions their performance\nbecomes more rapid, more immediate, and more adjusted to\nthe specific situation to be met. And as they become more\nfamiliar responses to familiar stimuli they cease to be\nconscious at all. They are performed with almost as little\ndifficulty or attention as normal breathing.\n\nSOME CONDITIONS OF HABIT-FORMATION. The acquisition of\nhabits is so important in the education of human beings that\nthe conditions under which they can be acquired and made\npermanently effective have been closely studied. From\nexperiments certain fundamental conclusions stand out. A\nhabit is acquired by repetition, and the \"curves of learning\"\nshow certain recurrent features. In the first few repetitions\nof an acquired activity, there is progress in the rapidity,\neffectiveness, and accuracy with which the response is made.\nThere is, up to a certain point, an almost vertical rise in the\nlearning curve. After varying numbers of repetitions, depending\nsomewhat on the particular individual, there occur\nwhat are known as \"plateaux,\" during which no progress in\nspeed or accuracy of response is to be observed. In experiments\nwith the learning of typewriting, for example, it has\nbeen found that the beginner makes rapid progress up to the\npoint, say, where he can write fifty words a minute without\nerror; there is a long interval not infrequently before he can\nraise his efficiency to the point of writing seventy words a\nminute correctly. Analogous conditions have been observed\nin the speed with which the sending and receiving of telegraphic\nmessages is learned. These \"plateaux\" of learning\nare sometimes to be accounted for by muscular fatigue.\nFrequently there is actual progress in learning during these\napparent intervals of marking time. Some of the less observable\nfeatures of skill in performance which only later become\novert in speed and accuracy are being attained during these\nseemingly profitless and discouraging intervals. Not infrequently\nin the acquisition of skill in the playing of tennis or\nthe piano, or in the solution of mathematical problems, a\ndecided gain in skill and speed comes after what seems to\nbe not only lack of progress but decided backsliding.[1] It is\nthis which led William James to quote with approval the\naphorism that one learns to skate in summer and swim in\nwinter.\n\nDRILL _VERSUS_ ATTENTIVE REPETITION IN LEARNING. The rapidity\nwith which habits may be acquired and the permanency with\nwhich they may be retained depend on other factors than\nsimply that of repetition. Mere mechanical drill is effective\nin the acquisition of simple mechanical habits. The most\nattentive appreciation of the proper things to be done in playing\ntennis or the piano will not by itself make one an expert in\nthose activities. The effective responses must actually be\nperformed in order that the appropriate connections within\nthe nervous system may be made, and may become habitual.\nA habit is physiologically nothing but a certain set or direction\ngiven to paths in the nervous system. These paths become\nfixed, embedded, and ingrained only when nerve currents\npass over them time and time again.\n\n[Footnote 1: See Ladd and Woodworth: _Physiological Psychology_, pp. 542-92.]\n\nMere repetition, on the other hand, will not suffice in the\nacquisition of complex habits of action. The learning of\nthese requires a deliberate noting and appreciation of the\nsignificant factors in the performance of an activity, and the\nconsciously chosen repetition of these in succeeding instances\nuntil the habit is well fixed. One reason why animals cannot\nbe taught so wide a variety of complex habits as can the human\nbeing is that they cannot keep their attention fixed on\nsuccessive repetitions, and that in learning they literally do\nnot know what they are doing. They cannot, as can humans,\nbreak up the activity which they are in process of learning\ninto its significant factors, and attend to these in successive\nrepetitions. The superiority of deliberate learning over the\nbrute method of trial and error consists precisely in that the\ndeliberate and attentive learner can pick out the important\nsteps of any process, and learn rapidly to eliminate random\nand useless features of his early performances without waiting\nto have the right way \"knocked into him\" by experience.\nHe will short-circuit the process of learning by choosing\nappropriate responses in advance, noting how they may be\nmade more effective and discovering methods for making\nthem so, and for eliminating useless, random, and ineffective\nacts. What we call the \"capacity to learn\" is evident in\nmarked degree where there is alert attention to the steps of\nthe process in successive repetitions. The truth in the assertion\nthat an intelligent man will shortly outclass the merely\nautomatically skillful in any occupation or profession requiring\ntraining, lies not in any mysterious faculty, but in the\npeculiarly valuable habit of attending with discriminating\ninterest to any process, and learning it thereby with vastly more\neconomical rapidity. Genius may be more than what one\nwriter described it, \"a painstaking attention to detail\"; but a\npainstaking attention to the meaning and bearing of details it\nmost decidedly is.\n\nLEARNING AFFECTED BY AGE, FATIGUE, AND HEALTH. There are\ncertain conditions not altogether within the control of the\nindividual which affect the rapidity with which habits are\nacquired. One of the most important of these is fatigue.\nConnections among the fibers that go to make up the nervous\nsystem cannot be made with ease and rapidity when the\norganism is fatigued. At such times there seems to be an\nunusually high resistance at the synapses or nerve junctions\n(where there is a lowering of resistance to the passage of a\nnerve current when habits are easily formed). After a certain\npoint of fatigue, whether in the acquisition of motor habits\nor the memorizing of information, in which the process is\nmuch the same, the rate of learning is much slower and the\ndegree of accuracy much less. The length of time through\nwhich habits are retained when acquired during a state of\nfatigue is also much less than under a more healthy and\nresilient condition of the organism.\n\nThe point of fatigue varies among different individuals and\nin consequence the conditions of habit-formation vary. But\nsome conditions remain constant. For instance, in experiments\nwith memory tests (memory being a form of habit in\nthe nervous system), material memorized in the morning\nseems to be most rapidly acquired and most permanently\nretained.\n\nThe age and health of the individual also are important\nfactors in the capacity to learn, or habit-formation.\nConditions during disease are similar to those obtaining during\nfatigue, only to a more acute degree. The toxins and poisons\nin the nervous system at such times operate to prevent the\nformation of new habits and the breaking of old ones. For\nwhile the synapses (nerve junctions) may offer high resistance\nto the passage of a new stimulus, they will lend themselves\nmore and more readily to the passage of stimuli by which\nthey have already been traversed.\n\nThat the age of the individual should make a vast difference\nin the capacity to acquire new habits and to modify old ones\nis obvious from the physiology of habit already described.\nWhen the brain and nervous system are both young, there are\nfew neural connections established, and the organism is plastic\nto all stimuli. As the individual grows older, connections\nonce made tend to be repeated and to be, as it were,\nunconsciously preferred by the nervous system. The capacity to\nform habits is most pronounced in the young child in whose\nnervous structure no one action rather than another has yet\nhad a chance to be ingrained. The more connections that are\nmade, the more habits that are acquired, the less, in a sense,\ncan be made. For the organism will tend to repeat those\nactions to which it has previously been stimulated, and the\nmore frequently it repeats them the more frequently it will\ntend to. So that, as William James pointed out, by twenty-five\nwe are almost literally bundles of habits. When the\nmajority of acts of life have become routine and fixed, it is\nalmost impossible to acquire new ways of acting, since the\nacquisition of new habits seriously interferes with the old, and\nold habits physiologically stay put.\n\nHABIT AS A TIME-SAVER. This fact, that habits can be\nacquired most easily early in life, and that those early acquired\nbecome so fixed that they are almost inescapable, is of supreme\nimportance to the individual and society. It is in one\nsense a great advantage; it is an enormous saver of time. In\nthe famous words of James:[1]\n\nThe great thing, then, in all education, is to _make our nervous system\nour ally instead of our enemy_. It is to fund and capitalize our\nacquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. _For this\nwe must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many\nuseful actions as we can_, and guard against the growing into ways\nthat are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we would guard\nagainst the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can\nhand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our\nhigher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.\nThere is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing\nis habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar,\nthe drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every\nday, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express\nvolitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the\ndeciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in\nhim as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there\nbe such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my readers, let\nhim begin this very hour to set the matter right.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. I, p. 122.]\n\nThe ideal of efficiency is the ideal of having the effective\nthing habitually done with as little effort and difficulty as\npossible. This in the case of human beings is, as James points\nout, attained when good habits are early acquired and when\nas large a proportion as possible of purely routine activity is\nmade effortless and below the level of consciousness. To do\nas many things as possible without thinking is to free thinking\nfor new situations. Our experiences would be very restricted\nindeed if we could not reduce a large portion of the things we\ndo to the mechanics of habit. Walking, eating, these, though\npartly instinctive, were once problems requiring thought,\neffort, and attention. If we had to spend all our lives learning\nto dress and undress, to find our way about our own house\nor city, to spell and to pronounce correctly, it is clear how\nlittle variety and diversity we should ever attain in our lives.\nBy the time we are twenty these fundamental habits are so\nfirmly fixed in us that, for better or for worse, they are ours\nfor life, and we are free to give our attention to other things.\nAgain in the words of James:\n\nWe all of us have a definite routine manner of performing certain\ndaily offices connected with the toilet, with the opening and shutting\nof familiar cupboards, and the like. Our lower centers know the\norder of these movements, and show their knowledge by their \"surprise\"\nif the objects are altered so as to oblige the movement to be\nmade in a different way. But our higher thought centers know\nhardly anything about the matter. Few men can tell off-hand\nwhich sock, shoe, or trousers-leg they put on first. They must first\nmentally rehearse the act; and even that is often insufficient--the\nact must be _performed_. So of the questions, Which valve of my\ndouble door opens first? Which way does my door swing? etc. I\ncannot _tell_ the answer; yet my _hand_ never makes a mistake. No\none can _describe_ the order in which he brushes his hair or teeth; yet\nit is likely that the order is a pretty fixed one in all of us.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _loc. cit._, vol. I, p. 115.]\n\nHABIT AS A STABILIZER OF ACTION. Habit not only thus saves\ntime, but stabilizes action, and where the habits acquired are\neffective ones, this is invaluable. Habits of prompt performance\nof certain daily duties on the part of the individual are a\ndistinct benefit both to him and to others, as certain customary\nefficient office practices, when they are really habitual,\nimmensely facilitate the operation of a business. On a larger\nscale habit is \"society's most precious conservative agent.\"\nIndividuals not only develop personal habits of dress, speech,\netc., but become habituated to social institutions, to certain\noccupations, to the prestige attaching to some types of action\nand the punishment correlated with others. Education in\nthe broadest sense is simply the acquisition of those habits\nwhich adapt an individual to his social environment. It is\nthe instrument society uses to hand down the habits of thinking,\nfeeling, and action which characterize a civilization. Society\nis protected from murder, theft, and pillage by law and\nthe police, but it is even better protected by the fact that living\ntogether peacefully and cooeperatively is for most adults\nhabitual. In a positive sense the multifarious occupations\nand professions of a great modern city are carried on from\nday to day in all their accustomed detail, not because the\nlawyers, the business men, the teachers, who practice them\ncontinuously reason them out, nor from continuous instinctive\npromptings. They are striking testimony to the influence\nof habit. As a recent English writer puts it:\n\nThe population of London would be starved in a week if the flywheel\nof habit were removed, if no signalman or clerk or policeman\never did anything which was not suggested by a first-hand impulse,\nor if no one were more honest or punctual or industrious than he was\nled to be by his conscious love, on that particular day, for his master\nor for his work, or by his religion, or by a conviction of danger from\nthe criminal law.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Graham Wallas: _Great Society_, p. 74.]\n\nFrom etiquette and social distinction, from formalities of\nconversation and correspondence, of greeting and farewell, of\ncondolence and congratulation to the most important \"customs\nof the country,\" with respect to marriage, property, and\nthe like, ways of acting are maintained by the mechanism of\nhabit rather than by arbitrary law or equally arbitrary\ninstinctive caprice.\n\nDISSERVICEABLE HABITS IN THE INDIVIDUAL. Habitual behavior\nwhich can become so completely controlling in the lives of so\nmany people is not without its dangers. The nervous system\nis originally neutral, and can be involved on the side either of\ngood or evil. A human born with a plastic brain and nervous\nsystem must acquire habits, but that he will acquire good habits\n(that is, habits serviceable to his own happiness and to\nthat of his fellows) is not guaranteed by nature. Habits are\nindeed more notorious than famous, and examples are more\nfrequently chosen from evil ones than from good. Promptness\nin the performance of one's professional or domestic duties,\ncare in speech, in dress and in demeanor, are, once they\nare acquired, permanent assets. But if these fail to be\ndeveloped, dishonesty or superficiality, slovenliness in dress and\nspeech, and surliness in manner, may and do become equally\nhabitual. The significance of this has been eloquently stated\nat the close of James's famous discussion:\n\nThe hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no\nworse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually\nfashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but\nrealize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits,\nthey would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.\nWe are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.\nEvery smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little\nscar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses\nhimself for every fresh dereliction by saying, \"I won't count this\ntime!\" Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not\ncount it, but it is being counted none the less. Down among his\nnerve cells and fibres, the molecules are counting it, registering and\nstoring it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.\nNothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _loc. cit._, vol. I, p. 127.]\n\nSOCIAL INERTIA. If the acquisition of bad, that is, disserviceable\nhabits, is disastrous to the individual, it is in some respects\neven worse in the group. The inertia of the nervous\nsystem, the tendency to go on repeating connections that\nhave once been made is one of the strongest obstacles to\nchange, however desirable. It is not only that habits of\naction have been established, but that with them go deep-seated\nhabits of thought and feeling. The repression of people's\naccustomed ways of doing things may bring with it a sense of\nfrustration almost as complete and painful as if these\nobstructed activities were instinctive. This is not true merely\nin the melodramatic instances of drug addicts and drunkards.\nIt is true in the case of social habits which have become\nestablished in a large group. Any Utopian that dreams of revolutionizing\nsociety overnight fails to take into account the\nenormous control of habits over groups which have acquired\nthem, and the powerful emotions, amounting sometimes to\npassion, which are aroused by their frustration.\n\nTHE IMPORTANCE OF THE LEARNING HABIT. That habit is at\nonce the conserver and the petrifier of society has long been\nrecognized by social philosophers. There is one habit, however,\nthe acquisition of which is itself a preventive of the\ncomplete domination of the individual or the group by hard and\nfast routine. This is the habit of learning, which is necessary\nto the acquisition of any habits at all. Man in learning new\nhabits, \"learns to learn.\" This ability to learn is, of course,\ncorrelated with a plasticity of brain and nerve fiber which is\nmost present in early youth. The disappearance of this\ncapacity is hastened by the pressure which forces individuals in\ntheir business and professional life to cling fast to certain\nhabits which are prized and rewarded by the group. A sedulous\ncultivation on the part of the individual of the habit of\nopen-minded inquiry, of the habit of learning, and the\nencouragement of this tendency by the group are the only antidotes\nthat can be provided against this marked physiological\ntendency to fossilization and the frequent social tendencies in\nthe same direction.\n\nWhether habits shall master us, or whether we shall be\ntheir masters, depends also on the method by which they\nwere acquired. If they were learned merely through mechanical\ndrill, they will be fixed and rigid. If they were learned\ndeliberately to meet new situations, they will not be retained\nwhen the conditions they were acquired to meet are utterly\nchanged.\n\nTHE SPECIFICITY OF HABITS. One important consideration,\nfinally, that must be brought to consideration is that habits\nare, like instincts, specific. They are not general \"open sesames\"\nwhich, learned in one situation, will apply with indiscriminate\nmiraculousness to a variety of others. Just as an\ninstinct is a definite response to a definite stimulus, so is a\nhabit. The chief and almost only observable difference is\nthat the former is unlearned, while the latter is learned or\nacquired.\n\nBut while habits are specific, they are within limits transferable.\nSuch is the case when a situation which calls out a\ncertain habitual response is paralleled in significant points by\nanother. Thus the situation,\none's-room-at-home-cluttered-up-with-a-miscellany-of-books-papers-tennis-apparatus-and-clothing,\nhas sufficiently similar significant points to the situation,\none's-office-littered-with-documents-old-letters-manuscripts-blueprints-and-proofs,\nto call forth, if the habit has\nbeen established in one case, the identical response of \"tidying\nup\" in the other. But unless there are marked points of\nsimilarity between two different sets of circumstances, specific\nhabits remain specific and non-transferable. There is in the\nlaws of habit no guarantee that an industrious application to\nthe batting averages of the major league on the part of an\nalert twelve-year-old will provoke the same assiduous assimilation\nof the facts of the American Revolution; that a boy\nwho works hard at his chemistry will work equally hard at his\nEnglish, or that one who is careful about his manners and\npronunciation in school will display the slightest heed to them\namong his companions on the ball-field. One of the most\ncogent arguments against the stereotyped teaching of Latin\nand Greek has been the serious doubt psychologists have held\nas to whether four years' training in Latin syntax will develop\nin the student general mental habits which will be applicable\nor useful outside the Latin classroom.\n\nThe older \"faculty\" psychologists presumed that different\nsubjects trained various so-called \"faculties\" of \"memory,\"\n\"imagination,\" and \"intellect.\" It has now become clear on\nexperimental evidence that in education we are training no\nisolated faculties, but are training the individual to certain\nspecific habits. The more widely applicable the habits are,\nobviously the more valuable or dangerous will they be in the\nconduct of life. But when habits do become general, such as\na habit of promptness, honesty, and regularity, not in one\nsituation but \"in general,\" it is because they are something\nmore than habits in the strict physiological sense. They are\nintellectual as well as merely motor in character; they are\ndeliberate and conscious methods rather than mechanical\nrules of thumb. Habits that have been drilled into an\nindividual will appear only when the situation very closely\napproximates the one in which the drill has been performed.\nThe cat that has learned to get out of a certain type of cage\nby pressing a button will be utterly at a loss if the familiar\nfeatures of the cage are changed. The intelligent human\nwill detect and take pains to detect among the minor\ndifferences of the situation some significant fact which he has met\nin another setting, and he will apply a habit useful in this new\nsituation despite the slightly changed accompanying circumstances.\nThe man who can drive an automobile with reflective\nappreciation of the processes involved, who knows, as\nwe say, what he is doing, will not long be baffled by a car\nwith a slightly different arrangement of levers and steering-gear,\nnor be completely frustrated when the car for some\nreason fails to move. As happened in many notable instances\nduring the World War, trained executives were not long at a\nloss when they shifted from the management of a steel plant\nto a shipyard, or from large-scale mining operations in Montana\nto large-scale relief work in Belgium.\n\nTHE CONSCIOUS TRANSFERENCE OF HABITS. When habits are\nconsciously acquired, they may be consciously transferred\nwith modifications to situations slightly different from those\nin which they were first learned. Merely mechanical habits\nare a hindrance in any save the most mechanical work. An\nalert and conscious method of learning, which means the\ndevelopment of habits _as_ methods of control, will enable the\nindividual to modify habits acquired in slightly different\ncircumstances to new situations where the major conditions\nremain the same. To be merely habitual is to be at best an\nefficient machine, utterly unable to do anything except to run\nalong certain grooves, to respond like an animal trained to\ncertain tricks. It means, moreover, a loss of richness in\nexperience. When a profession becomes routinated it becomes\nmeaningless; a mere making of the wheels go round.\nThe spirit of alert and conscious inquiry must be maintained\nif life is not to become a mere repeated monotony.\n\nAn alert and conscious adjustment of habits to a changing\nenvironment constitutes intelligence. The technique of this\nadjustment is the technique of thinking or of reflective\nbehavior, which we shall examine in more detail in the following\nchapter.\n\nEMOTION. All human action, whether on the plane of\ninstinct, habit, or reflection, is, to a lesser or greater degree,\naccompanied by emotion. While there is considerable controversy\namong psychologists as to the precise nature of emotion,\nand the precise conditions of its causation, its general\nfeatures and significance are fairly clear. Emotion may be\nmost generally defined as an awareness or consciousness on\nthe part of the individual of his experiences, both those in\nwhich he is the actor and those in which he is being passively\nacted upon. This awareness or consciousness is not detached\nintellectual perception, but is accompanied by, as it is by\nsome held to be merely the consciousness of, certain specific\nbodily disturbances. Thus the emotions of fear and grief\nare not cold and abstract perceptions of situations that belong\nin the classes dangerous or deplorable, respectively. The\nawareness of these situations by the individual is intimately\nand invariably connected with certain outward bodily manifestations\nand certain inner organic disturbances. Fear, rage,\npity, and the like are not unimpassioned judgments, but\nhighly charged physical changes. So close, indeed, is the\nconnection between specific bodily conditions and the subjective\nor inner consciousness that we call emotion, that James and\nLange simultaneously came to the conclusion that emotions\nare nothing more nor less than the blending of the complex\norganic changes that occur in any given emotional state.\nThus James:\n\nWhat kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither\nof quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling\nlips nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral\nstirrings, were present, it is impossible for me to think. Can\nanyone fancy the state of rage, and picture no ebullition in the chest,\nno flushing of the face, no dilation of the nostrils, no clenching of the\nteeth, no impulse to vigorous action, but in their stead limp muscles,\ncalm breathing, and a placid face? The present writer, for one, certainly\ncannot. The rage is as completely evaporated as the sensations\nof its so-called manifestations, and the only thing that can\npossibly be supposed to take its place is some cold blooded and\ndispassionate judicial sentence, confined entirely to the intellectual realm,\nto the effect that a certain person or persons merit chastisement for\ntheir sins. In like manner of grief; what would it be without its\ntears, its sobs, its suffocation of the heart, its pang in the breast-bone?\nA feelingless cognition that certain circumstances are deplorable, and\nnothing more.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. II, p. 452.]\n\nIndeed, so completely did James think the emotions were\nexplicable as the inner feeling of the complex organic sensations\nwhich go to make up each of them that he did not think\nit misleading to say \"we feel sorry because we cry, angry\nbecause we strike, afraid because we tremble; we do not cry,\nstrike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as\nthe case may be.\"\n\nWhether or not emotions are completely to be explained\nas the inner or subjective aspect of the complex of organic\ndisturbances which accompany fear, rage, and the like, and\nwhich are caused immediately by the perception of the appropriate\nobjects of these emotions, it is certainly true that\nemotional awareness and bodily disturbances are very closely\nconnected.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Recent experiments by Dr. Cannon at Harvard have shown the specific\nbodily disturbances which accompany anger, fear, etc. In particular, Dr.\nCannon, and others, have noted that in the emotional conditions of fear and\nanger the glands, located near the kidneys, discharge a fluid into the blood\nstream, which fluid stimulates the heart to activity, constricts the blood\nvessels of the internal organs, causes the liver to pour out into the blood its\nstores of sugar, and affects in one way or another all the organs of the body.\nThe general effect is to put the body into a state of preparedness for the\nactivities connected with the emotion, whether flight in the case of fear,\nattack as in the case of anger. This has led Professor Woodworth to define\nemotion as, at least in part, \"the way the body feels when it is prepared for a\ncertain reaction.\" See the latter's _Dynamic Psychology_, pp. 51-59.]\n\nVarious attempts have been made to classify the emotions\nwhich are, in ordinary experience, infinitely subtle and complex.\nThe subtlety and variety of emotion James explains\nas the result of the subtle and imperceptible differences in the\ncomplex of sensations which occur in any given situation. In\ngeneral, it has been recognized that the emotions are very\nclosely connected with the primary tendencies of man.\nMcDougall, for example, says that each of the great primary\nimpulses is accompanied by an emotion. Indeed, McDougall\nconsiders, as earlier noted, that the emotion is the affective\nor conscious aspect of an instinct which, at the same time, has\na perceptual and impulsive aspect; that, in the case of fear,\nthe perceptual aspect is the instinctive mechanism for recognizing\nobjects of danger, the impulsive aspect is the tendency\ntoward flight, and the affective aspect is the inner feeling or\nawareness of fear. Thus, for McDougall, the tender emotion\nis the emotional aspect of the instinct of pity, anger of the\ninstinct of pugnacity, which is, as an impulse, the tendency\nto strike and destroy.\n\nAs a matter of fact, as McDougall himself admits, emotions\nare seldom experienced in unmixed forms, and it is very\ndifficult to reduce the infinite variety of emotional experiences\nto any primary forms. One may well agree with James that\n\"subdivisions [in the psychological demarcation of the emotions]\nare to a great extent either fictitious or unimportant,\nand ... pretenses to accuracy, a sham.\" In general, one\nmay say that emotions are closely connected with the native\ntendencies of human beings and are aroused by both their\nfulfillment, their conflict, and their frustration. The variety\nof emotions results from the fact that no single one of our\ninstincts is stimulated at a time, and that the peculiar specific\nquality of each emotional experience is due to the specific\npoint of conflict, fulfillment, or frustration in each particular\ncase. It may be further noted that those emotions are, in\ngeneral, pleasantly toned which accompany the fulfillment or\nthe approach to the fulfillment of a native disposition; and\nthose are unpleasantly toned which accompany their frustration\nor conflict. The depth and intensity of the emotional\ndisturbance seem to depend on the degree and extent to which\nstrong instinctive or habitual impulses have become involved.\nFor as habits of action may be acquired, so also may emotions\nbecome associated habitually with them. The emotional\ndisturbances connected with the fulfillment, frustration, and\nconflict of habits may be just as intense as those connected\nwith similar phenomena in the case of instincts.\n\nIn one sense these emotional disturbances impede action,\ncertainly action on the reflective level. It is the capacity\nand function of reflection to solve and adjust precisely those\nconflicts of competing impulses during which emotional disturbances\noccur. But the reflective process is confused and\ndistorted in conflicts of native or habitual desires by these\nemotional disturbances which accompany them. It is proverbially\ndifficult to think straight when angry; the surgeon\nin performing an operation must not be moved by pity or fear;\nand love is notoriously blind. The facts with which reflection\nmust deal are presented in distorted and exaggerated form\nunder the stress of competing impulses. Stimuli become\nloaded with emotional associations. They are glaring and\nconspicuous on the basis of their emotional urgency rather\nthan on the ground of their logical significance. The paralysis\nor complete disorganization of action which occurs in\nextreme cases of hysteria takes place to some extent in all less\nextreme instances of emotional disturbances.\n\nEmotions, on the other hand, serve to sustain, and, in their\nless violent form, to facilitate action. It has already been\nnoted that the organic disturbances which are so conspicuous\na feature of emotion are extremely important in preparing the\nbody for the overt actions in which these emotions always\ntend to issue. And it is unquestionable that emotions,\nthough in more or less obscure ways, call up reserves of energy\nin the service of the activity in connection with which the\nemotion has been aroused. While very violent emotions, as\nin the case of extreme anger or fear or pity, confuse,\ndisorganize, and even paralyze action, in more moderate form\nthey rather serve to stimulate and reinforce it. Emotions\nare, in many cases, merely the inner or subjective awareness\nof one of these great driving forces, or a complex of them.\nAnger, pity, and fear, in their less extreme forms, pour floods\nof energy into the activities in which they take overt expression.\nIt needs no special knowledge to recognize the fact\nthat the normal interests and enterprises of life are quickened\nand sustained when some great emotional drive can be roused\nin their support. Ambition, loyalty, love, or hate may stir\nmen to and sustain them in long and difficult enterprises\nwhich they would neither undertake nor continue were these\nmotive forces removed. The soldier does not fight persistently\nand well wholly, or often even in part, because he has\nthought out the situation and found the cause of his country\nto be just. He is stirred and sustained by the energies which\nthe emotional complex called \"patriotism\" has roused and\nconcentrated toward action. A scientist performing long and\ndifficult researches, a father sacrificing rest and comfort that\nhis children may be well provided for, a boy working to pay\nhis way through college, are all persisting in courses of action,\nbecause of the driving power which the emotions, more\nor less mixed, of curiosity, or tenderness, or self-assertion\nhave released.\n\nBut just as the original nature with which man is born is\nmodifiable, so are his emotional reactions. Each individual's\nemotional reactions are peculiar and specific, because of the\nparticular contacts to which they have been exposed, and the\norganization of instincts and habits which have come to be\ntheir more or less fixed character. Any emotional experience\nconsists of an intermingling of many and diverse feelings.\nAnd these particular complexes of emotions become for each\nindividual organized about particular persons or objects or\nsituations. The emotional reactions of an individual are,\nindeed, accurately symptomatic of the character of the\nindividual and the culture of his time. They are aroused, it goes\nwithout saying, on very different occasions and by very\ndifferent objects, among different men and different groups.\nIn the sixteenth century pious persons could watch heretics\nbeing burned in oil with a sense of deep religious exaltation.\nCertain Fijian tribes slaughter their aged parents with the\nmost tender filial devotion. In certain savage communities,\nto eat in public arouses on the part of the individual a sense\nof acute shame.\n\nSince those emotions are, on the whole, pleasantly toned\nwhich accompany the fulfillment of instinctive and habitual\nimpulses, and those unpleasantly toned which accompany\ntheir frustration, it becomes, as Aristotle pointed out, of the\nmost \"serious importance\" early to habituate men to the\nperformance of socially useful actions. If good or useful\nactions are early made habitual, their performance will bring\npleasure, and will thereby be better insured than by any\namount of preaching or punishment. If the actions which\nthe group approves are not early made habitual in the younger\nmembers of the group, they will not be enforced either through\nlogic or electrocution. It is not enough to give people reasons\nfor doing good, they will only do it consistently if the opposite\narouses in them more or less abhorrence. People learn to\nmodify their actions on the basis of the pleasure or pain they\nfind in their performance, and the pleasure or pain they will\nexperience depends on the actions to which they are habituated\nand the emotions which have come to be their characteristic\naccompaniments.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nREFLECTION.\n\nINSTINCT AND HABIT _VERSUS_ REFLECTION. In the two types of\nbehavior already discussed, man is, as it were, \"pushed from\nbehind.\" In the case of instinct he performs an action simply\nbecause he _must_ perform it. Willy-nilly he withdraws his\nhand from fire, eats when hungry, and sleeps when tired. In\nthe case of habits, once they are acquired, he is also largely\ndominated by circumstances beyond his own control. The\nbottle is to the confirmed drunkard almost an irresistible command\nto drink, the alarm clock to one accustomed to it an\nequally imperative and not-to-be-disregarded order to arise.\nThe story of the old veteran who was carrying home his dinner\nand who dropped his hands to his side and his dinner to the\ngutter when a practical joker called \"Attention\"; the pathetic\nplight of the superannuated business man who is totally at a\nloss away from his familiar duties, are often quoted illustrations\nof how completely habit may determine a man's actions.\n\nBut while in a large portion of our daily duties we are thus\nat the beck and call of the instincts which are our inheritance\nand the habits which we have acquired, we may also _control_\nour actions. Instead of performing actions as immediate and\nautomatic responses to accustomed stimuli, we may determine\nour actions, single or consecutive, in the light of absent\nand future results. To act thus is to act reflectively, and to\nact reflectively is the only escape from random acts prompted\nby instinct and routine ones prompted by habit.\n\nTo act reflectively is to delay response to an instinctive or\nhabitual stimulus until the various possibilities of action and\nthe results associated with each have been considered. An\naction performed instinctively or habitually is automatic; it\nis performed not on the basis of what will be the result, but\nsimply as an immediate response to a present stimulus. But\nan act (or a series of acts) reflectively performed is performed\nin the light of the results that are prophetically associated\nwith them. In the case of instinct and habit, the individual\nalmost literally does not know what he is about. In reflective\nactivity he does know, and the more thorough the reflective\nprocess, the more thorough and precise is his knowledge. He\nperforms actions _because_ they will achieve certain results, and\nhe is conscious of that causal connection, both before the\naction is performed when he perceives the results imaginatively,\nand after it is performed when he sees them in fact.\n\nTHE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF REFLECTION. Reflection, it must be\nnoted in the first place, is not a thing, but a process. It is a\nprocess whereby human beings adjust themselves to a continuously\nchanging environment. Our instincts and habits\nsuffice to adapt us to that large number of recurrent similar\nsituations of which our experience in no small measure exists.\nIn such cases the habitual response will bring the usual satisfaction.\nWalking, dressing, getting to familiar places, finding\nthe electric button in well-known rooms, opening often-opened\ncombinations--these operations are all adequately\naccomplished by the fixed mechanisms of habit. But we\nmeet as frequently with novel situations where the accustomed\nor instinctive reactions will not bring the desired satisfaction.\nOne response or a number of responses will not\nadjust the individual satisfactorily to external conditions; or\nthere may be a conflict between a number of impulses all\nclamoring for satisfaction at once. Reflection thus begins\neither in a maladjustment between the individual and his\nenvironment or in a conflict of impulses within the same\nperson.\n\nWhere such a maladjustment occurs, the uneasiness, discomfort,\nand frustration of action may be removed in one of\ntwo ways. Adjustment may be achieved, as we have already\nseen, through physical trial and error, through a hit-and-miss\nexperimentation with every possible response until the appropriate\none is made. This is the only way in which animals\ncan learn to modify their instinctive tendencies into habits\nmore adequate to their conditions. The more economical\nand effective process, one peculiar to human beings, is that\nof reflection. To think or to reflect means to postpone response\nto a given problematic situation until the possible consequences\nof the possible responses have been mentally traced\nout. Instead of _actually_ making every response that occurs\nto us, we make all of them _imaginatively_. Instead of consuming\ntime and energy in physical trial and error, we go through\nthe process of mental trial and error. We make no response\nat all in action until we have surveyed all the possibilities of\naction and their possible consequences. And when we do\nmake a response we make it on the basis of those foreseen\nconsequences.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: The possibilities of response that do occur to us are, on\nthe whole, determined by past training and native differences in\ntemperament. But part of the process of reflection is, as we shall see\nin the chapter on \"Science and Scientific Method,\" concerned with\ndeliberately enlarging the field of possible responses in the solution\nof a given problem.]\n\nIn other words, the situation is analyzed. What is the end\nor adjustment sought, what are the possible responses, and\nhow far is each of them suited as a means to achieving the\nsatisfaction sought? Instead of going through every random\ncourse of action that suggests itself, each one is \"dramatically\nrehearsed.\" Finally, that response is made which gives most\npromise in terms of its prophesied consequences of adjusting\nus to our situation.\n\nILLUSTRATION OF THE REFLECTIVE PROCESS. A student may, for\nexample, be seated at his study, preparing for an examination.\nA friend enters and suggests going for a walk or to the\ntheater. If the student were to follow this first immediate\nimpulse he would, before he realized it, be off for an evening's\nentertainment. But instead of responding immediately,\ndropping his books, reaching for his hat, opening the door,\nand ringing for the elevator (a series of habitual acts initiated\nby the instinctive desire for rest, variety, and companionship),\nhe may rehearse in imagination the various possibilities\nof action. In general terms, what happens is simply this:[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: The technique of reflection will be discussed in detail\nin the chapter on \"Science and Scientific Method.\"]\n\nOn the one hand, the gregarious instinct, the desire for rest,\nnative curiosity, and an acquired interest in drama may\nprompt him strongly to go to the theater. On the other\nhand, the habits of industry, ambition, self-assertion, and\nstudying in the evening urge him to stay at home and study.\nThe first course of action may, for the moment, be immediately\nattractive and stimulating. But instead of responding\nto either immediately, the student rehearses dramatically the\npossibilities associated with each. On the one hand are the\nimmediate satisfactions of rest, amusement, and companionship.\nBut as further consequences of the impulse to go out\nto the theater are seen--or, rather, are foreseen--failure in\nthe examination, the loss of a scholarship, pain to one's family\nor friends, and chagrin at the frustration of one's deepest and\nmost permanent ideals. The second course of action, to\nstay at home and study, though it is seen to have connected\nwith it certain immediate privations, is foreseen to involve\nthe further consequences of passing the examination, keeping\none's scholarship, and maintaining certain personal or intellectual\nstandards one has set one's self. Even if the student\ndecides to follow the first course of action to which an immediate\nimpulse has prompted him, his act is different in quality\nfrom what it would have been if he had not reflected at all.\nThe student goes out fully aware of the consequences of what\nhe is doing; he goes _for_ the immediate pleasure and _in spite\nof_ the possible failure in the examination. The very heart\nof reflective behavior is thus seen to lie in the fact that present\nstimuli are reacted to, not for what they are as immediate\nstimuli, but for what they signify, portend, imply, in the way\nof consequences or results. And a response made upon reflection\nis made on the basis of these imaginatively realized consequences.\nWe connect what we do with the results that\nflow from the doing, and control our action in the light of that\nprophetically realized connection.\n\nThe process is obviously not always so simple as that described\nin the above illustration. In the first place, more\nthan two courses of action may suggest themselves. And the\nconsequences of any one of them may be far more complex\nand far more obscure than any suggested in the above. For\nan individual to be able to decide a problem on the basis of\nconsequences imaginatively foreseen, it is often necessary to\ninstitute a very elaborate system of connecting links between\nan immediately suggested course of action and its not at all\nobvious results. \"Thinking a thing out\" involves precisely\nthis introduction of connecting links, or \"middle terms,\" between\nwhat is immediately given or suggested and what\nnecessarily, though by no means obviously, follows. This\nis illustrated in the case of any more or less theoretical problem\nand its solution. To perceive, for example, the connection\nbetween atmospheric pressure and the rise of water in a\nsuction pump involves the introduction of connecting links\nin the form of the general law of gravitation, of which atmospheric\npressure is a special case.\n\nBut the same is true of practical problems. A young man\nmay be trying to decide whether or not to take a nomination\nto the training course at West Point. He may be attracted\nby the four years' training, and highly value the results of it.\nHe may think, however, that the training involves an obligation\nto serve in the army; it may mean, for a long time, service\nin some remote army post. His decision may be determined\nby this last consideration, which required a series of\nintermediate \"linking\" ideas to bring to light.\n\nThe technique of scientific or expert thinking is, in large\npart, concerned with devices for enabling the thinker more\nsecurely to trace the obscure and remote connections between\nactions and their consequences, between causes and effects.\nBut, whether simple or complex, the essential feature of\nreflective activity is that it is action performed in the light of\nconsequences foreseen in imagination. Physical stimuli are\nnot responded to immediately with physical action. They\nare responded to as symbols, signs, or portents; they are\ntaken as symptoms of the results that _would_ follow if they\n_were_ acted upon. That is, they are, until decision is made,\nreacted to imaginatively. When an actual response is finally\nmade, it is made on the basis of the results that have been\nmore or less accurately and directly anticipated in imagination.\n\nREFLECTION AS THE MODIFIER OF INSTINCT. Reflection is\nprimarily a revealer of consequences. Instead of yielding to\nthe first impulse that occurs to him, the thinking man\nconsiders where that impulse, if followed out, will lead. And\nsince man is moved by more than one impulse at a time, reflection\ntraces the consequences of each, and determines action\non the basis of the relative satisfactions it can prophesy after\ncareful inquiry into the situation. To reflect is primarily to\nquery a stimulus, to find out what it means in terms of its\nconsequences. The more alert, persistent, and careful this\ninquiry, the more will instinctive tendencies be checked and\nmodified and adjusted to new situations.\n\nIn the discussion of the acquisition of habits, it was pointed\nout that useful habits may be acquired most rapidly by an\nanalysis of them into their significant features. The speed\nwith which random instinctive actions are modified into a\nseries of useful habitual ones depends intimately upon how\nclear and detailed is the individual's appreciation of the\nresults to be achieved by one action rather than another. A\nlarge part of learning even among humans is doubtless trial\nand error, random hit-or-miss attempts, until after successive\nrepetitions, a successful response is made and retained. But\nhuman learning and habit-formation are so much more various\nand fruitful than those of animals precisely because human\nbeings can check and modify instinctive responses in the\nlight of consequences which they can foresee. These foreseen\nconsequences are, of course, derived from previous experience;\nthat is, they are \"remembered.\" But reflection short-circuits\nthe process. The more deliberate and reflective the process\nof learning, the more the individual notes the connections\nbetween the things he does and the results he gets, the fewer\nrepetitions will he need in order effectively to modify his\ninstinctive behavior into useful habits. He will anticipate\nresults; he will experience them in imagination. He will not\nneed to make every wrong move in paddling a canoe until he\nfinally hits upon the right one. He will not need to alienate\nall his clients before learning to deal with them successfully.\nIn any given set of circumstances he will form the effective\nhabits rapidly. He will calculate, \"figure out,\" find out in\nadvance. To keep one's temper under provocation, to refrain\nfrom eating delicious and indigestible foods, to keep at\nwork when one would like to play, and sometimes to play\nwhen one is engrossed in work, are familiar instances of how\nour first impulses become checked, restrained, or modified in\nthe light of the results we have discovered to be associated\nwith them.\n\nREFLECTIVE BEHAVIOR MODIFIES HABIT. The same conscious\nbreaking-up of a new type of action into its significant\nfeatures, the same connection of a given action with a given\nresult which makes the intelligent learner so much more\nquickly acquire effective new habits than the one who is\nmechanically drilled, leads also to a continuous criticism of\nhabits, and their discontinuance when they are no longer\nadequate. Reflection, if it is itself a habit, is the most valuable\none of all. It is an important counterpoise to the hardening\nand fossilization which repeated habitual actions bring about\nin the nervous system.\n\nIn acting reflectively we subject our accustomed ways to\ndeliberate analysis, however immediately persuasive these\nmay have become, and deliberately institute new habits in\nthe light of the more desirable consequences they will bring.\nHabits come to be regarded not as final or as good in themselves,\nbut as methods of accomplishing good. If they fail\nto bring genuine satisfaction, reflection can indicate wherein\nthey are inadequate, wherein they may be changed, and\nwhether they should be altogether discarded.\n\nReflection thus makes conduct conscious; it is not the substitute\nfor instinct and habit; it is the guide and controller of\nboth. When we act thoughtfully and intelligently, we are\ndoing things not because we have done them that way in the\npast, or because it is the first response that occurs to us, but\nbecause, in the light of analysis, that way will bring about the\nmost desirable results.\n\nTHE LIMITS OF REFLECTION AS A MODIFIER OF INSTINCT AND HABIT.\nWhile our impulses and habits may be subjected to the criticism\nof reflection in the light of the consequences which it\ncan forecast, reflection is itself seriously limited by our\noriginal impulses and our acquired habitual ones. On reflection,\nwe may not follow our first impulse, but to act at all is to act\non some original or acquired impulse or a combination of\nthem. Which original tendency we shall follow reflection can\ntell us; it cannot tell us to follow none. In the illustration\nalready used, the student may upon reflection study rather\nthan go out. But the roots of his studying will also lie back\nin the instincts and habits which are, for better or for worse,\nhis only equipment for action. They will lie back in the\ntendencies to be curious, to gain the praise of other people\nand to be a leader among them, in the habits of knowing work\nthoroughly, of studying in the evening, of maintaining a\nscholarship average to which he has been accustomed.\nReflection may weigh the relative persuasions of various\nimpulses; it cannot ignore them. We may think in order to\nattain our desires, and may, through reflection, learn to\nchange them; we cannot abolish them. Whether we are\ncurious about our neighbors' business or about the movements\nof the stars and the possible reactions of a strange\nchemical element, depends on our previous training and the\nextent to which inquiry itself has become a fixed and\npersistent habit. But in any case we are curious. Whether we\nfight in street brawls or in campaigns against tuberculosis,\nwe are still, as it were, born fighters.\n\nSimilarly, in the case of habit, we may upon reflection discover\nthat our habits of walking, writing, or speech are bad;\nthat we ought not to smoke, or drink, or waste time. We\nmay come, through reflection, to realize with the utmost\nclarity the advantages to ourselves of acquiring the habits of\ngoing to bed early, saving money, keeping our papers in order,\nand persisting at work amid distractions. But the bad habits\nand the good are already fixed in our nervous system, and in\nphysiology also possession is nine tenths of the law. We may\n_intend_ to change, but by taking thought alone we cannot add\na cubit to our stature. Reflection can do no more than point\nthe way we should go. For unless the wrong actions are\nsystematically and repeatedly refrained from, and the proper\nones made habitual, thinking remains merely an impotent\nsummary of what can be done. Conduct is governed, it must\nbe repeated, by the satisfactions action can bring us, and\nunless actions are made habitual they will not be performed\nwith satisfaction.\n\nHOW INSTINCTS AND HABITS IMPAIR THE PROCESSES OF REFLECTION.\nIt is as important as it is paradoxical that thinking is impaired\nin its efficiency by the instincts and habits in whose service it\narises, and whose conflicts and maladjustments it helps to\nresolve. The situations of conflict or perplexity which provoke\nthinking are determined by the particular tendencies\nwhich, by nature or training, are brought into play in any\ngiven situation. If we are committed by tradition or habitual\nallegiance to a protective tariff, we will be concerned in our\nthinking with details, what articles need protection and how\nmuch do they need; the ultimate desirability of a protective\ntariff will not be a problem remotely occurring to us. If we\nare by training committed to capital punishment, we will be\nconcerned, if we think about it at all, with means and methods;\nwe will think about the relative merits of hanging or\nelectrocution; the ultimate justification or desirability of capital\npunishment will not be a problem or issue for us at all.\nThus, it may be said in a sense that our thinking is determined\nby what we do not think about as much as by what we do\nthink about. What we take for granted limits the field within\nwhich we will inquire or reflect at all. But what we take for\ngranted is, on the whole, settled by our habitual reactions.\nAnd the more settled habitual convictions we have, the narrower\nbecomes the field within which reflection takes place.\nForce of habit may leave us blind to many situations genuinely\ndemanding solution. Originality in thinking consists,\nin part at least, in an ability to see a problem where others,\nthrough routine, see none. Apples have fallen on the heads\nof others than Newton, but a habit-ridden rustic will not be\nstirred by the falling of an apple to reflection on the problem\nof falling bodies. The countryman may live all his life serenely\noblivious to a thousand problems that would pique\nthe curiosity and reflection of a botanist or geologist. A man\nmay go on for years accepting income on investments earned\nin very dubious ways without ever pausing to reflect on the\nsources or the justification of his wealth.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: According to the traditional anecdote, when Marie Antoinette\nwas told that the people were clamoring because they could not get any\nbread, the one problem that occurred to her was why they didn't eat\ncake. From the habits and conditions of life to which she was accustomed,\nthere had never arisen a problem as to how to get food at all; it was\nmerely a problem of what kind of food to eat.]\n\nInstincts and habits, furthermore, limit the field of possible\ncourses of action that suggest themselves. We come, through\nhabit, to be alive only to certain possibilities to the practical\nexclusion of all others. Thinking becomes fruitful and suggestive\nwhen it is freed from the limited number of suggestions\nthat occur through force of habit. But original thinking is\nrare precisely because habits do have such a compulsive\npower in determining the possibilities of action that suggest\nthemselves to us. The man who moves in a rut of habitual\nreactions will \"never think\" of possibilities that \"stare in the\nface\" a less habit-ridden thinker. Inventiveness, originality,\ncreative intelligence, whatever one chooses to call it, consists,\nin no small measure, in this ability to remain alive to a wide\nvariety of stimuli, to keep sensitive to all the possibilities that\nare in a situation, instead of those only to which we are\nimmediately prompted by instinct or habit. The possibility of\nusing the current of a river as power is not the first possibility\nthat flowing water suggests.\n\nPast training and individual differences in temperament\nnot only limit the possibilities that do occur to us; they\nseriously distort, color, and qualify those of which we become\nconscious. We forecast differently and with differing degrees\nof accuracy the consequences of those possible courses of\naction which do occur to us according to the influence and\nstimulation which particular native traits and acquired impulses\nhave in our conduct. Ideally, the consequences which\nwe imaginatively forecast as following from a given course of\naction, should tally with the consequences which genuinely\nfollow from it. But there is too often a sad discrepancy between\nthe consequences as they are foreseen by the individual\nconcerned and the genuine consequences that could be foreseen\nby any disinterested observer. The discrepancy between\nthe genuine and the imagined consequences of given\nideas or suggestions is caused more than anything else by\nthe hopes, fears, aversions, and preferences which, by nature\nor training, are controlling in a man's behavior. Facts are\nweighed differently according as one or another of these\npsychological influences is present. We intend unconsciously\nto substitute a desired or expected consequence for the actual\none; we tend to be oblivious to consequences which we fear,\nand quick to imagine those for which we hope. On the day\nbefore an election the campaign managers on both sides, in\nthe glow and momentum of their activities, are confident of\nthe morrow's victory. The opponent of prohibition saw\nnothing but drug fiends and revolution as its consequences;\nits extreme advocates saw it as the salvation of mankind.\n\nThe causes of error in appraising the consequences of any\ngiven course of action are partly individual and partly social\nin character. From Francis Bacon down, there have been\nvarious attempts to classify these factors in the distortion of\nthe reflective process. In connection with the particular\nhuman traits, especially such as fear and gregariousness, we\nshall have occasion to examine a few of these.\n\nIt will suffice to point out here that the aim of reflective\nthinking is to discover the genuine consequences of things,\nand to eliminate and discount those prejudices and preferences,\nbred of early education and training, which might impair\nour discovery of those consequences. To the untrained,\nthose things look most significant which stir their impulses\nmost strikingly. The beggar's sores seem much more important\nand terrible than a gifted youngster deprived of education\nthrough poverty. Instinctively we shrink back from the sight\nof blood, but instinct is no safe clue in helping us to\ndistinguish between the poisons and the panaceas among the\nbrightly colored bottles of chemicals ranged along a shelf.\nThe whole technique of scientific method as opposed to the\nshrewd but unreliable guesses of common sense is one of freeing\nus from the compulsions of random habitual impulses.\nIt substitutes for caprice the measuring of consequences, the\ndetailed knowing of what we are about. That impartial judgment\nhas its difficulties is clear from the simple fact alone that\nhuman beings start by being a bundle of instincts and soon\ngrow into a bundle of habits. To the extent to which they\ncan control these they are masters of themselves.\n\nTHE VALUE OF REFLECTION FOR LIFE. To many people there is\nsomething terrifying about the idea of controlling life by\nreason. Life (they point out correctly) is a vital process of\ninstincts which appear before thinking, and which are often\nmore powerful than reasoned judgments. Against advice to\nlive consciously, to be in control of ourselves, to know what\nwe are about, comes the call \"Back to Nature.\" A life of\nreflection appears chilling and arbitrary. Because reflection\nso often reveals that impulses must be checked if disaster\nis not to result, it has come to be associated with a metallic\nand Stoic repression. To many a persuasive impulse we\nmust, after reflection, say, \"No.\" Because of this a certain\nschool of philosophers, poets, and radicals urges us to trust\nnature, to follow our impulses, which, being natural, must\nbe right.\n\nAll of these rebels against reason make the mistake of supposing\nthat the aim of reflective thinking is to quell instincts,\nwhich, with the best will in the world, it cannot succeed in\ndoing. Instincts are present and powerful. In themselves\nthey are neither worth encouraging, nor ought they to be\nrepressed. The satisfaction of native desires _is_ what we want.\nThe importance of reflective thinking is precisely that it helps\nus to secure those satisfactions. To surrender to every random\nimpulse or every habitual prompting is to have neither\nsatisfaction nor freedom. Reflection might be compared to\nthe traffic policeman at the junction of two crowded thoroughfares.\nIf everyone were to drive his car pell-mell through the\nrush, if pedestrians, street cars, and automobiles were not to\nabide by the rules, no one would get anywhere, and the result\nwould be perpetual accident and collision. In thinking we\nsimply control and direct our impulses in the light of the\nconsequences we can foresee. To thus guide and control action\nmakes us genuinely free.\n\nIf a man's actions are not guided by thoughtful conclusions, they\nare guided by inconsiderate impulse, unbalanced appetite, caprice,\nor the circumstances of the moment. To cultivate unhindered,\nunreflective external activity is to foster enslavement, for it leaves the\nperson at the mercy of appetite, sense, and circumstance.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _How We Think_, p. 67.]\n\nInstincts and habits are fixed responses; being placed in\nsuch and such circumstances we _must_ do such and such things.\nOnly when we can vary our actions in the light of our own\nthinking are we masters of our environment rather than\nmechanically controlled by it.\n\nTHE SOCIAL IMPORTANCE OF REFLECTIVE BEHAVIOR. Reflection\nin the life of the individual insures that he will not become the\nslave of his own habits. He will regard habits as methods\nto be followed when they produce good results, to be discarded\nor modified when they do not. But if habit in the life of the\nindividual needs control lest it become dangerously controlling,\nit needs it more conspicuously still in the life of the group.\nUnless the individuals that compose a society are alert and\nconscious of the bearings of their actions, they will be\ncompletely and mechanically controlled by the customs to which\nthey have been exposed in the early periods of their lives.\nWhat an individual regards as right or wrong, what he will\ncherish or champion in industry, government, and art, depends\nin large measure on his early education and training\nand on the opinions and beliefs of other people with whom he\nrepeatedly comes in contact. A society may be democratic\nin its political form and still autocratic in fact if the majority\nof its citizens are merely machines which can be set off to\nrespond in certain determinate ways to customary stimuli of\nnames, leaders, and party slogans. A society becomes genuinely\ndemocratic, precisely to the extent to which there is\non the part of its citizens participation in the important decisions\naffecting all their lives. But the participation will only\nbe a formality if votes are decided and opinions formed on the\nbasis of habit alone.\n\nREFLECTION REMOVED FROM IMMEDIATE APPLICATION--SCIENCE.\nThus far thinking has been discussed in its more practical\naspects. And thinking is in its origins a very practical matter.\nLiterally, most people think when they have to, and only\nwhen they have to. Given a problem, a difficulty, a\nmaladjustment between the individual and his environment,\nthinking occurs. If every instinctive act brought satisfaction,\nthinking would be much less necessary and much less frequently\npracticed. This is illustrated in the performance of\nany act that once required attention and discrimination, and\nhas later become habitual. We do not think how to walk,\neat, and spell familiar words, how to find our way about\nfamiliar streets or even in familiar dark rooms. We _do_ think\nabout where we shall spend our evenings or our summer,\nwhich courses we shall choose at college, which profession\nwe shall enter. Where we are uneasy, drawn by competing\nimpulses, we consider alternatives, measure consequences,\nand choose our course of action in the light of the results we\ncan forecast. But while a large proportion of reflective behavior\nis thus practical in its origins and its results, it also\noccurs not infrequently where there is no immediate problem\nto be solved. Not all of men's energies are concerned in\npurely practical concerns. And part of man's superfluous\nvitality is expended in disinterested and curious inquiry\ninto problems whose solutions afford no immediate practical\nbenefits, but in the mere solving of which man finds\nsatisfaction.\n\nFrom the dawn of history, when some man a little more\ncurious than his fellows, a little less absorbed in the hunting,\nthe food-getting, and the fighting which were in those early\ndays man's chief imperative business, first began to observe\nthe mysterious recurrences in the world about him, the rising\nand setting of the sun, the return of the seasons, the movements\nof the tides and the stars, there have been individuals\nborn with a marked and sometimes a passionate desire to\nobserve Nature and to generalize their observations. They\nhave noted that, given certain conditions, certain results\nfollow. They observe that animals with given similarities of\nform and structure have certain identical ways of life, that\nsome substances are malleable and others not, that dew\nappears at certain times in the day on certain objects and not\non others. They have generalized from these; and we now\ncall such generalizations law. These generalizations when\ngathered into a system constitute a science.\n\nThe sciences started out with unconfirmed guesses based\non not very accurate information. As man's methods became\nmore precise, he controlled the conditions under which\nobservations were made, and the conditions under which generalizations\nwere drawn from them. The control of the conditions\nand methods of observation constitute what is known as\ninduction in science. To this phase of the reflective process\nbelong all the instruments for precise observation which\ncharacterize the scientific laboratory. The control of the methods\nby which generalizations or theories are built up from these\nfacts is also part of the logic of induction, and includes all the\ncanons and regulations for inductive inference.\n\nBut generalizations once made must be tested, and the\nelaboration of these generalizations, the analysis of them into\ntheir precise bearings, constitute that part of the process of\nreasoning known as deduction. The final verification is again\ninductive, an experimental corroboration of theories by the\nfacts already at hand and by facts additionally sought out\nand observed.\n\n(These processes will be discussed in detail in the chapter\non \"Science and Scientific Method.\")\n\nHowever complicated the process of inquiry may become,\nthe sciences remain essentially man's mode of satisfying his\ndisinterested curiosity about the world in which he is living.\nThrough the sciences man makes himself, as has been so often\nsaid, at home in the world. He substitutes for the \"blooming,\nbuzzing confusion\" which is the world as he first knows it,\norder, system, and law. Primitive man, absurd as seems to\nus his belief in a world of magic, of malicious demons and\ncapricious gods, was trying to make sense out of the meaningless\nmedley in which he seemed to find himself. Through\nscience, modern man is likewise trying to make sense out of\nhis world. The more apparently disconnected and incongruous\nfacts that can be brought within the compass of simple\nand perfectly regular law, the less threatening or capricious\nseems the world in which we live. Where everything that\nhappens is part of a system, we do not need, like the savage\ntrembling in a thunderstorm, to be frightened at what will\nhappen next. It is like moving in familiar surroundings\namong familiar people. Not all that goes on may be pleasant,\nbut we can within limits predict what will happen, and are\nnot puzzled and pained by continuous shocks and surprises.\nWe like order in the places in which we live, in our homes, in\nour cities, in the universe.\n\nThe sciences satisfy us not only in that they bring order\ninto what at first seems the chaos of our surroundings, but in\nthat they are themselves beautiful in their spaciousness and\ntheir simplicity. We cannot pause here to consider the\nphysiological facts which make us admire symmetry, but it is\nfundamental in our appreciation of music, poetry, and the\nplastic arts. From the sciences, likewise, we derive the\nsatisfaction of symmetry on a magnificent scale. There is beauty\nas of a great symphony in the sweep and movement of the\nsolar system. There is a quiet and infinite splendor about the\nchangeless and comparatively simple structure which physics,\nin the broadest sense, reveals beneath the seeming multiplicity\nand variety of things. It is a desire for beauty as well as\na thoroughgoing scientific passion which prompts men like\nPoincare and Karl Pearson to seek for one law, one formula\nwhich, like \"one clear chord to reach the ears of God,\"\nexpresses the whole universe.\n\nTHE PRACTICAL ASPECT OF SCIENCE. But while the origins of\nscience may lie in man's thirst for system, simplicity, and\nbeauty in the world, the tremendous advance of science has\na more immediate and practical cause. To understand the\nlaws of Nature means to have the power of prediction; it\nmeans to know that, given certain circumstances, certain\nothers follow always and inevitably; it means to discover\ncauses--and their effects. Man having attained through\npatient inquiry this capacity to tell in advance, may take\nadvantage of it for his own good. The whole of modern\nindustry with its phenomenal control of natural powers and\nresources is testimony to the use which man has found for\nthe facts and laws which he would never have found out\nsave for the curiosity which was his endowment and the\ninquiry which he made his habit. \"Knowledge is power,\"\nsaid Francis Bacon, and the three hundred years of science\nthat have made possible the whole modern world of electric\ntransportation, air travel between two continents, and\ninstantaneous communication between remote parts of the\nworld, have proved the aphorism. Man since his origin\nhas tried to control his environment for his own good. The\ncave and the flint were his first rude attempts. In science\nwith its accurate observation of facts not apparent to the\nunaided eye, and its discovery and demonstration of laws not\nfound by casual and unsystematic common sense, man has an\nincomparably more refined instrument, and an incomparably\nmore effective one. Thus, paradoxically enough, man's most\ndisinterested and impartial activity is at the same time his\nmost practical asset.\n\nTHE CREATION OF BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS AND THE EXPRESSION OF\nIDEAS AND FEELINGS IN BEAUTIFUL FORM. Most men spend most\nof their lives necessarily in practical activity. Man's particular\nequipment of instincts survived in \"the struggle for existence\"\nprecisely because they were practical, because they did\nhelp the human creature to maintain his equilibrium in a\nhalf-friendly, half-hostile environment. Man acquires also,\nas already has been pointed out, habits that are useful to him,\nthat bring him satisfactions not attainable through the random\ninstinctive responses which are his at birth. Reflection,\ntoo, is, for the most part, severely practical in its origins and\nits responsibilities. It guides action into economical and useful\nchannels.\n\nMost of man's actions are thus ways of modifying his environment\nfor immediately practical purposes. Man has instincts\nand habits which enable him to live. But in making\nthose changes in the world which enable him to live better,\nman, as it were by accident, makes them beautifully. Pottery\nbegins, for example, as a practical art, but the skilled\npotter cannot help spending a little excess vitality and habitual\nskill in adding a quite unnecessarily graceful curve, a\ngratuitous decoration to the utilitarian vessel he is making.\nIn the words of Santayana, \"What had to be done was, by\nimaginative races, done imaginatively; what had to be spoken\nor made was spoken or made fitly, lovingly, beautifully....\nThe ceaseless experimentation and fermentation of ideas, in\nbreeding what it had a propensity to breed, came sometimes\non figments that gave it delightful pause.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Santayana: _Reason in Art_, p. 16.]\n\nThese accidental graces that man makes in the instinctive\nand habitual control to which he subjects his environment\nbecome the most cherished values of his experience. Men\nmay first have come to speak poetry accidentally, for\nlanguage arose, like other human habits, as a thing of use. But\nthe charming and delightful expression of feelings and ideas\ncame to be cherished in themselves, so that what was first an\naccident in man's life, may become a deliberate practice.\nWhen this creation of beautiful objects, or the beautiful\nexpression of feelings or ideas is intentional, we call it art. In\nsuch intentional creation and cherishing of the beautiful man's\nlife becomes enriched and emancipated. He learns not only\nto live, but to live beautifully.\n\nIn such activity men, as has been recognized by social reformers\nfrom Plato to Bertrand Russell, are genuinely happy,\nand there alone find freedom. For in the creation of beauty\nman is not performing actions because he must, under the\nbrutal compulsion of keeping alive. He is acting simply because\naction is delightful both in the process and in the result.\nWhether in business, politics, or scholarship, men are happy\nto the extent to which they have the sense of creation that is\npeculiarly the artist's.\n\nThe products of art, moreover, are not desirable because\nthey bring other goods, but because they themselves are\nintrinsically delightful. Men love to live in a world in which\ntheir marble has been made into statues, in which their houses\nare things of beauty rather than merely places in which to\nlive. Their lives are enriched by living in a society where\nthe thoughts and emotions which they communicate to one\nanother and which they must somehow express can be not\ninfrequently expressed with nobility and music. Through\nscience Nature becomes man's tool; through art it can\nbecome a beautiful instrument to work with, and a lovely thing\nin and for itself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE BASIC HUMAN ACTIVITIES\n\nFOOD, SHELTER, AND SEX. Thus far our analysis has been confined\nto the general types of human behavior. We have\nfound that all human activity is conditioned by a native\nequipment consisting of certain more or less specific tendencies\nto action, and that these may be modified into acquired\ntendencies called \"habits.\" We have found that through the\nprocesses of reflection, through imaginative trial and error,\nboth of these may, within limits, be controlled. We must\nnow proceed to an inventory of those elements of our native\nequipment which have an especial significance in social life.\n\nIn the first place, we must note the three great primary\ndrives of human action, the unlearned and native demands\nfor food, shelter, and sex gratification.[1] Although the last-named\ndoes not display itself in human beings until a considerable\ndegree of maturity has been attained there is indubitable\nevidence that it is an inborn and not an acquired reaction.\nThe practical utility of the first two is apparent; they are the\nmost essential features of the group of so-called self-preservative\ninstincts, among which may be grouped the natural\ntendency to recover one's equilibrium and the instinct of\nflight in the face of dangerous or threatening objects. The\nutility of the sex instinct is racial rather than individual. The\ninstinctive satisfaction human beings find in sex gratification\nis the natural guarantee of the continuance of the race.\n\n[Footnote 1: The reader must be reminded that the simpler reflexes\ninvolved in the use of the heart, lungs, intestines, and all the\ninternal organs, must be classed as part of man's native equipment.\nThey differ from those reactions commonly classed as instincts in\nthat they are simpler and stabler, that in their normal functioning\nthey never rise to consciousness, and that they are almost completely\nbeyond the individual's modification or control.]\n\nIn a general survey of this nature it IS impossible, as it is\nunnecessary, to examine in detail the physiological elements\nof the demand for food and shelter. It will suffice to point\nout that the first two are the ultimate biological bases of a\nlarge proportion of our economic activities. They are primary,\nnot in the sense that they are constantly conscious\nmotives to action, but that their fulfillment is prerequisite to\nthe continuance of any of the other activities of the organism.\nAgriculture and manufacture, the complicated systems of\ncredit and exchange which human beings have devised, are,\nfor the most part, contrivances for the fulfillment of these\nfundamental demands. With the complexity of civilization\nnew demands, of course, arise, but these fundamental necessities\nare still the ultimate mainsprings of economic production.\n\nThe demand for sex gratification, because of its enormous\ndriving force and the emotional disturbances connected with\nit, offers a peculiarly acute instance of the difficulties brought\nabout in the control of man's native endowment in his own\nbest interest. While the production of offspring is its chief\nbiological utility, satisfaction of the sex instinct itself is\nstimulated in human beings quite apart from considerations of the\ndesirability or undesirability of offspring. Since the sex\ninstinct is at once so deep-rooted and intense a driving force in\nhuman action, and its consequences of such crucial importance\nto both those directly involved and to the group as a\nwhole, societies have, through law and custom and tradition,\nbuilt up elaborate codes for its control. In civilized society\nthe free operation of this instinct is checked in a thousand\nways. But, as in the case of other primitive motives to action,\nthe sex instinct, obvious as are the disasters of disease\nand disorganization which follow as consequences of its\nuncontrolled indulgence, cannot altogether be repressed.\n\nIt is generally recognized that in men and animals alike the sex\nimpulse is apt to manifest itself in very vigorous and sustained\nefforts toward its natural end; and that in ourselves it may\ndetermine very strong desires, in the control of which all the organized\nforces of the developed personality, all our moral sentiments and\nideals, and all the restraining influences of religion, law, custom\nand convention too often are confronted with a task beyond their\nstrength.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _Social Psychology_, 11th ed., pp. 399-400.]\n\nThere is considerable agreement among students of the\nsubject that the emotional energies aroused in connection\nwith the sex instinct may be drained off into other channels,\nand serve to quicken and sustain both artistic creation and\nappreciation and social and religious enthusiasms of various\nkinds. And the sex instinct, as we shall find in our discussion\nof Racial Continuity (see p. 243) is the basis of the family.\n\nPHYSICAL ACTIVITY. The difference between sticks and stones\nand living beings consists primarily in the fact that the latter\nare positively active; the former are passively acted upon.\nThe stone will stay put, unless moved by some external agent,\nbut even the amoeba will do something to its environment.\nIt will stretch out pseudopodia to reach solid objects to which\nto cling; it will attempt to return to these objects when dislodged;\nit will actively absorb food. Higher up in the animal\nscale, \"Rats run about, smell, dig, or gnaw, without real reference\nto the business in hand. In the same way Jack (a dog)\nscrabbles and jumps, the kitten wanders and picks, the otter\nslips about everywhere like ground lightning, the elephant\nfumbles ceaselessly, the monkey pulls things about.\"[2] \"The\nmost casual notice of the activities of a young child reveals a\nceaseless display of exploring and testing activity. Objects\nare sucked, fingered and thumped; drawn and pushed, handled\nand thrown.\"[3]\n\n[Footnote 2: Hobhouse: _Mind in Evolution_, p. 195.]\n\n[Footnote 3 Dewey: _How We Think_, p. 31.]\n\nWhen vitality is at its height in the waking period of a\nyoung child, its environment is a succession of stimulations to\nactivity. Man's \"innate tendency to fool\" is notorious, a\ntendency particularly noticeable in children. Objects are\nresponded to, not as means to ends, not with reference to their\nuse, but simply for the sheer satisfaction of manipulation.\nFacial expressions, sounds, gestures, are made almost on any\nprovocation; they are the expressions of an abundant \"physiological\nuneasiness.\" The two-year-old is a mechanism that\nsimply must and will move about, make all kinds of superfluous\ngestures and facial expressions, and random sounds, as\nit were, just to get rid of its stored-up energy. Man's laziness\nand inertia are not infrequently commented on by moralists,\nbut it is not laziness and inertia _per se_; certainly in normal\nindividuals in the temperate zone, to do _something_ most of their\nwaking time is a natural tendency and one intrinsically pleasant\nto practice. That the tendency to be active should vary\nin different individuals and at different times is, of course, as\nimportant a fact as it is a familiar one. Some of the causes of\nthis variation will be noted in the succeeding.\n\nIn adult life for casual and random activity is substituted\nactivity directed by some end or purpose which determines\nthe responses called into play. Professional and business,\ndomestic and social enterprises and obligations take up most of\nthe adult's energy. The contrast between the play of the\nchild and the work of the adult is that in the case of the\nformer actions are done for their own sake; and in the latter\nfor some end. The child, we say, plays \"for the fun of the\nthing,\" the adult works for pay, for professional success, for\npower, reputation, etc.\n\nBut even in the adult the desire for play powerfully persists.\nNot all the grown-up's energy is absorbed in his work,\nand even some types of work, like that of the poet or painter,\nor the building-up of a great business organization, may be\nintrinsically delightful and self-sufficient activity. Under the\nconditions of modern industry, however, especially of machine\nproduction, much--in many cases, most--of the activity\nby which an individual earns his living, utilizes only some of\nhis native tendencies to act, while the working day does not,\nunder normal conditions, absorb all his energy. Whatever\nvitality is not, therefore, absorbed in necessary work goes into\nforms of purely gratuitous activity. Which form \"play\"\nshall take in the adult depends on the degree to which certain\nimpulses are in him stronger than others, either by native\nendowment or cultivation, and which impulses have not been\nsufficiently utilized in him during the day's work. A man\nmusically gifted will find his recreation in some performance\non a musical instrument, let us say; on the other hand, if his\nwork is music, those impulses, strong though they be, that\nmake him a musician, will have been sufficiently exhausted in\nthe day's work to make some other activity a more satisfactory\nrecreation.\n\nThe relations between play and work can be better understood\nby a consideration of the physiological importance of\nvariety in activity. A certain regular recurrence of response\nmay be pleasant, as in rowing or canoeing, or in listening to\nthe rhythms of poetry or music, but a prolonged repetition of\nprecisely the same stimulus or the same set of stimuli may\nmake responses dissatisfying to the degree of pain. Ideal\nactivity, biologically, would be one where every impulse was\njust sufficiently frequently called upon to make response easy,\nfluent, and satisfactory.\n\nThe reason \"work\" has traditionally come to be regarded\nas unpleasant and \"play\" as pleasant is not because the former\nis activity and the second is torpor. Leisure does not necessarily\nmean laziness. Many a vacation, a camping party, a\nwalking expedition, is literally more strenuous than the work\nan individual normally does. But work means human energy\nexpended for the sole purpose of accomplishing some end.\nAnd an end involves the deliberate shutting-out of every\nimpulse which does not contribute to its fulfillment. A man\nweeding a garden may tire of the weeding long before he is\nreally physically exhausted. One response is being repeatedly\nmade, while at the same time a dozen other impulses are\nbeing stimulated. When Tom Sawyer, under the compulsion\nof his aunt, is whitewashing a fence, it is shortly no fun for\nhim. But he can make other boys pay him apple-cores and\njackknives for the fun of wielding the brush.\n\nWhat we call the feeling of boredom depends principally\nupon the too repeated stimulation of one set of activities to\nthe exclusion of all others, the continuous presence of a kind of\nstimulation to which we have been rendered unsusceptible, as,\nfor example, bad popular music to a cultivated musical taste,\nor intricate chamber music to an uncultivated one. The\nfeeling of boredom may become physiologically acute, as in\nthe case, so frequent in machine production, of literally\nmonotonous or one-operation jobs. Long hours of labor at acts\ncalling out only one very simple response may have very serious\neffects. In the first place, in the work itself, since repetitions\nof one or one simple set of responses may impair speed\nand accuracy. On the part of the worker, it promotes varying\ndegrees of stupefaction or irritation. Excesses of drink,\ngambling, and dissipation among factory populations are\noften traceable to this continual frustration of normal\ninstincts during working hours, followed by a violent search for\nstimulation and relaxation after work is over. Under conditions\nof machine production, the responses which the worker\nmust make are becoming increasingly simple and automatic.\nHence the problem of bringing variety into work and something\nof the same vitality and spontaneity into industry that\ngoes into play and art is becoming serious and urgent.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: See Helen Marot: _Creative Impulse in Industry_.]\n\nMENTAL ACTIVITY. Just as physical activity is a characteristic\nof all living beings, so, from almost earliest infancy of\nhuman beings, is mental activity. This does not mean that\nindividuals from their babyhood are continually solving problems.\nDeliberation and reflection are simply the mature and\ndisciplined control of what goes on during all of our waking\nhours--random play of the fancy, imagination. We are not\nalways controlling our thought, but so long as we are awake\nsomething is, as we say, passing through our heads. Everything\nthat happens about us provokes some suggestion or idea.\n\"Day-dreaming, building of castles in the air, that loose flux\nof casual and disconnected material that floats through our\nminds in relaxed moments, are, in this random sense, _thinking_.\nMore of our waking life than we should care to admit, even to\nourselves, is likely to be whiled away in this inconsequential\ntrifling with idle fancy and unsubstantial hope.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _How We Think_, p. 2.]\n\nThis play of the imagination is most uncontrolled and\nspontaneous in childhood, which is often characteristically\ndefined as the period of make-believe or fancy. It is this\ncapacity which enables the child to use chairs as locomotives,\nsticks as rifles, and wheelbarrows as automobiles. As we\ngrow older we tend to discipline this vagrant dreaming, and to\ndraw only those suggestions from objects which tally with the\nworkaday world we live in. We stop playing with our imagination\nand put our minds to work. But in adult life desire\nfor the play of the mind, like the desire for the play of the\nbody, persists. The endeavor of education is not to crush but\nto control it.\n\nImagination, used here in the sense of random mental\nactivity, may be controlled in two ways, both significant for\nhuman welfare. When it is controlled with reference to some\nemotional theme, as in fiction, drama, and poetry, it has no\nreference necessarily to actual objects or events; it is\nconcerned only with producing the effect of emotional congruity\nbetween incidents, objects, forms, or sounds. A great novel\ndoes not pretend to be a literal transcript of experience, nor\na portrait of an actual person. When random mental activity\nis thus controlled, it is \"imagination,\" in the popular sense,\nthe sense in which poets, painters, and dramatists are called\nimaginative artists.\n\nImagination controlled with reference to facts produces\ngenuine reflection and science. To put it in another way, no\nmatter how complicated thinking becomes, no matter how\nsuggestions are examined and regulated with reference to the\nfacts at hand, new ideas, theories, and hypotheses occur to\nthe thinker precisely by this upshoot of irresponsible fancies\nand suggestions. This free and fertile play of the imagination\nis what characterizes the original thinker more than any\nother single fact. Suggestions arise, as it were, willy-nilly,\ndepending on an individual's inheritance, his past experience,\nhis social position, all at the moment uncontrollable features\nof his situation. We can, through scientific method, examine\nand regulate suggestions once they arise, but their appearance\nis in a sense casual and unpredictable, like the fancies in a\ndaydream. The greatest scientific discoveries have been made in\na sudden \"flash of imagination,\" as when to the mind of Darwin,\nafter twenty years' painstaking collection of facts, their\nexplanation through the single encompassing formula of evolution\noccurs, or when to the mind of Newton the hypothesis\nof gravitation suddenly suggests itself.\n\nThe encouragement of a lively play of the mind over experience,\nthe stimulation of imagination or what Bertrand Russell\ncalls \"the joy of mental adventure\" is thus one of the\nmost important sources of art and science. The arousing of\nimagination depends primarily on the inherited curiosity of\nman which varies from the random and restless exploring\nof the child to the careful and persistent investigation of the\ntrained scientist. The curiosity which prompts the child to\nexperiment with objects in a hit-or-miss fashion is little more\nthan the physiological overflow of action which has been noted\nabove.\n\nCuriosity becomes more distinctively mental when it is\nsocial in character, when the child explores and experiments\nnot by its own manipulations but by communication, by asking\nquestions of other people.\n\nWhen the child learns that he can appeal to others to eke out his\nstore of experiences, so that, if objects fail to respond interestingly to\nhis experiments, he may call upon persons to provide interesting material,\na new epoch sets in. \"What is that?\" \"Why?\" become the\nunfailing signs of a child's presence. At first this questioning is\nhardly more than a projection into social relations of the physical\noverflow which earlier kept the child pushing and pulling, opening\nand shutting. He asks in succession what holds up the house, what\nholds up the soil that holds the house, what holds up the earth that\nholds the soil; but his questions are not evidence of any genuine\nconsciousness of rational connections. His _why_ is not a demand\nfor scientific explanation; the motive behind it is simply eagerness\nfor a larger acquaintance with the mysterious world in which he is\nplaced. The search is not for a law or principle, but only for a bigger\nfact.... But in the feeling, however dim, that the facts which\ndirectly meet the sense are not the whole story, that there is more\nbehind them and more to come from them, lies the germ of\n_intellectual_ curiosity.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _loc. cit._, p. 32.]\n\nCuriosity passes thus from casual rudimentary inquiry\ninto genuinely scientific investigation. At first it is merely\nphysical manipulation, then merely disconnected questionings;\nit becomes genuinely intellectual when it passes from\n\"inquisitiveness\" to inquiry. To be inquisitive means\nmerely to want to know facts rather than to solve problems.\nTo be scientifically inquiring is to seek on one's own account\nthe significant relations between things. But these earlier\nand more casual forms of curiosity are not to be despised. If\ndeveloped and controlled they lead to genuinely disinterested\nstudy of Nature and of men, to the spirit and the methods of\nscience. That free play of imagination which was spoken of\nabove as the chief source of original thinking and discovery\nis stimulated by an active hunting-out of new suggestions.\nCuriosity might also be defined as aggressive imagination,\nwhich, frequent enough in children, remains among adults to\na pronounced degree only in geniuses of art and science. We\nmay not agree with Bertrand Russell that \"everything is done\nin education to kill it,\" but the dogmatism and fixity of mind\nwhich so soon settle down on maturity, the inability to be\nsensitive to new experiences, these are discouragingly familiar\nphenomena clearly inimical to science and to progress.\n\nAn active imagination that finds new materials to play\nover is the basis of both science and art. A skillful manipulation\nof its materials in words or sounds, colors, or lines makes\nits result art. Their controlled examination and systematization\nmakes them science.\n\nQUIESCENCE--FATIGUE. That all life, animal and human,\nis characterized by activity of a more or less persistent and\npositive kind has already been noted. But in human beings,\nas well as in animals, activity displays a \"fatigue curve.\"\nThe repeated stimulation of certain muscles produces\nfatigue toxins which impair the efficiency of response and\nmake further stimulation painful. Of the causes of this\nlessened functional efficiency we may quote from Miss Goldmark's\npainstaking study:\n\nDuring activity, as will be shown later, the products of chemical\nchange increase. A tired person is literally and actually a poisoned\nperson--poisoned by his own waste products. But so marvellously\nis the body constructed that, like a running stream, it purifies itself,\nand during repose these toxic impurities are normally burned up by\nthe oxygen brought by the blood, excreted by the kidneys, destroyed\nin the liver, or eliminated from the body through the lungs. So rest\nrepaires fatigue.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Goldmark, J.: _Fatigue and Efficiency_, p. 13.]\n\nIn physical activity, therefore, periods of lessened activity\nor change of activity, or nearly complete inactivity as in\nsleep, are not only desirable but necessary, if efficiency is to be\nmaintained. The demand for rest is an imperative physiological\ndemand. The amount of recuperation demanded by\nthe organism varies in different individuals, but that there are\ncertain limits of human productivity has been made increasingly\nclear by a careful study of the effects of fatigue upon\noutput in industrial occupations. Repeatedly, the shortening\nof working hours, especially when they have previously numbered\nmore than eight, has been found to be correlated with\nan increase in efficiency. Likewise, the provision of rest\nperiods as in telephone-operating and the needle trades, has in\nnearly every case increased the amount and quality of the\nwork performed. The human machine in order to be most\neffective cannot be pressed too hard. A striking illustration\nwas offered in England at the beginning of the war. Under\npressure of war necessity, the munition factories relaxed all\nrestrictions on working hours and operated on a seven-day\nweek. The folly of this procedure was tersely summarized by\nthe British Commission investigating industrial fatigue,\nwhich reported: \"It is almost a commonplace that seven days'\nlabor produces six days' output.\"\n\nIn the study of industrial conditions, the effects of prolonged\nand repeated fatigue upon output have not been the\nonly features taken into consideration. Not only are there\nimmediately observable effects in the decreased output of the\nworker, but fatigue means, among other things, general loss\nof control. This has the effect of producing on the part of\noverworked factory hands dissipation and overstimulation in\nfree time, with a consequent permanent impairment of efficiency.[1]\nBoth for the laborer himself and for the efficiency\nof the industrial system, it has been increasingly recognized\nthat limitation of working hours is imperatively demanded.\nRest is as fundamental a need as food, and its deprivation\nalmost as serious in its effects.\n\n[Footnote 1:\nFor a striking array of testimony on this point see Goldmark: _loc. cit._,\npp. 220-35.]\n\nNERVOUS AND MENTAL FATIGUE. The conditions of nervous\nand mental fatigue have been less adequately studied than\nthe types of purely physiological fatigue just discussed. It is\ndifficult in experiments to discount the effects of muscular\nfatigue, and to discover how far there is really impairment of\nnervous tissue and functions. Experimental studies do show\nthat \"nervous fatigue is an undoubted fact\"[2] and that \"we\ncannot deny fatigue to the psychic centers\"[3] which, like any\nother part of the organism are subject to deterioration by\nfatigue toxins. Most students report, however, a higher degree\nof resistance to fatigue in the nerve fibers than in the\nmuscles, and a like high resistance to fatigue in the brain\ncenters.[4]\n\n[Footnote 2:\nFrederick S. Lee: \"Physical Exercise from the Standpoint of Physiology,\"\n_Science_, N.S., vol. XXIX, no. 744, p. 525.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Lee: _Fatigue_. Harvey Lectures, 1905-06, p. 180.]\n\n[Footnote 4:\nFor a summary of nervous fatigue and extensive bibliography, see Goldmark:\n_loc. cit._, p. 32.]\n\nThe conditions of mental fatigue, however, can be by no\nmeans as simply described as those of physical fatigue. Elaborate\nexperiments by Professor Thorndike and others tend to\nshow that, in the strictest sense of the term, there is no such\nthing as mental fatigue. That is, any mental function may\nbe performed for several hours with the most negligible decrease\nin the efficiency of the results attained. The subject of\none experiment kept continuously for seven hours performing\nmental multiplications of four-place numbers by four-place\nnumbers with scarcely any perceptible decrease in speed or\naccuracy in results.[1] Professor Thorndike draws from this\nand similar experiments the conclusion that it is practically\nimpossible to impair the efficiency of any mental function as\nsuch. What happens when we say our mental efficiency is\nbeing impaired is rather that we _will not_ than that we _cannot_\nperform any given mental function. The causes of loss of\nefficiency are rather competing impulses[2] than fatigue in\nspecific mental functions. We are tired _of_ the work, not _by_\nit. Continuous mental work of any given kind, writing a\nbook, solving problems in calculus, translating French, etc.,\ninvolves our being withheld from other activities, games,\nmusic, or companionship, to which by force of habit or\ninstinct, we are diverted, and diverted more acutely the more\nwe remain at a fixed task. That it is not mental \"fatigue\" so\nmuch as distraction that prevents us from persisting at work\nis evidenced in the longer time we can stick to work that\nreally interests us than to tasks in which we have only a\nperfunctory or compulsory interest. The college student who is\n\"too dead tired\" to stay up studying trigonometry will,\nthough in the same condition, stay up studying football\nstrategy, rehearsing for a varsity show, or getting out the\nnext morning's edition of his college paper. \"If each man\ndid the mental work for which he was fit, and which he\nenjoyed, men would work willingly much longer than they now\ndo.\"[1*] The effects of mental fatigue are, when analyzed, due\nchiefly to the physically injurious effects that do, but do not\nnecessarily, accompany mental work.\n\n[Footnote 1: T. Arai: _Mental Fatigue_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Thorndike: _Educational Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 322.]\n\n[Footnote 1*: Thorndike: _Educational Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 326.]\n\nProper air and light, proper posture and physical exercise, enough\nfood and sleep, and work whose purpose is rational, whose difficulty\nis adapted to one's powers, and whose rewards are just, should be\ntried before recourse to the abandonment of work itself. It is indeed\ndoubtful if sheer rest is the appropriate remedy for a hundredth part\nof the injuries that result from mental work in our present irrational\nconduct of it.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 328.]\n\nThe study of the conditions of mental work seems to reveal,\nin brief, that the conditions of fatigue are essentially physical\nin character. Given adequate physical conditions, in particular\nguarding against eye-strain, over-excitement (which means\ndistraction from the work in hand), and loss of sleep, mental\nwork is itself peculiarly unaffected by fatigue conditions. The\ndegree in which mental work can be persisted in depends,\ntherefore, other things being equal, on the individual's own\ninterests, the number and intensity of rival interests which\npersist during a given piece of mental work, and the habits of\nmind with which the individual approaches his work.\n\nThe experimental demonstration that so-called mental\nfatigue is largely physical in its conditions has thus a dual\nsignificance. It indicates how arduous and persistent mental\nendeavor may be and how wide are the possibilities of intellectual\naccomplishment. It is an important fact for human life\nthat the brain is possibly the most tireless part of the human\nmachine. What seems to be mental fatigue can be materially\nreduced if the physical conditions under which studying,\nwriting, and all other kinds of mental work are performed are\ncarefully regulated. Another large part of what passes for\nmental fatigue will be removed if the individual becomes\ntrained to a reflective appreciation of the end of his work. A\nhabit of alert and conscious attention, if it is really habitual,\nwill enable one to persist at work in the face of tempting distractions.\nLearning to \"tend to business\" by an intelligent\napplication to the aims of the work to be done, will be a\nhealthy antidote against that yielding to every dissuading\nimpulse which so often passes for mental weariness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN\n\nMAN AS A SOCIAL BEING. Man has long been defined as the\n\"social animal,\" and it is certainly characteristic of human\nactivity that it takes place largely with reference to other people.\nMany of man's native tendencies, such as those of sex,\nself-assertiveness, and the like, require the presence and\ncontact of other people for their operation. Nineteenth-century\nphilosophers attempted frequently to explain how individuals\nwho were natively self-seeking ever came to act socially. The\nsolution to this problem was usually found in the fact that precisely\nthose self-seeking and self-preservation instincts which\ngoverned man's activity could not find satisfaction except\nthrough cooeperation with a group. All man's social activity\nwas conceived as purely instrumental to the gratification of\nhis own egoistic desires. Man got on with his fellows simply\nbecause he could not get on without them. We shall see that,\nin the light of the specific and natural tendencies toward\nsocial behavior which are part of man's original equipment, this\nsharp psychological isolation between the individual and the\ngroup is an altogether unwarranted assumption. For it is\njust as native to man to act socially as it is for him to be\nhungry, or curious, or afraid. The element of truth in the\nnineteenth-century exaggeration of man's individuality lies in the\nfact that social activity is partly brought about in the\nsatisfaction of the more egoistic impulses of the individual. \"The\nfear motive drives men together in times of insecurity; the\npugnacity motive bands them together for group combat; the\neconomic motive brings industrial cooeperation and organization;\nthe self-assertive and submissive tendencies bring emulation\nas well as obedience; the expansion of the self to cover\none's family, one's clique, one's class, one's country contributes\nto loyalty; while the parental instinct, expanding its\nscope to cover others besides children who are helpless, leads\nto self-sacrifice and altruism.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: R. S. Woodworth: _Dynamic Psychology_, p. 204.]\n\nThe fact is, however, that while social activity is promoted\nbecause individuals find in cooeperation the possibility of the\nsatisfaction of their egoistic desires, social activity is primarily\nbrought about through the specifically social tendencies\nwhich are part of our native equipment. It is with these\nnatural bases of social activity that we shall in this chapter be\nparticularly concerned. We shall have to take note, in the\nfirst place, of a native tendency to be with other people, to\nfeel an unlearned sense of comfort in their presence, and\nuneasiness if too much separated from them, physically, or in\naction, feeling, or thought. Human beings tend, furthermore,\nto reproduce sympathetically the emotions of others,\nespecially those of their own social and economic groups.\nThirdly, man's conduct is natively social in that he is by\nnature specifically sensitive to praise and blame, that he will\nmodify his conduct so as to secure the one and avoid the\nother. Finally, besides the specific tendencies to respond to\nthe presence, the feelings, the actions, and the thoughts of\nothers, man displays a \"capacity for social behavior.\" And,\nas is the case with all native capacities, man has, therefore, a\nnative interest in group or social activity for its own sake.\n\nThe predominantly social character of human behavior has\nthus a twofold explanation. It is based, in the first place, on\nthe group of native tendencies of a social character to which\nwe have already referred. It is based, secondly, on the necessity\nfor group activity and cooeperation which the individual\nexperiences in the satisfaction of his egoistic impulses and\ndesires. Man, because of his original tendencies, wants to live,\nact, think, and feel with others; for the satisfaction of his\nnonsocial impulses he must live with others. And in civilized\nsociety human action from almost earliest childhood is in, and\nwith reference to, a group. Human behavior is thus seen to\nbe that of an essentially social nature acting in an essentially\nsocial environment. And, as in the case of other instinctive\nand habitual activities, human beings experience in social\nactivity an immediate satisfaction apart from any satisfactions\ntoward which it may be the instrument.\n\nGREGARIOUSNESS. The \"herd instinct\" is manifested by\nmany animals very low in the scale of animal development.\nMcDougall quotes in this connection Francis Galton's classical\naccount of this instinct in its crudest form: \"Describing\nthe South African ox in Damaraland, he says he displays\nno affection for his fellows, and hardly seems to notice their\nexistence, so long as he is among them; but, if he becomes\nseparated from the herd, he displays an extreme distress that\nwill not let him rest until he succeeds in rejoining it, when he\nhastens to bury himself in the midst of it, seeking the closest\npossible contact with the bodies of his fellows.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 84.]\n\nThis original tendency exhibits itself among human beings\nin a variety of ways. The tendency of human beings to herd\ntogether, for which there is evidence in the earliest history of\nthe race, may be observed on any crowded thoroughfare, or\nin any amusement park, or city. That group life has expanded\npartly through practical necessity, is, of course, true,\nbut groups of humans tend to become, as in our monster cities,\nlarger than they need be, or can be for economic efficiency.\n\nThe fascination of city life has not infrequently been set\ndown to the multiplicity of opportunities offered in the way\nof companions, amusements, and occupations after one's own\ntaste. But the fascination has clearly a more instinctive\nbasis, the desire to be with other people. Many a man, as\nhas been pointed out, lives in a large city as unsociable and\nsecluded a life as if he were surrounded by miles of mountain\nor prairie, who yet could not be happy elsewhere. Any one\nwho has failed to be amused by a really good comedy when\nthe theater was comparatively empty, or in the presence of\nthousands of others hugely enjoyed a second-rate baseball\ngame, or gone down to the crowded shopping district to get\nwhat he could have purchased on a side-street uptown, can\nappreciate how instinctive is this undiscriminating desire for\ncompanionship.\n\nThe native intensity of this desire is what makes rural\nisolation, on the other hand, so unsatisfactory. The bleakness\nof New England country life as pictured in Edith\nWharton's _Ethan Frome_, or in some of Robert Frost's _North\nof Boston_, is due more than anything else to this privation\nfrom companionship. Perhaps nothing better could be said\nfor the rural telephone, the interurban trolley, and the cheap\nautomobile than that they make possible the fulfillment of\nthis normal human longing to be near and with other people\nin body and spirit. The horror which makes it practically\nimpossible in civilized countries to legalize punishment by\nsolitary confinement and the nervous collapse which such\nconfinement brings about are indications of how deep-seated\nis this desire.\n\nThe \"herd instinct,\" like all the other of man's original\ntendencies, is educable. It can be trained to respond to\ngroups of various sizes and kinds. In its simplest manifestation\nit tends to be aroused by the family, but in the history\nof civilization the group tends progressively to enlarge. The\nfamily, the town, the nation--the gregarious instinct may be\neducated to respond to these ever-widening groups. The\nintensity and controlling power of this instinct over our\nactions seems to vary with the degree of intimacy and\nintercommunication between the individual and the group. In\nprimitive society it is most intense among the family and\nclan, and the family still remains in civilized society, certainly\nin rural districts, a very closely knit primary group. But as\nintercommunication widens, a sense of attachment to and\nsolidarity with a larger group begins to make itself felt. That\nintercommunication is largely important in extending the\ngroup in response to which the herd instinct may be aroused,\nis well illustrated by the utter lack of national group feeling\nexhibited during the Great War by recruits drafted from the\nbackwoods districts where they had been tied by no railroads\nor newspapers to the national civilization of which they were\na part.\n\nThe devotion of generous-hearted souls to \"lost causes,\"\nwhether political or religious, of the individual to his family\nor friends in the face of personal privation, are classic\nillustrations of the power of men's gregarious instinct even in the\nface of the dictates of reason. In the perhaps extreme but\nnevertheless suggestive statement of Mr. Trotter:\n\nHe [man] is more sensitive to the voice of the herd than to any\nother influence. It can inhibit or stimulate his thought and conduct.\nIt is the source of his moral codes, of the sanctions of his ethics and\nphilosophy. It can endow him with energy, courage and endurance,\nand can as easily take these away. It can make him acquiesce in his\nown punishment, and embrace his executioner, submit to poverty,\nbow to tyranny, and sink without complaint under starvation. Not\nmerely can it make him accept hardship and suffering unresistingly,\nbut it can make him accept as truth the explanation that his perfectly\npreventable afflictions are sublimely just and gentle. It is\nthis acme of the power of herd suggestion that is perhaps the most\nabsolutely incontestable proof of the profoundly gregarious nature\nof man.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Trotter: _Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_,\npp. 114-15.]\n\nTo how large a group the individual can respond with spontaneous\nand instinctive loyalty is questionable. The small\nchild throws out his arms and exclaims passionately, \"I love\nthe whole world.\" Auguste Comte could be imbued with a\nfervor for \"humanity\" in the abstract. The idea of a League\nof Nations arouses in some minds a passionate devotion to a\nworld order that to those themselves habituated to an intense\nloyalty to the national group seems incredible. Certainly it is\ntrue that we rapidly outgrow that state of mind common to\nenthusiastic adolescence when we can develop a love for the\nuniverse in the abstract. The instinct of gregariousness\nseems unquestionably to be most intense where there is intimacy\nand vividness of group association. The primary\ngroups, as Professor Ross calls them, are face-to-face associations,\nthe family, the play group, the neighborhood group.\nIf \"world patriotism\" is a possibility, it is because rapid\ncommunication and the frequency of travel, and the education\nof the industrial classes to \"the international mind\" tend\nto break down barriers and to make distant countries and\npersons vivid and directly imaginable. But there seems to be\nno substitute for direct personal contact. Even devotion to\na country tends to take the form of phrases, places, persons,\nand symbols, to which we have been familiarized.\n\nGREGARIOUSNESS IMPORTANT FOR SOCIAL SOLIDARITY. The gregarious\ninstinct, powerful as it is, is of the greatest significance\nfor social solidarity, and, if misdirected, for seriously limiting\nit. It is, in the first place, the trait without which social\nsolidarity would be almost impossible. \"In early times when\npopulation was scanty, it must have played an important\npart in social evolution by keeping men together, and thereby\noccasioning the need for social laws and institutions.\"[1] The\ncoherence of national, political, or religious groups depends\nprimarily on the extent to which the gregarious instinct may\nbe aroused. Allegiance to a group may, of course, be secured\nthrough participation in common ideals. This is illustrated\nin the case of the numerous literary and scientific associations\nthat cut across national boundaries and knit into groups\nsimilarly interested persons all over the world. Groups may,\nagain, be formed through common economic interests, as in\nthe case of labor unions, or employers' associations. Groups\nmay be knit and strengthened through law and custom. And\nall these factors play a smaller or larger part in any important\ngrouping of men in contemporary society. But unless there\nis, on the part of the members of the group, a deep-seated\nemotional attachment to the group itself, solidarity will be\nvery precarious. The intensity and solidarity, of feeling\nexhibited so markedly during war-time is made possible by\nthe intense excitability of this instinct when the group is\nunder conditions of stress or danger. Any scheme for enlisting\na great number of individuals in modern society in a\nscheme of social reform or improvement, must and does,\nwhen it is successful, arouse in him a heightened sense of loyalty\nto a group more than reasoned approval of a cause.\nEffective recruiting posters more often told the passer-by,\n\"Your country needs you,\" than they attempted to convince\nhim in black-and-white logic of the justice of his country's\naims.\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 301.]\n\nGREGARIOUSNESS MAY HINDER THE SOLIDARITY OF LARGE GROUPS.\nWhile gregariousness is the foundation of group solidarity, it\nalso interferes with the solidarity of large groups, and not\ninfrequently brings about conflicts between them, and within\ngroups themselves. Within even so small a community as\na college class, cliques may form; and so in a country,\nattachment to the smaller group may inhibit attachment to\nthe larger. An individual may be vaguely patriotic, but\ninstinctively aroused more by his own economic or local or\nracial group than by the country as a whole. A man may at\nheart be more devoted to his town or home than to the United\nStates. (Not infrequently his town or home is what the\nUnited States means to the citizen.) Even to-day the sectional\nfeeling that exists in many parts of the country cannot\nbe completely explained as occurring through separate economic\ninterests. The division of classes within a country is\nlargely an economic matter, but even in such a situation a\nloyalty develops to the class as a class or group.\n\nAgain, the same instinct to herd with his fellows that makes\na man intensely loyal to his own group may operate to make\nhim indifferent to the difficulties or jealous and suspicious of\nthe aims of others Gregariousness is the basis not only of\npatriotism, but of chauvinism, not only of civic pride, but of\nprovincialism. The narrowness and parochialism of group\nattachments is most pronounced where groups and communities\nare rigidly set off one from another. In such circumstances\ncommunity of feeling and understanding is largely reduced.\nThis may be seen even under contemporary conditions in the\ncomparatively complete inability of different professional,\nsocial, and economic groups within the same society to\nunderstand each other, and the proverbial ignorance and\ncarelessness of one half of the population as to \"how the other half\nlives.\" Narrowness of group feeling tends to grow less\npronounced under the mobile conditions of modern industry,\ncommunication, and education. Trade relations knit the\nfarthest parts of the globe together; this morning's newspaper\nputs us in touch with the whole of mankind. We have outgrown\nthe days when every stranger was an enemy. But\nthough the barriers between nations are tending to break\ndown, within nations individuals tend, as they grow older, to\nexperience an insulated devotion to their own set or social\ngroup, a callous oblivion to the needs and desires of that great\nmajority of mankind with whom they have a less keen sense\nof \"consciousness of kind.\"\n\nGREGARIOUSNESS IN BELIEF. Man's gregarious character, as\nalready pointed out, is manifested not only in his desire to be\nphysically with his fellows, but to be at one with them in their\nactions, feelings, and thoughts. Beliefs once established tend\nto remain established if for no other reason than that they are\nbelieved in by the majority. That an opinion gains prestige\nmerely because we know other people believe it, is frequently\nillustrated by the facility with which rumor travels. At the\nend of the Great War, it will be recalled, the false news of the\narmistice report flew from mouth to mouth and was accepted\nwith the most amazing credulity simply because \"everybody\nsaid so.\" The spread of superstitions and old wives' tales and\ntheir long lingering in the minds even of intelligent people is\ntestimony that men tend mentally as well as physically to\nherd together.\n\nThe tendency to find comfort in the presence of one's fellows\nand uneasiness if too much separated from them, is as\npronounced in the sphere of moral and intellectual relations\nas it is in the case of merely physical proximity. We like to\nbe one of a crowd in our opinions and beliefs, as well as in our\npersons. There is hardly anything more painful than the\nsense of being utterly alone in one's opinions. Even the\nextreme dissenter from the accustomed ways of thinking and\nfeeling of the majority is associated with or pictures some\nlittle group which agrees with him. And, if we cannot find\ncontemporaries to share our extreme opinions, we at least\nimagine some ideal group now or in posterity to share it with\nus.\n\nGREGARIOUSNESS IN HABITS OF ACTION. But if men tend to\nthink in groups they tend more emphatically still to act in\ngroups, to be acutely uncomfortable when acting in a fashion\ndifferent from that customary among the majority of their\nfellows. Habits of action are more deep-seated physiologically\nthan habits of thought (which is one reason why our theories\nare so often in advance of our practice). People will accede\nintellectually to new ideas which they would not and could\nnot practice, the mind being, as it were, more convertible\nthan the emotions. Even in minor matters, in dress, speech,\nand manners, we like to do the accustomed thing. It is more\npainful for most people to use the wrong fork at dinner, or\nto be dressed in a business suit where everyone else is in\nevening clothes, than to commit a fallacy, or to act upon\nprejudices rather than upon logical conclusions.\n\nThe individual's instinctive desire to be identical in action\nwith other members of his group, from the collars and clothes\nhe wears to the way he brings up his children, is greatly\nreinforced by the punishment meted out to those who differ from\nthe majority. This may vary from ridicule, as in the case of\nthe laughter that greets the poet's proverbial long hair and\nflowing tie, the foreigner's accent, or a straw hat in April, to\nthe confinement and privation that are the penalties for any\nmarked infringement of the accepted modes of life. Even\nwhen the punishments are slight, they are effective. A man\nwho has no moral or religious scruples with reference to\ngambling on any day of the week will, to avoid the social ostracism\nof his neighbors, refrain from playing cards on his front porch\non Sunday. For no other reason than to avoid being consciously\ndifferent, many a man will not wear cool white\nclothes on a hot day in his office who will wear them on a cool\nevening at the seashore.\n\nTHE EFFECT OF GREGARIOUSNESS ON INNOVATION. A strong\ninstinctive tendency to community of action and thought is in\nlarge part responsible for the comparative absence of innovation\nin either of these fields. A premium is put upon the\nconventional, the customary, the common, both in the instinctive\nsatisfaction they give the individual, and in the high\nvalue set upon them by society. In advanced societies, however,\nthe habit of inquiry and originality may itself come to\nbe endorsed by the majority, as it is among scientists and\nartists. The herd instinct need not always act on the side of\nunreason. Among the intellectual classes, it is already enlisted\non the side of free inquiry, which among scholars is the\nfundamental common habit.\n\nIf rationality were once to become really respectable, if we feared\nthe entertaining of an unverifiable opinion with the warmth with\nwhich we fear using the wrong implement at the dinner table, if the\nthought of holding a prejudice disgusted us as does a foul disease,\nthen the dangers of man's suggestibility would be turned into\nadvantages.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Trotter; _loc. cit._, p. 45.]\n\nSYMPATHY (A SPECIALIZATION OF GREGARIOUSNESS). Sympathy,\nin the strict psychological sense of the term, means a\n\"suffering with, the experiencing of any feeling or emotion\nwhen and because we observe in other persons or creatures\nthe expression of that feeling of emotion.\"[2] The behavior\nof animals exhibits the external features of sympathetic action\nvery clearly. \"Two dogs begin to growl or fight, and at once\nall the dogs within sound and sight stiffen themselves, and\nshow every symptom of anger. Or one beast in a herd stands\narrested, gazing in curiosity on some unfamiliar object, and\npresently his fellows also, to whom the object may be invisible,\ndisplay curiosity and come up to join in the examination\nof the object.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 2: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 92.]\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 93.]\n\nHuman beings tend not only sympathetically to reproduce\nthe instinctive actions of others,[2] but they tend, despite\nthemselves, to experience directly and immediately, often\ninvoluntarily, the emotions experienced and outwardly manifested\nby others. Almost everyone has had his mood heightened\nto at least kindly joy by the presence in a crowded street car\nof a young child whose inquiring prattle and light-hearted\nlaughter were subdued by the gray restraints and responsibilities\nof maturity. One melancholy face can crush the joy of a\nboisterous and cheerful party;[3] the eagerness and enthusiasm\nof an orator can, irrespective of the merits of the cause he is\ndefending, provoke eagerness and enthusiasm for the same\ncause among an audience that does not in the least understand\nwhat the orator is talking about.\n\n[Footnote 2:\n\"In man infectious laughter or yawning, walking in step, imitating the\nmovements of a ropewalker, while watching him, feeling a shock in one's legs\nwhen one sees a man falling, and a hundred other occurrences of this kind are\ncases of physiological sympathy.\" Ribot: _Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 232.\n\nReproduction of the actions of others has by a certain school of philosophers\nand psychologists, notably Tarde, Le Bon, and Baldwin, been ascribed to\nimitation. But no experimental researches have revealed any such specific\ninstinct to imitate (see Thorndike, p. 73 ff.), and \"imitations\" of acts can\ngenerally be traced to sympathy, or suggestion--which is sympathy on an\nintellectual plane.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Such expressions as \"kill joy,\" \"wet blanket,\" \"life of the\nparty\" are instances of the popular appreciation of the fact of social\ncontagion.]\n\nOne brand of cigarettes was recently advertised by the\nface of a young soldier, roguishly irresponsible, palpably and\ncompletely given over to joy. One found one's self transported\ninto something of this same mood before one had a\nchance to speculate at all as to whether there was any causal\nrelation between the specific quality of tobacco the youngster\nwas smoking, and that contagious, undeniable delight. What\nis called personal magnetism is perhaps more than anything\nelse the ability to provoke in others sympathetic experiences\nof pleasant and exhilarating emotions.\n\nSensibility to the emotions of others, though possessed by\nalmost all individuals, varies in degree. The complete\nabsence of it marks a man out as \"stolid,\" \"cold,\" \"callous,\"\n\"brutal.\" Such a type of personality may be efficient and\nsuccessful in pursuits requiring nothing besides a direct\nanalysis of facts, uncolored by any irrelevant access of feeling, as in\nthe case of mathematics and mechanics. But the geniuses\neven in strictly intellectual fields have frequently been men of\nsensitiveness, delicacy, and responsiveness to the feelings of\nothers. That intellectual analysis, however, does frequently\nblunt the poignancy of feeling is illustrated in the case of John\nStuart Mill, who writes in his _Autobiography_:\n\nAnalytic habits may thus even strengthen the associations between\ncauses and effects, means and ends, but tend altogether to\nweaken those which are, to speak familiarly, a _mere_ matter of feeling.\nThey are, therefore, I thought, favorable to prudence and clear-sightedness,\nbut a perpetual worm at the root both of the passions\nand of the virtues; and above all fearfully undermine all desires and\n... all except the purely physical and organic; of the entire insufficiency\nof which to make life desirable, no one had a stronger conviction\nthan I had.... All those to whom I looked up were of the opinion\nthat the pleasure of sympathy with human beings, and the\nfeelings which made the good of others, and especially of mankind\non a large scale, the object of existence, were the greatest and surest\nsources of happiness. Of the truth of this I was convinced, but to\nknow that a feeling would make me happy if I had it, did not give\nme the feeling.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Autobiography_ (Holt edition), p. 138.]\n\nA generous degree of susceptibility to the emotions of\nothers makes a man what is variously called \"mellow,\" \"humane,\"\n\"large-hearted,\" \"generous-souled.\" The possession\nof such susceptibility is an asset, first, in that it enriches life\nfor its possessor. It gives him a warm insight into the feelings,\nemotions, desires, habits of mind and action of other\npeople, and gives to his experiences with them a vivid and\npersonal significance not attainable by any hollow intellectual\nanalysis. It is an asset, moreover, in the purely utilitarian\nbusiness of dealing with men. The statesman or executive\nwho deals with men as so many animate machines, may\nachieve certain mechanical and arbitrary successes. But he\nwill be missing half the data on which his decisions must be\nbased if he does not have a live and sensitive appreciation of\nhow men feel when placed in given situations. The placing of\nwomen in positions of labor management where women chiefly\nare to be dealt with is an illustration of the recognition of the\nimportance of sympathy, fellow-feeling in the management\nof human affairs. One of the reasons why many university\nscholars make poor teachers is because they cannot place\nthemselves back at the point where a subject was as live and\nfresh and virgin to them as it is to their students.\n\nAn extraordinary degree or a decided hypertrophy of emotional\nsusceptibility is as dangerous a trait as its possession in\na reasonable degree is a utility and an enrichment of life. It\nresults in the hysteria or sentimentalism which adds to the\nreal evils and difficulties of life fancied grievances and\ndisasters. Such temperaments when confronted with any good\nor beautiful action dissolve into ecstasy, and when faced with\na problem or a difficulty dissolve into tears. Doctors will\nnot treat their own children because the overplus of sympathy\nis a hindrance to action. Sentimental ladies are not\nthe most efficient charity workers or prisoner reformers.\n\nWhile there is a general tendency to experience sympathetically\nthe feelings of others, this becomes specialized in most\npeople, and one tends to experience most immediately and\nintensely the emotions of one's own kind, physically, socially,\nand intellectually. Sympathy is a specialization of man's\ngeneral gregariousness, and becomes more specialized as one\nbecomes habituated exclusively to a small group. Within\nthis small group, individuals not only experience the emotions\nof others, but like to share and communicate their own\nemotions.\n\nThe nearer people are to us in mode of life, social status, and\nintellectual interests, the closer is community of feeling and\n\"consciousness of kind.\" Two Americans meeting in a foreign\ncountry have a quick and sympathetic understanding of\neach other. Two alumni of the same college meeting in a\ndistant city have a common basis of interest and feeling.\n\nThis easy give-and-take of feeling and emotion makes the\ndeep attractiveness of intimate companionship. Our companion\nhas but to mention a name or a place, and we experience\nthe same associations, the pleasures, or antipathies which\nhe does. A gesture, a curious glance of the eye, a pause, we\nunderstand as quickly as if he had spoken a sentence. But\nnot only do we understand his feelings; he (or she) understands\nours. And for most people, all their interests and enjoyments\nare heightened by the presence of an intimately\nknown companion.\n\nMany children manifest very clearly this tendency of active sympathy;\nthey demand that their every emotion shall be shared at once.\n\"Oh, come and look!\" is their constant cry when out for a walk, and\nevery object that excites their curiosity or admiration is brought at\nonce, or pointed out, to their companion.... On the other hand,\nanother child, brought up, perhaps, under identical conditions, but\nin whom this impulse is relatively weak, will explore a garden,\ninterested and excited for hours together, without once feeling\nthe need for sympathy, without once calling on others to share\nhis emotions.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 172.]\n\nIn adult life, few people care to go to theater or concert\nalone, and a man at a club will wander half through the dining-room\nuntil he will find some one with whom he will feel like\nsitting through a dinner conversation.\n\nThe fact that emotions exhibited in one individual are readily\naroused in another makes art possible and makes it interesting.\nA poet by a phrase, a musician by a chord or melody,\ncan suddenly reproduce in us his own feeling of gayety or\nexaltation. A painter by disposition of line and color can\nsuggest the majesty of mountains, or the sadness of a sunset\nas he himself has experienced it. In novels and dramas we\ncan _relive_ the feelings that the writer imagines to have been\nexperienced by others. It is testimony to the easy excitability\nof sympathy as well as to an artist's skill that this can\nsometimes be done in a few lines or paragraphs. Witness the\nfamous opening of Poe's _Fall of the House of Usher:_\n\nDuring the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn\nof the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens,\nI had been passing alone on horseback, through a singularly dreary\ntract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of evening\ndrew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not\nhow it was--but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of\ninsufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the\nfeeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic,\nsentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest\nnatural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene\nbefore me--upon the mere house and the simple landscape features\nof the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows,\nupon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed\ntrees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare\nto no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the\nreveller upon opium; the bitter lapse into everyday life, the hideous\ndropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening\nof the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading\nof the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What\nwas it--I paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in\nthe contemplation of the House of Usher?\n\nTo Aristotle tragedy seemed to afford a cleansing or\n\"katharsis of the soul\" through the sympathetic experience\nof pity or fear. To Schopenhauer music was the greatest of\nthe arts because it made us at one with the sorrows and the\nstrivings of the world. All the representative arts are vivid\nways of making us feel with the passions or emotions that\nstir mankind. And those men are poets, painters, or musicians\nwho, besides having a unique gift of expression, whether\nin word, tone, or color, have themselves an unusually high\nsensitivity to the moods of other men and to the imagined\nmoods of the natural scenes among which they move.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Poets generally are so susceptible to emotional shades and\nnuances that they read them into situations where they are not present,\nand then reproduce them sympathetically in their works. The so-called\n\"pathetic fallacy\" is an excellent illustration of this. Poets sympathize\nwith the emotions of a landscape, emotions which were in the first\nplace, their own.]\n\nIn experience, the presence or absence of genuine sympathy\nwith the emotions of others determines to no small extent the\ncharacter of our dealings with them. Even courts of justice\ntake motives into account and juries have been known to ask\nfor clemency for a murderer because of their keen realization\nof the provocation which he had undergone. Fellow-feeling\nwith others may again warp our judgments or soften them;\nin our judgment of the work of our friends, it is difficult\naltogether to discount our personal interest and affection. On\nthe other hand, we may have the most sincere admiration and\nrespect for a man, and yet be seriously hampered in our\ndealings with him, socially or professionally, by a total lack\nof sympathy with his motives and desires.\n\nPRAISE AND BLAME. An important part of man's social\nequipment is his susceptibility to the praise and blame of his\nfellows. That is, among the things which instinctively satisfy\nmen are objective marks of praise or approval on the part\nof other people; among the things which annoy them, sometimes\nto the point of acute distress, are marks of disapproval,\nscorn, or blame. This is illustrated most simply and directly\nin the satisfaction felt at \"intimate approval as by smiles,\npats,\" kindly words, or epithets applied by other people to\none's own actions or ideas, and the discomfort, amounting\nsometimes to pain, that is felt at frowns, hoots, sneers, and\nepithets of scorn or derision. One student of this subject\nnotes \"as early as the fourth month a 'hurt' way of crying\nwhich seemed to indicate a sense of personal slight. It was\nquite different from the cry of pain or that of anger, but\nseemed about the same as the cry of fright. The slightest\ntone of reproof would produce it. On the other hand, if\npeople took notice and laughed and encouraged, she was\nhilarious.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Cooley: _Human Nature and the Social Order_, p. 166.]\n\nMan's sensitiveness to praise and blame is paralleled by his\ninstinctive tendency to express them.\n\nSmiles, respectful stares, and encouraging shouts occur, I think, as\ninstinctive responses to relief from hunger, rescue from fear, gorgeous\ndisplay, instinctive acts of strength and daring, victory, and other\nimpressive instinctive behavior that is harmless to the onlooker.\nSimilarly, frowns, hoots, and sneers seem bound as original responses\nto the observation of empty-handedness, deformity, physical meanness,\npusillanimity, and defect. As in the case of all original tendencies,\nsuch behavior is early complicated and in the end much distorted,\nby training; but the resulting total cannot be explained by\nnurture alone.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _Educational Psychology_, Briefer Course,\npp. 32-33.]\n\nMan's instinctive tendency to respond to praise and blame\nand to exhibit them is, next to gregariousness--through\nwhich men in the first place are able to live together--the\nindividual human trait most significant for social life. For\nwhile the desire for praise, the avoidance of blame, and the\nexpression of both are instinctive, the occasions on which they\nare called forth depend on the traditions and group habits to\nwhich the individual has been exposed. He soon learns that\nin the society in which he is living, certain acts will bring him\nthe praise of others; certain other acts will bring him their\ndisapproval. The whole scope of his activity may thus be\nprofoundly modified by the penalties and prizes in the way\nof praise and blame which society attaches to different modes\nof action. And the more explicit and outward signs there are\nof the approval or scorn of others, the more will individual\naction be subject to social control.\n\nAs Plato said so long ago and said so well:\n\nWhenever they [the public] crowd to the popular assembly, the\nlaw courts, the theaters, the camp, or any public gathering of large\nbodies, and there sit in a dense and uproarious mass to censure some\nof the things said or done, and applaud others, always in excess;\nshouting and clapping, until, in addition to their own noise, the rocks\nand the places wherein they are echo back redoubled the uproar of\ntheir censure and applause. At such a moment, how is a young man,\nthink you, to retain his self-possession? Can any private education\nthat he has received hold out against such a torrent of censure and\napplause, and avoid being swept away down the stream, wherever it\nmay lead, until he is brought to adopt the language of these men as\nto what is honorable and dishonorable, and to imitate all their practices,\nand to become their very counterpart?[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Plato: _Republic_ (Davies and Vaughn translation), p. 208.]\n\nWe have already had occasion to point out that education is\nthe method by which society inculcates in its younger members\nhabits which are regarded as socially beneficial. In its\nbroadest sense the whole social environment is an individual's\neducation. And it is an education chiefly through experience\nwith other people, discovering what they will and will not\ntolerate, what they will cherish and what they will condemn.\n\nThe elaborate paraphernalia and rites of fashion in clothes exist\nchiefly by virtue of their value as means of securing diffuse notice\nand approval. The primitive sex display is now a minor cause:\nwomen obviously dress for other women's eyes. Much the same is\ntrue of subservience to fashions in furniture, food, manners, morals,\nand religion. The institution of tipping, which began, perhaps, in\nkindliness and was fostered by economic self-interest, is now well-nigh\nimpregnable because no man is brave enough to withstand the scorn\nof a line of lackeys whom he heartily despises, or of a few onlookers\nwhom he will never see again.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Thorndike: _loc. cit._, p. 32.]\n\nOne of the things we mean when we say a man is worldly-wise,\nshrewd, knows human nature, is that he knows what\nwill win people's admiration, and knows, moreover, to distinguish\nbetween that which they publicly condemn and\nsecretly approve, and _vice versa_. In the passage quoted above\nPlato was trying to show how the young Athenian acquired\nnot wisdom itself, but \"worldly wisdom,\" the ability to get\nalong in affairs. This he learned not from the professional\nteachers, but from the Athenian public, with whose approvals\nand disapprovals he came in daily contact.\n\nPRAISE AND BLAME MODIFY HABIT. In order to avoid censure\nand gain the expressed approval of others, people learn, either,\nas we say, through bitter experience, or deliberately, to modify\ntheir actions. The well-brought-up child, even when\nits mother is not about and its appetite unsatisfied, may be\nashamed to say \"Yes\" to a second offering of ice cream. The\nten-year-old who likes to be coddled by his mother in private\nwould be acutely embarrassed to be \"babied\" in the presence\nof other people. Among adults, likewise, actions are checked,\nprompted, or modified by the praise and blame that have become\nhabitually associated with them. Men like to appear\nvirtuous, even if they do not like to practice virtue. It is not\nonly the professional politician who does generous acts for\npublic approval, nor is even the most disinterested and conscientious\nwork altogether free from being affected by the\nexpressed attitudes of approval or disapproval of other people.\nEven transportation companies have found that they can\nincrease the efficiency of their employees by expressing in\nsome form the approval of their employees' courtesy and\nloyalty.[1] \"A man, again, ... may fail to see any 'reason'\nwhy an elementary-school teacher or a second-division clerk\ncannot do his work properly after he has been 'put in his\nplace' by some official who happens to combine personal callousness\nwith social superiority. But no statesman who did\nso could create an effective educational or clerical service.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 1: Many transportation companies maintain a merit system.\nSometimes they award special insignia, as the green flag to the New\nYork bus-drivers who save gasoline.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Wallas: _Great Society_, p. 197.]\n\nTo say that we are moved to action by praise and blame is\nnot to indicate that actions thus motivated are done in a spirit\nof hypocrisy or charlatanism. Even the most sincere acts are\nprompted or sustained, especially where their performance\ninvolves serious personal privation or sacrifice, by the imagined\nor actual approval of those whom we love, admire, or\nrespect. Whose praise and blame individuals will care about\ndepends on their education and temperamental differences.\nThat there will be some group, however small, is almost sure\nto be the case. The poet who curls his lip at popular taste\ncherishes the more keenly the applause of those whom he\nregards as competent judges. The martyr will be unmoved\nby the curses, the jeers, and the hoots of the contemporary\nmultitude so long as he has the trust of his small band of comrades\nor faith that the Lord approves his ways. A man who\nis utterly alone in the approval of his actions is regarded as\ncrazy or is driven so by the perpetual disesteem in which he is\nheld. There have been cases in literature and life of accused\ncriminals who could bear up against the belief of the whole\nworld in their guilt so long as one friend or kinsman had faith\nin them. That faith gone, they completely collapsed.\n\nDESIRE FOR PRAISE MAY LEAD TO THE PROFESSION RATHER THAN THE\nPRACTICE OF VIRTUE. While the desire for social approval is\nstrong in most men, so are other desires. It happens, moreover,\nthat the actions to which men's instincts prompt them\nare not always such as would be approved by others.[1] In\norder, therefore, to have their cake and eat it, to do what they\nplease and yet seem to please others, men often conceal the\ndiscrepancy between what they profess and what they practice.\nOne of the least agreeable features of civilized society\nis the extent to which the codes which men and groups profess\ndiffer from those by which they live. Men who have ostensibly\nChristian codes of honor, and, indeed, practice them in\ntheir private lives, will have an actual \"ethics\" for business\nthat they could not possibly sanction in their dealings as\ntrustees of a church. There are practices within trades and\nprofessions, the familiar \"trade\" practices, and \"ethics\" of\nthe profession, which, for social as well as for professional\nreasons, their practitioners would not want known. \"Company\"\nmanners are a trivial illustration of this, but there are\nmore serious instances. One has but to recall the sensation\ncreated a few years ago when a minister of a fashionable\ncongregation called upon his congregation to practice Christianity,\nor, on a superb scale, Tolstoy's leaving the estates and\nmode of life of a rich Russian noble, in order to live the simple\nlife he regarded as prescribed by the Christian teaching.[2]\n\n[Footnote 1: At least not publicly approved. There is, however,\nadmiration, often unconcealed, for the man who does even an\nunusual act conspicuously well. One need only mention a Raffles\nor a Captain Kidd.]\n\n[Footnote 2: See Tolstoy's _Diary_ and _Confessions_.]\n\nPsychologically, therefore, the cause of the discrepancy\nbetween the codes which men preach and profess and those\nwhich they practice, is thus seen to be a desire to secure illicit\n(that is, socially unsanctioned) satisfactions without incurring\nthe penalty of social disapproval. Part of this discrepancy is\nnot to be set down to the evils men actually do so much as\nthe irrationality and fanaticism of the codes which they have\nbeen taught to profess. This is the case, for example, where\nexcessive Puritanism or fanaticism, not possible for most men,\nis imposed upon them by an arbitrary and fanatical teaching.\nThey will then pretend to types of action socially regarded as\nvirtues in order to avoid the penalties incurred by not practicing\nthem. The desire for \"respectability\" is responsible\nfor no small amount of pretension, illustrated pathetically in\ncases where individuals, to satisfy the standards of their associates,\nlive beyond their means physically, socially, or intellectually.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Many Bostonians, _crede experto_ (and inhabitants\nof other cities, too, I fear), would be happier men and women to-day\nif they could once for all abandon the notion of keeping up a Musical\nSelf and without shame let people hear them call a symphony a nuisance.\"\nJames: _Psychology_, vol. I, p. 311.]\n\nAgain, codes of action remain formally accepted long after\nthey have ceased to be taken seriously. In States that went\n\"dry\" where there was no majority public sentiment in their\nfavor, \"bootlegging,\" the illicit making and selling of whiskey,\nwas practiced freely, because not many people regarded\nprohibition as a serious matter, or its infringement as a serious\ncrime. Legal codes remain not infrequently a generation\nbehind public opinion, and many ideas are verbally professed\nthat nobody takes quite seriously.\n\nTHE SOCIAL EFFECTIVENESS OF PRAISE AND BLAME. How far the\nsocial estimates of approval and disapproval affect the conduct\nof the individual depends on the degree to which, through\neducation, public opinion, and law, he is made part of the\ngroup. In primitive society, even the slightest details of\nconduct were regulated by the group, through an elaborate system\nof punishments for slight infringements. In civilized\nsociety, the development of a sense of personal selfhood and\nsocial recognition of its importance has to a degree freed\nindividual action from complete domination by the group. This\nhas in part been compensated by the education of the contemporary\ncitizen to national interests, and social sympathy,\nwhich render him susceptible to the praise and blame of public\nopinion.\n\nThe effectiveness of praise and blame in determining action\ndepends also on the explicitness with which they are expressed.\nIn contemporary life the control of public opinion\nis made precarious because there is so rarely complete or\npalpable unanimity on any subject among the variety of groups\nthat constitute a modern society. In a large city there are so\nmany groups, so many sets of opinion, that an individual may\nnot feel any great pressure of praise and blame except from the\nsmall circle of people with whom he is associated. In small\ncommunities action is restrained by the fear of ostracism or\ncontempt of the whole group among whom one is living. But\nin large cities, where one may not be known by one's next-door\nneighbor, this restraint is much reduced. The temptations\nof a metropolis, so often referred to in the lurid literature\nof the day, consist not in temptations more numerous than or\ndifferent from those in smaller places, but in the marked\nabsence of social control as compared with small villages where\nevery one knows everyone else's business.\n\nThe influence of the social estimate on individual conduct\ndepends finally on individual differences in suggestibility.\nIn normal individuals susceptibility to the praise and blame\nof others is very high, especially among the close circle of\nfriends, professional and business associates among whom one\nmoves. This susceptibility is heightened when the praise or\nblame comes from persons superior in social status, though\nhere the element of fear of the consequences of displeasing is\nperhaps more important than the responsiveness to the praise\nand blame itself. To the praise and blame of close associates\nmost men are also highly suggestible, not less so when there\nis equality in social status. \"Birds of a feather flock together,\"\nbut humans tend to _become_ similar _because_ they flock together.\nThere are few men who can withstand the pressure of doing\nwhat their group approves, and refraining from doing what it\ndisapproves.\n\nIn some men susceptibility to the attitudes of others is\nextremely low, and of such are both criminals and martyrs\nmade. In the prisons of this country there are a large number\nof men absolutely indifferent to the usual social standards,\ncompletely undeterred by the codes of conduct by which\nother people cannot help but be governed. Such absolute\ncallousness to the feelings which govern the majority of\nmankind as we read of every now and then in the trial of some\ndesperate criminal, is not infrequently associated with\nabnormally low intelligence, the sodden stolidity of the traditional\ncriminal type. Where it appears, as it sometimes does, in\ncriminals of high intelligence, it is regarded by psychiatrists\nas a specific abnormality, comparable to color-blindness or a\nphysical deformity.\n\nThere are, on the other hand, individuals whose apparent\nlow suggestibility is of the highest social value. There are\nstriking instances, throughout the long struggle toward human\nliberty, of persons who could withstand the public opinion\nof their own day in the light of some ideal which they cherished,\nof men who needed no other approval than their consciences,\ntheir better selves, or their god. Socrates drinking\nthe fatal hemlock, Christ upon the cross, the Christian saints,\nJoan of Arc, the extreme dissenters of every generation, are\ninstances of men and women seemingly unmoved by the\npraise and blame of their contemporaries. Sustained by their\ndeep inner conviction of the justice and significance of their\nmission, they have been content to suffer scorn, ridicule, and\nmartyrdom at the hands of their own generation in a persistent\ndevotion to what in their eyes constituted the highest good of\nmankind.\n\nSOCIAL ESTIMATES AND STANDARDS OF CONDUCT. Individuals\nare early habituated to the customs of the society in which\nthey live, and come to approve, as might be expected from\nthe power of men's habits and from their instinctive gregariousness,\nthose things which they or their companions have\nalways done. That \"people don't do such things,\" or that\n\"everybody does them,\" is a frequently assigned reason for\nthe approval or condemnation of an act. Social approvals\nthus become affixed to acts which are regularly done by the\nmajority, and divergences are subjected to varying degrees\nof censure. In civilized societies variations from customs\nthat are not legally enforced are punished mainly by social\nostracism. There is no law against walking down a crowded\ncity street in Elizabethan costume, yet few would indulge\ntheir taste for beautiful but archaic dress in the face of all the\nridicule they would incur. The whole system of etiquette,\nof the standard of living of respectable society, is maintained\nin large part because of the approvals and outward marks of\nadmiration that go to some types of life and the contempt in\nwhich others are held. Much of the economic activity of the\nleisure class, as Professor Veblen has so well pointed out, is\ndevoted to wasting time and spending money conspicuously\nas outward indications that the individual is living up to\nestablished and approved standards.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Veblen: _Theory of the Leisure Class._]\n\nThe more significant folkways, standards of importance and\nunimportance, of the admirable and the despicable, the noble\nand the base, are determined by approvals and disapprovals\nthat have become socially habitual. When we speak of a\ncountry being imperialistic or materialistic, we mean that\nmost individuals in it, or at least those who are articulate or\ninfluential, perform or approve of actions leading to national\nor individual aggrandizement. The amount of money, time,\nand energy that is spent on amusement, public works, education,\nthe army and navy is a fairly accurate gauge of the relative\ngroup approvals they have respectively secured. In the\nsame way the professions and occupations in which men engage\nare determined by the social prestige attaching to them\nno less than by economic considerations. The pay of stenographers\nis no less than that of primary-school teachers; it is\noften much more; yet many a girl remains a teacher for the\ngentility which is traditionally associated with the profession.\nIn the same way many girls, in spite of the fact that they are\neconomically and physically better off in domestic service\nthan in factory work, still prefer the latter because of the\nsocial inferiority which is associated with the servant's position.\n\nApprovals and disapprovals become fixed to acts, in the\nfirst place, because of some supposed danger or utility they\npossess. But whether the acts are really socially useful or not,\napprovals and censures once fixed tend to remain habitual,\neven though the conditions which first called them forth are\nutterly changed. We are to-day still more shocked by errors\nin etiquette than in logic; we are still horrified by the infringement\nof a law which, if we stopped to consider it, is not now,\nif it ever was, of any genuine service to mankind.\n\nIn advanced societies approvals are not always reserved for\nthe habitual. Certainly in science original research and\ndiscovery are generally welcomed. In art originality is\ncherished, at least by the discriminating.[1] Variation in action is\nfor reasons discussed in other connections less generally welcomed.\nBut in advanced societies, criticism and reflection\nupon social institutions and habits may themselves come to be\nsanctioned and encouraged. Already we are beginning to\nendow the scientific study of government and industrial\nrelations, and regarding with favor genuine inquiry into the\npossibilities of progress.\n\n[Footnote 1: Even in art most people's approvals and disapprovals\nare fixed by what is called \"good taste,\" which consists not\ninfrequently in approving what other people approve. AEsthetic\napproval thus becomes approval of the customarily recognized.\nIt took a Ruskin to make the neglected genius of Turner\nfashionable. Keats and Byron were bitterly attacked by the\northodox critics of their generation.]\n\nIMPORTANCE OF RELATING PRAISE AND BLAME TO SOCIALLY IMPORTANT\nCONDUCT. What people approve and disapprove, if their\napproval becomes sufficiently emphatic, is fixed by law. Law\nis the official and permanent preservation and enforcement\nof public approval and condemnation. When certain acts are\nregarded as of crucial importance, the group does not depend\non the precarious effectiveness of public opinion, but deliberately\nattaches punishments to the performance of undesired\nacts, and, more infrequently, rewards to the practices of others.\nMost of our laws are enforcement of social condemnations,\nfor the performance or the non-performance of specific acts,\nrather than direct encouragements of action. But which laws\nwill be passed depends in the first place on social approval or\npublic opinion. And if, as happens in our complicated political\nmachinery, laws are passed which have not the sanction\nof widespread public approval, they remain \"dead letters.\"\n\nOutside the field of legal control, individual action is controlled\nprimarily by public opinion. There are many practices,\nstrictly speaking \"within the law,\" that an increasingly\nenlightened public opinion will not sanction; there are many\npractices encouraged by an enlightened public which no law\ncompels. There is no law forcing business establishments to\nclose every Saturday during the summer, yet many now do.\nThere are many courtesies practiced by them which are not\nordained by law. That adverse public opinion may have\neconomic consequences if disregarded is evidenced by the\npowerful instrument the Consumers' League found in advertising\nagainst firms that maintained particularly unsanitary\nand morally degrading working conditions for their employees,\nor the dread that hotels and department stores have for\nadverse publicity. The phenomenal development of modern\nadvertising is an instance of the direct economic values that\nhave been found in winning public approval. There is more\nthan metaphor in the statement made during the war that\nLord Northcliffe, as owner of a chain of English newspapers\nwith an immense circulation, was a \"cabinet minister without\nportfolio.\"\n\nThe growth of humanitarian sentiment has frequently enforced\nthe improvement of labor and social conditions before\nimprovements were made compulsory by law. And in that\nfield of personal relations, which constitute so large a part of\nour daily life, our conduct is controlled almost entirely by\nthe force of the public opinion with which we come in contact.\nThere is much more courtesy and kindliness and cooeperation\nmanifested in the ordinary contacts of life of a modern city\nthan is required, or ever could be secured by statute.\n\nEDUCATION AS THE AGENCY OF SOCIAL CONTROL. There is\nenormous power in the habits of approval or disapproval to which\nwe have, in our early days, been subjected by our parents,\nteachers, and companions. It is through education, in the\nbroadest sense, that the young come to learn, and hence to\npractice, those actions which are socially approved, and by\nthe same token to avoid those acts which are socially condemned.\nThrough formal education the adult members of a\nsociety impress upon the plastic minds of the immature those\nhabits of thought and action which are currently recognized\nas desirable. Education thus becomes the crucial instrument\nby which social standards are established and transmitted.\n\nSociety exists through a process of transmission quite as much as\nbiological life. The transmission occurs by means of communication\nof habits of doing, thinking, and feeling, from the older to the\nyounger. Without this communication of ideals, hopes, expectations,\nstandards, opinions, from those members of society who are\npassing out of the group life to those who are coming into it, society\ncould not survive.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey; _Democracy and Education_, pp. 3-4.]\n\nSociety survives through education. Just as truly might\nit be said that the kind of society, art, culture, industry,\nreligion, science that does survive depends on the kind of likes\nand dislikes that are through education made habitual in the\nyoung.\n\nEducation, however, may not only transmit existing standards,\nbut can be used to inculcate newer and better expectations\nand ideals. In the adult, habits are already set physiologically,\nand kept rigid by the demands of economic life. In\nthe young there is a \"fairer and freer\" field. Through education\nthe immature may be taught to approve ways of action\nmore desirable than those which have become habitual with\ntheir adult contemporaries. The children of to-day may\nacquire habits of action, feeling, and thought that will be their\nenlightened practice as the adults of to-morrow. All great\nsocial reformers, from Plato to our own contemporaries like\nBertrand Russell, have seen in education, therefore, the chief\ninstrument, as it is the chief problem, of social betterment.\nWe may train the maturing generation to approve modes of\nbehavior which the best minds of our time may have found\nreason to think desirable, but which could not be substituted\nimmediately for the fixed habits of the already adult generation.\n\nSOCIAL ACTIVITY, AND THE SOCIAL MOTIVE. In our analysis of\nthe social nature of man we have, thus far, been dealing with\nhis specific social tendencies. But apart from these, or rather\nas an outgrowth of these, men exhibit what Professor Woodworth\nhas well described as a gift for \"learning\" social behavior.\n\nPossessing, as he eminently does, the capacity for group activity,\nman is interested in such activity. He needs no ulterior motive to\nattract him to it. It is play for him.... The social interest is part\nand parcel of the general _objective_ interest of man.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Woodworth: _Dynamic Psychology_, pp. 202, 203.]\n\nIn other words, the activity of man as an individual is\nnot simply deflected a little by man's native gregariousness,\nsympathy, and susceptibility to praise and blame. Rather,\ngroup activity becomes to the gregarious human, born into an\nenvironment where he must act with and among other human\nbeings, an interesting and exciting activity in and for itself.\nMen enjoy working in a group or a society for joint and common\nobjects just as they enjoy food or musical composition\nor golf.\n\nThe social motive is of the same order as the musical or mathematical\nmotive. Just as one who has the musical gift takes to music\nnaturally and finds it interesting for its own sake, so the socially\ngifted individual understands other people, sees the possibilities of\ncollective activity, and the ways of cooerdinating it, and enters\ninto such doings with gusto.... The social gift is a capacity for\n_learning_ social behavior. Individuals differ in degree in the social\ngift, as in other capacities; some are capable of becoming creative\nartists or inventors along social lines.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Woodworth: _Dynamic Psychology_, p. 203.]\n\nThe social behavior of man is thus seen to be no curious\nanomaly and contradiction in the life of an otherwise thoroughly\negoistic individual. Man is instinctively social; he\nfinds social activity useful in the satisfaction of his own\ndesires, and he comes from his native tendencies and acquired\nhabits of social behavior to enjoy and take part in social\nactivities for their own sake. The individual does not have\nto be coerced into social activity; he finds in such behavior\nthe same pleasure that attends the fulfillment of any of his\nnative or acquired reactions. Society has been variously\npictured as a force holding the individual in check, as an\norganism of which he is a part, as a machine of which he is a\ncog. Society consists rather as the collective name for the\ncooeperative and associated activities of human beings who\nfind such activity, by nature and by habit, interesting for its\nown sake.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nCRUCIAL TRAITS IN SOCIAL LIFE\n\nTHE INTERPENETRATION OF HUMAN TRAITS. This chapter is devoted\nto a consideration of a number of individual human\ntraits--curiosity, pugnacity, leadership, fear, love, hate,\netc., and some of their more important social consequences.\nThese are seldom present in isolation. A man is not, under\nnormal circumstances, simply and solely pugnacious, curious,\ntired, submissive, or acquisitive. One's desire to own a\nparticular house at a particular location may be complicated by\nthe presence of several of these traits at once. The house\nmay be wanted simply as a possession, a crude satisfaction of\nour native acquisitiveness. It may be sought further as a\nmode of self-display, an indication of how one has risen in the\nworld. Its attractiveness may be heightened by the fact that\nit is situated next door to the house of a rather particularly\ncompanionable old friend. It may be peculiarly indispensable\nto one's satisfaction because it is also being sought by a\ndetested rival. Moreover, as we shall see in the discussion\nof the Self, these traits are interwoven with each other and\nattain varying degrees of power as motive forces in an individual's\ncharacter.\n\nBut while these distinctive human traits are seldom apparent\nin isolation, it is worth while to consider them separately,\nnot only because the elements of human behavior will thus\nstand out more clearly, but because in certain individuals one\nor another of these-traits may be natively of especial strength.\nAnd further, in differing social situations, the possession or\nthe cultivation of one or another of these native endowments\nmay be of particular social value or danger. And in any given\nsituation, one or another of them may be predominant, as\nwhen a man is intensely angry, or curious, or tired. Thus an\nindividual may have a marked capacity for leadership, or an\nextraordinarily tireless curiosity, or an abnormally developed\npugnacity or acquisitiveness. The capacity for leadership,\nas will later be discussed in some detail, will be of particular\nsocial value in large enterprises; patient and persistent inquiry\nmay produce science; pugnacity when freely expressed may\nprovoke quarrels, bickerings, and war. In the following\ndiscussion, the continual interpenetration and qualification of\nthese traits by one another in a complex situation must be\nrecognized. Else it may appear in the discussion of any single\ntrait, as if by means of it all human action were being explained.\nRather the aim is to trace them as one might the\nelements in the pattern of a tapestry, or the recurrent themes\nin the development of a symphony. But as the symphony is\nmore than a single melody, the tapestry more than one element\nof line or color, so is human life more than any single\ntrait.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Philosophers and others have time and again made the\nmistake of simplifying human life to a single motive or driving\npower. Hobbes rested his case on fear; Bain and Sutherland on\nsympathy; Tarde on imitation; Adam Smith and Bentham on enlightened\nself-interest. In our own day the Freudians interpret everything\nas being sexual in its motive. And most recently has come an\ninterpretation of life, as in Bertrand Russell and Helen Marot,\nin terms of the \"creative impulse.\"]\n\nTHE FIGHTING INSTINCT. Almost all men exhibit in varying\ndegrees the \"fighting instinct\"; that is, the tendency, when\ninterfered with in the performance of any action prompted by\nany other instinct, to threaten, attack, and not infrequently,\nif successful in attack, to punish and bully the individual\ninterfering.\n\nThe most mean-spirited cur will angrily resent any attempt to\ntake away its bone, if it is hungry; a healthy infant very early\ndisplays anger if its meal is interrupted, and all through life most men\nfind it difficult to suppress irritation on similar occasions. In the\nanimal world the most furious excitement of this instinct is provoked\nin the male of many species by any interference with the satisfaction\nof the sexual impulse.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 60.]\n\nThis original tendency to fight is very persistent in human\nbeings, but is susceptible of direction, and is not, in civilized\nlife, frequently revealed in its crude and direct form, save\namong children and among adults under intense provocation\nand excitement. Occasionally, however, pugnacity is displayed\nin its simple animal form. \"Man shares with many\nof the animals the tendency to frighten his opponent by loud\nroars or bellowings.... Many a little boy has, without example\nor suggestion, suddenly taken to running with open\nmouth to bite the person who has angered him, much to the\ndistress of his parents.\"[1] As the individual grows older, he\nlearns to control the outward and immediate expression of\nthis powerful and persistent human trait. He learns in his\ndealings with other people not to give way, when frustrated\nin some action or ambition, to mere animal rage. The customs\nand manners to which a child is early subjected in\ncivilized intercourse are effective hindrances to uncontrolled\ndisplay of anger and pugnacity; superior intelligence and\neducation find more refined ways than kicking, pummeling, and\nscratching of overcoming the interferences of others. But\neven in gentle and cultured persons, an insult, a disappointment,\na blow will provoke the tell-tale signs of pugnacity and\nanger, the flushing of the cheeks, the flash of the eye, the\nincipient clenching of the fists, the compressing of the teeth and\nlips, and the trembling of the voice. We substitute sarcasm\nfor punching, and find subtly civilized, and, in the long run,\nmore terrible, ways than bruises of punishing those who oppose\nus in our play, our passions, our professions. But our\nancestors were beasts of prey, and there is still \"fighting\nin our blood.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 61.]\n\nThe fighting instinct is aroused by both personal and impersonal\nsituations, and is occasioned even by very slight interferences,\nand even when the author of the interference is\nneither human nor animate. Quite intelligent men have been\nknown to kick angrily at a door as if from pure malice it refused\nto open. Irate commuters have glared vindictively at\ntrains they have just missed. The glint of anger is roused in\nour eye by an insolent stare, an ironic comment, or an impertinent\nretort. The \"boiling point\" varies in different individuals\nand races, and pugnacity is generally more readily roused\nin men than in women. There are some persons, like the proverbial\nIrishman, who, seeing the slightest opportunity for a\nfight, \"want to know whether it is private, or whether anybody\ncan get in.\" In most men pugnacity is more intense\nwhen it is provoked by persons; except for a moment, one does\nnot try to fight a chair struck in the dark.\n\nUnder the conditions of civilized life the primitive expression\nof pugnacity in physical combat has been outlawed and\nmade unnecessary by law and custom. Individuals are prevented\nby the fear of punishment, besides their early training\nand habits, from settling disputes by physical force. But as\nthe instinct itself remains strong, it must find some other\noutlet. This it secures in more refined forms of rivalry, in\nbusiness and sport, or, all through human history, in fighting\nbetween groups, from the squabbling and perpetual raids and\nkillings, and the extermination of whole villages and tribes\nin Central Borneo, to the wars between nations throughout\nEuropean history.\n\nPUGNACITY A MENACE WHEN UNCONTROLLED. The strength and\npersistency of this human tendency, when uncontrolled or\nwhen fostered between groups, make it a very serious menace.\nLike all the other instincts, and more than most, it is\nfrustrated and continually checked in the normal peace-time\npursuits of contemporary civilization. Participation,\nimaginative at least, in a great collective combat undoubtedly holds\nsome fascination for the citizens of modern industrial society,\ndespite the large-scale horror which war is in itself, and the\ndesolation it leaves in its wake. During peace the fighting\ninstinct for most men receives satisfaction on a small scale,\nsometimes in nothing more important than small bickerings\nand peevishness, or in seeing at first hand or on the ticker a\nchampionship prize-fight. The pessimism which many writers\nhave expressed at the possibility of perpetual peace rests\nin part on their perception of the easy excitability and deep\npersistence of this impulse, especially among the vigorous and\nyoung.\n\nNot only may the fighting instinct be aroused by the possibility\nof international wars, but it may be used by fomenters\nand agitators to add a sense of intense pugnacity and violent\nanger to the genuine friction that does exist between conflicting\ninterests in the same society. The theory of a \"class\nwar\" possibly finds its appeal for many minds as much in its\npicturesque stimulation of their instincts of pugnacity as in\nthe logic of its economics.\n\nPUGNACITY AS A BENEFICENT SOCIAL FORCE. While the power of\npugnacity and its easy stimulation makes this instinct a\npeculiarly inflammable and dangerous motive force in civilized\nsociety, it is, on the other hand, an indispensable source of\nsocial progress. Many psychologists and sociologists, such as\nMcDougall, Bagehot, and Lang, attribute the superiority in\nculture and social organization of the European races over,\nsay, the Chinese and East Indians, to the fighting instinct.\nIn the long series of wars that for centuries constituted much\nof the history of Europe, those nations which survived, as in\nearlier times those tribes which survived combat, were those\nwhich displayed marked qualities of superiority in allegiance,\nfidelity, and social cooeperation. The intensity and effectiveness\nof social cooeperation in our own country was never so\nwell illustrated as during the Great War. In combat between\ngroups those groups survive which do stand out in\nthese respects.\n\nWilliam James in a famous essay[1] recognizes clearly the\nenormous value of the fighting instinct in stimulating action\nto an intense effectiveness exhibited under no other circumstances,\nand proposes a \"moral equivalent for war\"--an\narmy devoted to constructive enterprises, reclaiming the\nwaste places of the land, warring against poverty and disease\nand the like. Certainly every great reform movement has\nbeen intensely stimulated and has gathered about it the energies\nof men when it has become a \"crusade for righteousness.\"\nPart of Theodore Roosevelt's power was in his picturesque\nphrasing of political issues as if they were great moral\nstruggles. No one could forget, or fail to have his heart beat\na trifle faster at Roosevelt's trumpet call in the 1912 campaign:\n\"We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the\nLord.\" His \"Big Stick\" became a potent political symbol.\nAstute political leaders have not failed to capitalize the fighting\ninstinct, and any social project will enlist the wider enthusiasm\nand the more energetic support if it is hailed as a\nbattle or fight against somebody or something.\n\n[Footnote 1: \"A Moral Equivalent of War,\" in _Memories and Studies_.]\n\nIn personal life also the instinct of pugnacity and the feeling\nof anger that goes with it seem to set loose immense floods\nof reserve energy. McDougall exaggerates but a trifle when\nhe says it supplies the zest and determines the forms of all our\ngames and recreations, and nine tenths of the world's work is\ndone by it. \"Our educational system is founded upon it; it is\nthe social force underlying an immense amount of strenuous\nexertion; to it we owe in a great measure even our science, our\nliterature, and our art; for it is a strong, perhaps an essential,\nelement of ambition, that last infirmity of noble minds.\"[1]\nIn the overcoming of obstacles, whether in the work itself, or\nin the difficulties that a surgeon or a scholar meets with, or\nin frustrations deliberately put in our way by other people,\npugnacity is an invaluable stimulant and sustainer of action.\nEvery great personality of strong convictions and dominant\nenergy has possessed it to some extent; in characters of great\nmoral energy it sometimes takes the form of a volcanic and\nvirtuous wrath, as in the case of the Prophets of the Old\nTestament, or of later religious and social reformers who\nbrought an earnest and bitter anger against the wrongs they\nsaw and literally fought to overcome.\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 294.]\n\nTHE \"SUBMISSIVE INSTINCT.\" Of great importance in the\nsocial relations of men is their original tendency to find\nsatisfaction in following, partly submitting to, or completely\nsurrendering to a person or cause more dominating than the\nindividual. Thorndike describes this instinct in its simplest\nform:\n\nThere is an original tendency to respond to the situation, \"the\npresence of a human being larger than one's self, of angry or mastering\naspect,\" and to blows and restraint by submissive behavior.\nWhen weak from wounds, sickness, or fatigue, the tendency is\nstronger. The man who is bigger, who can outyell and outstare us,\nwho can hit us without our hitting him, and who can keep us from\nmoving, does originally extort a crestfallen, abashed physique and\nmind. Women in general are thus by original nature submissive to\nmen in general. Every human being thus tends by original nature\nto arrive at a status of mastery or submission toward every other\nhuman being, and even under the more intelligent customs of civilized\nlife somewhat of the tendency persists in many men.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _Educational Psychology_, briefer course, p. 34.]\n\nThe impulse to follow and submit to something not ourselves\nand more dominating than ourselves is very strong in\nmost men, and is called out by stimuli much less violent than\nthose physical manifestations of power mentioned in the\nabove quotation. Men instinctively long to be led, especially\nif, as happens in the case of most individuals, there is in them\na marked absence of definite interest, conviction, or skill.\nThis instinct is aroused by any sign of exceptional power, or,\nmore generally still, by any exceptional conspicuousness,\nwhether socially useful or not. Men follow leaders partly\nbecause men live in groups with common interests and in any\nlarge-scale organization leadership is necessary. But the\npower of demagogues, the faithfulness with which men will\nfollow a bad leader as well as a good, are evidence that men find\nan instinctive satisfaction in submission. Self-dependence\nstands out as a virtue or an accomplishment precisely because\nmost men feel so utterly at sea without any loyalty, allegiance,\nor devotion. Any one who has spent a summer at a\nboy's camp will recall the helplessness of youngsters to mark\nout a program for themselves and to keep themselves happy\non the one afternoon when there was no official program of\nplay. Half the mischief performed on such occasions is initiated\nby some boy with just a little more independence and\npersuasiveness than the others. And it is not only among\nchildren that there is evinced an almost pathetic bewilderment\nand unrest in the absence of a leader. There is an\nequally pathetic and sometimes dangerous attachment among\nadults to the first sign of leadership that makes its appearance.\nThe demoralizing authority of the ward heeler is sometimes\ndependent on no more trustworthy an index of real power\nthan a booming voice, a rough _camaraderie_, and a physically\n\"big\" personality. And there are, on the other hand,\ninstances where lack of leadership seemed to be the chief reason\nwhy certain classes of labor were unable to make their\ndemands effective at a much earlier date than they did. In the\nfirst really big strike in the telephone industry in Boston\nduring the autumn of 1918 success seems to have been chiefly due\nto the remarkable leadership of one of the young women\noperators, a type of leadership which seems to have appeared\nnowhere else in the telephone industry.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: See the article by Wm. Hard in the _New Republic_, May 3, 1919.]\n\nThe instinct of submissiveness, as has been pointed out in\nconnection with the discussion of all the other of man's original\ntendencies, is not only strong, but may find its outlets in\nattachment, both to desirable and to undesirable persons or\nobjects. Once aroused, attachment and submission may become\nas stanch as they are blind. The signs which arouse our\nloyalty may be and most frequently are glaring rather than\nimportant. As Trotter phrases it:\n\nThe rational basis of the relation [following a leader] is, however,\nseen to be at any rate open to discussion when we consider the\nqualities in a leader upon which his authority so often rests, for there can\nbe little doubt that their appeal is more generally to instinct than\nto reason. In ordinary politics it must be admitted that the gift of\npublic speaking is of more decisive value than anything else. If a\nman is fluent, dextrous, and ready on the platform, he possesses the\none indispensable requisite for statesmanship; if in addition he has\nthe gift of moving deeply the emotions of his hearers, his capacity\nfor guiding the infinite complexities of national life becomes undeniable.\nExperience has shown that no exceptional degree of any other\ncapacity is necessary to make a successful leader. There need be no\nspecially arduous training, no great weight of knowledge, either of\naffairs or the human heart, no receptiveness to new ideas, no outlook\ninto reality.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Trotter, p. 116.]\n\nThough these be picturesquely exaggerated statements, they\ndo indicate the fact that the outward signs of leadership, of a\nconspicuously emotional sort, may be more significant in determining\nthe attachments and loyalties of human beings,\nthan are genuine marks of capacity in the direction of political\nand social affairs.\n\nThis pronounced tendency on the part of human beings to\nfollow a lead, and anybody's lead, as it were, has the most\nserious dangers. It means that a man with qualities that\nsway men's emotions and stir their imaginations can attach\nto himself the profoundest loyalties for personal or class ends.\nThe gifts of personal magnetism, of a kindly voice, an air of\nconfidence and calmness, exuberant vitality, and a sensitivity\nto other people's feelings, along with some of the genuine\nqualities of effective and expert control of men and affairs,\nmay be used by a demagogue as well as by a really devoted\nservant of the popular good, by an Alcibiades as well as by a\nGaribaldi, by a conquering Napoleon as well as by a Lincoln.\n\nOur instincts of following and submission, apart from education,\nare as easily aroused by specious signs of social power\nand conspicuousness as by signs of mental effectiveness and\ngenuine altruistic interest. The exploitation of these tendencies\nby selfish leaders is therefore particularly easy. The\nlarge circulation of the \"yellow press,\" the power in politics\nof the unscrupulous, the selfish, and the second-rate, are\nsymptoms of how men's natural tendency to follow has been\nplayed upon in support of plans and ambitions which would\nnot be sanctioned by their reason. The genius for leadership\nhas been exhibited in criminal gangs, in conquests and in\nfanaticism, as well as in the promotion of good government,\nof better labor conditions and better education.\n\nBut progress in these last-named is dependent on the utilization\nof men's submissiveness by leaders interested in the\npromotion of desirable social enterprises. While men may be\nso easily led, they are responsive to leadership in good\ndirections as well as bad. No great social movements, the freeing\nof slaves, the gaining of universal suffrage, the bettering of\nfactory conditions, freedom of thought and action, could have\ngained headway if men had been born unwilling to follow.\nThere are (see chapter IX) ineradicable differences in capacity\nbetween men, and if the uninformed and the socially helpless\ncould not be aroused to follow those great both in mind and\nmagnanimity, it is difficult to see how the lot of mankind ever\ncould have, or ever can improve. A good leader may make\nmen support, out of instinctive loyalty, purposes and plans\nwhich, if they completely understood them, they would support\nout of reason. Up to the present most people have been,\nand will probably remain for a long time to come, too ill-educated\nor too poorly endowed by nature to understand the\nbearings of the great social movements in which they are\ninvolved. In consequence, it is a matter of congratulation that\ntheir instinct of submission can be utilized in the interests of\ntheir welfare which they frequently not only do not know how\nto obtain, but do not understand. The Roman populace, enchanted\nby Augustus, follow him to greatness, without comprehending\nthe imperial destiny which they are helping to\nbuild. The barbarian hordes affectionately following the\nlead of Charlemagne incidentally help to build the whole\nedifice of European civilization.\n\nMEN DISPLAY QUALITIES OF LEADERSHIP. The obverse of man's\ntendency to follow a lead is, of course, his tendency to take it.\nIndividuals tend to display persistently and conspicuously\njust those qualities which will win them the allegiance of\nothers.\n\nThe instinct of self-display is manifested by many of the higher\nsocial or gregarious animals.... Perhaps among mammals the horse\ndisplays it most clearly. The muscles of all parts are strongly\ninnervated, the creature holds himself erect, his neck is arched, his\ntail lifted, his motions become superfluously vigorous and extensive,\nhe lifts his hoofs high in air as he parades before the eyes of his fellows....\nMany children clearly exhibit this instinct of self-display; before\nthey can walk or talk the impulse finds its satisfaction in the admiring\ngaze or plaudits of the family circle as each new acquirement is\npracticed; a little later it is still more clearly expressed by the\nfrequently repeated command, \"See me do this,\" or \"See how well I\ncan do so and so\"; and for many a child more than half the delight\nof riding on a pony, of wearing a new coat, consists in the satisfaction\nof this instinct, and vanishes if there be no spectators.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall; _loc. cit._, pp. 62-64.]\n\nIndividuals thus instinctively love to stand out from their\nfellows, to outdistance and outclass them. And the qualities\nof leadership are not infrequently stimulated by this competition\nwith others, for place, power, distinction. To win the\nallegiance and loyal affection of men means that one's own\npersonality is enhanced; one stands out as a man of affairs, a\nsocial or political leader, a guide to others in action or thought.\nAs has already been pointed out, the qualities that will win\nthe submission and loyalty of others vary widely. In the case\nof one man it may be a charming smile and a gift of saying\nstriking and stirring rather than significant things. In the\ncase of another it may be his air of immense confidence,\nrestraint, and reserve. It may be brute force or a terrible\nearnestness; it may even be, as in the case of certain religious\nreformers, extraordinary gentleness. Garibaldi \"inspired\namong men of the most various temperaments love that\nnothing could shake, and devotion that fell little short of\nidolatry.\" \"He enjoyed the worship and cast the spell of\na legendary hero.\" Alcibiades charmed, despite the patent\nevil he wrought, by his magical personal beauty and grace.\nVandamme said of Napoleon: \"That devil of a man exercises\non me a fascination that I cannot explain to myself, and in\nsuch a degree that, though I fear neither God nor devil, when\nI am in his presence I am ready to tremble like a child, and he\ncould make me go through the eye of a needle to throw myself\ninto the fire.\" Augereau is stupefied at their first meeting,\nand confesses afterwards that \"this little devil of a general\"\nhas inspired him with awe.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: See chapter XXI on \"Personality\" in Ross's _Social Control_.]\n\nMen's qualities of leadership depend, however, not only on\ntheir personal charm, but on certain seeming or genuine\nsymptoms of effectiveness. Evidences of strong determination,\nof a sweeping imagination, of calm, of confidence, of\nenthusiasm, of qualities possessed by the vast majority only in\nminor degrees, win men's admiration and devotion because\nthey are associated with the ability to accomplish great ends,\nto do the unusual, to succeed where most people fail. Most\nmen are so conscious of their limitations and the difficulties of\nany enterprise which they undertake that at any sign of exceptional\ntalent, whether real or apparent, they will commit\ntheir respect, their energies, and sometimes, as in the case of a\nreligious crusade, their lives.\n\nFor good or evil, the possession, the cultivation, and the\nexhibition of the qualities of leadership give men enormous\npower. There was in the nineteenth century a historical\nfashion, brilliantly exemplified by Carlyle, to assume that\nhistory was made by great men. Latterly, there has been\nwide dissent from this simplification of the processes of\nhistory, but it is clear that innovations must be started by\nindividuals, and that a powerful leader is a matchless instrument\nfor initiating, and getting wide and enthusiastic support for\nchanges, whether good or bad. To quote Carlyle's eloquent\nexaggeration:\n\nFor, as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man has\naccomplished in this world, is at the bottom the History of the Great\nMen who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, ... the\ncreators of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to\nattain; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are\nproperly the outer material result, the practical realization and\nembodiment, of thoughts that dwelt in the Great Men sent into the\nworld: the soul of the whole world's history, it may justly be\nconsidered, was the history of these.... Could we see _them_ well, we\nshould get some glimpses into the very marrow of the world's\nhistory.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Carlyle: _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, Lecture I.]\n\nLater Nietzsche made much of this same idea, of the Superman\nstriding through the world and changing its destiny,\nalthough in Nietzsche the Superman was an end in himself\nrather than the servant of the world in which he lived.\n\nTo most historical writers to-day the forces at work in history\nare much too complex to be dismissed with any such\nsimple melodrama. But there remain striking testimonies\nof the influence of leaders. The sweep of Mohammedanism\ninto Europe was initiated by the burning and contagious zeal\nof one religious enthusiast. The campaign against slavery\nin this country assumed large proportions through the strenuous\nleadership of the Garrisons and the Wendell Phillipses.\nIn our own day we have seen the same phenomenon; the\ngreat political and social changes of the last generation have\nall had their special advocates and leaders who, if they were\nmerely expressing the \"spirit of the times,\" yet did give that\nspirit expression. Every reform or revolution has its leading\nspirits. That leadership is not the one essential goes without\nsaying; there have been great guides of repeatedly lost causes.\nBut many great causes may have been lost through the want\nof good leadership.\n\nIn contemporary life leadership is not always directly personal,\nbut is carried on through the medium of the newspapers\nand periodicals. But this merely means that a leader\nmay reach a wider audience; he reaches thousands through\npicture and print, instead of hundreds by word of mouth.\n\nQualities of leadership may be utilized in the support of\nthe customary or the established, as well as in initiation and\nsupport of the novel. People ape the great, or those that pass\nfor great, in manners and morals. The words of a distinguished\npublic man have prestige in the maintenance of the\nestablished. Men _will_ follow, and if the socially conspicuous\nlead them along the ways of the established, they will follow\nthere as readily and, being creatures of habit, often more\nreadily than along new paths. The immense following among\nthe lower social classes that the Conservative Party had in\nEngland all through the nineteenth century in the face of\nproposed changes that would have bettered their own conditions,\nis an interesting illustration of this. This is partly\nbecause the influence of leaders is dependent on their social\nstatus as well as their personal qualities. The opinions of\ninventors and big business men are taken with eagerness and\ncredulity even when touching matters outside their own field.\nA man is made, as it were, _ipso facto_, a leader, by being rich,\npowerful, of a socially distinguished family, or the director of\na large industry, although he may have, besides, qualities of\nleadership that do not depend on his social position.\n\nMAN PITIES AND PROTECTS WEAK AND SUFFERING THINGS. Nearly\nall human beings exhibit a tendency to protect weak and\nsuffering things. This impulse is closely related to, and\nprobably has its origin in the parental instinct, more common, of\ncourse, in women than in men. The feeling of affectionate\npity and the impulse to rescue from pain are most intense\nwhen the distressed thing is a child, and particularly one's\nown. One of the most poignant instances extant is the speech\nof Andromache, one of the Trojan women in Euripides's play\nof that name, to her child who is about to be slain by the\nGreeks:\n\n  And none to pity thee!... Thou little thing,\n  That curlest in my arms, what sweet scents cling\n  All round thy neck! Beloved; can it be\n  All nothing, that this bosom cradled thee\n  And fostered; all the weary nights wherethrough\n  I watched upon thy sickness, till I grew\n  Wasted with watching? Kiss me. This one time;\n  Not ever again. Put up thine arms and climb\n  About my neck; now kiss me, lips to lips...\n  O ye have found an anguish that outstrips\n  All tortures of the East, ye gentle Greeks!\n  Why will ye slay this innocent that seeks\n  No wrong?...[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Euripides: ''Trojan Women'' (Gilbert Murray translation), p. 49.]\n\nBut the \"tender emotion\" as McDougall calls it, is aroused\nby other children than one's own, and by others than children.\nIt is called out particularly by things that are by nature\nhelpless and delicate, but may be aroused by adults who are\nplaced in situations where they are suffering and powerless.\nSamson, shorn of his strength, has been a traditional occasion\nfor pathos. The sick, the bereaved, the down-and-outers, the\nfailures, the forlorn and broken-hearted, call out in most men\nan impulse to befriend and protect. Those who have been\ndealt with unjustly or severely by their associates and society\nand who have no redress, the poverty-stricken, the criminal\nwho has been punished and remains an exile, the maimed\nand deformed, the widow and orphan, all these, arouse, apart\nfrom the restraining force exercised by other instincts and\nhabits, such as anger and disgust, a natural tendency to pity\nand aid.\n\nThe parental instinct in its direct and primitive form is\nresponsible for the closeness of family relations, a most important\nconsideration in the case of humans who have, as already\ndiscussed, a long period of infancy during which they are\nabsolutely dependent on their elders. In the higher species,\nwrites McDougall, \"The protection and cherishing of the\nyoung is the constant and all-absorbing occupation of the\nmother, to which she devotes all her energies, and in the\ncourse of which she will at any time undergo privation, pain,\nand death. The instinct becomes more powerful than any\nother, and can override any other, even fear itself.\"[2] Wherever\nthe power of the parental instinct has waned, as in Greek\nand Roman society, the civilization in which that degeneration\noccurred was subjected to rapid decay.[3]\n\n[Footnote 2: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 67.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Cf. Ibid._, p. 271.]\n\nThe parental instinct in its more general form of pity and\nprotectiveness toward all weak and suffering things is, in the\nminds of many moralists, the origin of all altruistic sentiments\nand actions, and at the same time the moral indignation\nwhich insists on the punishment of wrong-doers. It is\nclearly apparent in such movements as the Societies for the\nPrevention of Cruelty to Children or to Animals, the antivivisection\ncrusade, and the like. But according to such a\ndistinguished moralist as John Stuart Mill, the whole system\nof justice and punishment has its origins in this tender feeling\nfor those who have been wronged.\n\nFEAR. Fear is one of the least specialized of human traits,\nbeing called out in a great variety of situations, and resulting\nin a great variety of responses. The most obvious symptom\nof fear is flight, but there may be a dozen other responses.\n\"Crouching, clinging, starting, trembling, remaining stock\nstill, covering the eyes, opening the mouth and eyes, a temporary\ncessation followed by an acceleration of the heart-beat,\ndifficulty in breathing, paleness, sweating, and erection of the\nhair are responses of which certain ones seem bound, apart\nfrom training, to certain situations, such as sudden loud\nnoises or clutches, the sudden appearance of strange objects,\nthunder and lightning, loneliness and the dark.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _loc. cit._, p. 20.]\n\nIn general, the marked physical reactions and deep emotional\ndisturbance that we call fear are aroused by anything\nloud or strange, or that has outward signs of possible danger\nto ourselves, such as a large wild animal approaching us. In\ncivilized man, whose life is comparatively sheltered, there are\nconsiderable individual differences in susceptibility to fear,\nand in the intensity with which it controls the individual.\nBut there are certain typical situations that call it forth.\nAmong young children, and not much less so among adults,\nfear is aroused by any sudden loud noise, by strange men and\nstrange animals, black things and dark places, \"vermin,\" such\nas spiders and snakes, among a great many adults fear of\nhigh places, and, among a few agaraphobia or fear of open\nspaces.[1] The deep-seatedness of fear has been explained by\nthe fact that most of the things which instinctively arouse\nfear were, in primitive life, the source of very real danger and\nthat under those conditions, where it was absolutely essential\nto beware of the unfamiliar and the strange, only those animals\nsurvived who were equipped with such a protective\nmechanism as fear provides.\n\n[Footnote 1: For a discussion of these, see James: _Psychology_,\nvol. II, p. 415 ff.]\n\nThe instinct of fear has important social consequences, especially\nas its influence is not infrequently clothed over with\nreasons. In savage life, as McDougall points out, \"fear of\nphysical punishment inflicted by the anger of his fellows must\nhave been the great agent of discipline of primitive man;\nthrough such fear he must first have learned to control and\nregulate his impulses in conformity with the needs of social\nlife.\"[2] In contemporary society fear is not so explicitly\npresent, but it is still a deep-seated power over men's lives.\nFear of punishment may not be the only reason why citizens\nremain law-abiding, but it is an important control over many\nof the less intelligent and the less socially minded. In an\nunideal society there are still many who will do as much evil as is\n\"within the law,\" and fear of the consequences of failing a\ncourse is among some contemporary undergraduates still an\nindispensable stimulus of study.\n\n[Footnote 2: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 303.]\n\nFear plays a part, however, not only in preventing people\nfrom breaking the law, but often from living their lives freely\nand after their own convictions. As has been strikingly\npointed out by Hilaire Belloc and Hobson, one of the greatest\nevils of our present hit-or-miss methods of employment is\nthe fear of \"losing his job,\" the uncomfortable feeling of\ninsecurity often felt by the workingman who, having so\nfrequently nothing to store up against a rainy day, lives in\nperpetual fear of sickness or discharge.\n\nIn earlier times fear of the consequences of expressing dissent\nfrom established opinions and beliefs was one of the\nchief sources of social inertia. Where excommunication, torture,\nand death followed dissent, it is not surprising that men\nfeared to be dissenters. In contemporary society under\nnormal conditions men have much less to fear in the way of\npunishment, but may accept the traditional and conventional\nbecause they fear the consequences of being different,\neven if those consequences are not anything more serious than\na personal snub.\n\nWhile men fear to dissent because of the disapproval to\nwhich they may be subjected, dissent, the novel and strange\nin action and opinion are themselves feared by most men\nbecause of the unknown and unpredictable consequences to\nwhich they may lead. Men were at first afraid of the steam-engine\nand the locomotive. Men still fear novel political and\nsocial ideas before they can possibly understand what they\nhave to be afraid of. The fact that thought so continually\nturns up the novel and the strange is, according to Bertrand\nRussell, precisely the reason why most men are afraid to\nthink. And fear of the novel, the strange, the unaccustomed\nis, as in the case of many other instincts, a perfectly natural\nmeans of protection that would otherwise have to be sought\nby elaborate processes of reason. In what we call prudence,\ncaution, and care, fear undoubtedly plays some part, and\nPlato long ago pointed out it is only the fool, not the brave\nman, who is utterly unafraid.[l]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Protagoras_.]\n\nPsychologists may be said to differ largely as to the utility\nof fear. They are nearly all agreed that in the forest life\nwhich was man's originally, fear had its specific marked\nadvantages. Open spaces, dark caverns, loud noises were\nundoubtedly associated very frequently with danger to the\nprimitive savage, and an instinctive recoil from these centers\nof disaster was undoubtedly of survival value. But there is\nan increasing tendency to discount the utility of fear in civilized\nlife. \"Many of the manifestations of fear must be\nregarded as pathological, rather than useful.... A certain\namount of timidity obviously adapts us to the world we live\nin, but the _fear paroxysm_ is surely altogether harmful to him\nwho is its prey.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. II, p. 419.]\n\nFear and worry, which is a continuous form of fear, in general\nhinder action rather than promote it. In its extreme\nform it brings about complete paralysis, as in the case of\nterror-stricken hunted animals. When humans or animals are\nutterly terrified even death may result. This fact that fear\nhinders action, sometimes most seriously, seems to some\nphilosophic writers, especially Bertrand Russell, a key fact\nfor social life. \"No institution,\" he writes, \"inspired by\nfear, can further life.\"[2] And in another connection: \"In the\nworld as we have been imagining it, economic fear will be removed\nout of life.... No one will be haunted by the dread of\npoverty.... The unsuccessful professional man will not live\nin terror lest his children should sink in the scale.... In such\na world, most of the terrors that lurk in the background of\nmen's minds will no longer exist.\"[3] \"In the daily lives of most\nmen and women, fear plays a _greater part than hope. It is not\nso that life should be lived_.\"[4]\n\n[Footnote 2: Bertrand Russell: _Why Men Fight_, p. 180.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Russell: _Proposed Roads to Freedom_, p. 203.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 186. (Italics mine.)]\n\nLOVE AND HATE. All human relations are qualified by the\npresence, more or less intense, of emotion. Human beings\nare not merely so many items that are coldly counted and\nhandled, as one counts and handles pounds of sugar and\npieces of machinery. A man may thus regard human beings\nwhen he deals with them in mass, or thinks of them in statistical\ntables or in the routine of a government office. But\nhuman beings experience some emotional accompaniment in\ntheir dealings with individuals, especially when face to face,\nand experience more especially, in varying degrees, the emotions\nof love or hate. These terms are here used in the general\nsense of the receptive, positive, or expansive attitude and the\ncold, negative, repellent, and contractual attitude toward\nothers. These may both be intense and consciously noted, as\nin the case of long-cherished and deep affections or antipathies\nto different individuals. They may appear as a half-realized\nsense of pleasure in the mere presence and poise of a\nperson, or a curious sense of discomfort and irritation at his\nappearance, his voice, or his gesture. These attitudes, even\nwhen slight, color and qualify our relations with other\nindividuals. They may, in their larger manifestations, play so\nlarge a part, that they must be considered separately, and in\ndetail.\n\nLOVE. Love, used in this broad sense, varies in intensity.\nIt may be nothing more--it certainly frequently starts as\nnothing more--than the feeling, so native as to be fairly\ncalled instinctive, of common sympathy, fellow feeling,\nimmediate affinity with another. The psychological origins of\nthis disposition have already been noted in connection with\nman's tendency to experience sympathetically immediately\nthe emotions of others. Every business man, lawyer, teacher,\nany one who comes much into contact with a wide variety\nof people, knows how, antecedent to any experience with an\nindividual's capacities or talents, or even before one had a\nchance to draw any inferences from a person's walk, his bearing,\nor his clothing, one may register an immediate like or dislike.\nEvery one has had the experience in crossing a college\ncampus or riding in a train or street car of noting, in passing\nsome one whom one has never seen before, an immediate\nreaction of good-will and affection. This has been charmingly\nexpressed by a well-known English poet:\n\n  \"The street sounds to the soldiers' tread,\n     And out we troop to see;\n   A single redcoat turns his head,\n     He turns and looks at me.\n\n  \"My man, from sky to sky's so far,\n     We never crossed before;\n   Such leagues apart the world's ends are,\n     We're like to meet no more.\n\n  \"What thoughts at heart have you and I,\n     We cannot stop to tell;\n   But dead or living, drunk or dry,\n     Soldier, I wish you well.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: A. E. Housman: _The Shropshire Lad_ (John Lane edition), p. 32.]\n\nAll affection for individuals probably starts in this immediate\ninstinctive liking. \"The first note that gives sociability a\npersonal quality and raises the comrade into an incipient\nfriend is doubtless sensuous affinity. Whatever reaction we\nmay eventually make on an impression, after it has had time\nto soak in and to merge in some practical or intellectual\nhabit, its first assault is always on the senses; and no sense is\nan indifferent organ. Each has, so to speak, its congenial\nrate of vibration, and gives its stimuli a varying welcome.\nLittle as we may attend to these instinctive hospitalities of\nsense, they betray themselves in unjustified likes and dislikes\nfelt for casual persons and things, in the _je ne sais quai_\nthat makes instinctive sympathy.\"[2] From this immediate\ninstinctive liking it may rise to deep personal attachments,\nstrikingly manifested in friendship and love between the\nsexes, both immemorially celebrated by poets and novelists.\nLove is aroused chiefly by persons, and among persons,\nespecially in the case of sexual love, most frequently by more or\nless physical beauty and attractiveness. But affection may\nbe aroused and is certainly sustained by other than merely\nphysical qualities.\n\n[Footnote 2: Santayana: _Reason in Society_, p. 151.]\n\nIt is provoked by what we call personal or social charm, a\ngenuine kindliness of manner, an open-handed sincerity and\nfrankness, considerateness, gentleness, whimsicality. Which\nparticular social graces will win our affections depends of\ncourse on our own interests, equipment, and fund of instinctive\nand acquired sympathies. Popular psychology has in\nvarious proverbs hit at and not entirely missed some of the\nobvious and contradictory elements: \"Opposites attract,\"\n\"Birds of a feather flock together,\" and so on. Intellectual\nqualities, in persons of marked intellectual interests, will also\nsustain friendship and deepen an instinctive liking. Friendships\nthus begin in accident and are continued through community\nof interest. It is to be questioned whether merely\nstriking intellectual qualities initiate a friendship. They may\ncommand admiration and respect, but liking, friendship, and\nlove have a more emotional and personal basis.\n\nThis same warm affectionate appreciation that nearly all\npeople have for other persons, fewer people--great poets,\nphilosophers, and enthusiastic leaders of men--have for\ncauses, institutions, and ideas. One feels in the works of great\nthinkers the same warmth and loyalty to ideas and causes\nthat ordinary people display toward their friends. Plato has\ngiven for all time the progress of love from attachment to a\nsingle individual through to institutions, ideas, and what he\ncalled mystically the idea of beauty itself.\n\nFor he who would proceed rightly in this matter should begin in\nyouth to turn to beautiful forms; and first, if his instructor guide\nhim rightly, he should learn to love one such form only--out of that\nhe should create fair thoughts, and soon he will himself perceive that\nthe beauty of one form is truly related to the beauty of another,\nand then if beauty in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be\nnot to recognize that the beauty in every form is one and the same!\nAnd when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one,\nwhich he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover\nof all beautiful forms; this will lead him on to consider that the\nbeauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of the outward\nform. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will\nbe content to love and tend him... until his beloved is compelled\nto contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and\nunderstand that all is of one kindred; and that personal beauty is\nonly a trifle; and after laws and institutions, he will lead him on to\nthe sciences, that he may see their beauty... until at length he\ngrows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a\nsingle science which is the science of beauty everywhere.[l]\n\n[Footnote 1: Plato: _Symposium_ (Jowett translation), p. 502.]\n\nThere have been again great scientists who have had the\nsame warm affectionate devotion for their subject-matter\nthat most men display toward persons. There are scholars\nalmost literally in love with their subjects. There have been\na greater number whose capacity for affection has extended to\ninclude the whole human race, and, indeed, all animate creation.\nSuch a type of character is beautifully exemplified in\nSaint Francis of Assisi:\n\nIn Francis all living creatures may truly be said to have found a\nfriend and benefactor; his great heart embraced all the men and\nwomen who sought his sympathy and advice, and his pity for the\ndumb helplessness of suffering animals was deep and true. He would\nlift the worm from his path lest a careless foot should crush it, and\nwould encourage his \"little sister grasshopper\" to perch upon his\nhand, and chirp her song to his gentle ear. He tamed the fierce wolf\nof Gubbio, and fed the robins with crumbs from his table.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Goff and Kerr-Lawson: _Assisi of Saint Francis_, p. 121.]\n\nAnd Christ stands, of course, in the Christian world, as the\nsupreme symbol of love for mankind.\n\nIn ordinary men it is this generalized affection which is at\nthe basis of any sustained interest in philanthropic or altruistic\nenterprises. No less than a large and generous affection for\nhumanity is required to enable men to endure for long the\ndreariness and disillusion so often incident to philanthropic\nwork, the conflicts and disappointments of public administration.\nCertainly this is true of the first rank of statesmen; no\ncharacterization of Lincoln fails to emphasize his essential\nhumanity and tenderness.\n\nDisinterested love for humanity is normally most intense\nin the adolescent.[2] The pressure of private concerns, of one's\nnarrowing interest in one's own career, one's own family, and\nsmall circle of friends, the restriction of one's sympathies by\nfixed habits and circumscribed experience, all tend to dampen\nby middle age the ardor of the man who as an undergraduate\nat eighteen set out to make the world \"a better place to live\nin.\" But more effective in dampening enthusiasm is the disillusion\nand weariness that set in after a period of exuberant\nand romantic benevolence to mankind in general. \"We\ncall pessimists,\" writes a contemporary French philosopher,\n\"those who are in reality only disillusioned optimists.\"[1] So\nthe cynic may be fairly described as a disheartened lover of\nmen. It is only an unusual gift of affectionate good-will\nthat enables mature men, after rough and disillusioning experiences\nin public life, to maintain without sentimentality a genuine\nand persistent interest in the welfare of others. Those in\nwhom the fund of human kindness is slender will, and easily\ndo, become cynical and hard.\n\n[Footnote 2: Simeon Strunsky has somewhere remarked: \"At eighteen\na man is interested in causes; at twenty-eight in commutation\ntickets.\"]\n\n[Footnote 1: Georges Sorel: _Reflection on Violence_ (English\ntranslation), p. 9.]\n\nThe attitude of affection for others is profoundly influential\nin stimulating our interest in specific individuals, and modifying\nour attitudes toward them. We cannot help being more\ninterested in those for whom we entertain affection than in\nthose to whom we are indifferent. In the same way our judgments\nof our own friends, families, and children are qualified\nby our affection for them. Parents and lovers are notoriously\npartial, and a fair judgment of the work of our friends\ndemands unusual clarity, determination, and poise.\n\nIn a larger way the generally friendly attitude towards\nothers, genial expansive receptivity, is at the basis of what is\ncalled \"charity for human weakness.\" The gentle cynic can\nsee and tolerate other men's weaknesses:\n\n \"He knows how much of what men paint themselves\n  Would blister in the light of what they are;\n  He sees how much of what was great now shares\n  An eminence transformed and ordinary;\n  He knows too much of what the world has hushed\n  In others, to be loud now for himself.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Edwin Arlington Robinson: \"Ben Jonson Entertains a Man\nfrom Stratford,\" in his _Man Against the Sky_.]\n\nThe devoutly religious have displayed keen psychological\ninsight when they made man's salvation dependent on God's\ncharity, and identified, as did Dante, charity with love.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: \"Love and the gentle heart are one and the same thing.\"\n_The New Life_. XX (son XI) _Amore e cor gentile son una cosa._\nTo Dante the spontaneous impulse to love is the basis of all altruism.\nTo feel and to follow this impulse is to be truly noble, to have a\n\"_cor gentile_,\" a gentle heart.]\n\nHATE. Hate may be described as an extreme form of disaffection\nusually provoked by some marked interference with\nour activities, desires, or ideals. But in less intense degree\nthe negative feeling towards others may be provoked immediately\nand unmistakably by most casual evidence of voice,\nmanner, or bearing. Such immediate revulsions of feeling\ncontrast with the instances of \"instinctive sympathy\" previously\ncited, and are as direct and uncontrollable. Even\nkindly disposed persons cannot help experiencing in the presence\nof some persons they have never seen before, a half-conscious\nthrill of repulsion or a dislike colored with dread.\nA shifting gaze, a noticeably pretentious manner, a marked\nobsequiousness, a grating voice, a chillness of demeanor, a\nphysical deformity, these, however little they may have to do\nwith a person's genuine qualities, do affect our attitudes toward\nthem. As the familiar verse has it:\n\n \"I do not like you, Dr. Fell,\n  The reason why I cannot tell,\n  But this I know, and know full well,\n  I do not like you, Dr. Fell.\"\n\nWe may later revise our estimates, but the initial reaction\nis made, and often remains as a subconscious qualification of\nour general attitude toward another. People of worldly experience\nlearn to trust their first reactions, to \"size a man up\"\nalmost intuitively, and to be surprised if their first impressions\ngo astray.\n\nFrom this merely instinctive revulsion the negative attitude\nmay rise to that terrible form of destructive antipathy\nwhich is \"hate,\" as popularly understood. In between lie\ndegrees of dislike depending partly on the strength of the\ninitial antipathy, but equally so on the degree to which others,\nwhether persons, institutions, or ideas, interfere with our\nactivities, desires, or ideals. The man who seriously obstructs\nour love, our pleasure, or our ambition, or who tries to do so,\nprovokes hate, and its concomitants of jealousy, rage, and\npugnacity. It is not only that we dislike the mere presence\nof the person (in the opposite case the mere presence of the\nbeloved object is a joy), but we dislike it for what it portends\nin danger and threat to ourselves. The more serious the evil\nor disaster for which a person comes to stand, the more violent\nthe hatred for him, despite his personal fascinations.\nThe villain is not infrequently a \"damned smiling villain.\"\n\nThe provocation of hate is complicated by the fact that it\nis closely associated with fear. We dislike those who threaten\nour happiness partly because we fear them. And we fear, as\nwas pointed out in more detail in the discussion of that powerful\nhuman trait, the unfamiliar, the strange, the startling, the\nunexpected. The facility with which sensational newspapers\ncan work up in an ignorant population a hate for foreign\nnations, especially those of a totally alien civilization, is made\npossible by the fear which these uninformed readers can feel\nat the dangerous possibilities of mysterious foreign hordes.\nThe fomenting of fear is in nearly all such cases a prerequisite\nto the fomenting of hate. And the promotion of hate has\nhistorically been one of the frequent ingredients of international\nconflicts.\n\nLike love, hate is profoundly influential in modifying our\ninterest in persons and situations. To dislike a person moderately\nis, in his absence, to be indifferent to him. To dislike\nhim intensely, in a sense increases our interest in him, though\nperversely. Just as we wish the beloved person to succeed, to\ngain honor and reputation and wealth, so we long for and\nrejoice in the downfall and discomfiture of our enemies. Thus\nwrites the Psalmist:\n\nArise, O Lord, save me, my God; for thou has smitten all mine\nenemies upon the cheekbone; thou hast broken the teeth of the\nungodly....\n\nThou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies that I might\ndestroy those that hate me.\n\nHate may be directed against persons, and usually it is.\nBut hatred may be directed against institutions and ideas as\nwell. For many persons it will be impossible for a decade to\nlisten to German music or the German language, so closely\nhave these become associated in their minds with ideas and\npractices which they detest. To a dogmatic Calvinist in the\nsixteenth century, both an heretical creed and its practitioners,\nwere objects of abomination. Disappointed men may\ntake out in a spleen and hatred of mankind their personal\npique and balked desires.\n\nGreat hates may be present at the same time and in\nthe same persons as great loves. Indeed for some persons\nstrength in the one passion is impossible without a corresponding\nstrength in its opposite. We cannot help hating,\nmore or less, not only those who interfere with our own welfare,\nbut with the welfare of those who, being dear to us, have\nbecome, as we say, a part of our lives. Thus writes Bertrand\nRussell in the introduction to his treatment of some of the\nradical social tendencies of our own day:\n\nWhatever bitterness or hate may be found in the movements which\nwe are to examine, it is not bitterness or hate, but love, that is their\nmainspring. It is difficult not to hate those who torture the objects\nof our love. Though difficult, it is not impossible; but it requires a\nbreadth of outlook, and a comprehensiveness of understanding which\nare not easy to preserve amid a desperate contest.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Russell: _Proposed Roads to Freedom_, pp. xvii-xviii.]\n\nHate may thus be, as great religious and social reformers\nillustrate, invoked on the side of good as well as evil. The\nprophets burned with a \"righteous indignation.\" But hate\nis a violent and consuming passion, bent on destroying\nobstacles rather than solving problems. It consumes in hatred\nfor individuals such energy as might more expeditiously be\ndevoted to the improvement of the circumstances which\nmake people do the mean or small or blind actions which\narouse our wrath. The complete meekness and humility\npreached by Christ have not been taken literally by the\nnatively pugnacious peoples of Europe. But as James says\nsuggestively:\n\n\"Love your enemies!\" Mark you not simply those who do not\nhappen to be your friends, but your _enemies_, your positive and active\nenemies. Either this is a mere Oriental hyperbole, a bit of verbal\nextravagance, meaning only that we should, in so far as we can,\nabate our animosities, or else it is sincere and literal. Outside of\ncertain cases of intimate individual relation, it seldom has been\ntaken literally. Yet it makes one ask the question: Can there in\ngeneral be a level of emotion so unifying, so obliterative of differences\nbetween man and man, that even enmity may come to be an irrelevant\ncircumstance and fail to inhibit the friendlier interests aroused.\nIf positive well-wishing could attain so supreme a degree of excitement,\nthose who were swayed by it might well seem superhuman\nbeings. Their life would be morally discrete from the lives of other\nmen, and there is no saying... what the effects might be: they\nmight conceivably transform the world.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 283.]\n\nDislikes, disagreements, native antipathies are not to be\nabolished, human differences being ineradicable and human\ninterests, even in an ideal society, being in conflict. But a\nkeener appreciation of other viewpoints, which is possible\nthrough education, a less violent concern with one's own\npersonal interests to the exclusion of all others, may greatly reduce\nthe amount of hate current in the world, and free men's\nenergies in passions more positive in their fruits.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE DEMAND FOR PRIVACY AND INDIVIDUALITY\n\nPRIVACY AND SOLITUDE. Although one of man's most powerful\ntendencies, as has already been pointed out, is his desire to\nbe with his fellows, this desire is not unqualified. Just as men\ncan be satiated with too much eating, and irritated by too\nmuch inactivity, so men become \"fed up\" with companionship.\nThe demand for solitude and privacy is thus fundamentally\na physiological demand, like the demand for rest.\n\"The world is too much with us,\" especially the human world.\nCompanionship, even of the most desirable kind, exhausts\nnervous energy, and may become positively fatiguing and\npainful. To crave solitude is thus not a sign of man's\nunsociability, but a sign merely that sociability, like any other human\ntendency, becomes annoying, if too long or too strenuously\nindulged. Much of the neurasthenia of city life has been\nattributed to the continual contact with other people, and the\ntotal inability of most city dwellers to secure privacy for any\nconsiderable length of time. In some people a lifelong habit\nof close contact with large numbers of people makes them\nabnormally gregarious, so that solitude, the normal method of\nrecuperation from companionship, becomes unbearable. Few\ncity dwellers have not felt after a period of isolation in some\nremote country place the need for the social stimulus of the\ncity. But a normal human life demands a certain proportion\nof solitude just as much as it demands the companionship of\nothers.\n\nWith the spread of education and the general enhancement\nof the sense of personal selfhood and individuality among\nlarge numbers of people, the demand for privacy has increased.\nThe modern reader is shocked to discover in the\nliterature of the Elizabethan period the amazing lack of a\nsense of privacy there exhibited. In contemporary society\nthis sense and the possibility of its satisfaction are variously\ndisplayed on different economic and social levels. In the\ncongested life of the tenements it is almost impossible, and many\nsocial evils are to be traced to the promiscuous mingling of\nlarge families (and sometimes additional boarders) in\ncongested quarters.\n\nThe demand for privacy and solitude becomes acute among\npeople who do a great deal of mental work. \"Man,\" says\nNietzsche, \"cannot think in a herd,\" and the thinker has\ntraditionally been pictured as a solitary man. This is because\nquiet seems to be, for most men, an essential condition of\nreally creative thought. There are some men who find it\nimpossible to write when there is another person, even one of\nwhom they are fond, in the same room. \"No man,\" writes\nMr. Graham Wallas, \"is likely to produce creative thoughts\n(either consciously or subconsciously) if he is constantly\ninterrupted by irregular noises.\" Constant association with\nother people means, moreover, continual distraction by\nconversation which seriously interrupts a consecutive train of\nthought. The insistence in public and college reading rooms\non absolute quiet is a device for securing as nearly as may\nbe privacy in intellectual work.\n\nPrivacy is again demanded as a matter of emotional protection\nin individuals in whom there is a highly sensitive development\nof personal selfhood. We like to keep our concerns to\nourselves, or to share them only with those with whom we\nhave a marked community of interest and feeling. Children\nlove to \"have secrets they won't tell,\" and older people,\nespecially sensitive and intelligent ones, feel a peculiar sense of\nirritation at having their personal affairs and feelings publicly\ndisplayed. Nearly everyone must recall occasions where he\nwas vividly communicative and loquacious with a friend, only\nto relapse into a clam-like silence on the entry of a third person.\nThis is primarily due to the fact that while men are by\nnature gregarious, their gregariousness early becomes specialized\nand aroused exclusively by people for whom they develop\na sense of personal affection and common sympathy. Any\nintrusion from without this circle becomes an intrusion upon\nprivacy.\n\nSATISFACTION IN PERSONAL POSSESSION: THE ACQUISITIVE INSTINCT.\nAn almost universal human trait of considerable social consequence\nis the satisfaction men experience in having objects\nthat are their own. Both animals and humans, apart from\ntraining, display a tendency to get and hold objects. This\ntendency may take extreme forms, as in the case of miserliness\nor kleptomania. It is evidenced in special ways in the\ncollections that children, and some grown-ups, make of\nmiscellaneous objects without any particular use, and with no\nparticular aesthetic value.\n\nThe objects which satisfy this instinct of possession may\ninclude material goods, family, or larger groups. In primitive\ntribes under the patriarchal system, the patriarch practically\nowns the tribe. Our laws not so long ago recognized\nthe marriage relation as a state in which the wife is\npossessed or owned by the husband.\n\nPossession gives the owner various kinds of satisfaction.\nThe instinctive satisfaction in possession itself may be quite\nirrespective of the values of the objects owned, and deprivation\nmay be fiercely resisted out of all proportion to the value\nof the objects. Especially will this be the case if the object\npossessed has become surrounded with other emotional\nattachments, so that an individual may be as bitterly chagrined\nand piqued by being deprived of some slight memoir or keepsake\nas of a large sum of money. In the same way the fighting\nspirit of a whole tribe or nation may be aroused by the\ninvasion or seizure of a small and unimportant bit of land, or by\nthe chance of its possession.\n\nThe instinctive sense of satisfaction, as in the last mentioned\ncase is enhanced by the sense of importance which\ncomes from possession, and which enhances one's own individuality\nand personality. A man's vast holdings in wealth,\nland, factories, machinery, or private estates is, in a sense,\nregarded by him as an extension of his personality. He is\nconfirmed in this impression because it is so regarded by his\nneighbors and the whole social group. A great landowner is\na celebrity throughout the countryside, and, as Mr. Veblen\npoints out, a large part of the luxurious display and expenditure\nof the leisure classes is their way of publicly and conspicuously\nindicating the amount of their possessions.\n\nAs in the case of any other strong native tendency, interference\nwith the instinct of acquisition, whether displayed by\nthe individual or the group, provokes often fierce anger and\nbitter combat. The history of wars of aggrandizement\nthroughout the history of Europe are testimonies to the\nefficacy of this instinct at least in the initiation of war.\n\nThe progress of civilization beyond its earliest states is\nheld, by some sociologists and economists, to be ascribed to\nthe power of the acquisitive instinct. The acquisition of\nmaterial wealth or capital, the development of the institution\nof private property with its concomitant individual development\nof land and natural resources is maintained by Lester\nWard to be of paramount importance in social advance:\n\n... Objects of desire multiplied themselves and their possession\nbecame an end of effort. Slowly the notion of property came into\nbeing and in acquiring this, as history shows, the larger share of all\nhuman energy has been absorbed. The ruling passion has for a\ntime long anterior to any recorded annals always been proprietary\nacquisition.... Both the passion and the means of satisfying it were\nconditions to the development of society itself, and rightly viewed\nthey have also been leading factors in civilization.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Lester Ward: _The Psychic Factors of Civilization_, p. 156.]\n\nThere are many other motives to activity than acquisition,\nbut there are many evidences of its intense operation even in\nmodern society. Many men go on working long after they have\nmoney enough to enable them to live in comfort, merely\nfor the further satisfaction of this impulse. \"While in the\ncourse of satisfaction of most other desires, the point of satiety\nis soon reached, the demands of this one grow greater without\nlimit, so that it knows no satiety.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 323.]\n\nThe power of this tendency to personal acquisition and\npossession seems an obstacle to all thoroughly communistic\nforms of political and social organization. The conception of\na state where nobody owns anything, but where all is owned\nin common--an idea which has been repeated in many modern\nforms of socialism and communism, fails to note this powerful\nhuman difficulty. Many socialist writers, it must be\nnoted, however, point out that they wish social ownership of\nthe means of production rather than of every item of personal\nproperty, such as books, clothing, and the like.\n\nINDIVIDUALITY IN OPINION AND BELIEF. Men frequently\ndisplay with regard to their opinions and beliefs the same passionate\nattachment that they exhibit with regard to their\nphysical possessions. Like the latter, these come to be regarded\nas an extension of the individual's personality, and\nthe same tenacious defense may be made of them as of a house,\nland, or money.\n\nIndividual opinions and beliefs are not themselves possessions,\nfrom a social point of view, so much as is the right to\nexpress them. A man's private opinion may influence his\nown conduct; his conduct itself may be an expression of\nopinion. But unless an opinion is communicated, it cannot\ninfluence any one else's conduct, and society has never been\nmuch concerned about opinions that an individual harbored\nstrictly in his own bosom. Silence, socially, is as good as\nassent. The insistence on the right to one's own opinions\nbecomes, therefore, an insistence on the right or the freedom to\nexpress them.[2] This right is cherished in varying degrees by\ndifferent individuals in different ages. It becomes pronounced\nin persons in whom there is marked development\nof individuality, and, in general, where, as in Anglo-Saxon\ncountries, a social and political tradition of liberty and\nindividuality has become very powerful.\n\n[Footnote 2: Beliefs and opinions may come to be regarded as\nimportant personal possessions in themselves, as in the case\nof rival claimants to some theory or idea, as in the case of\nLeibnitz's and Newton's dispute over the calculus.]\n\nIndividuality in opinion and belief becomes critical chiefly\nwhen the opinions and beliefs expressed are at variance with\nthose generally current among the group. For reasons already\ndiscussed in connection with man's instinctive gregariousness\nand the emotional sway which habits of thought have\nover men, dissent is regarded with suspicion. Especially is\nthis the case where the dissenting opinions have to do with\nnew social organization and custom. The psychological\ncauses of this opposition are various, but include among other\nthings a positive feeling of fear.\n\nIt is only recently that men have been abandoning the belief that\nthe welfare of a state depends on rigid stability and on the\npreservation of its traditions and institutions unchanged. Wherever that\nbelief prevails, novel opinions are felt to be dangerous as well as\nannoying, and any one who asks inconvenient questions about the\nwhy and the wherefore of accepted principles is considered a pestilent\nperson.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bury: _History of Freedom of Thought_, p. 9.]\n\nThroughout history there has been a long struggle for\nfreedom of thought and discussion, and there have been great\nlandmarks in the degree with which freedom was attained,\nand the fields wherein it was permitted. For a long time in\nthe history of Europe, dissent from the prevailing opinion on\nreligious matters was regarded both as abominable and socially\ndangerous, and was severely punished. Since the middle\nof the nineteenth century there has been no legal punishment\nprovided for dissent from established opinions in\nreligion, although penalties for heterodoxy in countries where\nreligious opinion is strong and fairly unanimous may be\nexerted in other ways. In social matters also, there has\npractically ceased to be legal coercion of opinion.[2] The argument\nfor the suppression of individual opinion has been tersely\nsummarized by the author above quoted:\n\n[Footnote 2: Except in the recent period of excitement and stress\nduring the Great War, when suppression of opinion was, for better\nor for worse, taken as a measure of national defense.]\n\nThose who have the responsibility of governing a society can argue\nthat it is incumbent on them to prohibit the circulation of pernicious\nopinions as to prohibit any anti-social actions. They can argue that\na man may do far more harm by propagating anti-social doctrines\nthan by stealing his neighbor's horse or making love to his neighbor's\nwife. They are responsible for the welfare of the State, and if they\nare convinced that an opinion is dangerous... it is their duty to\nprotect society against it as against any other danger.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bury: _loc. cit._, p. 13.]\n\nTHE SOCIAL IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUALITY IN OPINION. There\nhave been many notable documents in support of the belief\nthat society is the gainer and not the loser by permitting and\nencouraging individuality in thought and belief. The following,\ntaken from one of the most famous of these, John Stuart\nMill's _Essay on Liberty_, was written to illustrate the fatal\nresults of prohibiting dissenting opinions merely because most\npeople think or call them immoral:\n\nMankind can hardly be too often reminded that there was once a\nman named Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and\npublic opinion of his time there took place a memorable collision.\nBorn in an age and country abounding in individual greatness, this\nman has been handed down to us by those who best knew both him\nand the age, as the most virtuous man in it.... This acknowledged\nmaster of all the eminent thinkers who have since lived--whose\nfame, still growing after two thousand years, all but outweighs the\nwhole remainder of the names which make his native city illustrious--was\nput to death by his countrymen, after a judicial conviction,\nfor impiety and immorality. Impiety, in denying the gods recognized\nby the State.... Immorality, in being, by his doctrines and\ninstructions, a \"corrupter of youth.\" Of these charges the tribunal,\nthere is every ground for believing, honestly found him guilty, and\ncondemned the man who probably of all then born had deserved best\nof mankind to be put to death as a criminal.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: J. S. Mill: _Essay on Liberty_, chap. II.]\n\nEvery important step in human progress has been a variation\nfrom the normal or accustomed, something new. Most\nadvances in science have been departures from older and\naccustomed ways of thinking. Through the permission and\nencouragement of individual variation in opinion we may\ndiscover in the first place that accepted beliefs are wrong.\nGalileo thought differently from the accepted Ptolemaic\nastronomy of his day, and the demonstration of his diverging\nbelief proved the Ptolemaic astronomy to be wrong. The\nevolutionary theory, bitterly attacked in its day, replaced\nCuvier's doctrine of the forms of life upon earth coming about\nthrough a series of successive catastrophes. Lyell, in the face\nof the whole scientific world of his day, insisted on the gradual\nand uniform development of the earth's surface. Half the\nscientific doctrines now accepted as axiomatic were bitterly\ndenounced when they were first suggested by an inquiring\nminority.\n\nMilton in his famous _Areopagitica_, an address to Parliament\nwritten in 1644, protesting against the censorship of\nprinting, stressed the importance of permitting liberty for the\nsecuring and developing of new ideas:\n\nWhat should ye do then, should ye suppress all this flowery crop\nof knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this\ncity? Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers [censors] over\nit, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing\nbut what is measured us by their bushel? ... That our hearts\nare now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and\nexpectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your own\nvirtue propagated in us; ye cannot suppress that unless ye reenforce\nan abrogated and merciless law.... Give me the liberty to know, to\nutter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Milton: _Areopagitica_.]\n\nEven if the currently accepted doctrines prove to be true,\nthere is, as Mill pointed out, a vast social utility in permitting\nthe expression of contrary opinion though it be an error.\nNew ideas, however extreme, \"may and commonly do possess\nsome portion of truth\"; they bring to light and emphasize\nsome aspect or point of view which prevailing theories fail to\nnote. Thus the possible over-emphasis of certain contemporary\nwriters on the socialization of man's life is a valuable\ncorrective to the equal over-emphasis on individualism which\nwas current among so many thinkers during the nineteenth\ncentury. The insistence with which present-day psychologists\ncall our attention to the power of instinct, though it may\npossibly be over-emphasized, counterbalances that tendency\nexhibited by such earlier authors as Bentham to picture man\nas a purely rational being, whose every action was determined\nby sheer logic.\n\nFinally, unless doctrines are subjected to criticism and\ninquiry, no matter how beneficial they are to society, they\nwill become merely futile and empty formulae with very little\nbeyond a mechanical influence on people's lives. The maxims\nof conventional morality and religion which everybody\nbelieves and few practice are solemnly bandied about with\nlittle comprehension of their meaning and no tendency to act\nupon them. A belief becomes, as Mill pointed out, living,\nvital, and influential in the clash of controversy. Whether\nnovel and dissenting doctrines are true or false, therefore, the\nencouragement of their expression provides vitality and\nvariation without which progress is not possible.\n\nThe social appreciation of persons who display marked individual\nopinions varies in different ages toward the same\nindividual. The martyr stoned to death by one generation\nbecomes the hero and prophet of the next. One has but to\nlook back at the contemporary vilification and ridicule to\nwhich Lincoln was subjected to find an illustration. Or, on\na more monumental scale:\n\nThe event which took place on Calvary rather more than eighteen\nhundred years ago. The man who left on the memory of those who\nwitnessed his life and conversation such an impression of his moral\ngrandeur that eighteen subsequent centuries have done homage to\nhim as the Almighty in person, was ignominiously put to death, as\nwhat? As a blasphemer.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Essay on Liberty_, chap. II.]\n\nOne would suppose that men would have learned not only\nto tolerate and be receptive to novelty in belief after these\nrepeatedly tardy recognitions of greatness. There are dozens\nof instances in the history of religious, social, and political\nbelief, of men and women who, suppressed with the bitterest\ncruelty in one generation, have been in effect, and sometimes\nin fact, canonized by posterity. And a certain degree of tolerance\nand receptiveness has come to be the result. But\nwhile we no longer burn religious and social heretics,\ncondemnation is still meted out in some form of ostracism.\nPrejudice, custom, and special interest frequently move men\nto suppress in milder ways extremists, expression of whose\nopinions seems to them, as unusual opinions have frequently\nseemed, fraught only with the greatest of harm.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE \"SELF\"\n\nORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A SENSE OF PERSONAL SELFHOOD.\nThe expression of individuality in opinion is only one way\nmen have of expressing their personality, individuality, or\nself. From the beginnings of childhood, men experience an\nincreasing sense of \"personal selfhood\" which finds various\noutlets in action or thought. So familiar, indeed, in the normal\nman is his realization that he is a \"self,\" that it seldom\noccurs to him that this conception was an attainment gradually\naccomplished through long years of experience with the\nworld about him. The very young baby does not distinguish\nbetween Itself and the Not-Self which constitutes the\nremainder of the universe. It is nothing but a stream of\nexperiences, of moment to moment pulsations of desire, of\nhunger and satisfaction, of bodily comfort and bodily pain. As it\ngrows older, it begins dimly to distinguish between Itself and\nEverything-Else; it finds itself to be something different,\nmore vivid, more personal and interesting than the chairs and\ntables, the crib and bottle, the faces and hands, the smiles and\nrattles that are its familiar setting. It discovers that \"I am\nI,\" and that everything else ministers to or frustrates or remains\nindifferent to its desires. It becomes a person rather\nthan a bundle of reactions. It develops a consciousness of\n\"self.\"\n\nIn its simplest form this consciousness of self is nothing\nmore than a continuous stream of inner organic sensations,\nand the constant process of the body and limbs \"and the\nspecial interest of these as the seat of various pleasures and\npains.\" This is what James calls the \"bodily self.\" As it\ngrows older, the baby distinguishes between persons and\nthings. And as, in setting off his own body from other things,\nit discovers its \"bodily self,\" so in setting off its own opinions,\nactions, and thoughts from other people, it discovers its \"social\nself.\" It is because Nature does in some degree the\n\"giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us,\" that we do\ndiscover our \"selves\" at all. \"The normal human being, if it\nwere possible for him to grow up from birth onward in a purely\nphysical environment, deprived, that is, to say, of both animal\nand human companionship, would develop but a very\ncrude and rudimentary idea of the self.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 183.]\n\nTHE SOCIAL SELF. A man's social self, that is, his consciousness\nof himself as set over against all the other individuals\nwith whom he comes in contact, develops as his relations\nwith other people grow more complex and various. A man's\nself, apart from his mere physical body, consists in his peculiar\norganization of instincts and habits. In common language\nthis constitutes his personality or character. We can infer\nfrom it what he will, as we say, characteristically do in any\ngiven situation. And a particular organization of instincts\nand habits is dependent very largely on the individual's social\nexperience, on the types and varieties of contact with\nother people that he has established. There will be differences,\nit goes without saying, that depend on initial differences\nin native capacity. But both the consciousness of self and\nthe overt organization of instinctive and habitual actions are\ndependent primarily on the groups with which an individual\ncomes in contact. In the formation of habits, both of action\nand thought, the individual is affected, as we have seen,\nlargely by praise and blame. He very early comes to detect\nsigns of approval and disapproval, and both his consciousness\nof his individuality and the character of that individuality\nare, in the case of most persons, largely determined by these\noutward signs of the praise and blame of others. And since,\nin normal experience, a man comes into contact with several\ndistinct groups, with varying codes of conduct, he will really\nhave a number of distinct personalities. The professor is a\ndifferent man in his class and at his club; the judge displays a\ndifferent character in the court and in the bosom of his family.\n\nThe self that comes to be most characteristic and distinctive\nof a man, however, is determined by the group with\nwhich he comes most habitually in contact, or to whose approvals\nhe has become most sensitive. Thus there develop\ncertain typical personalities or characters, such as those of\nthe typical lawyer or soldier or judge. Their bearing, action,\nand consciousness of self are determined by the approvals\nand disapprovals of the group to which they are most\ncompletely and intimately exposed.\n\nBoth the consciousness of self which most men experience\nand the overt expression of that selfhood in act are thus seen\nto be a more or less direct reflex of the praise and blame of the\ngroups with which they are in contact. Men learn from\nexperience with the praise and blame of others to \"place\"\nthemselves socially, to discover in the mirror of other men's\nopinions the status and locus of their own lives. As we shall\nsee in a succeeding section, the degree of satisfaction which\nmen experience in their consciousness of themselves is dependent\nintimately on the praise and blame by which their\nselfhood is, in the first place, largely determined. In the\nchapter on the \"Social Nature of Man,\" we examined in some\ndetail the way in which praise and blame modified a man's\nhabits. The total result of this process is to give a man a\ncertain fixed set of overt habits that constitute his character and\na more or less fixed consciousness of that character.\n\nOn the other hand, a man's character and self-consciousness\nmay develop more or less independently of the immediate\nforces of the public opinion to which he is exposed. One\ncomes in contact in the course of his experience not merely\nwith his immediate contemporaries, but with a wide variety\nof moral traditions. Except in the rigidly custom-bound life\nof primitive societies, a man is, even in practical life, exposed\nto a diversity of codes, standards, and expectations of behavior.\nHis family, his professional, his political, and his social\ngroups expose him to various kinds of emphases and accent\nin behavior. And a man of some intelligence, education, and\nculture may be determined in his action by standards whose\norigin is remote in time, space, and intention from those operative\nin the predominant public opinion of his day. He may\ncome to act habitually on the basis of ideal standards which\nhe has himself set up through reflection, or which he has\nacquired from some moral system or tradition, far in advance of\nthose which are the staple determinants of character for most\nof his contemporaries. He may be one of those rare moral\ngeniuses, singularly unsusceptible to praise and blame, who\ncreate a new ideal of character by the dominant individuality\nof their own. Or, as more frequently happens, he may follow\nthe ideals set up by such a one, instead of accepting the orthodoxies\nwhich are generally observed. He may follow Christ\ninstead of the Pharisees, Socrates instead of the habit-crusted\ncitizens of Athens. We are, indeed, inclined to think of a\nman as a peculiarly distinctive personality, when his sense of\nselfhood, and the overt actions in which that selfhood finds\nexpression, are not determined by the current dogmas of his\nday, but by ideal standards to which he has reflectively given\nallegiance. But so much is the self, both in its consciousness\nand expression, socially produced that men acting on purely\nimagined ideal standards, current nowhere in their day and\ngeneration, have imagined a group, no matter how small or\nhow remote, who would praise them or a God who noted and\napproved their ways.\n\nCHARACTER AND WILL. From the foregoing it would appear\nthat the self is an organization of habitual tendencies, developed\nprimarily through contact with other people and more\nspecifically through their praise and blame. And consciousness\nof self is the awareness of the unique or specific character\nof the habit-organization one has acquired. Individuals differ\nnatively in given capacities, and differences in fully developed\npersonalities depend, certainly in part, on innate\ninitial differences. But differences in the kinds of selfhood\ndisplayed and experienced by different men are due to something\nmore than differences in native capacities and native\ndesires. The self that a man exhibits and of which he is conscious,\nat any given period of his life, depends on the complex\nsystem of habits he has in the course of his experience developed.\nOne individual may, as we have seen, develop a number\nof sets of organized dispositions, a multiple character, as\nit were, as a consequence of the multiplicity of groups with\nwhich he has come in contact. But whether through deliberate\nor habitual conformity to one group as a norm, or the\ndeliberate organization of habits of action and feeling and\nthought, on the basis of ideal or reflective standards, a man\ncomes to develop a more or less \"permanent self.\" That is,\nwhile men start with somewhat similar native equipments,\neach man's set of inborn tendencies comes to be fixed in a\nfairly definite and specific system. While all men start within\nlimits equally responsive and similarly responsive to all stimuli,\ncertain stimuli come to have the \"right of way.\" They\nare more or less easily and more or less readily responded to,\naccording as they do or as they do not fit in with the habit-organization\nwhich the individual has previously acquired.\n\nWhen we say that a man has no character or individuality,\nwe mean that he has developed no stable organization of actions,\nfeelings, and thoughts, with reference to which and by\nthe predominant drive of which his actions are determined.\nThere is no particular system of behavior which he has come\nconsciously to identify as his person or self; no interweaving\nof motives and stimuli by the persistent momentum of which\nhis conduct is controlled; no single group of stimuli rather\nthan another has, in his pulpy person, attained priority in\nstimulating power. Such men are chameleons rather than\ncharacters. Their actions do not flow from a selfhood or\nindividuality at all; they are merely the random results of the\naccidental situations in which such men find themselves.\n\nThe self exists, then, as a well-defined, systematic trend of\nbehavior. Impulses to action attain a certain order of priority\nin an individual's conduct, and it is by the momentum of\nthese primary drives to action that his life is controlled.\nWhat is commonly known as \"will\" is simply another name\nfor the power and momentum of a man's \"personal self.\"\nWill exists not as a thing, but as a process. To will an action\nmeans to identify it consciously with one's permanent self, to\nweigh and support it with all the emotions and energies connected\nwith one's consciously realized habitual system of behavior.\nA man may bring to bear on the accomplishment of\na given action the deepest and most powerful motive forces of\nhis developed personality. To pass a course or make a team\na student may marshal all the habits of loyalty, of self-assertion\n(and the emotional energies associated with them) which\nhave become the leading ingredients of his character.\n\nThe \"permanent self\" becomes involved in the same way\nin the case of willing _not_ to perform a certain action. Any\nstimulus may, on occasion, be strong even if it has ceased to\nbe characteristic or habitual in a man's behavior. This is\nparticularly the case with some of the primary physical drives\nto action. Even the ascetic feels the strong sting of sense-desire.\nA man in resisting temptation, in denying the pressure\nof an immediate stimulus, is setting up to block or inhibit\nit all the contrary reactions and emotions which have\nbecome part of the \"permanent self.\" In more familiar language\nhe is setting will over against desire. The temporary\ndesire may be strong, but it is consciously regarded by the\nindividual as alien to his \"real\" or \"better\" self. And _will_\nis this whole complex organization of the permanent self set\nover against an alien intruding impulse.\n\nThe phenomenon of will contending against desire occurs\nusually when a stimulus not characteristically powerful in a\nman's conduct becomes so through special conditions of excitement\nor fatigue. When a man is tired, or stirred by violent\nemotion, his systematic organization of habits begins to\nbreak down. The ideal permanent or inclusive self is then\nbrought into conflict with a temporary passion. Love conflicts\nwith duty, the lower with the higher self, flesh with\nspirit, desire with will. Few men have so thoroughly integrated\na self that such conflicts altogether cease. Every one\ncarries about with him a more or less divided soul.\n\n  Fire and ice within me fight\n  Beneath the suffocating night.\n\nThere are, in the records of abnormal psychology, many cases\nof really divided personalities, cases of two or more completely\nseparate habit-organizations inhabiting the same physical\nbody. Such a complete Dr.-Jekyll-and-Mr.-Hyde dissociation\nof a personality is clearly abnormal. But it is almost as\nrare to find a completely integrated character. We are all of\nus more or less multiple personalities. Our various personalities\nusually keep their place and do not interfere with each\nother. Our professional and family selves may be different;\nthey do not always collide. But the various characters that\nwe are in various situations not infrequently do clash. The\nself whose keynote is ambition or learning may conflict with\nthe self whose focus is love.\n\n  \"Resolve to be thyself; and know, that he\n   Who finds himself, loses his misery!\"\n\nwrote Matthew Arnold. And it does seem to be true that a\nman whose will is never divided or confused by contending\ncurrents of desire, whose character is unified and whose action\nis consistent, is saved from the perturbations, the confusions,\nthe tossings of spirit which possess less organized souls. But\nto find one's self, and to keep one's self whole and undivided,\nis a difficult achievement and a rare one. Even men whose\ninterests and activities are fairly well defined find their\ncharacters divided and their wills, consequently, confused. A\nman's duties as a husband and father may conflict with his\nprofessional ambitions; his love of adventure, with his desire\nfor wealth and social position; his artistic interests, with his\nphilanthropic activities; his business principles, with his\nreligious scruples. A man can achieve a selfhood by thrusting\nout all interests save one, and achieving thereby unity at the\nexpense of breadth. There are men who choose to be, and\nsucceed in being, first and last, scholars or poets or musicians\nor doctors. All activities, interests, and ideals that do not\ncontribute to that particular and exclusive self are practically\nnegligible in their conduct. Such men, although they have\nattained a permanent self, have not achieved a broad, comprehensive,\nor inclusive one. They are like instruments\nwhich can sound only one note, however clear that may be;\nor like singers with only a single song. All lives are necessarily\nfinite and exclusive; every choice of an interest or ideal\nvery possibly precludes some other. A man cannot be all\nthings at once; \"the philosopher and the lady-killer,\" as\nJames merrily remarks, \"could not very well keep house in\nthe same tenement of clay.\" But a strong character need\nnot necessarily mean a narrow one, nor need a determined will\nbe the will of a fanatic. The self may be--in the case of rare\ngeniuses it has been--diverse in its interests, activities, and\nsympathies, yet unified and consistent in action. A character\nmay be various without being confused; versatility is not\nsynonymous with chaos. A man's interests and activities\nmay be given a certain order, rank, and proportion, so that\nhis life may exhibit at once the color, consistency, clarity, and\nvariety of a finished symphony.\n\nThe consciousness of \"self\" which starts as a mere continuum\nof bodily sensations comes to be the net result of one's\nsocial and intellectual as well as physical activities. The\n\"self\" of which we are conscious ceases to be our merely physical\nperson, and comes to include our possessions. The house\nwe live in and the garden we tend, our children, our friends,\nour opinions, creations, or inventions, these become extensions\nand more or less inalienable parts of our personalities.\nOur \"selfhood\" includes not simply us, but ours.\n\nOur possessions, and especially such as are the fruits of our\nown actions, are indications of what we are. We judge, and\nwithin limits correctly, of a man by the company he keeps,\nthe clothes he wears, by the books he reads, the pictures with\nwhich he decorates his home, the kind of home he builds or\nhas built. And a man may feel as provoked by insult or injury\nto the person or things which have become an intimate\npart of his life as if he were being attacked in his physical\nperson. Strip a man one by one of his physical acquisitions,\nof his associates, of the indications and mementos of the\nthings he has thought and done, and there would be no \"self\"\nleft. To speak of a man as a nonentity is to imply that he is\nno \"self\" worth speaking of; that he can be blown about\nhither and thither; that neither his opinions nor desires, nor\npossessions, nor associates make an iota of difference in the\nworld. A man who is a \"somebody,\" a \"person to be reckoned\nwith,\" is one who is a \"self.\" He is one whose physical\npossessions or personal abilities or standing in the community\nmake him one of the \"powers that be.\" And it is the desire\nto be a factor in the world, to increase the scope and\nconsequence of one's self that is the leading ingredient in what we\ncall ambition, and the desire for fame, and at least one ingredient\nin the desire for wealth. Men may want wealth\nmerely for the sake of possession, or for bodily comfort, but\npart of the desire consists in the ability thereby to spread one's\ninfluence, to be \"one of the happy sons of earth, who lord it\nover land and sea, in the full-blown lustihood that wealth\nand power can give, and before whom, stiffen ourselves as\nwe will ... we cannot escape an emotion, sneaking or open,\nof dread.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. I, p. 293.]\n\nTHE ENHANCEMENT OF THE SELF. The building-up of a more or\nless permanent self is natively satisfactory to most men, and\nevery means will be taken to increase its scope and influence.\nBiologically we are so constituted as to perform many acts\nmaking for our self-preservation. The ordinary reflexes and\ninstincts such as those which prompt us to eat, to defend ourselves\nagainst blows and the threatening approach of animals,\nto keep our equilibrium and recover our balance, are examples\nof these.\n\nThe development and preservation of our social self is also\nmade possible as it is initially prompted by our specifically\nsocial instincts. There is a native tendency, as already noted,\nto get ourselves noticed by other people, to seek their praise\nand avoid their blame. The instincts of self-display and\nleadership, and many of the non-social instincts, such as\ncuriosity and acquisitiveness, are frequently called into play in\nthe service of the more directly social tendencies of the\nindividual. A large part of our activity, whatever be its other\nmotives, is determined to some degree by the desire to develop\nthe social self, to be a \"somebody,\" to cut a figure in the\nworld.\n\nIn the enlargement of the social self, various people use\nvarious means, and with varying degrees of vigor, intensity,\nand persistency. There are a few who go through life with\nalmost no sense of selfhood, who go through their daily routine\nwith no more recognition of their acts as their own than\nthat displayed by an animal or a machine. In most men the\nsense of their personality and their interest in it are high, and\nthe development of the self is sought in all possible or\nlegitimate ways. The ways in which the self is developed, and the\nkind of self that is sought, help to determine whether a man is\nself-seeking in the lowest sense of that epithet, or idealistic\nand ambitious in the approved popular sense.\n\nThe kind of self we seek to build up depends, as we have\nseen, largely on the type of praise and blame and the general\ncharacter of the moral tradition to which we have been exposed.\nBut whichever type of self a man does select as his\nideal or permanent self, all his activities will be more or less\nconsciously and more or less consistently controlled by it.\nHis habits of action, his habitual choices, his habitual feelings,\nwill be built up with this ideal self as a standard and control.\nHe will do those things which \"carry on\" toward the ideal\nself, leave undone those things which do not. The man or\nwoman who wishes simply to cut a figure \"socially\" will cultivate\nthe wit, the gayety, the facility, the smartness, which are\nthe familiar ingredients of such a personality. The same\npersons will be singularly blind to abysses of ignorance which\nwould be painfully in the consciousness of those who had\nset up for themselves ideals of erudition and culture. A\nlaborer will live and move and have his being serenely in clothes\nand in surroundings that \"would never do\" for a professional\nman who had committed himself to live according to the\nsocial standards of his class. Sometimes a man's actions will\nbe directed toward the construction of an ideal self, on standards\nfar in advance of those of his group. A man in developing\nsuch a self is, indeed, in some cases practically committing\nsocial suicide. The extreme dissenter from the\ncurrent standards of action is attempting to build up what\nJames has well called a \"spiritual self,\" a self in the light\nof his own ideals, rather than those current among his\ncontemporaries.\n\nEGOISM _VERSUS_ ALTRUISM. The individual in developing his\nown personality need not, necessarily, be selfish, nor is the\nenhancement of one's personality incompatible with altruism.\nOne man may find his individuality sufficiently developed in a\nlarge bank account, another in discovering a cure for cancer;\none man may seek nothing but gratification of his physical\nappetites; another may find his fulfillment on the battlefield\nin defense of the national honor. Since man is born with the\noriginal tendencies to herd with and have common sympathies\nwith his fellows, and to pity those of them that are weak\nand distressed, there is nothing more unnatural about altruism\nthan about egoism. It is true that in some men the so-called\naltruistic impulses, the impulse to sympathize with\nthe emotions, feelings, aspirations and difficulties of others,\nand to pity them in their distress, are comparatively weak;\nthat in some men the more obviously egoistic impulses, such\nas the gratification of bodily desires, the acquisition of\nphysical possessions are strong and uncontrollable. But through\neducation the altruistic and social impulses of men may be\ncultivated and strengthened, so that they may become more\npowerful and dominant than even the urgency of physical\ndesire. \"Man cannot live by bread alone,\" and a man in\nwhom a passion for reform or for religion, for a cause or for a\nconquest has become strong, will sacrifice food, sleep, and\nphysical comfort, and may even find the satisfactory fulfillment\nof self in self-sacrifice and obliteration.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: This is partly because man's sense of selfhood is\nso largely socially conditioned and affected by praise and blame.\nMany a man in whom impulses of an egoistic sort are strong cannot\nresist the scorn of his gang, club, or clique. In this sense even\nsocially beneficial actions may be \"selfish.\"]\n\nThe old distinction between egoism and altruism is thus an\nartificial one. A genuinely altruistic individual derives\nsatisfaction from the beneficent things he does, though he does\nnot, as Jeremy Bentham supposed, calculate the benefits he\nwill derive from his beneficence. Altruism is just as natural\nas egoism in its origins, though the impulses of self-preservation\nand personal physical satisfaction are natively stronger\nand more numerous. But human beings can be educated to\naltruism, and find the same satisfaction in service to others as\nindividuals reared in less humane conditions find in satisfying\ntheir immediate physical desires.\n\nSELF-SATISFACTION AND DISSATISFACTION. Since the development\nof selfhood plays so large a part in human action, it is\nnatural that powerful emotions should be associated with it.\nIndividuals become conscious of the kind of self they are and\nmeasure it favorably or unfavorably with the kind of self they\nwould be. In so far as the actuality they conceive themselves\nto be measures up to the ideal self, to the fulfillment of\nwhich they have dedicated themselves, they have a feeling of\nself-satisfaction, of elation. They are jubilant or crestfallen,\nsatisfied or dissatisfied with themselves, in so far as they are\nin their own estimation making good. In normal individuals,\nthese estimates of triumph and frustration are, of course,\ncolored and qualified by signs of approval and disapproval\nfrom other people. There are very few--and these insanely\nconceited--in whom the opinions of others are not largely\ninfluential in determining their own estimates of themselves.\n\nThe emotions themselves of self-satisfaction and abasement are of\na unique sort ... each has its own peculiar physiognomical\nexpression. In self-satisfaction the extensor muscles are innervated, the\neye is strong and glorious, the gait rolling and elastic, the nostril\ndilated, and a peculiar smile plays upon the lips. This complex of\nsymptoms is seen in an exquisite way in lunatic asylums, which\nalways contain some patients who are literally mad with conceit,\nand whose fatuous expression and absurdly strutting or swaggering\ngait is in tragic contrast with their lack of any valuable personal\nquality. It is in these same castles of despair that we find the\nstrongest examples of the opposite physiognomy, in good people who\nthink they have committed \"the unpardonable sin\" and are lost\nforever, who crouch and cringe and slink from notice, and are unable\nto speak aloud or look us in the eye.... We ourselves know how the\nbarometer of our self-esteem and confidence rises and falls from\none day to another through causes that seem to be visceral and\norganic rather than rational, and which certainly answer to no\ncorresponding variations in the esteem in which we are held by our\nfriends.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _loc. cit._, vol. I, p. 307.]\n\nSelf-satisfaction depends, as has been said, on the kind of\nself we are aiming at, and that in turn depends on the kind\nof self we are. A professional bank-robber may take a craftsman's\npride in the skill with which he has rifled a safe and\nmade off with the booty, just as a surgeon may take pride in\na delicate operation, or a dramatist in a play. The ideal and\nthe measure of satisfaction will again be determined by the\ngroup among whom we move. The bank-robber will not\nboast of his exploits to a missionary conference; the surgeon\nwill prefer to explain the details of his achievement to medical\nmen who can critically appreciate its technique. The ideal\nself we set ourselves may far outreach our achievements,\nconsiderable and generally applauded though these be. A\nman may know in his heart how futile are his triumphs, how\nfar from the goals he cherished as young ideals. Many a\nbrilliant comedian longs to play Hamlet; the gifted and scholarly\nmusician knows how easy it is to win an audience with\nsentimental and specious music. The humility of genius has\nagain and again been noted. \"The more one knows the less\none knows one knows.\"\n\nMany men attain self-satisfaction through negation,\nthrough a serene surrender of the unattainable. As the\nEpicureans counseled, they increase their happiness by lessening\ntheir desires. The content which middle-aged people exhibit\nis not so frequently to be traced to the dazzling character of\ntheir achievement as to their resignation to their station.\nYoung people are moody and unhappy not infrequently\nbecause they cannot make a reconciliation between what they\nwould be and what they are. Others again attain satisfaction\nvicariously in the achievements of others, as mediocre fathers\ndo in their brilliant children, or as sympathetic and interested\npeople do in the whole world about them.\n\nThe magnanimity of these expansive natures is often touching\nindeed. Such persons can feel a sort of delicate rapture in thinking\nthat, however sick, ill-favored, mean-conditioned, and generally\nforsaken they may be, they are yet integral parts of the whole of this\nbrave world, have a fellow's share in the strength of the dairy horses,\nthe happiness of the young people, the wisdom of the wise ones, and\nare not altogether without part or lot in the good fortunes of the\nVanderbilts and the Hohenzollerns themselves.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _loc. cit._, vol. I, p. 313 (written in 1890).]\n\nIn some men a modicum of success will give a disproportionate\nsense of confidence and power. The man to whom success\nhas always come easily is not baffled by problems that\nwould appall those who, in middle life, \"lie among the failures\nat the foot of the hill.\" As Goethe, who had always been\nmiraculously successful, said to one who came to complain\nto him about the difficulty of an undertaking: \"You have\nbut to blow on your hands.\" In a crowd one can hardly fail\nto note the easy air of competence and confidence that\ndistinguishes the successful man of affairs.\n\nTHE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SELF AND OTHERS. The consciousness\nof self increases with the expression of personal opinion\nand power. The man whose books are translated into half a\ndozen languages, to whose lectures people come from all parts\nof the world, cannot help feeling an increased sense of\nimportance, although he may combine this consciousness with a\nsense of personal humility. In the same way a man who\nexerts great social power, who controls the economic lives of\nthousands of employees, or whose benefactions in the way of\nlibraries and charitable institutions dot the land, develops\ninevitably a sense of his own selfhood as over against that of the\ngroup. He begins to realize that he does make a significant\ndifference in the world. This was curiously illustrated in a\nspeech delivered by Andrew Carnegie when, after a prolonged\nabsence in Europe, he came back to the opening of the Carnegie\nInstitute, the building of which had cost him six million\ndollars:\n\nHe said he could not bring himself to a realization of what had\nbeen done. He felt like Aladdin when he saw this building and was\naware that he had put it up, but he could not bring himself to\nconsciousness of having done it any more than if he had produced the\nsame effect by rubbing a lamp. He could not feel the ownership of\nwhat he had given, and he could not feel that he had given it away.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Quoted from the obituary of Andrew Carnegie in the\n_New York Times_ of August 12, 1919.]\n\nThis sense of incredulity at one's actions or achievements\nis rarer than the consciousness of self which it promotes.\nThe intensity of this self-awareness is increased when opinion\nis expressed or power exerted in the face of opposition. The\nman who finds himself standing out against the community\nin which he lives, who is a freethinker among those who are\nintensely religious, an extremist among those who are custom-ridden,\nspiritualistic among people who are controlled by\nmaterialistic ideas, finds the sense of his own personality\nheightened by contrast. When dissenting opinions are steadfastly\nmaintained in the face of the opposition of a powerful\nmajority, there develops a personality with edge and strength.\nThe man who can persist in his belief against the prevailing\nwinds of doctrine and of action may be wrong, but he is a\npersonality. He is intensely and persistently aware of himself.\nSimilarly, the exertion of power in the face of opposition\nincreases the sense of one's own power and helps to consolidate\nit. One derives from it the same exhilaration that one\nhas in feeling a canoe under the impulsion of one's paddle\novercome the resistance of the water. In the same way, the\nexertion of social power in the face of obstacles makes half the\nexhilaration of politics and business for some types of men in\nbusiness and political life. One admires the ruthlessness of a\nNapoleon at war or of a captain of industry in the sharp industrial\ncompetition of the nineteenth century, not because it is\nruthless, but because it is power. Such men are at least not\nneutral; they are positive forces.\n\nThe contrast between the \"self\" and the others may be\nfriendly, with a recognition of all other selves as equally\nentitled to existence. One pursues the even tenor of one's way,\nand is content to let others pursue theirs. Men of very powerful\npersonality have exhibited the utmost gentleness and\nconsideration of others. Lincoln, the typical strong, silent\nman, displayed a tenderness for the suffering and distressed\nthat has already become proverbial.\n\nThe contrast between one's self and the world may be one of\nbitter opposition, as when one's ideas or actions are subjected\nto social censure. As Mill argued over half a century ago, the\nforceful suppression of opinion produces a more violent manifestation\nof it. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic\nphilosophy rose like the sun in the heavens. A sense of injustice,\nof unfairness, will not only intensify a man's opinions but\nhis consciousness of his own personality. To meet with opposition\nis to feel acutely the outlines of one's own person; to\nbe forced to recognize the differences between ourselves and\nothers is to discover what sort of people we ourselves are.\n\nThe contrast is likewise one of opposition, sometimes to\nbitterness, when the individual seeks to impose his own\nopinions or his own personality forcibly on others. A Mohammed,\nfired with the zeal of a religious enthusiasm, may\nspread his doctrine by fire and sword and be resisted\nby similar violence. Others than the Germans have betaken themselves\nto arms to spread a specific and arbitrary type of life.\nOn a small scale it is seen wherever a fanatical parent tries to\nforce his own belief and type of life upon his children, reared\nin a younger and freer generation. In contemporary society\nmost individuals are neither tempted nor permitted to coerce\npeople to their own way of thinking, although economic pressure\nand social ostracism are still powerful instruments by\nwhich strategically situated individuals can force their own\nopinions or types of life upon others.\n\nTYPES OF SELF. The consciousness of self varies in its\nexpression and intensity and at different times may display\ndifferent types or combinations of types. No one is ever\nutterly consistent, and different situations, different groups,\nprovoke different selves in us. Nobody writes quite the same\nkind of letter to his different friends, or is, as has been pointed\nout, the same person in different situations. But, except for\nthose intellectual will-o'-the-wisps, or moral ne'er-do-wells\nwho take on the color of every new circumstance in which they\nhappen to be cast, men do develop predominantly one type of\nself which constitutes, in familiar language, their character.\n\nThe manner of our consciousness of our personality may vary\nin quality, even though it be intense in degree. One\nmay be aware even of one's importance, without being \"self-important.\"\nOne may be quite conscious of one's significance\nin the world and yet not be \"self-conscious.\" It is indeed\nusually the little man who has a great air about him. The\nofficiousness and pettiness of the small soul invested with\nauthority has often been commented on. Proverbial wisdom\nhas succinctly recorded the fact that empty barrels make the\nmost noise. Latterly, Freudian psychology has pointed out\nthe mechanisms by which insignificant people compensate for\nthe poverty of their person by bluster and brag.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: On this point see an illuminating brief discussion\nby Hart in _The Psychology of Insanity_.]\n\nSELF-DISPLAY OR BOLDNESS. The most obvious type of\nconsciousness of self is found in individuals who seek mere social\nconspicuousness, who spend no inconsiderable part of their\nenergy in deliberate display. The child says with naive\nfrankness, \"See how high I can jump.\" Many adults find\nmore conspicuous or subtle ways of saying the same thing.\nOne need only to take a ride in a bus or street car to find the\ncertain symptoms of self-display. These may consist in\nnothing more serious than a peculiarly conspicuous collar or\nhatband, or particularly high heels. It may consist in a loud\nvoice full of pompous references to great banquets recently\nattended or great sums recently spent. It may be in a raised\neyebrow or a disdainful smile. There are people among\nevery one's acquaintance whose conversation is largely made\nup of reminiscences of more or less personal glory, of deliberate\nallusions to large salaries and famous friends, to glorious\nprospects and past laurels.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Almost every college class has one or two members\nwho enter vociferously and continuously into discussions, less\nfor the contribution of ideas or information than for the\npropagation of their own personalities.]\n\nOn a larger scale this is to be found in the almost universal\ndesire to see one's name in print:\n\nThere is a whole race of beings to-day whose passion is to keep\ntheir names in the newspapers, no matter under what heading,\n\"arrivals and departures,\" \"personal paragraphs,\" \"interviews\"--gossip,\neven scandal will suit them if nothing better is to be had.\nGuiteau, Garfield's assassin, is an example of the extremity to which\nthis craving for notoriety may go in a pathological case. The\nnewspapers bounded his mental horizon; and in the poor wretch's prayer\non the scaffold, one of the most heartfelt expressions was: \"The\nnewspaper press of this land has a big bill to settle with thee, O\nLord!\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: James: _loc. cit._, vol. I, p. 308.]\n\nAs was pointed out in connection with praise and blame,\nmore of our actions than we should care to admit are determined\nby this desire for recognition. The loud, the vulgar,\nthe notoriety seekers are merely extreme illustrations of a\ntype of self that most of us are some of the time.\n\nSELF-SUFFICIENT MODESTY. The other extreme is exhibited\nby the type of personality that is markedly averse to display\nand shrinks from observation. In its intensest and possibly\nleast appealing form it is exhibited by people who become\nawkwardly embarrassed in the presence of a stranger, however\nfluent and vivacious they may be with their friends.\nThis type at its best may be described by the epithet of\nself-sufficient modesty. To be such a person may be said to be an\nachievement rather than a weakness. To be self-sufficient\nand modest at the same time means that one is going about\none's business, that one is too absorbed in one's work to be\ncontinually and anxiously noting what sort of figure one cuts\nin the world. To quote Matthew Arnold's well-known lines:\n\n  \"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,\n   Undistracted by the sights they see,\n   These demand not that the things without them\n   Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Self-Dependence._]\n\nThere are in every great university quiet great men who\nsteadily pursue vital and difficult researches without the\nslightest reference or desire for cheap conspicuousness. In\nevery profession and business there are known to the\ndiscriminating men who are experts, even geniuses in their own\nfield, but who shrink back from the loudness of publicity as\nfrom a plague. There are a number of wealthy philanthropists\nin all our large cities who consistently and steadily do\ngood works in almost complete anonymity. One finds in almost\nevery department of human activity these types of self-effacing\nmen who find their fulfillment in the work they do\nrather than in moving in the aura of other people's admiration.\n\nTHE POSITIVE AND FLEXIBLE SELF. But in order to be effective\nin affairs, some positive force must be displayed, and modesty\nneed not mean pusillanimity. A frequently observable\ntype of personality--and socially one of a highly desirable\nsort--is the type of man who, himself standing for positive\nconvictions, ideas, and principles of action, and not casually\nto be deflected from them, has sufficient flexibility and sensitivity\nto the feelings of others, to accept modification. Such\na self not only has its initial force and momentum, but gains\nas it goes by the experience of others. A personality must be\npositive to contribute to the solution of difficulties and the\nmanagement of enterprises, but it must be receptive in order\nto benefit by the ideas of others and cooeperate with them.\nTo have power and humility at once is sometimes sufficient to\nmake a leader among men. Humility prevents us from rushing\nheadlong along the paths of our own dogmatic errors; it\nenables us further to deal with other people who would be\nsimply antagonized by our flat-footed insistence on every\ndetail of our own initial position. The history of great\nstatesmanship is in part, at least, the history of wise compromise.\nNor does this mean sordid temporizing and opportunism. As\nJohn Morley puts it:\n\nIt is the worst of political blunders to insist on carrying an ideal\nset of principles into execution, where others have rights of dissent,\nand those others persons whose assent is as indispensable to success\nas it is difficult to attain. But to be afraid or ashamed of holding\nsuch an ideal set of principles in one's mind in their highest and most\nabstract expression, does more than any other one cause to stunt or\npetrify those elements of character to which life should owe most of\nits savor.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Morley: _On Compromise_, p. 123.]\n\nDOGMATISM AND SELF-ASSERTION. Too often, however, a\nperson of powerful and distinctive opinions is so moved by\nthe momentum of his own strong enthusiasms, so fixed by the\nhabitual definiteness of his own position that he cannot be\nswayed. In its worst form this is rampant egoism and dogmatism.\nAll of us have met the loud-mouthed exponent of his\nown opinions, who speaks whatever be the subject, as if _his_\nposition only were plausible or possible, and as if all who gain-said\nhim were either fools or knaves.\n\nIf we examine the mental furniture of the average man we shall\nfind it made up of a vast number of judgments of a very precise kind\nupon subjects of very great variety, complexity, and difficulty. He\nwill have fairly settled views upon the origin and nature of the\nuniverse, and upon what he will probably call its meaning; he will have\nconclusions as to what is to happen to him at death and after, as to\nwhat is and what should be the basis of conduct. He will know how\nthe country should be governed, and why it is going to the dogs, why\nthis piece of legislation is good and that bad. He will have strong\nviews upon military and naval strategy, the principles of taxation,\nthe use of alcohol and vaccination, the treatment of influenza, the\nprevention of hydrophobia, upon municipal trading, the teaching of\nGreek, upon what is permissible in art, satisfactory in literature, and\nhopeful in science.\n\nThe bulk of such opinions must necessarily be without rational\nbasis, since many of them are concerned with problems admitted by\nthe expert to be still unsolved, while as to the rest it is clear that the\ntraining and experience of no average man can qualify him to have\nany opinion on them at all.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Trotter: _Instincts of the Herd_, p. 36.]\n\nIn action as well as opinion dogmatism and unbridled self-assertion\nmay be the dominant characteristics of a personality.\nThe man who has a strong will and little social sympathy\nwill be ruthlessly insistent on the attainment of his own\nends. This type of self has indeed been set up as an ideal by\nsuch philosophers as Nietzsche and Max Stirner, who urged\nthat the really great man should express his own personality\nirrespective of the weaklings whom he might crush in his\ncomet-like career. Thus writes Nietzsche in one of his\ncharacteristic passages:\n\nThe _Superman_ I have at heart; _that_ is the first and only thing to\nme--and _not_ man: not the neighbor, not the poorest, not the sorriest,\nnot the best....\n\nIn that ye have despised, ye higher men, that maketh me hope....\nIn that ye have despaired, there is much to honor. For ye have\nnot learned to submit yourselves, ye have not learned petty policy.\n\nFor to-day have the petty people become master; they all preach\nsubmission, and humility, and policy, and diligence, and consideration,\nand the long _et cetera_ of petty virtues.\n\nThese masters of to-day--surpass them, O my brethren--these\npetty people: they are the Superman's greatest danger![2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ (Macmillan edition), pp. 351-52.]\n\nIt need scarcely be noted that even if the genius or Superman\nwere justified, as this philosophy insists, on ruthlessly\nasserting his priority, it is a dangerous procedure to identify\none's ambitions with one's desserts. As already noted, a\nflamboyant assurance of one's own importance is sometimes a\nludicrous symptom of the reverse.\n\nThe more legitimate manifestation of strong individualism\nin action or opinion is in the case of deeply conscientious\nnatures, who will not compromise by a hair's breadth from\nwhat they conceive to be the right. The fanatic is seldom an\nappealing character, but he is a type that enforces admiration.\nOf such unflinching insistence are martyrs and great leaders\nmade. There are in every community men who will regard it\nas treachery to their highest ideals to compromise at all from\nthe inviolable principles to which they feel themselves committed.\nSuch men are difficult to deal with in human situations\ninvolving cooeperation and compromise, and they exhibit\nfrequently a rigid austerity, bitterness, and hate that do not\nreadily win sympathy. But it is to such men as these that\nmany religious and social reforms owe their initiation. Bertrand\nRussell, who, whether one agrees with him or not, exhibits\na puritanical devotion to his social beliefs, has finely\ndescribed the type:\n\nThe impatient idealist--and without some impatience a man will\nhardly prove effective--is almost sure to be led into hatred by the\noppositions and disappointments which he encounters in his\nendeavors to bring happiness to the world. The more certain he is of\nthe purity of his motives and the truth of his gospel, the more\nindignant will he become when his teaching is rejected.... The intense\nfaith which enables him to withstand persecution for the sake of his\nbeliefs makes him consider these beliefs so luminously obvious that\nany thinking man who rejects them must be dishonest and must be\nactuated by some sinister motive of treachery to the cause.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Russell: _Proposed Roads to Freedom_, pp. xiii-xiv.]\n\nENTHUSIASM. The enthusiast is another type of self that\nplays an important part in social life and makes not the least\nattractive of its figures. The exuberant exponent of ideas,\ncauses, persons, or institutions is an effective preacher,\nteacher, or leader of men, and may be, apart from his utility,\nintrinsically of the utmost charm. Emotions vividly displayed\nare, as already pointed out in connection with sympathy,\nreadily duplicated in others, and the ardors of the\nenthusiast are, when they have the earmarks of sincerity,\ncontagious. A genuinely enthusiastic personality kindles\nhis own fire in the hearts of others, and makes them\nappreciate as no mere formal analysis could, the vital and moving\naspects of things. Good teaching has been defined as\ncommunication by contagion, and the teachers whom students\nusually testify to have influenced them most are not those\nwho doled out flat prescribed wisdom, but those whose own\ninformed ardor for their subject-matter communicated to the\nstudent a warm sense of its significance. Leaders of great\nmovements who have been successful in controlling the energies\nand loyalties of millions of men have been frequently\nmen of this high and contagious voltage. It certainly\nconstituted part of Theodore Roosevelt's political strength, and, in\nmore or less genuine form, is the asset of every successful\npolitical speaker and leader.\n\nBoth for the one controlled by enthusiasm and for the\nothers to whom it spreads, experience becomes richer in\nsignificance. Poets and the poetically-minded have to a singular\ndegree the power of clothing with imaginative enthusiasm\nall the items of their experience.\n\nEnthusiasm does not necessarily connote hysteria or sentimentalism.\nThe unstable enthusiast is a familiar type, the\nman who has another object of eagerness and loyalty each\nweek. Mark Twain describes the type in the person of his\nbrother, who had a dozen different ambitions a year. But\nenthusiasm may be a long-sustained devotion to a single ideal.\nA curious instance of it was seen in the case of an Armenian\nscholar who, so it is reported to the writer by a student of\nArmenian culture, spent forty years in mastering cuneiform\nscript in order to prove that the Phrygians were descended\nfrom the Armenians, and not _vice versa_.\n\nShelley could kindle the spirit of revolution in thousands\nwho would have been bored to death with the same fiery doctrines\nin the abstract and cold pages of Godwin, from whom\nShelley derived his ideas of \"political justice.\" The enthusiast,\nsince he instinctively likes to share his emotions, not\ninfrequently displays an intense desire for leadership, not so\nmuch that he may be a leader as that he may win converts to\nhis own cause or creed. Such a personality finds its satisfaction\nin some form of proselyting zeal, be it for a religion, for\na favorite charity, for good books, poetry, or social justice.\nA well-known literary scholar who died recently was thus\ndescribed by one of his former students:\n\nDr. Gummere was not a teacher; he was a vital atmosphere and\nhis lectures, as one considered them from an intellectual or\nemotional angle, were revelations or adventures. There never were\nsuch classes as his, we believed. Who could equal him in readiness\nof wit? Where was there such a raconteur? Who else could put the\nfeel of a poem into one's heart? ... His voice was very deep, and\nexceedingly free and flexible. It always seemed to brim up as from\na spirit overflowing. Everything about him was individual and\nspontaneous. He was perhaps most like a powerful river that braced\none's energies, and carried one along without the slightest desire to\nresist.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Charles Wharton Stork: \"A Great Teacher,\" _The Nation_,\nJuly 26, 1919.]\n\nTHE NEGATIVE SELF. All the types of personality or self that\nhave thus far been discussed are in some way positive or\nassertive. But the self may be exhibited negatively, in a\nshrinking, not only from observation, but from any positive\nor pronounced action. This has already been noted in connection\nwith submissiveness. Most people in the presence of\ntheir intellectual and social or even their physical superior,\nexperience a sense of, to use McDougall's term, \"negative\nself-feeling.\" In some people this negation or effacement of\nthe self is a predominant characteristic.\n\nIt may be mere social timidity, which, in the case of those\ncontinually placed in servile positions, as in the case of the\nproverbial \"poor relation,\" may become chronic. In its most\ndisagreeable form it is exhibited as an obsequious flattering\nand a pretentious humility. Of this the classic instance is\nUriah Heep in _David Copperfield_:\n\n\"I suppose you are quite a great lawyer,\" I [David Copperfield]\nsaid, after looking at him for some time.\n\n\"Me, Master Copperfield?\" said Uriah. \"Oh, no! I'm a very\numble person.\"\n\nIt was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he\nfrequently ground the palms against each other, as if to squeeze them\ndry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his\npocket-handkerchief.\n\n\"I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,\" said Uriah\nHeep modestly, \"let the other be where he may. My mother is\nlikewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master\nCopperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father's former\ncalling was umble. He was a sexton.\"\n\n\"What is he now?\" I asked.\n\n\"He is a partaker of glory, at present, Master Copperfield, but we\nhave much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for,\nin living with Mr. Wickfield.\"\n\nNegative self-feeling may be provoked by a genuine sense\nof unworthiness or modesty, and when this takes place among\nreligious people, it may become a complete and rapturous\nsubmissiveness to God. The records of many mediaeval and\nof some modern mystics emphasize this complete yielding to\nthe will of God, and in His will finding peace. James quotes\nin this connection Pascal's _Priere pour bien user les maladies_:\n\nI ask you, neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death;\nbut that you may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and\nmy death, for your glory.... You alone know what is expedient\nfor me; you are the sovereign master; do with me according to your\nwill. Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to\nyours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and\nbad to offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad\nin anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or\nsickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That\ndiscernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden\namong the secrets of your Providence, which I adore, but do not\nseek to fathom.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Quoted in James: _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 286.]\n\nSelf-surrender, however, takes other forms than religious\nabsorption or devotion. \"Saintliness\" is not unknown in\nsecular forms of life, in the devotion of men to any ideal,\ndespite pain and privation of worldly goods and successes.\nThe doctor sacrificing his life in a leper colony is an extreme\nexample. But something of the same humility and submissiveness\nis exhibited every time a man makes a choice which\nplaces the welfare of other people before his own immediate\nsuccess. It is shown by the thousands of physicians and\nsettlement workers and teachers who spend their lives in\npatient devotion to labors that bring little remuneration and\nas little glory. Men of affairs and a large proportion of other\nmen generally measure worth by worldly success. But even\nfrom the worldly, such signs of self-surrender elicit admiration.\n\nECCENTRICS. There is one type of self so various and\nmiscellaneous that it can only be subsumed under the general\nepithet, \"eccentric.\" These are the unexpectedly large number\nof individuals in our civilization who do not come under any\nof the usual categories, who display some small or great\nabnormality which sets them off from the general run of men.\nThat some of these are accounted eccentric is to be explained\nin the light of man's tendency, as a gregarious animal, to\nthink \"queer\" and \"freakish\" anything off the beaten track.\nSome are clearly and unmistakably abnormal in some physiological\nor psychological respect. From these are recruited\nthe inmates of our penitentiaries and insane asylums and the\ncandidates for them. But there are eccentricities of social\nbehavior, types of personality which though they cannot be\nclassed as either insane or criminal, yet definitely set an\nindividual apart.\n\nThese include what Trotter has called the \"mentally unstable,\"\nas set over against \"the great class of normal, sensible,\nreliable middle age, with its definite views, its resiliency\nto the depressing influence of facts, and its gift for forming\nthe backbone of the State.\" There are the large group of\nslightly neurasthenic, made so, in part, by the high nervous\ntension under which modern, especially modern urban, life is\nlived. These include what are commonly called the hysterical\nor over-emotional, or \"temperamental\" types. In a\ncivilization where most professions demand regularity,\nrestraint, punctuality, and directness, unstability and excess\nemotionalism are necessarily at a discount. There are the\nvagabond types who, like young Georges, Jean-qhristophe's\nprotege, regard a profession as a prison house, in which most\nof one's capacities are cruelly confined. There are again\nthose who, possessing singular and exclusive sensitivity to\naesthetic values, to music, art, and poetry, find the world\noutside their own lyric enthusiasms flat, stale, and unprofitable.\nIf, as so frequently happens, these combine, along with their\npeculiar temperaments, little genius and slender means, social\nand economic life becomes for them a blind alley. Every year\nat our great universities we see small groups of young men,\nwho, having spent three or four years on philosophy, literature,\nand the liberal arts, and having no interest in academic\nlife, are put to it to find a profession in which they can find a\ngenuine interest or possible success.\n\nAmong these \"eccentrics\" a few have been reckoned geniuses\nby their contemporaries or by posterity. In such cases\nsociety hesitates to apply its usual formulae. One cannot\ncondemn out of hand a Shelley. He is not of the run of men.\n\nShelley was one of those spokesmen of the _a priori_, one of those\nnurslings of the womb, like a bee or a butterfly, a dogmatic, inspired,\nperfect, and incorrigible creature.... Being a finished child of\nnature, not a joint product, like most of us, of nature, history, and\nsociety, he abounded miraculously in his own clear sense, but was\nobtuse to the droll miscellaneous lessons of fortune. The cannonade\nof hard inexplicable facts that knocks into most of us what little\nwisdom we have, left Shelley dazed and sore, perhaps, but uninstructed.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Santayana: _Winds of Doctrine_; Shelley, p. 159.]\n\nIt is difficult to draw the line in some cases between genius\nand insanity.[1] There have been time and again in society\nCassandras who have spoken true prophecies and have been\nthought mad. There have been, on the other hand, those\nwho, having some of the external eccentricities of genius,\nhave given an illusive impression of greatness. The professional\nBohemian likes to make himself great by wearing\nhis hair long and living in a garret. But it is unquestionably\ntrue that a highly sensitive and creative mind is often ill at\nease in the world of action, and remains a vagabond, an\n_enfant terrible_ or an eccentric all through life. It remains\na fact that in contemporary society there are a small number\nof people, some of them of considerable talents, who simply\ncannot be made to fit into the social routine. For such\nBertrand Russell suggests a \"vagabond's wage.\" This he\nconceives as being just large enough to enable them to get\nalong, to give them a chance to wander and experiment, but\nsufficiently small to penalize them for not settling down to\nthe accustomed social routines.[2]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thus Plato: \"But he who, not being inspired and\nhaving no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and\nthinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art--he,\nI say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere\nat all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.\"\n_Phoedrus_ (Jowett translation), p. 550.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Russell: _Proposed Roads to Freedom_, p. 177.\nThere was recently introduced to the writer a boy, aged nineteen,\nfor whom this would be an admirable solution. Brought up in a\ntenement and working as a clerk, this youngster wrote what\ncompetent judges pronounced to be really extraordinary lyrics.\nHe was at the same time utterly helpless in the world of affairs.\nEven at college his casual habits and absorption would have\nprevented him from getting through his freshman year.]\n\nMill has generalized the situation of the genius:\n\nPersons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a\nsmall minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve\nthe soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an\n_atmosphere_ of freedom. Persons of genius are, _ex vi termini_, more\nindividual than any other people--less capable, consequently, of\nfitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small\nnumber of moulds which society provides in order to save its members\nthe trouble of forming their own character.... If they are of a\nstrong character, and break their fetters, they become a mark for\nthe society which has not succeeded in reducing them to commonplace,\nto point at with solemn warning as \"wild,\" \"erratic,\" and the\nlike; much as if one should complain of the Niagara River for not\nflowing smoothly between its banks, like a Dutch canal.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Essay on Liberty_, chap. III.]\n\nTHE ACTIVE AND THE CONTEMPLATIVE. One final distinction\nmust be made, one that cuts across all the types of self hitherto\ndiscussed, namely, the distinction between the man of\naction and the man of thought. One need not go far in literature\nor in life to find the contrast made. In the Scriptures\nMary is set over against Martha, Rachel against Leah.\nHamlet and Ulysses are permanent representations of the\nmelancholy thinker and the exuberant adventurer. The\nbusiness man and the executive may be put over against the\npoet and the scholar; the strenuous organizer and administrator\nover against the quiet philosopher. Both have their\noutstanding uses, and, in their extreme forms, their\noutstanding defects. The active type, as we say, \"gets things\ndone.\" He builds bridges and industries; he manages markets\nand men. His eye is on the practical; he is dependable,\nrapid, and efficient. In an industrial civilization he is the\ngreat heroic type. The statesman and the railroad builder,\nthe newspaper editors and the political leaders captivate the\nimaginations as they control the destinies of mankind.\n\nOn the other hand, there are those who stand aside (either\nfrom incapacity or disinclination or both) from the management\nof affairs and the life of action, and spend their lives in\nobservation and contemplation. Plato and Aristotle regarded\nthis as the highest type of life; it may have been because they\nwere themselves both philosophers. In its extreme form it\nis exhibited in such men as Spinoza or Kant, spending their\nlives in practical obscurity, speculating on time and space and\neternity. But it is apparent in less extreme types. The\n\"patient observer,\" the genial spectator of other men's actions\nis not infrequent. When he has literary gifts he is a philosopher\nor a poet. Lucretius in a famous passage stated the\ncontemplative ideal, contrasting it with its opposite:\n\nSweet it is when on the great seas the winds are buffeting, to gaze\nfrom the land on another's great struggles; not because it is pleasure\nor joy that any one should be distressed, but because it is sweet to\nperceive from what misfortunes you yourself are free. Sweet is it, too,\nto behold great contests of war in full array over the plains, when you\nhave no part in the danger. But nothing is more gladdening than\nto dwell in the calm high places, firmly embattled on the heights by\nthe teaching of the wise, whence you can look down on others, and\nsee them wandering hither and thither and going astray, as they seek\nthe way of life, in strife matching their wits or rival claims of birth,\nstruggling night and day by surpassing effort to rise up to the height\nof power and gain possession of the world.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Lucretius: _De Rerum Natura_ (Bailey translation),\nbook II, lines 1-12.]\n\nBut in the two types it is not the fruit of action or contemplation,\nbut action and contemplation themselves that the\ntwo types find respectively interesting. The man of action\nfinds an immediate satisfaction in movement, change, the\nclamor of affairs, the contacts with other people, the making\nof changes in the practical world. The man of thought finds\nas immediate enjoyment in noting the ways of men, and reflecting\nupon them.\n\nThat contemplation, disinterested thinking, also has its use\ngoes without saying. The thinker and the dreamer may be\nsomething at least of what the Irish poet boasts:\n\n  \"... the movers and shakers\n   Of the world, forever, it seems.\"\n\nThe scholar, the thinker, the man who stands aside from\nimmediate action, may, often does, help the world of action\nin a far-reaching way. The researches of a Newton make\npossible eventually the feats of modern engineering and\ntelegraphy; the abstruse study of the calculus helps to build\nbridges and skyscrapers.\n\nBoth types, in their extremes, have their weaknesses. The\nextremely practical man \"may cut off the limb upon which\nhe is sitting,\" or \"see no further than the end of his nose.\" A\nreally great administrator is not penny-wise; he thinks far\nahead, around and into a problem. He is concerned for\ntomorrow as well as to-day. The contemplative man may\ncome to be \"sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.\"\nThere is the hero of one Russian novel who reflects through\nthree hundred pages on his wasted life, all at the ripe age of\ntwenty-three.[1] The practical man gains width and insight\nby checking himself with reflection; the contemplative finds\nthought called home and made meaningful by contacts with\nthe world. It was something of this balance which Plato\nhad in mind when he insisted that his future philosopher-king\nshould, after fifteen years' study, go for fifteen years into the\n\"cave\" or world to learn to deal with men and affairs. The\n\"mere theorist\" is often an absurd if not a dangerous character;\nthe practical man may come to make the wheels go\nround without ever taking note of his direction.\n\n[Footnote 1: Contchareff: _Oblomoff_.]\n\nAs pointed out in the beginning of this discussion, no one\nof these types is exclusively exemplified in any one individual.\nTo be exclusively any one of these would be to be a caricature\nrather than a character.[2] But to be no one of these types to\nany degree at all is to be no character at all, is to be socially a\nnonentity, a minus quantity; it is to be determined by the\nvicissitudes of chance or circumstance; it is to be a succession\nof vacillations rather than a distinctive self-determined\npersonality. Each of these types, moreover, if not extreme, has\nits specific excellences, and their various presence lends\nrichness and diversity to social life.\n\n[Footnote 2: Dickens's success lay, perhaps chiefly, in his\nability to draw these unforgettable exaggerations, these outstanding\ntypes: \"Micawber\" waiting for something to turn up; the fiendish\ncruelty of \"Bill Sikes\"; the angelic self-effacement of \"Little Nell\";\nthe hypocritical \"Mr. Pecksniff\"; the gossipy \"Sairy Gamp.\" He had\na unique gift for representing psychological traits in large. The\nso-called psychological novelists like Meredith, trace a character\nthrough its moods and fluctuations, making truer, more composite,\nthough less memorable characters.]\n\nEMOTIONS AROUSED IN THE MAINTENANCE OF THE SELF. These\nvarious types of self may be defended with bitterness and\npertinacity, and in their support the most powerful emotions\nmay be enlisted. As pointed out in connection with individuality\nin opinion, men may be willing to die for their beliefs.\nSimilarly invasion of one's home, infringement or threat\nagainst what one regards as one's rights or one's possessions,\nwhether physical or social, may be bitterly contested. And\nin this conflict in support of the integrity of the self, anger,\nhate, fear, submissiveness, all the nuances of emotion may be\naroused. The themes of great tragedy are built largely on\nthis theme of insistent selfhood. Any obstruction of the self-integrity\none has set one's self may provoke a violent reaction.\nIt may be interference with one's love, as in the case of Medea\nor Othello, the pain of ingratitude as in Lear, the conflict\nbetween \"the lower and the higher self,\" as in the case of\nMacbeth's loyalty and his ambition. These are the staple\nmaterials of drama. In common experience, an insult to one's\nwife or friend, an obstacle placed in the way of one's professional\ncareer, deprivation of one's liberty or one's property,\nor one's unhindered \"pursuit of happiness,\" are the provocations\nto violent emotions in the sustaining of the self. How\nviolent or what form the reaction will take depends on the\nsituation of the \"self\" involved. If one has been grossly\ninsulted by another upon whom one is utterly dependent\nsocially and economically, a rankling and impotent rage may be\nthe only outlet. To a person gifted with humility, the\ndisillusions of a false friendship may provoke nothing more than\na deep but resigned disappointment. Where passion and\ndetermination run high, and retaliation is feasible, a violent\nhate may find violent fulfillment. In earlier and more\nbloodthirsty days, the dagger, the duel, and poison were, as\nillustrated in the history of the Borgias, ways of maintaining\nthe self and venting one's anger or revenge. Even in\nmodern society the still distressingly large number of crimes\nof violence may be traced in many, perhaps most cases, to\nblind and bitter hate. To any deep personal injury, hate,\nwhether it takes overt form or not, is still the instinctive\nanswer; just such hate as Euripides represents in the jealous\nMedea, when she, a barbarian captive among the Greeks,\nsees Jason, her lover, about to be married to a Greek princess:\n\n  \"... But I, being citiless, am cast aside,\n   By him that wedded me, a savage bride.\n    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .\n  \"I ask one thing. If chance yet ope to me\n   Some path, if even now my hand can win,\n   Strength to requite this Jason for his sin,\n   Betray me not! Oh, in all things but this,\n   I know how full of fears a woman is,\n   And faints at need, and shrinking from the light\n   Of battle; but once spoil her of her right\n   In man's love, and there moves, I warn thee well,\n   No bloodier spirit between Heaven and Hell.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Euripides: _Medea_ (Gilbert Murray translation), p. 16.]\n\nIn defense of the self in its narrower or broader sense, courage\nand heroism may be displayed. The martyr will die\nrather than submit; there have been many to whom Patrick\nHenry's \"Give me Liberty or give me death,\" was something\nmore than rhetoric. The self for which we will fight, of course,\nvaries. A spoilt child will go into a paroxysm of rage if its\ntoy is taken away. Older people will fight for smaller or\nlarger points of social position. There is the familiar citizen\nwho will insist on his rights, often of a petty sort, in a hotel,\ntheater, or department store. Or a man may display the last\nextremity of courage in defense of some ideal, as in a man's\nsurrender of his life for his country. Something of the same\nheroism is displayed by individuals who stand out against\ntheir group in the face of ridicule or persecution. It is the\ngeneral sympathy with the desire to preserve one's selfhood\nuntarnished that gives point to Henley's lines:\n\n  \"Out of the night that covers me,\n     Black as the pit from pole to pole,\n   I thank whatever gods may be\n     For my unconquerable soul.\n    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .\n  \"It matters not how strait the gate,\n     How charged with punishments the scroll,\n   I am the master of my fate,\n     I am the captain of my soul.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Invictus_.]\n\nIn the same way as the emotions fear, anger, and hate, and\ntheir variations and degrees, may be aroused by attack or\nthreat against the self, so help and encouragement of an\nindividual's selfhood arouse love, affection, and gratitude. Even\nour affection for our parents, though in part instinctive, is\nundoubtedly increased by the care and persistence with which\nthey have fostered our own life and hopes, have educated us,\nand made possible for us a career. The same motives play a\npart in our affection for teachers who have beneficently influenced\nour lives, for other older people who \"give us a start,\"\nadvice and encouragement or financial aid. Even the love of\nGod has in religious ritual been colored with gratitude for\nGod's mercies and benevolences.\n\nTHE INDIVIDUALITY OF GROUPS. Groups may display the same\nindividuality and sense of selfhood as is exhibited by\nindividuals. And the members of the group may come to regard\nthe group life as something quite as important and inalienable\nas their own personalities and possessions. Indeed in defense\nof the integrity of the group life, as in the case, for example,\nof national honor, the individual life and possession may come\nto be reckoned as naught. Man's gregariousness and his\ninstinctive sympathy with his own kind make it easy for the\nindividual to identify his own life with that of the group.\nWhat threatens or endangers the group will in consequence\narouse in him the same emotions as are aroused by threats or\ndangers that concern his own personality. An insult to the\nflag may send a thrill of danger through the millions who\nread about it, just as would an insult to themselves or their\nfamilies.\n\nGroup feeling may exist on various levels. It may be\nnothing more momentous than local pride, having the tallest\ntower, the finest amusement park, the best baseball team, or\nbeing the \"sixth largest city.\" It may be a belligerent\nimperialism, a \"desire for a place in the sun.\" It may be a\ndesire for independence and an autonomous group life,\nmanifested so strikingly recently by such small nationalities as\nPoland and Czecho-Slovakia and influential in keeping Switzerland\nalive as a nationality through hundreds of years,\nthough surrounded by powerful neighbors.[1] While a group\ndoes not exist save as an abstraction, looked at as a whole it\nmay exhibit the same outstanding traits, or the same types\nof selfhood as an individual. It may be fiercely belligerent\nand dogmatic; it may, like literary exponents of the German\nideal, desire to spread its own conception of Kultur throughout\nthe world.[2] It may be insistent on its own position, or\nits own possessions or its own glory. It may be fanatic in\naggrandizement. It may be interested in the welfare of other\ngroups, as in the case of large nationalities championing and\nprotecting the causes of small or oppressed ones, such an ideal\nas was expressed, for example, by President Wilson in his\naddress to Congress on the entrance of America into the\nGreat War:\n\n[Footnote 1: Group feeling may be displayed under the most\ndisadvantageous conditions, as in the strong sentiment for\nnationalism current among the Jews, even through all the\ncenturies of dispersion.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Thorstein Veblen has pointed out how the \"common man\"\ncomes to identify his interest with that of the group: \"The common\nman who so lends himself to the aggressive enhancement of the\nnational Culture and its prestige has nothing of a material kind\nto gain from the increase of renown that comes to his sovereign,\nhis language, his countrymen's art or science, his dietary, or\nhis God. There are no sordid motives in all this. These spiritual\nassets of self-complacency are indeed to be rated as grounds of\nhigh-minded patriotism without afterthought.\" (_The Nature of\nPeace_, p. 56.)]\n\n... We shall fight for the things which we have always carried\nnearest our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit\nto authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the\nrights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right\nby such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all\nnations and make the world itself at last free.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: Woodrow Wilson: _Address to Congress_, April 2, 1917.]\n\nThe selfhood displayed by various groups varies with the\ndegree and integration of the individual within the group.\nIn extreme cases, such as that of Germany under the imperial\nregime, the group individuality may completely overshadow\nand engulf that of the individual. This ideal was not\ninfrequently expressed by German political writers:\n\nTo us the state is the most indispensable as well as highest requisite\nof our earthly existence.... All individualistic endeavor must\nbe unreservedly subordinated to this lofty claim.... The state\neventually is of infinitely more value than the sum of the individuals\nwithin its jurisdiction. This conception of the state which is as\nmuch a part of our life as the blood in our veins, is nowhere to be\nfound in the English constitution, and is quite foreign to English\nthought, and to that of America as well.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Eduard Meyer: _England, Its Political Organization and\nDevelopment and the War Against Germany_ (English translation), pp. 30-31.]\n\nWhile custom-bound and feudal regimes may emphasize\nthe tendency to suppress development of individuality, and\ninsist on regimentation in thought and action--an ideal\nproclaimed with increasing generality in Germany from Hegel\ndown[2] there may be on the part of both individuals and\ngroups the tendency to promote individuality as itself a social\ngood. In such a case the social structure and educational\nsystems and methods will be designed to promote individuality\nrather than to suppress it. Individual variations, if it be\ngenerally recognized that they are the only source of progress,\nwill be utilized and cultivated instead of suppressed.[3]\n\n[Footnote 2: See Dewey: _German Philosophy and Politics_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Individuality is the theme of Montessori kindergarten\nmethods.]\n\nThroughout the nineteenth century (indeed throughout\nthe history of political theory), the pendulum swung between\nindividualism and complete socialization. Spencer long ago\nproclaimed the dominance of the individual; T. H. Green,\nfollowing the German philosophers, the dominance of the\nstate. Like the contrast between egoism and altruism, an\nemphasis on either side is bound to be artificial. The\nindividual can only be a self in a social order; the individual is\nonly an individual in contrast with others. It is doubtful, for\nexample, whether a man living all his life alone on a desert\nisland would discover any individuality at all. A man's\ncharacter is displayed in action, and his actions are always,\nor nearly always, performed with reference to other people.\nAnd a man's best self-realization cannot be achieved save in\ncongenial social order. A man will not readily grow into a\nsaint among a society of sinners, and unless the social order\nprovides opportunities for the highest type of life, it will exist\nonly in a very fortunate and favored few. One of the charges\nthat has been laid against democracy is that it fails to\nencourage the highest types of scientific and artistic interests,\nthat it is the gospel of the mediocre.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: This is the essence of the aristocratic position,\nthat a choice life lived by a few is better than a vulgar one\nshared by the many.]\n\nIt is too often forgotten, on the other hand, by those who\nemphasize the importance of society, that society is, after all,\nnothing more than an aggregate of selves. The \"state,\" the\n\"social order\" is nothing but the individuals who make it up,\nand their relations to each other.\n\nThe group exists, after all, even as the most completely\nsocialized political doctrines insist, for the realization of\nindividual selves, for freedom of opportunity and initiative. It\nis when \"individualism\" runs rampant, when self-realization\non the part of one individual interferes with self-realization\non the part of all others that individualism becomes a menace.\nIndividuality is itself valuable, in the first place, because as\nMill pointed out in his essay on _Liberty_ earlier quoted:\n\nWhat has made the European family an improving instead of a\nstationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in\nthem, which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not the cause; but\ntheir remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals,\nclasses, nations, have been extremely unlike one another; they have\nstruck out a great variety of paths, each leading to something\nvaluable; and although at every period those who traveled in different\npaths have been intolerant of one another, and each would have\nthought it an excellent thing if all the rest could have been compelled\nto travel his road, their attempts to thwart each other's development\nhave rarely had any permanent success, and each has endured in\ntime to receive the good which the others have offered.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Mill: _Essay on Liberty_, chap. III.]\n\nApart from the variations in group customs and traditions,\nand their progressive application to changing circumstances\nwhich individuality makes possible, it cannot be too strongly\nemphasized that society is the name for the process by which\nindividuals live together. It is the individuals who are the\nrealities and the happiness of individuals which is the aim of\nsocial organization. Such happiness is only attainable when\nindividuals are allowed to make the most of their native\ncapacities and individual interests. The social group as a group\nwill be more interesting, colorful, and various when every\nexperimentation and variety of life are encouraged and promoted.\nAnd the individuals in such a society will be personalities,\nnot the mere mechanisms of a regimented routine.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nINDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES\n\nTHE MEANING OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES. The major part of\nthis volume has been devoted to a consideration of those\ntraits, interests, and capacities which all individuals share, and\nwhich may in general be described as the \"original nature of\nman.\" These distinctive inborn tendencies were treated, for\npurposes of analysis, in the most general terms, and, on the\nwhole, as if they appeared in the same strength and variety in\nall individuals. When we thus stand off and abstract those\ncharacteristics which appear universally in all individuals,\nhuman nature appears constant. But there are marked variations\nin the specific content of human nature with which\neach individual is at birth endowed. Put in another way, one\nmight say that to be a human being means to be by nature\npugnacious, curious, subject to fatigue, responsive to praise\nand blame, etc., and susceptible to training in all these\nrespects. By virtue of the fact that we are all members of the\nhuman race, we have common characteristics; by virtue that\nwe are _individuals_, we all display specific variations in specific\nhuman capacities. There is, save abstractly, no such thing as\na standard human being. We may intellectually set up a\nnorm or standard, but it will be a norm or standard from\nwhich every individual is bound to vary.\n\nThe fact that individuals do differ, and in specific and definable\nrespects, has most serious consequences for social life.\nIt means, briefly, that while general inferences may be drawn\nfrom wide and accurate observations of the workings of human\nnature, these inferences remain general and tentative,\nand if taken as rigid rules are sure to be misleading. Theories\nof education and social reform certainly gain from the general\nlaws that can be formulated about original human traits,\nfatigue, memory, learning capacity, and the like. But they\nmust, if they are to be applicable, take account also, in a\nprecise and systematic way, of the variety of men's interests and\ncapacities. To this fact of variety in the original nature of\ndifferent men social institutions and educational methods\nmust be adapted. Arbitrary rules that apply to human nature\nin general do not apply to the specific cases and specific\ntypes of talent and desires. Educational and social organizations\ncan mould these, but the result of these environmental\ninfluences will vary with individual differences in original\ncapacities. We can waste an enormous amount of time and\nenergy trying to train a person without mechanical or mathematical\ngifts to be an engineer. We not only save energy and\ntime, but promote happiness, if we can train individuals so\nthat their specific gifts will be capitalized at one hundred per\ncent. They will be at once more useful to society and more\ncontent with themselves, when they are using to the full their\nown capacities. They will at once be unproductive and unhappy\nwhen they find themselves in activities or social situations\nwhere their genuine talents are given no opportunity\nand where their defects put them at a conspicuous handicap.\n\nIndividuals differ, it must further be noted, not only in\nspecific traits, but in that complex of traits which is commonly\ncalled \"intelligence.\" In the broadest terms, we mean by an\nindividual's intelligence his competence and facility in dealing\nwith his environment, physical, social, and intellectual. This\ncompetence and facility, in so far as it is a native endowment,\nconsists of a number of traits present in a more or less high\ndegree, traits, for example, such as curiosity, flexibility of\nnative and acquired reactions, sociability, sympathy, and the\nlike. In a sense an individual possesses not a single intelligence,\nbut many, as many as there are types of activity in\nwhich he engages. But one may classify intelligence under\nthree heads, as does Thorndike:[1] mechanical intelligence,\ninvolved in dealing with things; social intelligence, involved in\ndealing with other persons; and abstract intelligence, involved\nin dealing with the relations between ideas. Each of\nthese types of intelligence involves the presence in a high degree\nof a group of different traits. Thus, in social intelligence,\na high degree of sympathy, sensitivity to praise and blame,\nleadership, and the like, are more requisite than they are for\nintelligent behavior in the realm of mechanical operations or\nof mathematical theory. A person may be highly intelligent\nin one of these three spheres and mentally helpless in the\nothers. Thus, a brilliant philosopher may be nonplused by a\nstalled motor; a successful executive may be a babe in the\nrealm of abstract ideas. But what we rate as a person's general\nintelligence is a kind of average struck between his various\ncompetences, an estimate of his general ability to control\nhimself in the miscellaneous variety of situations of which\nhis experience consists.\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Measuring Intelligence,\" _Harper's Magazine_, March, 1920.]\n\nThere have been a number of tests devised for the purpose\nof estimating an individual's general intelligence.[1] On a\nrating scale such as is used in these examinations most\nindividuals will come up to a certain standard that may be\ncalled average or normal. There will be a certain number so\nfar below the normal rating in a complex of traits that go to\nproduce intelligent (competent and facile) behavior that they\nwill have to be classed as subnormal, ranging from\nfeeblemindedness to idiocy. A certain number will be found so\nextraordinarily gifted in general traits and in specific\nabilities--in given subject-matters, as, for example, in\nmathematics and music--that they will be marked out as geniuses.\nFollowing the laws of probability, the greater the inferiority\nor superiority, the more exceptional it will be.\n\n[Footnote 1: These, in large part, deal with words and ideas and\nare, therefore, weighted in favor of abstract intelligence, and\nput at a discount individuals whose experience and whose intelligence\nare predominantly social or mechanical in character. Some of the\ntests are fairly adequate for mechanical intelligence, but no good\ntests have been devised for social intelligence. These tests,\nhowever, as used in the army and for appraising college entrants,\nas at Columbia University, have been demonstrated to be fairly\ngood indices of general intelligence.]\n\nIndividual differences are, therefore, seen to be not simply\ndifferences with respect to given mental traits, but differences\nwith respect to general mental capacity. Experimental\ninvestigation points to a graded difference in mental capacity,\nranging from idiocy to genius, the largest group being normal\nor average, the size of the group diminishing with further\ndeviation from the average in either direction.\n\nCertain important correlations, furthermore, have been\nfound between the level of intelligence and the level of character.\nThe great in mind, it may be said briefly, are also great\nin spirit. \"General moral defect commonly involves intellectual\ninferiority. Woods and Pearson find the correlation between\nintellect and character to be about .5.... General\nmoral defect is due in part to a generally inferior nervous\norganization.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _Educational Psychology_ (1910), p. 224.]\n\nOne other important correlation must be noted. While\ngifts and capacities are specific, superiority in a given trait\ncommonly involves superiority in most others. Exceptional\ntalent in one direction in most cases involves exceptionality\nin many other respects. While talents are not indiscriminately\ntransferable from one field to another, the same complex\nof traits which makes a person stand out preeminently in\na given field, say law, would make him stand out in any one of\nhalf a dozen different fields into which he might have gone.\nThere seems to be no evidence that extraordinary capacity in\none direction is balanced by extraordinary incapacity and\nstupidity in others. The fact that individuals differ not only\nin specific traits but in general mental capacity has, also,\ncertain obvious practical consequences. It means that there are\npresent in society, in the light of recent tests in the army, an\nunexpectedly large number of individuals below the level of\nnormal intelligence. One in five hundred, Thorndike estimates,\nis the \"frequency of intellectual ability so defective as\nto disturb the home, resist school influence, and excite popular\nderision.\" These are clearly liabilities in the social order.\nOn the other hand, there is a large number above the level of\naverage intelligence. The importance of this group for human\nprogress can hardly be overestimated. As we have seen\nin other connections, progress is contingent upon variation\nfrom the \"normal\" or the accustomed, and such variation\nfrom the normal is initiated in the majority of cases by members\nof this comparatively small super-normal group. If\ncivilization is to advance it must capitalize its intelligence;\nthat is, educate up to the highest point of native ability. But\nin any case, its chief guarantee of progress lies in the\ncomparatively small group in whom native ability is exceptionally\nhigh. For it is among this group that original thinking,\ninvention, and discovery almost exclusively occur.\n\nCAUSES OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES. Among the chief causes\nof individual differences may, in general, be set down the following:\n(1) Sex, (2) Race, (3) Near Ancestry or Family,\n(4) Environment. The particular fund of human nature\nwhich an individual displays, that is, his specific native\nendowments, as they appear in practice, will be a resultant of\nthese various causes. In the study of each of these characteristics,\nwe should be able ideally to eliminate all the others\nand to consider them each in isolation.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF SEX. In the case of sex, for example, we\nshould not confuse individual differences due to the fact of sex\nwith individual differences due to divergent training given to\neach of the sexes. In scientific experiments to determine sex\ndifferences in mental traits, there have been careful attempts\nto eliminate everything but the factor of sex itself. Thus in\nKarl Pearson's studies of fifty twin brothers and sisters, the\nfactors of ancestry and difference of training and age were\npractically eliminated.\n\nIn so far as allowance can be made for other contributing\nfactors, studies of individual differences due to sex have\nrevealed, roughly speaking, the following results. There have\nbeen, in the field of sensory discrimination and accuracy of\nmotor response, slight--and negligible--differences of responses\nmade by male and female. The subjects stated were,\nin most cases, selected so far as possible from the same social\nstrata, social and intellectual interest, and background.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: As, for example, the members of the graduating and junior\nclasses of the co-educational college at the University of Chicago,\nstudied by Dr. Thompson.]\n\nThorndike reports the general results of such tests as follows:\n\nThe percentages of males reaching or exceeding the median ability\nof females in such traits as have been subjected to exact investigation\nare roughly as follows:\n\n  In speed of naming colors and sorting cards by color and\n   discriminating colors as in a test for color blindness     24\n  In finding and checking small visual details such as letters  33\n  In spelling                                                   33\n  In school \"marks\" in English                                  35\n  In school \"marks\" in foreign languages                        40\n  In memorizing for immediate recall                            42\n  In lowness of sensory thresholds                              43\n  In retentiveness                                              47\n  In tests of speed and accuracy of association                 48\n  In tests of general information                               50\n  In school \"marks\" in mathematics                              50\n  In school \"marks\" (total average)                             50\n  In tests of discrimination (other than for color)             51\n  In range of sensitivity                                       52\n  In school \"marks\" in history                                  55\n  In tests of ingenuity                                         63\n  In accuracy of arm movements                                  66\n  In school \"marks\" in physics and chemistry                    68\n  In reaction time                                              70\n  In speed of finger and arm movement                           71\n\nThe most important characteristic of these differences is their\nsmall amount. The individual differences within one sex so enormously\noutweigh the differences between the sexes in these intellectual\nand semi-intellectual traits that for practical purposes the sex\ndifference may be disregarded. So far as ability goes, there could\nhardly be a stupider way to get two groups alike within each group\nbut differing between the groups than to take the two sexes. As is\nwell known, the experiments of the past generation in educating\nwomen have shown their equal competence in school work of elementary,\nsecondary, and collegiate grade. The present generation's experience\nis showing the same fact for professional education and business\nservice. The psychologists' measurements lead to the conclusion\nthat this equality of achievement comes from an equality of natural\ngifts, not from an overstraining of the lesser talents of women.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _Educational Psychology_, briefer course, pp. 345-46.]\n\nThat is, so far as experiments upon objectively measurable\ntraits have been conducted, the specific differences that\nindividuals display have comparatively nothing to do with the\nfact that an individual happens to be a man or a woman.\nThese experiments have been conducted with boys and girls\nas young as seven, and with men and women ranging up to the\nage of twenty-five.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: There seems, as might be expected to be, a slightly\nhigher differentiation between the two sexes after adolescence\nthan before.]\n\nThese experiments have been conducted to test sensory\ndiscrimination, precision of motor response and some of the\nsimpler types of judgment, such as those involved in the solution\nof simple puzzles with blocks, matches, etc. The fact\nof the negligibility of sex difference with regard to certain\nminor measurable traits has been adequately demonstrated\nby a wide variety of experiments. The fact of sex equality or\nmental capacity has been less accurately but fairly universally\nnoted by popular consensus of observation and opinion of the\nwork of women in the various trades and professions. There\nare differences between men and women in physical strength\nand in consequent susceptibility to fatigue. These are\nimportant considerations in qualifying the amount of work a\nwoman can do as compared with that of a man, and have\njustly resulted in the regulation of hours for women, as a\nspecial class. But there do not seem to be, on the average,\nsignificant original differences in mental capacity.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: On this subject there has been collected a large\namount of accurate experimental data. See Goldmark: _Fatigue\nand Efficiency_, part II, pp. 1-22. These refer to\nphysiological differences.]\n\nThere do exist, as a matter of practical fact, some of the\nspecial attributes commonly ascribed to the masculine and\nfeminine mental life, but it is generally agreed by investigators\nthat these are to be accounted for by the different environment\nand standards socially established for men and for\nwomen. There are radical and subtle differences in training\nto which boys and girls are subjected from early childhood.\nThere are deeply fixed traditions as to the standards of action,\nfeeling, and demeanor to which boys and girls are respectively\ntrained and to which they are expected to conform. If a boy\nshould not live up to this training and expectation, he may be\nmarked out as \"effeminate.\" If a girl does not conform, she\nis defined as a \"hoyden\" or a \"tomboy.\"\n\nThese social distinctions, which are emphasized even in the\nbehavior of young boys and young girls, grow more pronounced\nas individuals grow older. One need hardly call attention\nto actions regarded as perfectly legitimate for men\nwhich provoke disapproval if practiced by women. Rigid\ntraining in these different codes of behavior may cause\nacquired characteristics to seem inborn. But whether these\ngeneral features commonly held to distinguish the mental life\nof man or woman are or are not intrinsic and original, they\nhave been marked out by certain investigators as socially\nfundamental. Thus Heymans and Wiersma, two German\ninvestigators, set down as the differentia of feminine mental\nlife (1) greater activity, (2) greater emotionality, (3) greater\nunselfishness of the female.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: See Thorndike's _Educational Psychology_ (1910), p. 136.]\n\nThere are some general differences noted by both layman\nand psychologist, which, though not subject to quantitative\ndetermination, yet seem to differentiate somewhat definitely\nbetween feminine and masculine mental activity. These\nmay be set down in general as occurring in the field of\nemotional susceptibility. Thorndike traces them back to the\nvarying intensity of two human traits earlier discussed: the\nfighting instinct, relatively much stronger in the male, and\nthe nursing or mothering instinct, much stronger in the\nfemale. With this fact are associated important differences in\nthe conduct of men and women in social relations. The maternal\ninstinct is held by some writers, for instance, to be in\nlarge measure the basis of altruism, and is closely associated\nwith sensitivity to the needs and desires of others. Thorndike\nwrites:\n\nIt has been common to talk of women's dependence. This is, I am\nsure, only an awkward name for less resentment at mastery. The\nactual nursing of the young seems likewise to involve equally\nunreasoning tendencies to pet, coddle, and \"do for\" others. The\nexistence of these two instincts has been long recognized by\nliterature and common knowledge, but their importance in causing\ndifferences in the general activities of the two sexes has not.\nThe fighting instinct is in fact the cause of a very large amount\nof the world's intellectual endeavor. The financier does not\nthink merely for money, nor the scientist for truth, nor the\ntheologian to save souls. Their intellectual efforts are aimed in\ngreat measure to outdo the other man, to subdue nature, to\nconquer assent. The maternal instinct in its turn is the chief\nsource of woman's superiorities in the moral life. The virtues\nin which she excels are not so much due to either any general\nmoral superiority or any set of special moral talents as to her\noriginal impulses to relieve, comfort, and console.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _loc. cit._, pp. 48-49.]\n\nOrdinary observation reveals, as literature has in general\nrecorded, what Havelock Ellis has called the \"greater affectability\nof the female mind.\" There is evidenced in many\nwomen a singular and immediate responsiveness to other\npeople's emotions, a quick intuition, a precise though non-logical\ndiscrimination, which, though shared to some extent\nby all individuals gifted with sympathy and affection, is a\npeculiarly feminine quality. Indeed when a man possesses\nit, it is common to speak of him as possessing \"almost a\nwoman's intuition.\" Such emotional susceptibility is manifested\nin the higher frequency of emotional instability and\nemotional outbreaks among women than among men, and the\ndecreased power of inhibition which women have over\ninstinctive and emotional reactions. Further than this, women\nmore than men may be said to qualify their judgments of persons\nand situations by their emotional reactions to them.\n\nThe common suspicion that in general women's abilities\nare less than those of men has seemed to gain strength from\nthe greater number of geniuses and eminent persons there\nhave been among men than among women. Professor Cattell\nwrites in this connection:\n\nI have spoken throughout of eminent men as we lack in English\nwords including both men and women, but as a matter of fact women\ndo not have an important place on the list. They have in all thirty-two\nrepresentatives in the thousand. Of these eleven are hereditary\nsovereigns, and eight are eminent through misfortunes, beauty, or\nother circumstances. Belles-lettres and fiction--the only department\nin which woman has accomplished much--give ten names as\ncompared with seventy-two men. Sappho and Joan d'Arc are the\nonly other women on the list. It is noticeable that with the\nexception of Sappho--a name associated with certain fine fragments--women\nhave not excelled in poetry or art. Yet these are the departments\nleast dependent on environment, and at the same time those\nin which the environment has been perhaps as favorable to women\nas to men. Women depart less from the normal than men--a fact\nthat usually holds for the female throughout the animal series; in\nmany closely related species only the male can be readily\ndistinguished.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Cattell: \"A Statistical Study of Eminent Men,\"\n_Popular Science Monthly_, vol. LXII. pp. 375-77.]\n\nIn the facts of higher variability among males, and the\nhitherto restricted social opportunities provided for women\nare to be found the chief reasons for the comparatively high\nachievement of the male sex as compared with the female.\nBut on the average the difference between the two sexes with\nrespect to mental capacity is slight.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF RACE. A second factor in determining\nindividual differences in mental traits is race. There are\ncertain popular presuppositions as to the inherent differences in\nthe mental activity of different races. The Irishman's wit,\nthe negro's joyousness, the emotionality of the Latin races,\nthe stolidity of the Chinese, are all supposed to be fundamental.\nAnd in a sense they are. That is, in the life and\nculture of these groups, such traits may stand out distinctively.\nBut most psychologists and anthropologists question\nseriously whether these traits are to be traced to radical differences\nin racial inheritance. For the most part they seem\nrather to be the result of radical differences in environment.\n\"Many of the mental similarities of an Indian to Indians and\nof his differences from Anglo-Saxons disappear, if he happens\nto be adopted and brought up as an Anglo-Saxon.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike _loc. cit._, p. 52.]\n\nThere have been various experimental studies made to\ndetermine how much divergences in the mental activity of\ndifferent races are determined by differences in racial\ninheritance. Such experiments have been conducted chiefly\nupon very simple traits and capacities. The accuracy of\nsensory response among different races has, for example, been\nexamined. There have proved to be, in regard to these, slight\ndifferences in the effectiveness and accuracy of response.\nThere are racial differences in hearing, as tested by the ticking\nof a watch or clock artificially made. In this test, Papuans,\nto take an instance, were inferior to Europeans. The sense\nof touch has been similarly tested, and comparatively negligible\ndifferences have been found. In regard to the five senses,\ntheir efficiency seems to be about equal in all the races of\nmankind. The proverbial keenness of vision of the Indian, for\nexample, is found to be due to a superior training in its use, a\ntraining made imperative by the conditions of Indian life. In\nreaction time tests--that is, tests in the speed of simple mental\nand motor performances--the time consumed in response\nhas been found to be about the same for all races tested. The\nresults have been similar with regard to certain simple processes\nof judgment or inference:\n\nThere are a number of illusions and constant errors of judgment\nwhich are well known in the psychological laboratory, and which\nseem to depend, not on peculiarities of the sense organs, but on\nquirks and twists in the process of judgment. A few of these have\nbeen made the matter of comparative tests, with the result that\npeoples of widely different cultures are subject to the same errors,\nand in about the same degree. There is an illusion which occurs\nwhen an object, which looks heavier than it is, is lifted by the hand;\nit then feels, not only lighter than it looks, but even lighter than it\nreally is. The contrast between the look and the feel of the thing\nplays havoc with the judgment. Women are, on the average, more\nsubject to this illusion than men. The amount of this illusion has\nbeen measured in several peoples, and found to be, with one or two\nexceptions, about the same in all. Certain visual illusions, in which\nthe apparent length or direction of a line is greatly altered by the\nneighborhood of other lines, have similarly been found present in all\nraces tested, and to about the same degree. As far as they go, these\nresults tend to show that simple sorts of judgment, being subject\nto the same disturbances, proceed in the same manner among various\npeoples; so that the similarity of the races in mental processes\nextends at least one step beyond sensation.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Woodworth: \"Racial Differences in Mental Traits,\"\n_Science_, New Series, vol. 31, pp. 179-81.]\n\nProfessor Woodworth also points out that these simple\ntests are not adequate to measure general intelligence.\n\nA good test for intelligence would be much appreciated by the\ncomparative psychologist, since, in spite of equal standing in such\nrudimentary matters as the senses and bodily movement, attention\nand the simpler sorts of judgment, it might still be that great\ndifferences in mental efficiency existed between different groups of men.\nProbably no single test could do justice to so complex a trait as\nintelligence. Two important features of intelligent action are\nquickness in seizing the key to a novel situation, and firmness in limiting\nactivity to the right direction, and suppressing acts which are\nobviously useless for the purpose in hand. A simple test which calls for\nthese qualities is the so-called \"form test.\" There are a number of\nblocks of different shapes, and a board with holes to match the\nblocks. The blocks and board are placed before a person, and he is\ntold to put the blocks in the holes in the shortest possible time. The\nkey to the situation is here the matching of blocks and holes by their\nshape; and the part of intelligence is to hold firmly to this obvious\nnecessity, wasting no time in trying to force a round block into a\nsquare hole. The demand on intelligence certainly seems slight\nenough; and the test would probably not differentiate between a\nNewton and you or me; but it does suffice to catch the feeble-minded,\nthe young child, or the chimpanzee, as any of these is likely to fail\naltogether, or at least to waste much time in random moves and\nvain efforts. This test was tried on representatives of several races\nand considerable differences appeared. As between whites, Indians,\nEskimos, Ainus, Filipinos, and Singhalese, the average differences\nwere small, and much overlapping occurred. As between these\ngroups, however, and the Igorot and Negrito from the Philippines\nand a few reputed Pygmies from the Congo, the average differences\nwere great, and the overlapping small.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Woodworth: _loc. cit._, pp. 171-86.]\n\nEquality among races in the various traits that have been\nmeasured by psychologists does not imply that common\nobservation is wrong in counting one race as intellectually\nsuperior to another. There have, as yet, been no measurements\nof such general features of social life as energy, self-reliance,\ninventiveness, and the like. But from indications of\nexperiments already made, these so-called (and for practical\npurposes genuine) intellectual differences between the\nindividuals of different races must be attributed to differences in\nenvironment. Races _as_ races seem to be equally gifted.\n\nProfessor Boas points out that civilized investigators traveling\namong savage tribes commit one serious fallacy in insisting\non the inferiority of these primitive peoples. They\nare said to be irrational, for example, when they are quite\nlogical in their way of dealing with the material which is at\ntheir disposal. Without any scientific information available,\nfor example, anthropomorphism, or the tendency to interpret\ncosmic phenomena in human terms is quite natural and reasonable.\nAgain:\n\nThe difference in the mode of thought of primitive man and that\nof civilized man seems to consist largely in the difference of character\nof the traditional material with which the new perception associates\nitself. The instruction given to the child of primitive man is not\nbased on centuries of experimentation, but consists of the crude\nexperience of generations. When a new experience enters the mind of\nprimitive man, the same process which we observe among civilized\nman brings about an entirely different series of associations, and\ntherefore results in a different type of explanation. A sudden\nexplosion will associate itself in his mind, perhaps, with the tales he has\nheard in regard to the mythical history of the world, and consequently\nwill be accompanied by superstitious fear. When we recognize\nthat neither among civilized men nor among primitive men the\naverage individual carries to completion the attempt at causal\nexplanation of phenomena, but carries it only so far as to amalgamate\nit with other previously known facts, we recognize that the\nresult of the whole process depends entirely upon the character of\nthe traditional material.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Boas: _Mind of Primitive Man_, pp. 203-04.]\n\nThis may be illustrated by our immediate reactions of pleasure\nor disgust at customs or ideas that provoke directly opposite\nreactions among races reared in another tradition.\n\nAgain primitive races have been accused of lacking self-control.\nThe fact is that they exhibit self-control about\nmatters which they regard as important, and lack of it in\nrespect to matters which they regard as trivial. \"When an\nEskimo community is on the point of starvation, and their\nreligious proscriptions forbid them to make use of the seals\nthat are basking on the ice, the amount of self-control of the\nwhole community which restrains them from killing those\nseals is certainly very great.\"[2] The case is similar with\nregard to nearly all the alleged inferiorities of primitive man, his\nimprovidence, unreliability, and the like. In nearly every\ninstance, it has been found that we are holding him to account\nfor not being able to persist in courses of action which do not\nseem to him, with his training and education, worth persisting\nin, and for not conforming to standards which, given his\nbackground, are meaningless.\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid_. p. 108.]\n\nBut if differences in racial attainments are due to differences\nin environment, it might be said that this itself is testimony\nto the superiority of the race that has the more complex\nand exacting environment. This is not by any means clearly\nthe case. The \"culture\" or civilization which a race exhibits\nis a very uncertain index of its gifts or its capacities. The\nculture found in a race is, it may be said without exaggeration,\nlargely a matter of accident or circumstance rather than\nof heredity.\n\nSome of the environmental causes for differences in culture\nmay he explicitly noted. Any modern culture is the result\nof interminglings of many different cross-streams and cross-borrowings.\nRaces that have long been isolated as, for example\nthe African negroes, have no possibility of picking up\nall the acquisitions to which races that intermingle have\naccess. Progress in the developments of arts, sciences, and\ninstitutions depends on fortunate individual variations. The\nsmaller the race the less the number of variations possible,\nincluding those on the side of what we call genius. Again\nfortunate variations depend not so much on the general average\nintellectual capacities of the race as on its variability.\nSo one race may possess a relative superiority of achievement\nbecause of its high variability, just as, as we have already\npointed out, the greater preeminence of the male sex with\nregard to intellectual accomplishment is due to the greater\nnumber of variations both above and below the norm which\nit displays. The reasons for variability are again, according\nto Professor Boas, largely environmental. \"We have seen,\nwhen a people is descended from a small uniform group, that\nthen its variability will decrease; while on the other hand,\nwhen a group has a much-varied origin or when the ancestors\nbelong to entirely distinct types the variability may be\nconsiderably increased.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Boas; _loc. cit._, p. 93.]\n\nAgain a race may be placed in such geographical conditions\nthat a fortuitous variation on the part of one individual may\nprove of enormous value in the development of its civilization.\nOr fortunate geographical conditions may stimulate\ntypes of activity that lie dormant, although possible, among\nother races. Thus by some investigators the flexibility and\nemancipation of the Greek genius were attributed to their\naccess to the sea and their constant intermingling with other\ncultures, especially the Egyptian.\n\nOn the subject of the fundamental equality of races despite\ntheir seeming disparity, as that at present, let us say, between\nwhites and negroes, Professor Boas writes:\n\nMuch has been said of the hereditary characteristics of the Jews,\nof the Gypsies, of the French and Irish, but I do not see that the\nexternal and social causes which have moulded the character of\nmembers of these people have ever been eliminated satisfactorily;\nand, moreover, I do not see how this can be accomplished. A number\nof external factors that influence body and mind may easily be\nnamed--climate, nutrition, occupation--but as soon as we enter\ninto a consideration of social factors and mental conditions we are\nunable to tell definitely what is cause and what is effect.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe conclusions reached are therefore, on the whole, negative. We\nare not inclined to consider the mental organization of different races\nof man as differing in fundamental points. Although, therefore, the\ndistribution of faculty among the races of man is far from being\nknown, we can say this much: the average faculty of the white race\nis found to the same degree in a large proportion of individuals\nof all other races, and although it is probable that some of these\nraces may not produce as large a proportion of great men as our own\nrace, there is no reason to suppose that they are unable to\nreach the level of civilization represented by the bulk of our own\npeople.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Boas; _loc. cit._, pp. 116, 123.]\n\nIn contrast must be cited the opinions of a large class of\npsychologists and anthropologists who are inclined to regard\nracial differences as intrinsic and original. Of such, for example,\nis Francis Galton, who claims in his _Hereditary Genius_,\nthat taking negroes on their own ground they still are inferior\nto Europeans by about one eighth the difference, say, between\nAristotle and the lowest idiot. Recent psychological\nexperiments in the army reveal, again, certain fundamental\nintellectual inferiorities of negroes, though whether this is\nenvironmental or to be traced to hereditary causes is open to\nquestion.\n\nThe fact remains that there are, despite the lack of evidence\nfor hereditary mental differences, practical differences in the\nmental activity of different races that are of social importance.\nThese differences, which seem so fundamental, have been\nexplained primarily by the powerful control exercised over the\nindividual by the habits which he acquires even before the\nage of five years. These, though unconscious, may be, as the\nFreudian psychologists maintain, all the more important for\nthat reason. This would appear to be the only explanation of\nsignificant racial differences. Cultural differences cannot,\nbiologists are generally agreed, be transmitted in the germs\nthat pass from generation to generation. One may say, in\neffect, that an individual is differentiated in his mental traits\nby early association with a certain race, and by his immediate\nancestry or family, rather than by the fact of belonging\nphysically to a certain race.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF IMMEDIATE ANCESTRY OR FAMILY. A factor\nthat is, on experimental evidence, rated to be of high importance\nin the determination of the differences of the mental\nmake-up of human beings, is \"immediate ancestry\" or family.\nStated in the most simple and general terms this means\nthat children of the same parents tend to display marked\nlikenesses in mental traits, and to exhibit less variation among\nthemselves than is exhibited in the same number of individuals\nchosen at random. A great number of experiments have\nbeen conducted to determine how far resemblances in mental\ntraits are due to common parentage. The correlation between\nmembership in the same family and resemblances of\nsocial traits has been found to be uniformly high.\n\nThe inference was made that children of the same family\nwould show great resemblances in mental traits, when accurate\nexperiments showed marked similarity in physical traits\nunder the same conditions. The coefficient of correlation\nbetween brothers in the color of the eye, is, according to the\nresults obtained by Karl Pearson, .52.[1] The coefficient of\nfraternal correlation in the case of the cephalic index (ratio\nof width to length of head) is .40. The correlation of hair\ncolor is found to be .55. The fact of high correlation between\nresemblance of physical traits and membership in the\nsame family is of crucial importance, because these traits\nare clearly due to ancestry, and not to environmental\ndifferences. If physical traits show such a correlation, it is likely\nthat mental traits will also, mental traits being ultimately\ndependent on the brain and the nervous system, which are both\naffected by ancestry.\n\n[Footnote 1: These facts are based on the reports of Karl Pearson\nin his _On the Laws of Inheritance in Man_. What is meant by\ncoefficient of correlation may be explained as follows: If the\ncoefficient of correlation between father and son is .3 and the\ncoefficient of correlation between brother and brother is .5 we\nmay say: a son on the average deviates from the general trend of\nthe population by .3 of the amount of his father's deviation, a\nbrother by .5 of the amount of his brother.]\n\nMeasurements of measurable traits and observations of less\nobjectively measurable ones, have revealed that immediate\nancestry is in itself an influential factor in producing likenesses\nand differences among men with respect to mental traits.\nOne interesting case, interesting because it was a test of a\ncapacity that might be expected to be largely environmental\nin its origins, was that of the spelling abilities of children in\nthe St. Xavier School in New York. Thorndike thus reports the test:\n\nAs the children of this school commonly enter at a very early age,\nand as the staff and the methods of teaching remain very constant,\nwe have in the case of the 180 brothers and sisters included in the 600\nchildren closely similar school training. Mr. Earle measured the\nability of any individual by his deviation from the average for his\ngrade and sex, and found the co-efficient of correlation between\nchildren of the same family to be .50. That is, any individual is on the\naverage fifty per cent as much above or below the average for his age\nand sex as his brother or sister.\n\nSimilarities in home training might theoretically account for this,\nbut any one experienced in teaching will hesitate to attribute much\nefficacy to such similarities. Bad spellers remain bad spellers though\ntheir teachers change. Moreover, Dr. J. M. Rice in his exhaustive\nstudy of spelling ability found little or no relationship between good\nspelling and any one of the popular methods, and little or none\nbetween poor spelling and foreign parentage. Yet the training of a\nhome where parents do not read or spell the language well must be a\nhome of relatively poor training for spelling. Cornman's more careful\nstudy of spelling supports the view that ability to spell is little\ninfluenced by such differences in school or home training as commonly\nexist.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _loc. cit._, p. 78.]\n\nIn general the influence of heredity may be said far to outweigh\nthe influence of home training. In all the cases\nreported, the resemblances were about the same in traits subject\nto training, and in those not subject to training. Thus industry\nand conscientiousness and public spirit, which are clearly\naffected by environment, show no greater resemblance than\nsuch practically unmodifiable traits as memory, original\nsensitiveness to colors, sounds, and distances.\n\nThe influence of parentage, it must be added, consists in the\ntransmission of specific traits, not of a certain \"nature\" as a\nwhole. There are in the germ and the ovum which constitute\nthe inheritance of each individual, certain determinant elements.\nThe elements that determine the original traits with\nwhich each individual will be born vary, of course, in the\ngerms produced by a single parent less than among individuals\nchosen at random, but they vary none the less. In this\nvariation of the determining elements in the germs of the\nsame individual is to be found the cause of the variation in\nthe physical and mental traits among children of the same\nparents.\n\nSince the determining elements, the unit characters that\nappear in the sperm or ovum of each individual, do not appear\nuniformly even in children of the same parents, brother\nand sister may resemble each other in certain mental traits,\nand differ in others. \"A pair of twins may be indistinguishable\nin eye color and stature, but be notably different in hair\ncolor and tests of intellect.\"\n\nMental inheritance, as well as physical, is, then, organized\nin detail. It is not the inheritance of gross total natures, but\nof particular \"mental traits.\" If we had sufficient data, we\nshould be able to analyze out the unit characters of an\nindividual's mental equipment, so as to be able to predict with\nsome accuracy the mental inheritance of the children of any\ntwo parents. In the case of physical inheritance, the laws of\nthe hereditary transmission of any given traits are known in\nconsiderable detail. The detailed quantitative investigations\nof inheritance, following the general lines set by Mendel, have\ngiven striking results.\n\nPhysical traits have been found to be analyzable into unit-characters\n(that is, traits hereditarily transmitted as units),\nsuch as \"curliness of hair,\" \"blue eyes,\" and the like. Mental\ntraits, however, do not seem analyzable into the fixed\nunit-characters prescribed by the Mendelian laws of inheritance.\n\nThe success which breeders have had in the control of the\nreproduction of plants and animals, in the perpetuation of a\nstock of desirable characteristics and the elimination of the\nundesirable, has given rise to a somewhat analogous ideal in\nhuman reproduction. That eugenics has at least its theoretical\npossibilities with regard to physical traits, few biologists\nwill question. However difficult it may be in practice\nto regulate human matings on the exclusive basis of the kind\nof offspring desired, it is a genuine biological possibility. In a\nnegative way, it has already in part been initiated in the\nprevention of the marriage of some extreme types of the physically\nunfit, by the so-called eugenic marriage laws in some\nstates in this country.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: There have been laws, as there is a fairly decided\npublic opinion, adverse to reproduction by the feeble-minded and\nthe morally defective. But (see Richardson: _The Etiology of\nArrested Mental Development_, p. 9) there have been a number\nof cases of feeble-minded parents producing normal children.]\n\nBut whether scientific regulation of marriages for the\nproduction of eugenic offspring is feasible, even apart from the\npersonal and emotional questions involved, is open to question.\nNo mental trait such as vivacity, musical ability,\nmathematical talent, or artistic sense, has been analyzed into\nsuch definitely transmissible unit-characters as \"blue eyes\"\nand \"curliness of hair.\" So many unit-characters seem to be\ninvolved in any single mental trait that it will be long before\na complete analysis of the hereditary invariable determinants\nof any single trait can be made.\n\nIt is thus impossible to tell as yet with any security or precision\nthe biological components of any single mental trait.\nThe evidence at our disposal, however, does confirm us in the\nbelief that one of the most significant and certain causes of\nindividual differences, whether physical or mental, is immediate\nancestry or family. Individuals are made by what they\nare initially, and, as we shall presently see, therefore largely\nby their inheritance. With the latter, environment can do\njust so much, and no more. And the most significant and\neffective part of an individual's inheritance is his family for\nsome generations back, rather than the race to which he belongs.\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT. Those factors so far\ndiscussed which determine individual differences are independent\nof the particular conditions of life in which an individual\nhappens to be placed. An individual's race, sex, family\nare beyond modification by anything that happens to him\nafter birth. Maturity, in so far as it is mere growth independent\nof training, is also largely a fixed and unmodifiable\ncondition.\n\nThe original nature, determined by race, sex, and immediate\nancestry, with which a man starts life is subject to modification\nby his social environment, by the ideas, customs, companions,\nbeliefs, by which he is surrounded, and with which\nhe comes continuously in contact. Commonly the influence\nof environment is held to be very high. It is difficult, however,\naccurately to distinguish between effects which are due\nto original nature and effects which are due to environment.\n\nDifferences in training are important, but the results vary\nwith the natures trained. Precisely the same environment\nwill not have the same consequences for two different natures.\nTwo approximately same natures will show something like\nthe same effects in dissimilar environments. Human beings\nare certainly differentiated by the customs, laws, ideals,\nfriends, and occupations to which they are exposed. But\nwhat the net result will be in a specific case, depends on the\nindividual's equipment to start with, an equipment that is\nfixed before the environment has had a chance to act at all.\nThe kindliness and indulgence that save some children\ndemoralize others. In some people a soft answer turneth away\nwrath; in others it will kindle it. Andrew Carnegie starts as a\nbobbin boy, and becomes a millionaire; but there were many\nother bobbin boys. The sunset that stirs in one man a lyric,\nleaves another cold. The same course in biology arouses in\none student a passion for a life of science; it leaves another\nhoping never to see a microscope again. On the other hand,\nthe same types of original capacity thrown into different\nenvironments will yet attain somewhat comparable results, in\nthe way of character and achievement. The biographies of\na few poets, painters, philosophers, and scientists chosen at\nrandom, show the most diverse antecedents.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Taking the social and professional status of a\ndistinguished man's father as some index of the social environment\nto which he was subjected during his youth, we find some\ninteresting examples: The father of John Keats was a livery\nstable-keep; his mother the daughter of one. Byron's father\nwas a captain in the Royal Guards; his mother a Scottish heiress.\nNewton's father was a tanner; Pasteur's, a tanner; Darwin's, a\ndoctor of considerable means. Francis Bacon's father was Lord\nKeeper of the Great Seal; Newton's was a farmer and the headmaster\nof a school; Turner was the son of a barber.]\n\nAn individual, again, to a certain extent, makes his own\nenvironment. What kind of an environment he will make\ndepends on the kinds of capacities and interests he has to\nstart with. Similarity of original tendencies and interests\nbrings men together as differences among these keep them\napart. The libraries, the theaters, and the baseball parks\nare all equally possible and accessible features of their\nenvironment to individuals of a given economic or social class.\nYet a hundred individuals with the same education and\nsocial opportunities will make themselves by choice a hundred\ndifferent environments. They will select, even from\nthe same physical environment, different aspects. The\nGrand Canon is a different environment to the artist and to\nthe geologist; a crowd of people at an amusement park\nconstitutes a different environment to the man who has come\nout to make psychological observations, and the man who\nhas come out for a day's fun. A dozen men, teachers and\nstudents, selected at random on a university campus, might\nwell be expected to note largely different though overlapping\nfacts, as the most significant features of the life of the\nuniversity.\n\nThe environment is the less important in the moulding of\ncharacter, the less fixed and unavoidable it becomes. If an\nindividual has the chance to change his environment to suit\nhis own original demands and interests, these are the less\nlikely to undergo modification. This is illustrated in the animal\nworld by the migratory birds, which change their habitations\nwith the seasons. Similarly human beings, to suit the\noriginal mental traits with which they are endowed, can and\ndo exchange one environment for another. There are a very\nlarge number of individuals living in New York City, in the\ntwentieth century, for example, for whom a multiplicity of\nenvironments are possible. The one that becomes habitual\nwith an individual is a matter of his own free choice. That is,\nit is choice, in the sense that it is independent of the\ncircumstances of the individual's life. But an individual's choice of\nhis environment must be within the limited number of alternatives\nmade possible by the original nature with which he\nis endowed. As pointed out in connection with our discussion\nof \"Instinctive Behavior,\" we do originally what gives\nsatisfaction to our native impulses, and avoid what irritates\nand frustrates them. We may be trained to find satisfactions\nin acquired activities, but there is a strong tendency to\nacquire habits that \"chime in,\" as it were, with the tendencies\nwe have to start with.\n\nThere is, for example, to certain individuals, intrinsic\nsatisfaction in form and color; to others in sound. To the\nformer, pictures and paintings will tend to be the environment\nselected; to the latter the hearing and the playing of\nmusic. To those gifted with sensitivity in neither of these\ndirections, pictures may be through all their lives a bore, and\na piano a positive nuisance.\n\nThese facts of original nature, therefore, determine initially,\nand consequently in large part, what our environment is\ngoing to be. Once we get into, or select through instinctive\ndesires, a certain kind of environment, those desires become\nstrengthened through habit, and that environment becomes\nfixed through fulfilling those habitual desires. A man may,\nin the first place, choose artists or scholars as companions\nbecause his own gifts and interests are similar. But such an\nenvironment will become the more indispensable for him\nwhen it has the reinforcement of habit to confirm what is\nalready initially strong in him by birth. \"To him who hath\nshall be given\" is most distinctly true of the opportunities and\nenvironment open to those with native gifts to begin with.\n\nOriginal nature thus sets the scope and the limits of an\nindividual's character and achievement. It tells \"how\nmuch\" and, in the most general way, \"what\" his capacities\nare. Thus a man born with a normal vocal apparatus can\nspeak; a man born with normal vision can see. But what\nlanguage he shall speak, and what sights he shall see, depend\non the social and geographical situation in which he happens\nto be placed. Again, if a man is born with a \"high general\nintelligence,\" that is, with keen sensory discriminations and\nmotor responses, precise and accurate powers of analysis of\njudgment, a capacity for the quick and effective acquisition\nand modification of habits, we can safely predict that he will\nexcel in some direction. But whether he will stand out as a\nlawyer, doctor, philosopher, poet, or executive, it is almost\nimpossible from original nature to tell.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: The psychological tests used in the army, and being\nused now with modifications in the admission of students to\nColumbia College, are \"general intelligence\" tests. That is, they\nshow general alertness and intellectual promise, but are not\nprophetic of any specialized talents or capacities.]\n\nINDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES--DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION. The\nfact that individuals differ in ability and interest has important\nconsequences for education and social progress. It\nmeans, in the first place, that while current optimistic\ndoctrines about the modifiability of human nature are true, they\nare true within limits--limits that vary with the individual.\nWhether or not we shall ever succeed, through the science or\nthe practice of eugenics, in eliminating low ability and\nperpetuating high exclusively, the fact remains that there are in\ncontemporary society the widest variations both in the kinds\nof interest and ability displayed, and in their relative efficacy\nunder present social and industrial conditions.\n\nThere are, it must be noted at the outset, a not inconsiderable\nnumber of individuals who must be set down as absolute\nsocial liabilities. Even if existing social and educational\narrangements were perfect, these would remain unaffected\nand unavailable for any useful purpose. They would have to\nbe endowed, cared for, or confined. There is the quite\nconsiderable class, who, while normal with respect to sensory and\nmotor discrimination, seem to be seriously and irremediably\ndefective in their powers of judgment. These also seem to\noffer invulnerable resistance to education, and their original\nnatures would not be subject to modification even by an\neducation perfectly adapted to the needs of normal people.\n\nBut the more significant fact, more significant because it\naffects so many, is the fact that within the ranks of the great\nclass of normal people, there are fundamental inherited differences\nin ability and interest. Next in importance to the fact\nthat an individual is human is the fact that he is an individual,\nwith very specific initial capacities and desires. For education\nthe implications are serious. Education aims, among\nother things, to give the individual habits that will enable\nhim to deal most effectively with his environment. But an\nindividual can be trained best, it goes without saying, in the\ncapacities and interests he has to begin with. Education cannot,\ntherefore, be wholesale in its methods. It must be so adjusted\nas to utilize and make the most of the multifarious\nvariety of native abilities and interests which individuals\ndisplay. If it does not utilize these, and instead sets up\narbitrary moulds to which individuals must conform, it will be\ncrushing and distorting the specific native activities which\nare the only raw material it has to work upon.\n\nThere have not as yet been many detailed quantitative\nstudies of individual differences that would enable educators,\nif they were free to do so, scientifically to adapt education to\nspecific needs and possibilities. Beginnings in this direction\nare being made, though rather in advanced than in more\nelementary education. Professional and trade schools, and\ngroup-electives in college courses are attempts in this direction.\nAny attempt, of course, to adapt education to specific\nneeds and interests, instead of crushing them into _a priori_\nmoulds, requires, of course, a wider social recognition and\nsupport of education than is at present common. For individual\ndifferences require attention. And where millions are\nto be educated, individual attention requires an immense\ninvestment in teaching personnel.\n\nBut in this utilization of original interests and capacities\nlies the only possibility of genuinely effective education.[1]\nIn the first place to try in education to give individuals habits\nfor which they have no special innate tendencies to begin with,\nis costly. Secondly, to train individuals for types of life or\nwork for which their gifts and desires are ill adapted is to\npromote at once inefficiency and unhappiness. One reason\nwhy the chance to identify one's life with one's work (as is the\ncase with the artist and the scholar) is so universally recognized\nas good fortune, is because it is so rare. A general and\nindiscriminate training of men, as if they were all fitted with\nthe same talents and the same longings, does as much as\nunderpayment or overwork to impair the quality of the work\ndone and the satisfaction derived from it.\n\n[Footnote 1: A beginning in the application of this principle has\nbeen made by the vocational guidance and employment management work\nwhich is being done with increasing scientific accuracy throughout\nthe United States. Individual differences and interests are studied\nwith a view to putting \"the right man in the right place.\" This\nslogan is borrowed from the Committee on Classification and Personnel,\nwhich during the Great War, through its trade tests and other\nmachinery of differentiation, utilized for the national welfare\nthe specific abilities of thousands of drafted men.]\n\nIt has latterly been recognized that industry offers the\ncrucial opportunity to utilize to the fullest individual differences.\nBy \"getting the right man in the right place,\" we at\nonce get the work done better and make the man better satisfied.\nIf adequate attention is given to \"placement,\" to the\nspecific demands put upon men by specific types of work, and\nto the specific capacities of individuals for fulfilling those\ndemands, we will be capitalizing variations among men instead\nof being handicapped by them. As it is, specific differences\ndo exist, and men enter occupations and professions ignoring\nthem. As a result both the job and the man suffer; the\nformer is done poorly, and the latter is unsuccessful and unhappy.\n\nIt must be noted that the existence of specific differences\nbetween individuals does not altogether, or often even in part,\nimply superiority or inferiority. It implies in each case\ninferiority or superiority with respect to the performance of a\nparticular type of work. Whether scientific insight and\naccuracy is better than musical skill, whether a gift for\nsalesmanship surpasses a gift for mathematics, depends on the\nsocial situation and the standards that happen to be current\namong the group. An intensely disagreeable person may be\nthe best man for a particular job. All scientific observation\ncan do is to note individual differences, to note what work\nmakes demands upon what capacities, and try to bring the\nman and the job together.\n\nIt must be emphasized that, while individual capacities\ndetermine what an individual can do, social ideals and\ntraditions determine what he will do, because they determine what\nhe will be rewarded and encouraged to do. There is no\nquestion but that in our industrial civilization certain types\nof ability, that of the organizer, for example, have a high\nsocial value. There is no question but that there are other\nabilities, which under our present customs and ideals we\nreward possibly beyond their merit, as, to take an extreme\ncase, that of a championship prize fighter. We can through\neducation and vocational guidance utilize all native capacities.\nTo make provision for the utilization of all native\ncapacities is to have an efficient social life. But to what end\nour efficient human machinery shall be used depends on the\nideals and customs and purposes that happen to be current in\nthe social order at any given time.\n\nIn the words of Professor Thorndike, \"we can invest in\nprofitable enterprises the capital nature provides.\" But\nwhat profiteth a man or a society, is a matter for reflective\ndetermination; it is not settled for us, as are our limitations,\nat birth.\n\nThe net result of scientific observation in this field is the\ndiscovery, in increasingly precise and specific form, that men\nare most diverse and unequal in interest and capacity. The\nideal of equality comes to mean, under scientific analysis,\nequality of opportunity, leveling all social inequalities; the\nfact of natural inequalities and divergences remains incontestable.\n\nThere may even be, as recent psychological tests seem to\nindicate, a certain proportion of individuals who are not\ncompetent to take an intelligent part in democratic government,\nwho, having too little intellectual ability to follow the\nsimplest problem needing cooeperative and collective decision,\nmust eternally be governed by others. If these facts come to\nbe authenticated by further data, it merely emphasizes the\nfact that in a country professedly democratic it is essential\nto devise an education that will, in the case of each individual,\neducate up to the highest point of native ability.\n\nWhere a country is ostensibly democratic, a few informed\ncitizens will govern the many uninformed, unless the latter\nare educated to an intelligent knowledge and appreciation of\ntheir political duties and obligations. Furthermore, the citizens\nof a community who are prevented from using their native\ngifts will be both useless and unhappy. Certainly this is\nan undesirable condition in a society where all individuals are\nexpected, so far as possible, to be ends in themselves and not\nmerely means for the ends of others.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nLANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Much of the technical material for this chapter is\ndrawn from Leonard Bloomfield's _The Study of Language_, and\nW. D. Whitney's _The Life and Growth of Language_.]\n\nIt was earlier pointed out that human beings alone possess\nlanguage. They alone can make written symbols and heard\nsounds stand for other things, for objects, actions, qualities,\nand ideas. In this chapter the consideration of language may\nbest be approached from the spoken tongue, under the influence\nof which, except in the simplest type of pictorial writing,\nthe written form develops.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Bloomfield: _loc. cit._, pp. 7-8.]\n\nFrom the point of view of the student of behavior, language,\nspoken language especially, is a habit, acquired like walking\nor swimming. It is made possible primarily by the fact that\nhuman beings possess a variety and flexibility of vocal reflexes\npossessed by no other animal. All the higher animals have a\nnumber of vocal reflexes, which are called out primarily in the\nexpression of emotion or desire. Cries of pain, hunger, rage,\nsex desire or desire for companionship, are common to a great\nnumber of the animal species. But these cries and vocal\nutterances are limited, and comparatively unmodifiable.\nThey are moreover expressed, so far as experimental observation\ncan reveal, with no consciousness of the specific significance\nof particular sounds and are used as the involuntary\nexpression of emotion rather than as a specific means of\ncommunication.\n\n... The primates have a much larger number of such vocal instincts\nthan the other mammals, and a much larger number of stimuli\ncan call them out, _e.g._, injury to bodily tissue calls out one group;\nhunger calls out a certain group; sex stimuli (mate, etc.) another;\nand similarly cold, swiftly moving objects, tones, strange animals\ncall out others. When attachments are formed between the female\nand her offspring another large group is called into action. There is\nno evidence to show in the case of mammals that these vocal instincts\nare modified by the sounds of other animals.... These throat habits\nmay be cultivated to such an extent in birds that we may get an\napproximation, more or less complete, to a few such habits possessed\nby the human being. Such throat habits, however, are not language\nhabits.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Watson: _Behavior_, p. 323.]\n\nIn human beings language, it is clear, may attain extraordinary\nrefinement and complexity, and may convey extremely\nfine shades and subtleties of emotion or idea. This\nresults from the fact that man is born with a vocal\napparatus far superior in development to that of any of the\nanimals.\n\nIt is pretty clear that the mutant man, when thrown off from the\nprimate stock, sprang forth with a vocal apparatus different from\nthat of the parent stock, and possessing abundant richness in reflexes,\neven far surpassing that found in the bird. It is interesting to\nobserve, too, in this connection, that within the narrow space occupied\nby the vocal apparatus we have a system of muscular mechanisms\nwhich has within it, looking at it now as a whole, the same possibilities\nof habit formation that we find in the remaining portion of bodily\nmusculature.... It is probable that in a few years we shall undertake\nthe study of such habits from exactly the same standpoint that\nwe now employ in studies upon the acquisition of skill in the human\nbeing.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, pp. 323-24.]\n\nThe human baby starts its expressive habits by emitting\nwith wide-open mouth an undifferentiated shriek of pain. A\nlittle later it yells in the same way at any kind of discomfort.\nIt begins before the end of the first year to croon when it is\ncontented. As it grows older it begins to make different\nsounds when it experiences different emotions. And with\nremarkable rapidity its repertoire of articulatory movements\nhas greatly increased.\n\nSpeech that begins in the child as a mere vague vocal\nexpression of emotion soon begins to exhibit a marked element\nof mimicry. The child begins to associate the words uttered\nby his nurse or parents with the specific objects they point to.\nHe comes to connect \"milk,\" \"sleep,\" \"mother\" with the\nexperiences to which they correspond. The child thus learns\nto react to certain sounds as significant of certain experiences.\nUnlike Adam, he does not have to give names to animals, or\nfor that matter to anything else on earth. They all have\nspecific names in the particular language in which he happens\nto be brought up. In the case of other habits, largely through\ntrial and error, he learns to associate given sounds expressed\nby other people about him with given experiences, pleasant\nor unpleasant. He learns further to imitate, so far as possible,\nthese sounds, as a means of more precisely communicating\nhis wants or securing their fulfillment.\n\nIn this connection students of language frequently have\nraised the question of how man first came to associate a given\nsound-sequence with a given experience. Like fire, language\nwas once conceived to be a divine gift. Another theory\npostulated a genius who took it into his head to give the\nthings of earth their present inevitable names. One other\ntheory equally dubious held that language started in onomatopoetic\nexpressions like \"Bow-wow,\" for dog. Still another\nhypothesis once highly credited held that the sounds first\nuttered were the immediate and appropriate expressions\ncalled out by particular types of emotional experience. The\nvalidity of the last two theories has been rendered particularly\ndubious. The very instances of imitative words cited,\nwords like \"cuckoo,\" \"crash,\" \"flash,\" were, in their original\nforms, quite other than they are now. And that words are\nnot immediately apposite expressions of the emotions which\nthey represent, has been generally recognized. In gesture\nlanguage, the gesture has to remain fairly imitative or\nexpressive to be intelligible. But an examination of half a dozen\ncasual words in contemporary languages shows how arbitrary\nare the signs used, and how little appositeness or relevance\nthey bear in their sound to the sense which they represent.\nThe detailed study of the perfectly regular changes that so\nlargely characterize the evolution of language, have revealed\nthe inadequacy of any of these views. There seems to be, in\nfact, no explanation of the origin of the language any more\nthan there is of the origin of life. All that linguistic science\ncan do is to reveal the history of language. And in this\nhistory, human language stands revealed as a highly refined\ndevelopment of the crude and undifferentiated expressions\nwhich, under emotional stress, are uttered by all the animals.\n\nLANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL HABIT. Language, as has repeatedly\nbeen pointed out, is essentially social in character. It is, in\nthe first place, primarily an instrument of communication\nbetween individuals, and is cultivated as such. In human\nspeech, interjections like \"Oh!\" or \"Ah!\" are still involuntary\nescapes of emotion, but language develops as a vehicle of\ncommunication to others rather than as a mere emotional outlet\nfor the individual. Even if it were possible for the mythical\nman brought up in solitude on a desert island to have a\nlanguage, it is questionable whether he would use it. Since\nlanguage is a way of making our wants, desires, information\nknown to others, it is stimulated by the presence of and\ncontact with others. Excess vitality may go into shouting or\nsong,[1] but language as an instrument of specific utterance\ncomes to have a more definite use and provocation. Man,\nas already pointed out, is a highly gregarious animal, and\nlanguage is his incomparable instrument for sharing his emotions\nand ideas and experience with others. The whole process\nof education, of the transmission of culture from the\nmature to the younger members of a society, is made possible\nthrough this instrument, whereby achievements and traditions\nare preserved and transmitted in precise and public\nterms.\n\n[Footnote 1: Human song is by some linguistic experts, including\nBloomfield, held to have originated in the chant of rhythmic\nlabor, as in rowing or threshing.]\n\nSecondly, language is social in that, for the individual at\nleast, it is socially acquired. The child first imitates sounds\nwithout any consciousness of their meaning, just as he imitates\nother actions in sheer \"physiological sympathy.\" But\nhe learns soon, by watching the actions of other people, that\ngiven sounds are always performed when these others do given\nactions. He learns that some sounds are portents of anger\nand punishment; still others of satisfaction and pleasure. He\nlearns soon to specify his utterances, to use sounds as specific\nstimuli, to attain through other people specific satisfactions.\nThe child is born with a flexible set of reflexes. In which way\nthey shall be developed depends entirely on the accident of the\nchild's environment. Whether he shall call it \"bread\" or\n\"pain\" or \"brod,\" depends on the particular social environment\nin which he from the first hears that particular item of\nexperience referred to. A child of American missionaries in\nTurkey picks up the language of that country as well as that\nof his own. An English child brought up under a French\nnurse may learn with perfect ease the foreign tongue, and to\nthe exclusion of that of his native country. Indeed, so completely\nsubject is one in this regard to one's early environment,\nthat it is not only difficult in later life to acquire a new\npronunciation, but one finds it impossible to breathe freely,\nas it were, in the whole psychological atmosphere of a foreign\nlanguage. Its grammatical categories, its spelling, its logic\nseem hopelessly irrational. It was perfectly natural of the\nEnglishman in the story, when he was told that the French\ncalled it \"pain,\" to insist, \"Well, it's bread, anyhow.\" Many\na reader of a foreign language which has become habitual can\nstill not refrain from translating, as he reads, what seem to\nhim irrational idioms into the familiar, facile, and sensible\nmodes of his native tongue.\n\nLANGUAGE AND MENTAL LIFE. The connection of language\nwith thought has repeatedly been noted. It has even been\nquestioned whether thought in any effective sense is possible\nwithout words. In general it may be said that thinking demands\nclean-cut and definite symbols to work with, and that\nlanguage offers these in incomparable form. A word enables\none to isolate in thought the dominant elements of an experience\nand prevents them from \"slipping through one's fingers.\"\n\nThe importance of having words by which concepts may be\ndistinguished and isolated from one another will become\nclearer by a brief reminder of the nature of reflection. Thinking\nis in large part (as will be discussed in detail in chapter\nXIII) concerned with the breaking-up of an experience into\nits significant elements. But experience begins with objects,\nand so far as perceptual experience is concerned, ends there.\nWe perceive objects, not qualities, actions, or ideas apart from\nobjects. And the elements into which thinking analyzes an\nexperience are never present, save in connection with, as\nparts of, a sensibly perceived object. Thus we never perceive\nwhiteness save in white objects; warmth save in warm objects;\nred save in red objects. We never, for that matter,\nperceive so abstract a thing as an \"object.\" We experience\nred houses or red flags; white flowers, white shoes, white\npaper; warm stoves, warm soup, and warm plates. Even\nhouses and stoves and shoes are, in a sense, abstractions. No\ntwo of these are ever alike. But it is of the highest importance\nfor us to have some means of identifying and preserving\nin memory the significant resemblances between our experiences.\nElse we should be, as it were, utterly astounded every\ntime we saw a chair or a table or a fork. Though they may,\nin each case in which we experience them, differ in detail,\nchairs, tables, forks have certain common features which we\ncan \"abstract\" from the gross total experience, and by a\nword or \"term,\" define, record, communicate, and recall. The\nadvantage of a precise technical vocabulary over a loose\n\"popular\" one is that we can by means of the former more\naccurately single out the specific and important elements of\nan experience and distinguish them from one another. The\ncommon nouns, or \"general names\" in a language indicate\nto what extent and in what manner that language, through\nsome or other of its users, classifies its experiences. Highly\ndeveloped languages make it possible to classify similarities\nnot easily detected in crude experience. They make it\npossible to identify other things than merely directly sensed\nobjects.\n\nIn primitive languages experience is described and classified\nonly in so far as it is perceptual. In other words, primitive\nlanguages have names for objects only, not for ideas, qualities,\nor relations. Thus it is impossible in some Indian languages\nto express the concept of a \"brother\" by the same word, unless\nthe \"brother\" is in every case in the same identical\ncircumstances. One cannot use the same word for \"man\" in\ndifferent relations: \"man-eating,\" \"man-sleeping,\"\n\"man-standing-here,\" and \"man-running-there\" would all be separate\ncompound words. Among the Fuegians there is one\nword which means \"to look at one another, hoping that each\nwill offer to do something which both parties desire but are\nunwilling to do.\"[1] Marett writes in this connection:\n\n[Footnote 1: Marett: _Anthropology_, p. 140.]\n\nTake the inhabitants of that cheerless spot, Tierra del Fuego,\nwhose culture is as rude as that of any people on earth. A scholar\nwho tried to put together a dictionary of their language found that\nhe had got to reckon with more than thirty thousand words, even\nafter suppressing a large number of forms of lesser importance. And\nno wonder that the tally mounted up. For the Fuegians had more\nthan twenty words, some containing four syllables, to express what\nfor us would be either \"he\" or \"she\"; then they had two names for\nthe sun, two for the moon, and two more for the full moon, each of\nthe last named containing four syllables and having no elements in\ncommon.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, pp. 138-39.]\n\nIt is easy to see how very little refinement or abstraction\nfrom experience could be made with such a cumbersome and\ninflexible vocabulary. The thirty thousand word vocabulary\nexpressed a poverty of linguistic technique rather than a richness\nof ideas.\n\nAt the other extreme stands a language like English, which\nis, to an extraordinary degree, an \"analytic\" language. It has\ncomparatively no inflections. This means that words can be\nused and moved about freely in different situations and relations.\nThus the dominant elements of an experience can be\nfreely isolated. A noun standing for a certain object or relation\nis not chained to a particular set of accompanying circumstances.\n\"Man\" stands as a definite concept, whether it be\nused with reference to an ancient Greek, a wounded man, a\nbrave, a wretched, a competent, or a tall man. We can give\nthe accompanying circumstances by additional adjectives,\nwhich are again freely movable verbally and intellectually.\nThus we can speak of a brave child and a tall tower as well as\na brave man and a tall man. In Marett's words:\n\nThe evolution of language then, on this view, may be regarded as a\nmovement away from the holophrastic [compound] in the direction\nof the analytic. When every piece in your playbox of verbal bricks\ncan be dealt with separately, because it is not joined on in all sorts of\nways to the other pieces, then only can you compose new constructions\nto your liking. Order and emphasis, as is shown by English,\nand still more conspicuously by Chinese, suffice for sentence-building.\nIdeally, words should be individual and atomic. Every modification\nthey suffer by internal change of sound, or by having prefixes\nor suffixes tacked on to them, involves a curtailment of their\nfree use and a sacrifice of distinctness. It is quite easy, of course,\nto think confusedly, even whilst employing the clearest type of\nlanguage.... On the other hand, it is not feasible to attain a high\ndegree of clear thinking, when the only method of speech available\nis one that tends toward wordlessness--that is to say, one that is\nrelatively deficient in verbal forms that preserve their identity in all\ncontexts.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Marett: _loc. cit._, pp. 141-42.]\n\nLanguages differ not only in being more or less analytic,\nbut in their general modes of classification. That is, not only\ndo they have more or less adequate vocabularies, but in their\nsyntax, their sentence structure, their word forms, they variously\norganize experience. It is important to note that in\nthese divergent classifications no one of them is more final\nthan another. We are tempted, despite this fact, to think\nthat the grammar, spelling, and phonetics of our own language\nconstitute the last word in the rational conveyance of thought.\n\nTHE INSTABILITY OF LANGUAGE. Language being a social habit,\nit is to be expected that it should not stay fixed and changeless.\nThe simpler physiological actions are not performed in\nthe same way by any two individuals, and no social practice\nis ever performed in the same way by two members of a group,\nor by two different generations. In this connection writes\nProfessor Bloomfield:\n\nThe speech of former times, wherever history has given us records\nof it, differs from that of the present. When we read Shakspere,\nfor example, we are disturbed by subtle deviations from our own\nhabits in the use of words and in construction; if our actors\npronounced their lines as Shakspere and his contemporaries did we\nshould say that they had an Irish or German brogue. Chaucer we\ncannot read without some grammatical explanation or a glossary;\ncorrectly pronounced his language would sound to us more like Low\nGerman than like our English. If we go back only about forty\ngenerations from our time to that of Alfred the Great, we come to\nEnglish as strange to us as modern German, and quite unintelligible,\nunless we study carefully both grammar and lexicon.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bloomfield: _loc. cit._, p. 195.]\n\nThere are, in general, three kinds of changes that take place\nin a language. \"Phonetic\" changes, that is, changes in the\narticulation of words, regardless of the meaning they bear.\nThis is illustrated simply by the word \"name\" which, in the\neighteenth century was pronounced ne'm. \" Analogic\"\nchanges, that is, changes in the articulation of words under\nthe influence of words somewhat similar in meaning. The\nword \"flash,\" for example, became what it is because of the\nsound of words associated in meaning, \"crash,\" \"dash,\"\n\"smash.\" The third process of change in language alters\nnot only the articulate forms of words, not only their sound,\nbut their sense. All these changes, as will be presently pointed\nout, can easily be explained by the laws of habit early discussed\nin this book, these laws being applicable to the habit of\nlanguage as well as to any other.\n\nIn the case of phonetic change, it is only to be expected that\nthe sounds of a language will not remain eternally changeless.\nA language is spoken by a large number of individuals, no\ntwo of whom are gifted with precisely the same vocal apparatus.\nIn consequence no two of them will utter words in\nprecisely the same way. Before writing and printing were\ngeneral, these slight variations in articulation were bound to\nhave an effect on the language. People more or less unconsciously\nimitate the sounds they hear, especially if they are\nnot checked up by the written forms of words. Even to-day\nchanges are going on, and writing is at best a poor representation\nof phonetics. The Georgian, the Londoner, the Welshman\nand the Middle Westerner can understand the same\nprinted language, precisely because it does not at all represent\ntheir peculiarities of dialect. Variant sounds uttered by one\nindividual may be caught up in the language, especially if the\nvariant articulation is simpler or shorter. Thus the shortening\nof a word from several syllables to one, though it starts\naccidentally, is easily made habitual among a large number\nof speakers because it does facilitate speech. In the classic\nexample, pre-English, \"habeda\" and \"habedun\" became in\nOld English, \"haefde\" and\" haefdon,\" and are in present English\n(I, we) \"had.\"[1] In the same way variations that reduce\nthe unstressed syllables of a word readily insinuate themselves\ninto the articulatory habits of a people. In the production\nof stressed syllables, the vocal chords are under high tension\nand the breath is shut in. It is easier, consequently, to produce\nthe unstressed syllables \"with shortened, weakened\narticulations... lessening as much as possible all interference\nwith the breath stream.\"[2] Thus \"contemporaneous prohibition\"\nbecomes \"kntempe'rejnjes prhe'bifn.\" Sound\nchanges thus take place, in general, as lessenings of the\nlabor of articulation, by means of adaptation to prevailing rest\npositions of the vocal organs. They take place further in\nmore or less accidental adaptations to the particular speech\nhabits of a people. That is, those sounds become discarded\nthat do not fit in with the general articulatory tendencies of\na language. Of this the weakening of unstressed syllables in\nEnglish and palatalization in Slavic are examples.[1*]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bloomfield: _loc. cit._, p. 211.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 212.]\n\n[Footnote 1*: _Ibid._, p. 218.]\n\nThese changes of sound in language so far discussed are\nmade independently of the meaning of words. Other changes\nin articulation occur, as already noted, by analogy of sound or\nmeaning. That is, words that have associated meanings\ncome to be similarly articulated. This is simply illustrated in\nthe case of the child who thinks it perfectly natural to assimilate\nby analogy \"came\" to \"come.\" Thus the young child\nwill frequently say, until he is corrected, he \"comed,\" he\n\"bringed,\" he \"fighted.\" In communities where printing\nand writing and reading are scarce, such assimilation by\nanalogy has an important effect in modifying the forms of\nwords.\n\nCHANGES IN MEANING. The changes in language most important\nfor the student of human behavior are changes in\nmeaning. Language, it must again be stressed, is an instrument\nfor the communication of ideas. The manner in which\nthe store of meanings in a language becomes increased and\nmodified (the etymology of a language) is, in a sense, the\nhistory of the mental progress of the people which use it. For\nchanges in meaning are primarily brought about when the\nwords in a language do not suffice for the larger and larger\nstore of experiences which individuals within the group desire\nto communicate to one another. The meanings of old words\nare stretched, as it were, to cover new experiences; old words\nare transferred bodily to new experiences; they are slightly\nmodified in form to apply to new experiences analogous to the\nold; new words are formed after analogy with ones already\nin use.\n\nA simple illustration of the application of a word already\ncurrent to a wider situation is the application of the word\n\"head\" as a purely objective name, to a new experience,\nwhich has certain analogies with the old; as when we speak\nof a \"head\" of cabbage, the\" head\" of an army, the \"head\"\nof the class, or the \"headmaster.\" In many such cases the\ntransferred meaning persists alongside of the old. Thus the\nword \"capital\" used as the name for the chief city in a\ncountry, persists alongside of its use in \"capital\" punishment,\n\"capital\" story, etc. But sometimes the transferred\nmeaning of the word becomes dominant and exclusive. Thus\n\"disease\" (dis-ease) once meant discomfort of any kind.\nNow it means specifically some physical ailment. The older\nuse has been completely discarded. To \"spill\" once meant,\nin the most general sense, to destroy. Now all the other uses,\nsave that of pouring out, have lapsed. \"Meat\" which once\nmeant any kind of nourishment has now come to refer almost\nexclusively (we still make exceptions as in the case of sweetmeat)\nto edible flesh. Whenever the special or novel application\nof the word becomes dominant, then we say the meaning\nof the word has changed.\n\nMental progress is largely dependent on the transfer of\nwords to newer and larger spheres of experience, the modification\nof old words or the formation of new ones to express the\nincreasing complexity of relations men discover to exist\nbetween things. In the instances already cited some of the\ntransferred words lost their more general meaning and became\nspecialized, as in the case of \"meat,\" \"spill,\" etc. Other\nwords, like \"head,\" though they may keep their specific objective\nmeaning, may come to be used in a generalized intellectual\nsense. One of the chief ways by which a language remains\nadequate to the demands of increasing knowledge and experience\nof the group is through the transfer of words having\noriginally a purely objective sense to emotional and\nintellectual situations. These words, like \"bitter,\" \"sour,\"\n\"sharp,\" referring originally only to immediate physical\nexperiences, to objects perceived through the senses, come to\nhave intellectual and emotional significance, as when we speak\nof a \"sour\" face, a \"bitter\" disappointment, a \"sharp\"\nstruggle. Most of our words that now have abstract emotional\nor intellectual connotations were once words referring\nexclusively to purely sensible (sense perceptual) experiences.\n\"Anxiety\" once meant literally a \"narrow place,\" just as\nwhen we speak of some one having \"a close shave.\" To\n\"refute\" once meant literally \"to knock out\" an argument.\nTo \"understand\" meant \"to stand in the midst of.\" To\n\"confer\" meant \"to bring together.\" Sensation words\nthemselves were once still more concrete in their meaning.\n\"Violet\" and \"orange\" are obviously taken as color names from\nthe specific objects to which they still refer. Language has\nwell been described as \"a book of faded metaphors.\" The\nhistory of language has been to a large extent the assimilation\nand habitual mechanical use of words that were, when first\nused, strikingly figurative.\n\nThe novel use of a word that is now a quite regular part\nof the language may in many cases first be ascribed to a\ndistinguished writer. Shakespeare is full of expressions which\nhave since, and because of his use of them, become literally\nhousehold words. Many words that have now a general\napplication arose out of a peculiar local situation, myth, or\nname. \"Boycott\" which has become a reasonably intelligible\nand universal word, only less than fifty years ago referred\nparticularly and exclusively to Boycott, a certain unpopular\nIrish landowner who was subjected to the kind of discrimination\nfor which the word has come to stand. \"Burke\"\nused as a verb has its origin in the name of a notorious Edinburgh\nmurderer. Characters in fiction or drama, history or legend\ncome to be standard words. Everyone knows what we mean when we\nspeak of a Quixotic action, a Don Juan,\na Galahad, a Chesterfield. To tantalize arises from the\nmythical perpetual frustration of Tantalus in the Greek\nstory. Expressions that had a special meaning in the\nworks of a philosopher or litterateur come to be generally\nused, as \"Platonic love.\"[1] Again words that arise as mere\npopular witticisms or vulgarisms may be brought into the\nlanguage as permanent acquisitions. \"Mob,\" now a quite\nlegitimate word, was originally a shortening of _mobile vulgum_,\nand was, only a hundred years ago, suspect in polite discourse.\n\n[Footnote 1: Though this is very loosely and inaccurately used.]\n\nOutside the deliberate invention by scientists of terms for\nthe new relations they have discovered, more or less spontaneous\nvariation in the use of words and their unconscious\nassimilation by large numbers with whose other language\nhabits they chance to fit, is the chief source of language\ngrowth. One might almost say words are wrenched from\ntheir original local setting, and given such a generalized\napplication that they are made available for an infinite complexity\nof scientific and philosophical thought.\n\nUNIFORMITIES IN LANGUAGE. Thus far we have discussed\nchanges in language from the psychological viewpoint, that is,\nwe have considered the human tendencies and habits which\nbring about changes in the articulation and meaning, in the\nsound and the sense, of words. It is evident from these\nconsiderations that there can be no absolute uniformity in\nspoken languages, not even in the languages of two persons\nthrown much together. Within a country where the same\nlanguage is ostensibly spoken, there are nevertheless\ndifferences in the language as spoken by different social strata, by\ndifferent localities. There are infinite subtle variations\nbetween the articulation and the word uses of different\nindividuals. There are languages within languages, the dialects of\nlocalities, the jargon of professional and trade groups, the\nspecial pronunciations and special and overlapping vocabularies\nof different social classes.\n\nBut while there are these many causes, both of individual\ndifference and of differing social environments, why languages\ndo not remain uniform, there are similar causes making for a\ncertain degree of uniformity within a language. There is one\nvery good reason why, to a certain extent, languages do attain\nuniformity; they are socially acquired. The individual learns\nto speak a language from those about him, and individuals\nbrought up within the same group will consequently learn to\nspeak, within limits, the same tongue; they will learn to\narticulate through imitation, and, while no individual ever\nprecisely duplicates the sounds of others, he duplicates them\nas far as possible. He learns, moreover, as has already been\npointed out, to attach given meanings to given words, not for\nany reason of their peculiar appositeness or individual caprice,\nbut because he learns that others about him habitually attach\ncertain meanings to certain sounds. And since one is stimulated\nto expression primarily by the desire and necessity of\ncommunication of ideas a premium is put upon uniformity.\nIt is of no use to use a language if it conceals one's thoughts.\nIn consequence, within a group individual variations, unless\nfor reasons already discussed they happen to lend themselves\nto ready assimilation by the group, will be mere slips of the\ntongue. They will be discarded and forgotten, or, if the individual\ncannot rid himself of them, will like stammering or stuttering or\nlisping be set down as imperfections and social\nhandicaps. The uniformity of language within groups whose\nindividual members have much communication with each\nother is thus to a certain extent guaranteed. A man who is\nutterly individualistic in his language might just as well have\nno language at all, unless for the satisfaction of expressing to\nhimself his own emotions.[1] Language is learned from the\ngroup among whom one moves, and those sounds and senses\nof words are, on the whole, retained, which are intelligible to\nthe group. Those sounds and meanings will best be understood\nwhich are already in use. No better illustration could\nbe found of how custom and social groups preserve and enforce\nstandards of individual action.\n\n[Footnote 1: There have been a few poets, like Emily Dickinson,\nor mystics like Blake, some of whose work exhibits almost complete\nunintelligibility to most readers, though doubtless it had a very\nspecific meaning and vividness to the writers concerned.]\n\nThe obverse of the fact that intercommunication promotes\nuniformity in language is that lack of communication brings\nabout language differentiation. The less the intercommunication\nbetween groups, the more will the languages of the\ngroups differ, however uniform they may be within the groups\nthemselves. The most important factor in differentiation of\nlanguage is local differentiation. In some European countries\nevery village speaks its own dialect. In passing from one\nvillage to another the dialects may be mutually intelligible,\nbut by the time one has passed from the first village in the\nchain to the last, one may find that the dialect of the first\nand last are utterly unintelligible to each other. A real break\nin language, as opposed to dialect variations, occurs where\nthere is a considerable barrier between groups, such as a\nmountain range, a river, a tribal or political boundary. The\nmore impenetrable the barriers between two groups the more\nwill the languages differ, and the less mutually intelligible will\nthey be.\n\nLooking back over the history of language the student of\nlinguistics infers that those languages which bear striking or\nsignificant similarities are related. Thus Spanish, Italian,\nFrench, Portuguese, and Roumanian are traceable directly\nback to the Latin. This does not mean that all over the areas\noccupied by the speakers of these languages Latin was originally\nspoken. But the Romans in their conquests, both military\nand cultural, were able to make their own language\npredominant. The variations which make French and Roumanian,\nsay, mutually unintelligible, are due to the fact that\nLatin was for the natives in these conquered territories\nassimilated to their own languages. So that, in the familiar\nexample, the Latin \"homo\" becomes \"uomo\" in Italian,\n\"homme\" in French, \"hombre\" in Spanish, and \"om\" in\nRoumanian. Similarly related but mutually unintelligible\nlanguages among the American Indians have been traced to\nthree great source-languages.\n\nThe history of European languages offers an interesting\nexample of differentiation. English and German, for example,\nare both traceable back to West-Germanic; from that\nin turn to a hypothecated primitive West-Germanic. All\nthe European languages are traceable back to a hypothecated\nPrimitive Indo-European.[1] The theory held by most\nstudents of this subject is that the groups possessing this\nsingle uniform language spread over a wider and wider area,\ngradually became separated from each other by geographical\nbarriers and tribal affiliations, and gradually (and on the\npart of individual speakers unconsciously) modified their\nspeech so that slight differences accumulated, and resulted\nfinally in widely different and mutually unintelligible\nlanguages.\n\n[Footnote 1: By the word \"primitive\" the linguistic experts\nmean a language the existence of which is inferred from common\nfeatures of several related languages, of which written records\nare current, but of which no actual records exist. Thus, if\nthere were no written records of Latin the approximate\nreconstruction of it by linguists would be called \"Primitive\nRomance.\"]\n\nThe process of differentiation in the languages of different\ngroups is very marked. We find, for example, in the early\nhistory of Greece and Rome, a number of widely different\ndialects. There seems every evidence that these were derived\nfrom some more primitive tongue. We find, likewise, on the\nAmerican continent, several hundred different languages,\nwhich--to the untrained observer--bear not the slightest\nresemblance to each other. This welter and confusion can\nalso be traced back to a few primitive and uniform languages.\n\nThus the history of civilization reveals this striking\ndifferentiation in the language of different groups, a\ncounter-tendency making for a wider uniformity of particular\nlanguages. One \"favored dialect\" becomes standard, predominant\nand exclusive. Thus out of all the French dialects, the\none that survives is the speech of Paris; Castilian becomes\nstandard Spanish, and in ancient Greece the language of\nAthens supersedes all the other dialects. The reasons for the\nsurvival of one out of a great welter of dialects may be various.\nNot infrequently the language of a conquering people has, in\nmore or less pure form, succeeded the language of the conquered.\nThis was the case in the history of the Romance\nlanguages, which owe their present forms to the spread of\nRoman arms and culture. There was, as is well known, a\nsimilar development in the case of the English language. The\nNorman Conquest introduced, under the auspices of a socially\nsuperior and victorious group, a language culturally superior\nto the Anglo-Saxon. The latter was, of course, not entirely\nreplaced, but profoundly modified, especially in the enrichment\nand enlargement of its vocabulary. One has but to\nnote such words as \"place,\" \"choir,\" \"beef,\" etc., which\ncame entirely to replace in the language the indigenous Anglo-Saxon\nnames for those objects.\n\nColonization and commercial expansion may bring about\nthe replacement of the native language of special localities by\nthe language of the colonizers, at least in hybrid form. The\nspread of English through Australia, and through the larger\npart of North America, the spread of Spanish through South\nAmerica, in each instance practically replacing the native\ntongues, are cases in point.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dialects and jargons are often the result of the\npartial assimilation by the speakers of one language of another\nlanguage to which they are exposed. French-Canadian and\nPennsylvania Dutch are examples of such a mixture.]\n\nSTANDARDIZATION OF LANGUAGE. At the present time, and for\nsome time in the past, the differentiation of language has been\ngreatly lessened by the stabilizing influence of print. The\nprinted word continually recalls the standard pronunciation\nand meaning, and the changes in language (save those deliberately\nintroduced by the addition of scientific terms, or the\nofficial modifications of spelling, etc., as in some European\ncountries[2]) are much less rapid, various, and significant than\nhitherto. It is true that differences in articulation and usage,\nespecially the former, do still, to a degree, persist and develop.\nOur Southern accent, with its drawling of words and slurring\nof consonants, our Middle-Western accent, with its stressed\narticulation of \"r's\" and its nasalizing tendencies, are\ninstances of this persistence.\n\n[Footnote 2: In France the Ministry of Education from time to time\nsettles points of orthography definitely.]\n\nBut the printed language--English, for example--the\nofficial language, which is published in the newspapers, periodicals,\nand books, which is taught in the schools, and spoken\nfrom the pulpit, the platform, on the stage, in cultivated\nsociety, is more or less alike all over the United States and\nwherever English is spoken. It is, of course, only a standard,\na norm, an ideal, which like the concept of the circle, never\nquite appears in practice. The language which is spoken,\neven in the conversation of the educated, by no means conforms\nto the ideal of \"correct usage.\" But the important\nfact is that the standard language _is_ a standard, that it is,\nmoreover, a widely recognized and effective standard. The\ndictionaries and the grammars become authoritative, and are\nreferred to when people consciously set about discovering\nwhat _is_ the accepted or correct meaning or pronunciation.\nBut a more effectual authority is exerted by the teaching they\nreceive at school, and the continuous, though unnoticed,\ninfluence of the more or less standard language which they read\nin print.\n\nEven phonetic changes, though they persist, are checked\nfrom spreading to the point of mutually unintelligible dialects\nby the standards enforced in print. The \"accents\" in various\nparts of the United States, for example, differ, but not to\nthe point of becoming absolutely divergent languages. The\nSoutherner and the Westerner may be conscious in each\nother's speech of a quaint and curious difference in pronunciation,\nbut they can, except in extreme cases, completely\nunderstand each other.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Some of the isolated districts in the Kentucky mountains\nreveal dialects with some important differences in vocabulary and\nconstruction. These are shown most strikingly in some of the ballads\nof that region which have been collected by William Aspinwall Bradley,\nand by Howard Brockway. Rural schools and the breakdown of complete\nisolation will probably in time eliminate this divergence.]\n\nThe most important stabilizing influence of print, however,\nis its fixation of meanings. It makes possible their maintenance\nuncorrupted and unmodified over wide stretches in\nwhich there are phonetic variations. These variant articulations\nin different parts of a large country where the same language\nis spoken, would, if unchecked, eventually modify the\nsense of words. Print largely prevents this from happening.\nOne can read newspapers published in Maine, California,\nVirginia, and Iowa, without noticing any significant, or, in\nmany cases, even slight differences in vocabulary or construction.\nThere are, of course, local idioms, but these persist in\nconversation, rather than in print, save where they are caught\nup and exploited for literary purposes by a Bret Harte, a\nMark Twain, or an O. Henry.\n\nCOUNTER-TENDENCIES TOWARD DIFFERENTIATION. While the\n_standard_ language does become fixed and stable, there are,\nin the daily life of different social groups, varying actual\nlanguages. Every class, or profession, every social group,\nwhether of interest, or occupation, has its slight individuality\nin articulation or vocabulary. We still observe that members\nof a family talk alike; sometimes households have literally\ntheir own household words. And on different economic\nand social levels, in different sports, intellectual, professional,\nand business pursuits, we notice slightly different \"actual\"\nlanguages. These partly overlap. The society lady, the\nbusiness man, the musician, the professor of literature, the\nmechanic, have specializations of vocabulary and construction,\nbut there is, for each of them, a great common linguistic\narea. Every individual's speech is a resultant of the various\ngroups with whom he associates. He is affected in his speech\nhabits most predominantly, of course, by his most regular\nassociates, professional and social. In consequence we still\nmark out a man, as much as anything, by the kind of language\nhe speaks. The mechanic and the man of letters are\nnot likely to be mistaken for each other, if overheard in a\nstreet car. Many literary and dramatic characters are memorable\nfor their speech habits. Such types are successful when\nthey do hit upon really significant linguistic peculiarities.\nTheir frequent failures lie in making the language of a particular\nsocial type artificially stable. No one ever talks quite\nas the conventional stage policeman, stage professor, and\nstage Englishman talk.\n\nThese actual variations in the language, as it is used by\nvarious groups who are brought up under the same standard\nlanguage, operate to prevent complete stabilization of language.\nSuch variations are remarkably influential, considering\nthe conservative influences upon language of the repeated\nand continuous suggestion made by the printed page. The\nlanguage is, in the first place, being continually enriched\nthrough increments of new words and modifications of old\nones, from the special vocabularies of trades, professions,\nsciences, and sports. Through some accidental appositeness\nto some contemporaneous situation, these may become generally\ncurrent. A recent and familiar example is the term\n\"camouflage,\" which from its technical sense of protective\ncoloration has become a universally understood name for\nmoral and intellectual pretense. The vocabulary of baseball\nhas by this time already given to the language words that\nshow promise of attaining eventual legitimacy. An increasingly\nlarge source of enrichment of the native tongue comes\nfrom the \"spontaneous generation\" of slang, which, starting\nin the linguistic whimsicality of one individual, gets caught\nup in conversation, and finds its ultimate way into the language.\nImportant instruments, certainly in the United\nStates, in spreading such neologisms are the humorous and\nsporting pages of the newspapers, in which places they not\ninfrequently originate.[1] Whether a current slang expression\nwill persist, or perish (as do thousands initiated every year),\ndepends on accidents of contemporary circumstances. If the\nexpression happens to set off aptly a contemporary situation,\nit may become very widespread until that situation, such as a\npolitical campaign, is over. But it may, like the metaphor\nof a poet, have some universal application. \"Log-rolling,\"\n\"graft,\" \"bluff,\" have come into the language to stay.\nRoosevelt's \"pussy-foot,\" and \"Ananias Club\" are, perhaps,\nremembered, but show less promise of permanency. \"Movies\"\nhas already ceased to be a neologism, its ready adoption\nillustrating a point already mentioned, namely, that a variation\nthat facilitates speech (as \"movies\" does in comparison with\n\"moving pictures,\" or \"motion pictures \") has a high potentiality\nof acceptance.\n\n[Footnote 1: H. L. Mencken in his suggestive book, _The American\nLanguage_, sees in this upshoot of phrases indigenous to the\nsoil and the temper of the American people, and of grammatical\nconstructions also, symptoms of the increasing divergence of\nthe American from the English language. That there are a large\nnumber of special expressions exclusively used in the United\nStates, and parts of the United States, that are not found in\nuse in England, goes without saying. Everyone knows that the\nEnglishman says \"lift\" where we say \"elevator,\" \"shop,\" where\nwe are likely to say \"store.\" There are significant differences\nto be found even in the casual expressions of American and\nEnglish newspapers. But it is doubtful whether the divergence\ncan go very far, in view of the constant intercommunication,\nthe rapidity of travel between the two countries, and the\npromiscuous reading of English books in America, and American\nbooks in England.]\n\nLANGUAGE AS EMOTIONAL AND LOGICAL. Since language is\nprimarily useful as an instrument of communication, it should\nideally be a direct and clean-cut representation of experience.\nIt should be as unambiguous, and immediate, as telegraphy,\nalgebra, or shorthand. But language has two functions,\nwhich interfere with one another. Words not only represent\nlogical relations; they provoke emotional responses. They\nnot only explicitly tell; they implicitly suggest. They are not\nmerely skeletons of thought; they are clothed with emotional\nvalues. They are not, in consequence, transitive vehicles of\nthought. Words should, from the standpoint of communication,\nbe mere signals to action, which should attract attention\nonly in so far as they are signals. They should be no more\nregarded as things in themselves than is the green lamp which\nsignals a locomotive engineer to go ahead. They should be as\nimmediate signals to action as, at a race, the \"Ready, set, go\"\nof the starter is to the runner. Yet this rarely happens in the\ncase of words. They frequently impede or mislead action by\narousing emotions irrelevant to their intellectual significance,\nor provoke action on the basis of emotional associations rather\nthan on their merits, so to speak, as logical representations of\nideas.\n\nTo take an example: England, as an intellectual symbol,\nmay be said to be a name given to a small island bounded by\ncertain latitudes and longitudes, having a certain distribution\nof raw materials and human beings, and a certain topography.\nIt might just as well be represented by X for all practical\npurposes. Thus in the secret code of the diplomatic corps if\nX were agreed on as the symbol for England, it would be just\nas adequate and would even save time. But England (that\nparticular sound) for a large number of individuals who have\nbeen brought up there, has become the center of deep and\nfar-reaching emotional associations, so that its utterance in\nthe presence of a particular listener may do much more than\nrepresent a given geographical fact. It may be associated\nwith all that he loves, and all that he remembers with affection;\nit may suggest landscapes that are dear to him, a familiar\nstreet and house, a particular set of friends, and a cherished\nhistorical tradition of heroic names and storied places. It\nmay arouse such ardor and devotion as Henley expresses in\nhis famous _England, my England_:\n\n  \"What have I done for you,\n     England, my England,\n   What is there I would not do,\n     England, my own?\n   With your glorious eyes austere,\n   As the Lord were walking near,\n   Whispering terrible things and dear,\n     As the song on your bugles blown,\n     England--\n     Round the world on your bugles blown!\"\n\nWords thus become powerful provocatives of emotion.\nThey become loaded with all the energies that are aroused by\nthe love, the hate, the anger, the pugnacity, the sympathy,\nfor the persons, objects, ideas, associated with them. People\nmay be set off to action by words (just as a bull is set off by a\nred rag), although the words may be as little freighted with\nmeaning as they are deeply weighted with emotion.\n\nPoets and literary men in general exploit these emotional\nvalues that cling to words. Indeed, in epithets suggesting\nillimitable vistas, inexpressible sorrows, and dim-remembered\njoys, lies half the charm of poetry.\n\n  \"Before the beginning of years,\n     There came to the making of man,\n   Time with a gift of tears,\n     Grief with a glass that ran;\n   Pleasure with pain for a leaven,\n     Summer with flowers that fell;\n   Remembrance fallen from Heaven,\n     And madness risen from Hell,\n   Strength without hands to smite,\n     Love that endures for a breath,\n   Night the shadow of light,\n     And life, the shadow of death.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Swinburne: _Atalanta in Calydon_ (David Mackay\nedition), p. 393.]\n\nSwinburne does not, to be sure, give us much information,\nand what there is is mythical, but he uses words that are fairly\nalive with suggested feeling.\n\nBut this emotional aura in which words are haloed, beautiful\nthough it is in literature, and facile though it makes the\ncommunication of common feelings, is a serious impediment\nin the use of words as effective instruments of communication.\nLanguage oscillates, to speak metaphorically, between algebra\nand music. To be useful as an instrument of thought it\nshould keep to the prosaic terseness of a telegraphic code. One\nshould be able to pass immediately from the word to the thing,\ninstead of dissolving in emotions at the associations that the\nmere sound or music of the epithet arouses. Words should,\nso to speak, tend to business, which, in their case, is the\ncommunication of ideas. But words are used in human situations.\nAnd they accumulate during the lifetime of the individual\na great mass of psychological values. Thus, to take\nanother illustration, \"brother\" is a symbol of a certain relationship\none person bears to another. \"Your\" is also a symbolic\nstatement of a relation. But if a telegram contains the\nstatement \"Your brother is dead,\" it is less a piece of information\nto act on than a deep emotional stimulus to which one\nresponds. Bacon long ago pointed out how men \"worshipped\nwords.\" As we shall see presently, he was thinking of errors\nin the intellectual manipulation of words. Perhaps as serious\nis the inveterate tendency of men to respond to the more or\nless irrelevant emotions suggested by a word, instead of to its\nstrict intellectual content. If the emotions stirred up by an\nepithet were always appropriate to the word's significance,\nthis might be an advantage. But not infrequently, as we shall\nsee immediately, words suggest and may be used to suggest\nemotions that, like \"the flowers that bloom in the spring,\"\nhave nothing to do with the case.\n\nIn practice, political and social leaders, and all who have\nto win the loyalties and support of masses of men have appreciated\nthe use--and misuse--that might be made of the\nemotional fringes of words. Words are not always used as\ndirect and transparent representations of ideas; they are as\nfrequently used as stimuli to action. A familiar instance is\nseen in the use of words in advertisements. Even the honest\nadvertiser is less interested in giving an analysis of his product\nthat will win him the rational estimation and favor of the\nreader than in creating in the reader through the skillful use of\nwords, emotions and sympathies favorable to his product.\nThe name of a talcum powder or tobacco is the subject of\nmature consideration by the advertising expert, because he\nknows that the emotional flavor of a word is more important\nin securing action than its rational significance.[1] \"Ask Dad!\nHe knows!\" does not tell us much about the article it advertises,\nbut it gives us the sense of secure trust that we had as\na boy in those mysterious things in an almost completely unknown\nworld which our fathers knew and approved.\n\n[Footnote 1: It has been pointed out that such an expression as\n\"cellar door,\" considered merely from the viewpoint of sound,\nis one of the most romantically suggestive words in the English\nlanguage. A consideration of some of the names of biscuits and\ncollars will show a similar exploitation of both the euphony and\nthe emotional fringes of words.]\n\nOn a larger scale, in political and social affairs words are\npowerful provocatives of emotion and of actions, determining\nto no small degree the allegiances and loyalties of men and\nthe satisfaction and dissatisfactions which they experience in\ncauses and leaders. A word remains the nucleus of all the\nassociations that have gathered round it in the course of an\nindividual's experience, though the object for which it stands\nmay have utterly changed or vanished. This is illustrated in\nthe history of political parties, whose personnel and principles\nchange from decade to decade, but whose names remain stable\nentities that continue to secure unfaltering respect and loyalty.\nIn the same way, the name of country has emotional\nreverberations for one who has been brought up in its traditions.\nMen trust old words to which they have become accustomed\njust as they trust old friends. To borrow an illustration\nfrom Graham Wallas, for many who call themselves\nSocialists, Socialism is something more than\n\na movement towards greater social equality, depending for its force\nupon three main factors, the growing political power of the working\nclasses, the growing social sympathy of many members of all classes,\nand the belief, based on the growing authority of scientific method,\nthat social arrangements can be transformed by means of conscious\nand deliberate contrivance.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Wallas: _Human Nature in Politics._ p. 92.]\n\nRather\n\nthe need for something for which one may love and work has created\nfor thousands of workingmen a personified Socialism: Socialism, a\nwinged goddess with stern eyes and a drawn sword, to be the hope\nof the world, and the protector of those that suffer.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 93.]\n\nPolitical leaders and advertising experts, no less than poets,\nhave recognized the importance of the suggestive power of\nwords. Half the power of propaganda lies in its arousing of\nemotions through suggestion, rather than in its effectiveness\nas an instrument of intellectual conversion.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: During the recent Liberty Loan campaigns, for\nexample, when it was of the most crucial practical importance\nthat bonds be bought, the stimuli used were not in the form of\nreasoned briefs, but rather emotional admonition:\n\"Finish the lob,\" \"Every miser helps the Kaiser,\" \"If you were\nout in No Man's Land.\"]\n\nLANGUAGE AND LOGIC. Even where words are freed from\nirrelevant emotional associations, they are still far from being\nadequate instruments of thought. To be effectively representative,\nwords must be clean-cut and definitive; they must\nstand for one object, quality, or idea. Words, if they are to\nbe genuine instruments of communication, must convey the\nsame intent or meaning to the listener as they do to the\nspeaker. If the significance attached to words is so vague\nand pulpy that they mean different things to different men,\nthey are no more useful in inquiry and communication than\nthe shock of random noise or the vague stir and flutter of\nmusic. Words must have their boundaries fixed, they must\nbe terms, fixed and stable meanings, or they will remain instruments\nof confusion rather than communication. Francis\nBacon stated succinctly the dangers involved in the use of\nwords:\n\nFor men imagine that their reason governs words, whilst in fact\nwords react upon the understanding; and this has rendered philosophy\nand the sciences sophistical and inactive. Words are generally\nformed in a popular sense, and define things by those broad\nlines which are most obvious to the vulgar mind; but when a more\nacute understanding or more diligent observation is anxious to vary\nthese lines, and adapt them more accurately to nature, words oppose\nit. Hence the great and solemn disputes of learned men terminate\nfrequently in mere disputes about words and names, in regard to\nwhich it would be better to proceed more advisedly in the first\ninstance, and to bring such disputes to a regular issue by definitions.\nSuch definitions, however, cannot remedy the evil ... for they consist\nthemselves of words, and these words produce others....\n\n[Footnote 1: _Novum Organum_. bk. I, aphorism 59.]\n\nIf, to take an extreme case, a speaker said the word \"chair,\"\nand by \"chair\" his listener understood what we commonly\nmean by the word \"table,\" communication would be impossible.\nThere must be some common agreement in the words\nused. In the case of simple terms referring to concrete\nobjects there are continual concrete reminders of the meaning\nof a word. We do not make mistakes as to the meaning of\nwords such as chair, river, stone, stove, books, forks, knives,\nbecause we so continually meet and use them. We are continually\nchecked up, and the meanings we attach to these\ncannot go far astray.\n\nBut the further terms are removed from physical objects,\nthe more opportunity is there for ambiguity. In the realm of\npolitics and morals, as Socrates was fond of pointing out, the\nchief difficulties and misunderstandings of men have come\nfrom the ambiguities of the terms they use. \"Justice,\" \"liberty,\"\n\"democracy,\" \"good,\" \"true,\" \"beautiful,\" these\nhave been immemorial bones of contention among philosophers.\nThey are accepted, taken for granted, without any\nquestion as to their meaning by the individual, until he finds,\nperhaps, in discussion that his acceptation of the term is\nentirely different from that of his opponent. Thus many an\nargument ends with \"if that's what you mean, I agree with\nyou.\" Intellectual inquiry and discussion to be fruitful must\nhave certain definitive terms to start with.\n\nDiscussion ... needs to have the ground or basis of its various\ncomponent statements brought to consciousness in such a way as to\ndefine the exact value of each. The Socratic contention is the need\ncompelling the common denominator, the common subject, underlying\nthe diversity of views to exhibit itself. It alone gives a sure\nstandard by which the claims of all assertions may be measured.\nUntil this need is met, discussion is a self-deceiving play with\nunjudged, unexamined matters, which, confused and shifting, impose\nthemselves upon us.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _Essays in Experimental Logic_, p. 200.]\n\nTo define our terms means literally to know _what_ we are\ntalking about and what others are talking about. One of the\nvalues of discussion is that it enables us more clearly to realize\nthe meaning of the words with which we constantly operate.\nA man may entertain for a long while a half-conscious definition\nof democracy as meaning political equality, and suddenly\ncome face to face with another who means by it industrial\ncooeperation and participation on the part of all workers.\nWhether he agrees with the new definition or not, at least his\nown becomes clearer by contrast.\n\n\"Science,\" wrote Condillac, \"is a well-made language.\"\nNo small part of the technique of science lies in its clear definition\nof its terms. The chemist knows what he means by an\n\"acid,\" the biologist by a \"mammal.\" Under these names\nhe classifies all objects having certain determinable properties.\nSocial science will never attain the precision of the physical\nsciences until it also attains as clear and unambiguous a\nterminology. As we shall see in the chapter on science, however,\nthe definitions in the physical sciences are arrived at through\nprecise inquiries not yet possible in the field of social phenomena.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nRACIAL AND CULTURAL CONTINUITY\n\nThat the history of the race is an unbroken continuum goes\nwithout saying. What this means in the way of transmission\nof the arts, the sciences, the religion, the ideas, the customs of\none generation to the next, we shall presently see. Cultural\ncontinuity is made possible by the more fundamental fact of\nthe actual biological continuity of the race. This biological\ncontinuity extends back, as far as we can infer from the scientific\nevidence, unbrokenly through the half million years\nsince man has left traces of his presence on earth. The continuity\nof life itself goes back to that still more remote time\nwhen man and ape were indistinguishable, indeed to that\npostulated epoch when life as it existed on earth was no more\ncomplex than it is as it now appears in the one-celled animal.\nEvolution has taught us that life, however it started, has been\none long continuous process which has increased in complexity\nfrom the unicellular animals to man.\n\nThe continuity of the human race is a contrivance of nature\nrather than of man. It is, as it were, a by-product of the sex\ninstinct. Man is endowed natively with a powerful desire for\nsex gratification, and though offspring are the chief utility of\nthis instinct, desire for reproduction is not normally its primary\nstimulus. But while the production of offspring may\nthus be said to be an incidental result of the sex instinct, human\nreproduction may be subjected to rational consideration\nand control, according as offspring are or are not considered\ndesirable.\n\nThe sense of the desirability of offspring may, in the first\nplace, be determined by social rather than individual considerations.\nTo the group or the state a large birth-rate, a\nsteady increase of the number of births over the number of\ndeaths, may be made desirable by the need of a large population\nfor agriculture, herding, or war. In primitive tribes,\nsuperiority in numbers must have been, under conditions of\ncompetitive warfare, a pronounced asset. In any imperialistic\nregime, where military conquest is highly regarded, the\nmaintenance and replenishment of large armies is a factor that\nhas entered into reflection on the question of population.\n\nIn cases where a small ruling class is benefited by the labor\nof a slave or serf class, there is, at least for the ruling classes,\na marked utility in the increase in population. It means just\nso much opportunity for increase of wealth on the part of\nlandowning and slaveholding or serf-controlling classes. In\nany country, increase in the labor supply means just so much\nmore human energy for the control of natural resources, so\nmany more units of energy for the production of national\nwealth.\n\nOffspring may come to be reflectively desired by the individual\nas a means of perpetuating property, family, or fame.\nA man cannot nonchalantly face the prospect of obliteration,\nand the biological fact of death may be circumvented by the\nequally real fact of reproduction. A man's individuality, we\nhave already had occasion to see, is enhanced by his possessions,\nand if his fortune or estate is handed down he shall not\naltogether have been obliterated from the earth. Similarly,\nwhere a family has become a great tradition, there may be a\ndeliberate desire on the part of an individual to have the\nname and tradition carried on, to keep the old lineage current\nand conspicuous among men. A man may think through his\nchildren to keep his own fame alive in posterity. At least his\nname shall be known, and if, as so often happens, a son follows\nin his father's profession, carries on his father's business,\nfarm, or philanthropies, the individual attains at least some\nmeasure of vicarious immortality. His own ways, habits,\ntraditions are carried on.\n\nA man may, moreover, come to desire offspring for the\npleasures and responsibilities of domesticity and parenthood.\nThere is a parental instinct as such, certainly very strong in\nmost women, and not lacking to some degree in most men.\nThe joys of caring for and rearing a child have too often been\ncelebrated in literature and in life by parents both young and\nold to need more explicit statement here.\n\nRESTRICTION OF POPULATION. But reproduction has been in\nhuman history promiscuous, and increase of population has\nbeen less a problem to moralists and economists than has its\nrestriction. The danger of over-increase in population was\nfirst powerfully stated by Malthus in his _Essay on Population_.\nMalthus contended in effect that population always tends to\nincrease up to the limit of subsistence, and gives indications,\nunless increase is checked, of increasing beyond it. In its\nextreme form, as it appeared in Malthus's first edition of his\n_Essay_, it ran somewhat as follows:\n\nAs things are now, there is a perpetual pressure by population on\nthe sources of food. Vice and misery cut down the number of men\nwhen they grow beyond the food. The increase of men is rapid and\neasy; the increase of food is in comparison, slow, and toilsome. They\nare to each other as a geometrical increase to an arithmetical; in\nNorth America, the population double their number in twenty years.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bonar: _Philosophy and Political Economy in their\nHistoric Relations_, p. 205.]\n\nMalthus's pessimistic prophecy of the increase of population\nbeyond the means of subsistence has been subjected to\nrefutation by various causes. For one thing, among civilized\nraces at least, the birth-rate is declining. Again, intensive\nagriculture has vastly increased the possibilities of our natural\nresources. On this point, writes Kropotkin, who is better\nacquainted with agricultural conditions than are most social\nreformers:\n\nThey [market gardeners] have created a totally new agriculture.\nThey smile when we boast about the rotation system having permitted\nus to take from the field one crop every year, or four crops\neach three years, because their ambition is to have six and nine crape\nfrom the very same plot of land during the twelve months. They\ndo not understand our talk about good and bad soils, because they\nmake the soils themselves, and make it in such quantities as to be\ncompelled yearly to seed some of it; otherwise it would raise up the\nlevels of their gardens by half an inch, every year. They aim at\ncropping, not five or six tons of grass on the acre as we do, but from\nfifty to one hundred tons of various vegetables on the same space;\nnot 51 pounds worth of hay, but 100 pounds worth of vegetables of\nthe plainest description, cabbages and carrots.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Kropotkin: _Fields, Factories, and Workshops_, p. 74.]\n\nOf intensive industry the same might be said. Where formerly\na man could produce only enough for one man's consumption,\nunder conditions of machine production one man's\nwork can supply quantities sufficient for many. With a\ndeclining birth-rate and the vastly increased productivity of\nindustry and agriculture, there is a greatly reduced danger of\nthe population growing beyond their possible sustenance by\nthe available food supply.\n\nUnder certain economic and social conditions there are\nmarked variations in the birth-rate. This may be due to\nvarious causes which are, by different writers, variously\nassigned. The variation of the birth-rate among different\nclasses is again a matter of common observation and statistical\ncertainty. Higher standards of living are found regularly\nto be correlated with a decrease in the number of children in\na family. An important factor in the voluntary restriction of\npopulation is the desire to give children that are brought\ninto the world adequate education, environment, and social\nopportunity.\n\nCULTURAL CONTINUITY. To the very young the world seems an\nunprecedented novelty. It seems scarcely older than their\nown memories, which are few and short, and their own experience,\nwhich is necessarily limited and confined. Through\neducation our experience becomes immeasurably widened; we\ncan vicariously live through the experiences of other people\nthrough hearing or reading, and can acquire the racial memory\nwhich goes back as far as the records of history, or\nanthropological research. As we grow older we come to learn\nthat our civilization has a history; that our present has a past.\nThis past extends back through the countless aeons before\nman walked upright. The past of human life on earth goes\nback itself over nearly half a million years. With this long\npast, the present is continuous, being as it were, additional\npages in process of being written.\n\nThe physical continuity of the race is insured, as we have\njust seen, by a mechanism, which, though it may be subjected\nto rational consideration, is instinctive in its operation. The\nhuman beings that people the earth to-day are offspring of\nhuman ancestors reaching back to the appearance of the\nhuman animal in the long process of the evolution of life on\nearth. So far as we can see, posterity will be for countless\ngenerations physically similar to ourselves, as they certainly\nwill, unless all records or evidences of the fact are obscured,\ntrace their ancestry continuously back to us.\n\nNot only is there continuity of physical descent, however,\nbut continuity of cultural achievement. The past, in any\nliteral temporal sense, is over and done with. The Romans\nare physically dead, as are the generations of barbarians of\nthe Dark Ages, and all the inhabitants of mediaeval and\nmodern Europe, save our own contemporaries. Yesterdays\nare irrevocably over. The past, in any real sense, exists\nonly in the form of achievements that have been handed down\nto us from previous generations. The only parts of the past\nthat survive physically are the actual material products and\nachievements of bygone generations, the temples and the\ncathedrals, the sculptures and the manuscripts, the roads\nand the relics of earlier civilizations. Even these exist in the\npresent; they are evidences, memorials, mementos of the\npast. These heritages from past civilizations may be interesting,\nintrinsically, as in the case of paintings and statues, or\nuseful, as in the case of roads, reservoirs, or harbors.\n\nBut we inherit the past in a more vital sense. We inherit\nways of thought and action, social systems, scientific and\nindustrial methods, manners and morals, educational bequests\nand ideals, all that we have and are. Without these, each\ngeneration would have to start anew. If the whole of existing\nsociety were destroyed, and a newborn generation could be\nmiraculously preserved to maturity, its members would have\nto start on the same level, with the same ignorances, uncertainties,\nand impotences as primitive savages.\n\nIn order to make the nature and variety of our abject dependence\non the past clear, we have only to consider our language, our laws,\nour political and social institutions, our knowledge and education,\nour view of this world and the next, our tastes and the means of\ngratifying them. On every hand the past dominates and controls\nus, for the most part unconsciously and without protest on our part.\nWe are in the main its willing adherents. The imagination of the\nmost radically-minded cannot transcend any great part of the ideas\nand customs transmitted to him. When once we grasp this truth,\nwe shall, according to our mood, humbly congratulate ourselves\nthat ... we are permitted to stand on the giant's shoulders, and\nenjoy an outlook that would be quite hidden to us, if we had to trust\nto our own short legs; or we may resentfully chafe at our bonds and,\nlike Prometheus, vainly strive to wrest ourselves from the rock of the\npast, in our eagerness to bring relief to the suffering children of men.\n\nIn any case, whether we bless or curse the past, we are inevitably\nits offspring, and it makes us its own long before we realize it. It is,\nindeed, almost all that we can have.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Robinson: _The New History_, pp. 256-57.]\n\nThe cultural achievements of the past, which we inherit\nchiefly as social habits, are obviously not transmitted to us\nphysically, as are the original human traits with which this\nvolume has so far been chiefly concerned. They are not in our\nblood; they are acquired like other habits, through contact\nwith others and through repeated practice.\n\nWe are thus to a very large extent conditioned by the past.\nIt is as if we had inherited a fortune composed of various kinds\nof properties, houses, books, automobiles, warehouses, musical\ninstruments, and in addition, trade concessions, business\nsecrets, formulaes, methods, and good-will. Our activities will\nbe limited in measure by the extent of the property, its constituent\nitems, and the repair in which we keep it. We may\nsquander or misinvest our principal, as when we use scientific\nknowledge for dangerous or dubious aims, for example, for\nconquest or rapine. We may add to it, as in the development\nof the sciences and industrial arts. We may, so to speak, live\non the income. Such is the case when a society ceases to be\nprogressive, and fails to add anything to a highly developed\ntraditional culture, as happened strikingly in the case of\nChina. Again we may have inherited \"white elephants,\"\nwhich may be of absolutely no use to us, encumbrances of\nwhich we cannot easily rid ourselves, influential ideas which\nare no longer adequate to our present situation, obsolete\nemotions, methods, or institutions. We may allow our cultural\ninheritance, through bad education, to fall into disrepair and\ndecay.\n\nSince we are so dependent on the past, our attitude toward\nit, which in turn determines the use we make of it, is of the most\ncrucial significance. The several characteristic and varying\nattitudes toward the past which are so markedly current are\nnot determined solely by logical considerations. For individuals\nand social groups particular features of their heritage have\ngreat emotional associations. The living past is composed of\nhabits, traditions, values, which are vivid and vital issues to\nthose who practice them. Traditions, customs, or social\nmethods come to have intrinsic values; they become the center\nof deep attachments and strong passion. They are a rich\nelement of the atmosphere of the present; they are woven into\nthe intimate fabric of our lives. The awe which we feel in\ngreat cathedrals is historical as well as religious. Those vast\nsolemn arches are the voices of the past speaking to us. The\nmoral appeal of tradition appears with beautiful clarity in the\nopening chapter of Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_.\n\nA sense of conscious powers external to ourselves, pleased or\ndispleased by the right or wrong conduct of every circumstance of daily\nlife--that _conscience_, of which the old Roman religion was a formal,\nhabitual recognition, had become in him a powerful current of feeling\nand observance. The old-fashioned, partly Puritanic awe, the power\nof which Wordsworth noted and valued so highly in a northern\npeasantry, had its counterpart in the feeling of the Roman lad, as he\npassed the spot, \"touched of heaven,\" where the lightning had\nstruck dead an aged laborer in the field: an upright stone, still with\nmoldering garlands about it, marked the place. He brought to that\nsystem of symbolic usages, and they in turn developed in him further,\na great seriousness, an impressibility to the sacredness of time, of life\nand its events, and the circumstances of family fellowship--of such\ngifts to men as fire, water, the earth from labor on which they live,\nreally understood by him as gifts--a sense of religious responsibility\nin the reception of them. It was a religion for the most part of fear,\nof multitudinous scruples, of a year-long burden of forms.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Walter Pater: _Marius the Epicurean_ (A. L. Burt\nedition), pp. 3-4.]\n\nTo the past, as it is made familiar to us through song, study,\nand traditional practice, we may experience a piety amounting\nalmost to religious devotion. In some individuals and in\nsome nations, this sense for tradition is very strong.\n\nEvery one has felt more or less keenly this sense of being a\nlink in a great tradition, whether of a college, family, or country.\nSometimes this sense for tradition takes an aesthetic form,\nas in the case of ritual, whether social or religious. Old streets,\nivied towers, ancient rooms, become symbols of great and\ndignified achievements; ceremonies come to be invested with\na serious beauty and memorable charm. They become reminders\nof a \"torch to be carried on,\" of a spirit to be cherished\nand kept alive, of a history to be carried on or a purpose\nor an ideal to be fulfilled. As we shall see in a moment, this\nsense for the past, which, as Santayana says, makes a man\nloyal to the sources of his being, has both its virtues and vices.\nIt is of immense value in preserving continuity and cultural\nintegration, in keeping many men continuously moving toward\na single fixed end. It may also wrap dangerously irrelevant\nhabits and institutions in a saving--and illusive--halo.\n\nThere are, on the other hand, individuals with very little\nsense for tradition. This may be accounted for in some cases\nby a marked aesthetic insensibility, which sees in ritual, ceremony,\nor habit, merely the literal, without any appreciation\nat all of its symbolic significance.[1] In other cases, individuals\nare unsusceptible and hostile to tradition, because they\nhave themselves been socially disinherited. This is illustrated\nnot infrequently in the case of foreigners who, for one reason\nor another, have left and lost interest in their native land, and\nbecome men without a country.\n\n[Footnote 1: This is illustrated by the crass excesses of certain\nradical satirists of religious forms. Those who are the enemies of\nreligion for economic, social, or intellectualistic reasons combine\na singular sense of the literal absurdities of religious forms\nwith a marked insensibility to their symbolic values. One may find\ninteresting examples, from Voltaire to Robert Ingersoll.]\n\nThere are others by temperament rebellious and iconoclastic,\nwho combine a keen sense of present difficulties and problems\nwith small reverence, use for, or interest in the past, and\nsmall imaginative sympathy with it. The past is to them a\n\"sea of errors.\" They regard all past achievements as bad\nscribblings which must be erased, so that we may start with\na clean slate. There have been included among such, great\nhistorical reformers. Bentham's enthusiasm for progress led\nhim into most intemperate attacks on history and historical\nmethod. The most noted of the eighteenth-century philosophers\nsaw nothing but evil in tradition. Such sentiments\nwere echoed in the early nineteenth century by Shelley, Godwin,\nand their circle, as expressed, for example, in Shelley's\n\"Hellas\":\n\n  \"The world's great age begins anew,\n     The golden years return,\n   The earth doth like a snake renew\n     Her winter weeds outworn;\n   Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,\n   Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.\n      .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .\n  \"Another Athens shall arise,\n     And to remoter time\n   Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,\n     The splendor of its prime;\n   And leave, if nought so bright can live,\n   All earth can take or Heaven can give.\"\n\nIt is not surprising that men with an eye fixed on the future\nshould develop a contempt or an obliviousness of the past.\nUtopians nearly always start with \"a world various and beautiful\nand new.\"\n\nPerhaps the chief ingredient in such discounting of all past\nhistory is the rebel temperament which wants to break away\nfrom what it regards as the chains, the dead weight, the ruts of\ntradition. It cheerfully says, \"Nous changerons tout cela,\"\nand does not stop to discriminate between the _roads_ and the\n_ruts_ that have been made by people in the past.\n\nThese two temperaments,[1] play a large part in determining\nattitudes toward the past. The one regards with awe and\nreverence past achievement, and rests his faith on the\nexperiments which have been tested and proved by time. The\nother, to state the position extremely, regards each day as the\npossible glorious dawn of a completely new world. The first\nattitude, when intemperately preached and practiced, becomes\nan uncritical veneration of the past; the second, an uncritical\ndisparagement. We shall briefly examine each.\n\n[Footnote 1: One is reminded of the song of the sentry before the\nHouse of Parliament in Gilbert and Sullivan's \"Iolanthe\";\n\n  \"'T is strange how Nature doth contrive\n     That every little boy or gal,\n   That's born into the world alive,\n     Is either a little Liberal,\n       Or else a little Conservative!\"]\n\nUNCRITICAL VENERATION OF THE PAST. The extreme form of\nuncritical veneration of the past may be said to take the position\nthat old things are good simply because they are _old_; new\nthings are evil simply because they are _new_. Institutions,\nIdeas, Customs are, like wines, supposed to attain quality\nwith age. A custom, a law, a code of morals is defined or\nmaintained on the ground of its ancient--and honorable--history,\nof the great span of years during which it has been\ncurrent, of the generation after generation that has lived\nunder its auspices. The ways of our fathers, the old time-tested\nways, these, we are told, must be our ways.\n\nThe psychological origins of this position have in part been\ndiscussed. There is in some individuals a highly developed\nsentiment and reverence for tradition as such, and an aesthetic\nsensibility to the mellowness, ripeness, and charm that so often\naccompany old things.[1] The new seems, as it often is, loud,\nbrassy, vulgar, and hard. But there are other and equally\nimportant causes. Men trust and cherish the familiar in\nideas, customs, and social organization, just as they trust and\ncherish old friends. They know what to expect from them;\nthey have their well-noted excellences, and, while they have\ntheir defects, these also are definitely known and can be\ndefinitely reckoned with. The old order may not be perfect, but\nit is an order, and an order whose outlines and possibilities\nare known and predictable. Change means change to the\nunaccustomed and the unfamiliar. And the unaccustomed\nand the unfamiliar, as already pointed out, normally arouse\nfear. One of the conventional phrases (which has become\nconventional because it is accurate) with which changes have\nbeen greeted is the _cliche_, \"we view with alarm.\" No small\npart of genuine opposition to change comes from the cautious\nand conscientious types of mind which will not sanction the\nreckless taking of chances, especially where the interests of\nlarge groups are concerned, which want to know precisely\nwhere a change will lead. Such a mind holds off from committing\nsociety to making changes that will put a situation\nbeyond control and lead to unforeseen and uncontrollable\ndangers. Especially is this felt by the administrator, by the\nman who has experience with the difficulties of putting ideas\nin practice, who knows how vastly more difficult it is to\noperate with people than with paper.[2] The man of affairs knows\nhow easy it is to check and change ideas in one's mind, but\nknows also the uncontrollable momentum of ideas when they\nare acted upon by vast numbers of men.\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Oxford,\" said a distinguished visitor to that\nvenerable institution, \"looks just as it ought to look.\" And\none is reminded of the story of the American lady who, admiring\nthe smooth lawns at Oxford, asked a gardener how they managed\nto give them that velvet gloss. \"We roll them, madam,\" he said,\n\"for eight hundred years.\"]\n\n[Footnote 2: Thus writes Catharine II, in a letter to Diderot,\nthe French philosopher and humanitarian: \"M. Diderot, in all\nyour schemes of reform, you entirely forget the difference in\nour position; you work only on paper, which endures all things;\nit offers no obstacle, either to your pen or your imagination.\nBut I, poor Empress that I am, work on a far more delicate and\nirritable substance, the human skin.\"]\n\nAgain, the maintenance of ways that have been practiced\nin the past has a large hold over people, for reasons already\ndiscussed in the chapter on Habit. The old and the accustomed\nare comfortable and facile; change means inconvenience\nand frustration of habitual desires. This is in part\nthe explanation of the increasing conservatism of men as\nthey grow older. Not only do they have a keener sense of\nthe difficulty of introducing changes, but their own fixed\nhabits of mind and emotion make part of the difficulty.\nThey like the old ways and persist in them just as they like\nand keep old books, old friends, and old shoes.\n\nROMANTIC IDEALIZATION OF THE PAST. Reverence for the past\nmay also be due to a romantic idealization of it. In such\ncases, it is not an interest in maintaining the present order;\nit is rather a contempt for the present and wistful yearning\nfor the \"good old days.\" Everyone indulges more or less\nin such idealization. Such halos are made possible because\nwe retain the pleasant rather than the painful and dreary\naspects of our past experience. The college alumnus returning\nto the campus tells of the since unsurpassed intellectual\nand athletic feats of the freshman class of which he was a\nmember. The elderly gentleman sighs over his newspaper\nat the bad ways into which the world is degenerating, and\nyearns for the old days when the plays were better,\nconversation more interesting, houses more comfortable, and\nmen more loyal. In similar trivial instances we are all\ninclined to indulge in such mythology. The universality and\nage of this tendency has been well described by a student of\nGreek civilization.\n\nThis is the belief of the old school of every age--there was once a\n\"good\" time; and it matters not at all in the study of moral ideals\nthat no such time can be shown to have existed. The men of the\nfourth century [B.C.] say that it was in the fifth; those of the fifth\nsay it was in the sixth; and so on infinitely. The same ideal was at\nwork when William Morris looked to the thirteenth century, forgetting\nthat Dante looked to a still earlier period; and both forgot that\nthe men of that earlier period said the same--\"not now, indeed,\nbut before us men were happy.\" So simpler men incline to say that\ntheir grandfathers were fine fellows, but the \"old college is going to\nthe dogs,\" or \"the House of Commons is not what it was once,\" for\nreverence and faith and manliness once ruled the world. The old\nschool lives upon an ignorance of history; it is genuinely moved by\na simple moral ideal of life and character which its own imagination\nhas created. And when evil becomes obvious, it is the new-fangled\nnotions that are to blame. \"Trying new dodges\" has brought\nAthens down in the world--as Aristophanes in 393 B.C. makes his\nprotagonist say:\n\n  \"And would it not have saved the Athenian state,\n   If she kept to what was good, and did not try\n   Always some new plan?\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: C. Delisle Burns: _Greek Ideals_, pp. 118-19.]\n\nOn a large scale the romantic idealization of the past has\nbeen made into a philosophy of history. The \"golden age,\"\ninstead of being put in a roseate and remote future, is put in an\nequally remote and roseate past. The Greek legends were\nfond of a golden age when the gods moved among men. The\nGarden of Eden is the Christian apotheosis of the world's\nperfections. Various philosophers have pointed out the\nfallacy of finding such a mythological locus for our ideals, and\nevolution and the general revelations of history have indicated\nthe completely mythical character of the golden age. History\nmay, in general, be said to reveal that, whatever the\nimperfections of our own age, we have immeasurably improved\nin many pronounced respects over conditions earlier\nthan our own. The idealized picture of the Middle Ages with\nits guardsmen and its courtly knights and ladies, is coming,\nwith increasing historical information, to seem insignificant\nand untrue in comparison with the unspeakable hardships of\nthe mass of men, the evil social and sanitary conditions, the\nplagues and pestilences which were as much a part of it. The\npicture of the ideally gentle and benevolent attitude of the\nmaster to his slaves is by no means regarded as a typical picture\nof conditions of slave labor in the South. We know,\npositively, on the other hand, that our medicine and surgery,\nour scientific and industrial methods, our production and our\nresources are incomparably greater than those of any earlier\nperiod in history, as are the possibilities of the control of\nNature still unrealized.\n\nIf there were time I might try to show that progress in knowledge\nand its application to the alleviation of man's estate is more rapid\nnow than ever before. But this scarcely needs formal proof; it is so\nobvious. A few years ago an eminent French _litterateur_, Brunetiere,\ndeclared science bankrupt. This was on the eve of the discoveries\nin radio-activity which have opened up great vistas of possible human\nreadjustments if we could but learn to control and utilize the\ninexhaustible sources of power that lie in the atom. It was on the eve\nof the discovery of the function of the white blood corpuscles, which\nclears the way for indefinite advance in medicine. Only a poor\ndiscouraged man of letters could think for a moment that science was\nbankrupt. No one entitled to an opinion on the subject believes\nthat we have made more than a beginning in penetrating the secrets\nof the organic and inorganic worlds.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Robinson: _The New History_, p. 262.]\n\nEven in the face of these facts, reverence for the past may\namount to such religious veneration that change may come\nliterally to be regarded as sacrilegious. In primitive tribes\nthe reasons for this insistence are clear. Rites and rituals are\nused to secure the favor of the gods and any departure from\ntraditional customs is looked upon as fraught with actual danger.\nBut the past, as it lives in established forms and practices,\nis still by many, and in highly advanced societies, almost\nreligiously cherished, sustained, and perpetuated. Every\ncollege, religion, and country has its traditional forms of life\nand practice, any infringement of which is regarded with the\ngravest disapproval.[2] In social life, generally, there are fixed\nforms for given occasions, forms of address, greeting, conversation,\nand clothes, all that commonly goes under the name of\nthe \"conventions\" or \"proprieties.\" In law, as is well known,\nthere is developed sometimes to an almost absurd degree a\nritual of procedure. In religion, traditional values become\nembodied in fixed rituals of music, processional, and prayer.\nIn education, especially higher education, there has developed\na fairly stable tradition in the granting of degrees, the\nelements of a curriculum, the forms of examination, and the\nlike. To certain types of mind, fixed forms in all these fields\nhave come to be regarded as of intrinsic importance. Love\nof \"good form,\" the classicist point of view at its best, may\ndevelop into sheer pedantry and Pharisaism, an insistence on\nthe fixed form when the intent is changed or forgotten, a regard\nfor the letter rather than the spirit of the law. In a large\nnumber of cases, the fixed modes of life and practice which\nare our inheritance come to be regarded as symbols of eternal\nand changeless values. Thus many highly intelligent men\nfind ritual in religion and traditional customs in education\nor in social life freighted with symbolic significance, and any\ninfringement of them as almost sacrilegious in character.\n\n[Footnote 2: It has been said that a custom repeated on a college\ncampus two years in succession constitutes a tradition.]\n\nCHANGE SYNONYMOUS WITH EVIL. Change, again, may be discouraged\nby those who hold, with more or less sincerity, that\nno good can come of it. Such a position may, and frequently\nis, maintained by those in whom fortunate accident of birth,\nfavored social position, exuberant optimism, or a stanch and\nresilient faith, induces the belief that the social order and\nsocial practices, education, law, customs, economic conditions,\nscience, art, _et al._, are completely satisfactory. Like\nPippa, in Browning's poem, they are satisfied that \"God's\nin His Heaven; all's right with the world.\" That there\nare no imperfections, in manners, politics, or morals, in\nour present social order, that there are no improvements\nwhich good-will, energy, and intelligence can effect, few will\nmaintain without qualification. To do so implies, when sincere,\nextraordinary blindness to the facts, for example, of\npoverty and disease, which, though they do not happen to\ntouch a particular individual, are patent and ubiquitous\nenough. In the face of undeniable evils the position that the\nways we have inherited are completely adequate to our\ncontemporary problems cannot be ingenuously maintained.\n\nThe position more generally expounded by the opponents of\nchange is that our present modes of life give us the best\npossible results, considering the limitations of nature and human\nnature, and that the customs, institutions, and ideas we now\nhave are the fruits of a ripe, a mellow, and a time-tested\nwisdom, that any radical innovations would, on the whole, put\nus in a worse position than that in which we find ourselves.\nPersons taking this attitude discount every suggested\nimprovement on the ground that, even though intrinsically\ngood, it will bring a host of inevitable evils with it, and that,\nall things considered, we had better leave well enough alone.\nSome extreme exponents of this doctrine maintain, as did\nsome of the Hebrew prophets, that whatever evils are ours are\nour own fault, that fault consisting in a lapse from the\naccustomed ancient ways. To continue without abatement the\nestablished ways is the surest road to happiness. Education,\nsocial customs, political organization, these are sound and\nwholesome as they are; and modification means interference\nwith the works and processes of reason.\n\n  \"All Nature is but art, unknown to thee;\n   All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;\n   All discord, harmony not understood;\n   All partial evil, universal good;\n   And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,\n   One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Pope: _Essay on Man_, epistle I, lines 289 ff.]\n\nLater Hegel developed an elaborate philosophy of history\nin which he tried to demonstrate that the history of the past\nwas one long exemplification of reason; that each event that\nhappened was part of the great cosmic scheme, an indispensable\nsyllable of the Divine Idea as it moved through history;\neach action part of the increasing purpose that runs through\nthe ages. That these contentions are, to say the least, extreme,\nwill appear presently in the statement of the opposite\nposition which sees nothing in the past but a long succession\nof blunders, evils, and stupidities.\n\n\"ORDER\" _VERSUS_ CHANGE. Finally, genuine opposition to\nchange arises from those who fear the instability which it implies.\nContinuation in established ways makes for integration,\ndiscipline, and stability. It makes possible the converging\nof means toward an end, it cumulates efforts resulting\nin definite achievement. In so far as we do accomplish anything\nof significance, we must move along stable and determinate\nlines; we must be able to count on the future.[1] It has\nalready been pointed out that it is man's docility to learning,\nhis long period of infancy[2] which makes his eventual achievements\npossible. But it is man's persistence in the habits\nhe has acquired that is in part responsible for his progress.\nIn individual life, the utility of persistence, and concentration\nof effort upon a definite piece of work, have been sufficiently\nstressed by moralists, both popular and professional.\n\"A rolling stone gathers no moss,\" is as true psychologically\nas it is physically. Any outstanding accomplishment,\nwhether in business, scholarship, science, or literature,\ndemands perseverance in definite courses of action. We are\ninclined, and usually with reason, to suspect the effectiveness\nof a man who has half a dozen professions in half as\nmany years. Such vacillations produce whimsical and scattered\nmovements; but they are fruitless in results; they literally\n\"get nowhere.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: The uncertainty that business men feel during a\npresidential campaign is an illustration.]\n\n[Footnote 2: See _ante_, p. 10.]\n\nJust as, in the case of individuals, any significant achievements\nrequire persistent convergence of means toward a definite\nend, so is it in the case of social groups. No great business\norganizations are built up through continual variations\nof policy. Similarly, in the building up of a university, a\ngovernment department, a state, or a social order, consecutive\nand disciplined persistence in established ways is a requisite\nof progress. Without such continuous organization of efforts\ntoward fixed goals, action becomes frivolous and fragmentary,\na wind along a waste. The history of the English people has\nelicited the admiration of philosophers and historians because\nit has been such a gradual and deliberate movement, such a\nmeasured and certain progress toward political and social\nfreedom. To those who appreciate the value of unity of\naction, of the assured fruits of cumulative and consistent\naction along a given path, change as such seems fraught with\ndanger. Nor is it specific dangers they fear so much as the\nloss of moral fiber, the scattering of energies, the waste and\nfutility that are frequently the net result of casual driftings\nwith every wind that blows. No one has more eloquently\nexpressed this view than Edmund Burke in his _Reflections on\nthe French Revolution:_\n\nBut one of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth\nand the laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary possessors\nand life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received\nfrom their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act\nas if they were the entire masters; that they should think it among\ntheir rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance,\nby destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric of their\nsociety; hazarding to leave to those who come after them a ruin\ninstead of a habitation--and teaching these successors as little to\nrespect their contrivances, as they had themselves respected the\ninstitutions of their forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of\nchanging the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways, as\nthere are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity\nof the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could\nlink with the other. Men would be little better than the flies of a\nsummer.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten\nthousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice,\nwe have consecrated the state, that no man should approach\nto look into its defects or corruptions, but with due caution; that he\nshould never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion;\nthat he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds\nof a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Edmund Burke: _Reflections on the French Revolution_\n(George Bell & Sons, 1888), pp. 366-68.]\n\nPERSONAL OR CLASS OPPOSITION TO CHANGE. Sincere fear of the\npossible evils of novelty in the disorganization which it promotes,\nhabituation to established ways, or a sentimental and\naesthetic allegiance to them--all these are factors that determine\ngenuine opposition to change. But aversion to change\nmay be generalized into a philosophical attitude by those who\nhave special personal or class reasons for disliking specific\nchanges. The hand-workers in the early nineteenth century\nstoned the machinists and machines which threw them out of\nemployment. Every change does discommode some class or\nclasses of persons, and part of the opposition to specific\nchanges comes from those whom they would adversely affect.\nIt is not surprising that liquor interests should be opposed to\nprohibition, that theatrical managers should have protested\nagainst a tax on the theater, or those with great incomes\nagainst an excess profits tax. Selfish opposition to specific\nchanges is, indeed, frequently veiled in the disguise of plausible\nreasons for opposition to change in general. Those who\nfear the results to their own personal or class interests of some\nof the radical social legislation of our own day may disguise\nthose more or less consciously realized motives under the form\nof impartial philosophical opposition to social change in general.\nThey may find philosophical justification for maintaining\nunmodified an established order which redounds to their\nown advantage.\n\nUNCRITICAL DISPARAGEMENT. The other extreme is represented\nby the position that old things are bad because they\nare _old_, and new things good because they are _new_. This is\nillustrated in an extreme though trivial form by faddists of\nevery kind. There are people who chiefly pride themselves\non being up-to-the-minute, and exhibit an almost pathological\nfear of being behind the times. This thirst for the novel is\nseen on various levels, from those who wear the newest styles,\nand dine at the newest hotels, to those who make a point of\nreading only the newest books, hearing only the newest music,\nand discussing the latest theories. For such temperaments,\nand more or less to most people, there is an intrinsic glamour\nabout the word \"new.\" The physical qualities that are so\noften associated with newness are carried over into social and\nintellectual matters, where they do not so completely apply.\nThe new is bright and unfrayed; it has not yet suffered senility\nand decay. The new is smart and striking; it catches the\neye and the attention. Just as old things are dog-eared, worn,\nand tattered, so are old institutions, habits, and ideas. Just\nas we want the newest books and phonographs, the latest\nconveniences in housing and sanitation, so we want the latest\nmodernities in political, social, and intellectual matters.\nEspecially about new ideas, there is the freshness and infinite\npossibility of youth; every new idea is as yet an unbroken\npromise. It has not been subjected to the frustrations,\ndisillusions, and compromises to which all theory is subjected in\nthe world of action.[1] Every new idea is an experiment, a\npossibility, a hope. It may be the long-awaited miracle; it\nmay be the prayed-for solution of all our difficulties.\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a\nperpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible; but the\nworld of pure reason knows no compromise, no practical limitations,\nno barrier to the creative activity embodying in splendid edifices\nthe passionate aspiration after the perfect from which all great\nwork springs. Remote from human passions, remote even from the\npitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created\nan ordered cosmos, where pure thought can dwell as in its natural\nhome, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape\nfrom the dreary exile of the actual world.\" (Bertrand Russell:\n_Mysticism and Logic_, pp. 60-61.)]\n\nThis susceptibility to the novel is peculiarly displayed by\nthose who see nothing but evil in the old. Against the outworn\npast with its disillusions, its errors, its evils, and its\nhypocrisies, the new shines out in glorious contrast. There\nare persons who combine a very genuine sense of present evils\nwith a resilient belief in the possibilities of change. The\nclassic instance of this is seen in the Messianic idea. Even in\nthe worst of times, the pious Jew could count on the saving\nappearance of the Messiah. Every Utopian is as sure of the\nsalvation promised by his prize solution as he is of the evils\nwhich it is intended to rectify. The ardent Socialist may\nequally divide his energies between pointing out the evils of\nthe capitalist system, and the certain bliss of his Socialist\nrepublic. The past is nothing but a festering mass of evils;\nindustry is nothing but slavery, religion nothing but superstition,\neducation nothing but dead traditional formalism, social\nlife nothing but hypocrisy.\n\nWhere the past is so darkly conceived, there comes an uncritical\nwelcoming of anything new, anything that will take\nmen away from it. Nothing could be worse than the present\nor past; anything as yet untried may be better. As Karl\nMarx told the working classes: \"The proletarians have\nnothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.\"\n\nThe past is, by its ruthless critics, conceived not infrequently\nas enchaining or enslaving. Particularly, the radical\ninsists, are men enslaved by habits of thought, feeling, and\naction which are totally inadequate to our present problems\nand difficulties. War-like emotions, he points out, may have\nbeen useful in an earlier civilization, but are now a total\ndisutility. Belief in magic may have been an asset to primitive\nman in his ignorance; it is not to modern man with his science.\nThe institution of private property may have had its values\nin building up civilization; its utility is over. We still make\nstereotyped and archaic reactions where the situation has\nutterly changed. The institutions, ideas, and habits of the\npast are at once so compelling and so obsolete that we must\nmake a clear break with the past; we must start with a clean\nslate. To continue, so we are told, is merely going further\nand further along the wrong paths; it is like continuing with\na broken engine, or without a rudder.\n\nCRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE PAST. That both positions just\ndiscussed are extreme, goes without saying. The past is\nneither all good nor all bad; it has achieved as well as it has\nerred. But it is, in any case, all we have. Without the\nknowledge, the customs, the institutions we have inherited,\nwe should have no advantage at all over our ancestors of ten\nthousand years ago. Biologically we have not changed. The\npast is our basic material. Each generation starts with\nwhat it finds in the way of cultural achievement, and builds\nupon that.\n\nAntiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should take a stand\nthereupon, and discover what is the best way; but when the\ndiscovery is well-taken, then to make progression. And to speak truly,\n_antiquitas soeculi iuventus mundi_. These times are the ancient times,\nwhen the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient\n_ordine retrogrado_, by a computation backwards from ourselves.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bacon: _The Advancement of Learning_,\nCollected Works, vol. I, p. 172.]\n\nThe past, save what we discover in our generation, is our\nsole storehouse of materials. And a very small part of our\nuseful knowledge in the industrial arts, in science, in social\norganization and administration does come from our own\ngeneration. It is the accumulated experience of generations\nof men. We can, out of this mass of materials, select whatever\nis useful in clarifying the issues of the present, whatever\nhelps us to accomplish those purposes which we have, after\ncritical consideration, decided to be useful and serviceable.\nIf, for example, we decide to build a bridge, it is of importance\nthat we know all that men have in the past discovered of\nmechanical relations and industrial art which will enable us to\nbuild a bridge well. If we want to establish an educational\nsystem in some backward portion of the world, it is useful for\nus to know what methods men have used in similar situations.\nWhatever we decide to do, we are so much the better off, if\nwe know all that men before us have learned in analogous\ninstances.\n\nBut to use the inheritance of the past implies an analysis\nof present problems, and an acceptance of the course to be\npursued. The experience of the past, the heritage of knowledge\nthat has come down to us, is so various and extensive\nthat choices must be made. The historian in writing even\na comprehensive history of a country must still make choices\nand omissions. Similarly, in using knowledge inherited from\nthe past as materials, we must have specific problems to\ngovern our choice. The statistician could collect innumerable\nstatistics; he collects only those which have a bearing on his\nsubject. The lawyer searches out that part of the legal tradition\nwhich is applicable to his own case. Without some lead\nor clue we should lose ourselves in the multifariousness of\ntransmitted knowledge at our disposal.\n\nTo use the past as an instrument for furthering present\npurposes implies neither veneration nor disparagement of it.\nWe neither condemn nor praise the past as a whole; we regard\nspecific institutions, customs, or ideas, as adequate or\ninadequate, as serviceable or disserviceable. In general, it may be\nsaid that the value of any still extant part of the past, be it a\nwork of art, a habit, a tradition, has very little to do with its\norigin. The instinct of eating is still useful though it has a\nlong history. The works of the Old Masters are not really\ngreat because they are old, nor are the works of contemporaries\neither good or bad because they are new. Man himself is\nto be estimated no differently, whether he is descended from\nthe angels or the apes.\n\nIf we would appreciate our own morals and religion we are often\nadvised to consider primitive man and his institutions. If we would\nevaluate marriage or property, we are often directed to study our\nremote ancestors.... Such considerations as these have diverse\neffects according to our temperaments. They quite uniformly produce,\nhowever, disillusionment and sophistication.... This exaltation\nof the past, as the ancestral home of all that we are, may make\nus regret our loss of illusions and our disconcerting enlightenment....\nWe may break with the past, scorn an inheritance so redolent of\nblood and lust and superstition, revel in an emancipation unguided\nby the discipline of centuries, strive to create a new world every day,\nand imagine that, at last, we have begun to make progress.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Woodbridge: _The Purpose of History_, p. 72.]\n\nThe standards of value of the things we have or do or say,\nthe approvals or disapprovals we should logically accord them,\nare determined not by their history, not by their past, but by\ntheir uses in the living present in which we live. An institution\nmay have served the purposes of a bygone generation; it\ndoes not follow that it thereby serves our own. The reverse\nmay similarly be true. For us the specific features of our\nsocial inheritance depend upon the ends or purposes which we\nreflectively decide upon and accept. Whether capital punishment\nis good or evil; whether private property is an adequate\nor inadequate institution for social welfare; whether marriage\nis a perfect or an imperfect institution; whether collective\nbargaining, competitive industry, old age insurance, income\ntaxes, nationalization of railroads are useful or pernicious\ndepends neither on their age nor their novelty. Their value\nis determined by their relevancy to our own ideals, by the\nextent to which they hinder or promote the results which we\nconsciously desire.\n\nThe past may be studied with a view to clarifying present\nissues. In the first place, we may study past successes and\nfailures in order to guide our actions in present similar situations.\nA man setting out to organize and administer a newspaper\nwill benefit by the experiences others have had in the\nsame situation. In the same way, we can learn from past\nhistory something, at least, bearing on present political and\nsocial issues. It is true enough that history has been much\nmisused for the drawing of lessons and guidance. As Professor\nRobinson says:\n\nTo-day, however, one rarely finds a historical student who would\nventure to recommend statesmen, warriors, and moralists to place\nany confidence whatsoever in historical analogies and warnings, for\nthe supposed analogies usually prove illusive on inspection, and the\nwarnings impertinent. Whether or no Napoleon was ever able in his\nown campaigns to make any practical use of the accounts he had\nread of those of Alexander and Caesar, it is quite certain that Admiral\nTogo would have derived no useful hints from Nelson's tactics at\nAlexandria or Trafalgar. Our situation is so novel that it would\nseem as if political and military precedents of even a century ago\ncould have no possible value. As for our present \"anxious morality,\"\nas Maeterlinck calls it, it seems equally clear that the sinful\nextravagances of Sardanapalus and Nero, and the conspicuous public virtue\nof Aristides and the Horatii, are alike impotent to promote it.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Robinson: _The New History_, p. 36.]\n\nBut situations are, within limits, duplicated in historical\nprocesses, and it is illuminating at least to see wherein men\nfailed and wherein they succeeded in the things they set themselves\nto do. The history of labor legislation certainly testifies\nto the effectiveness of \"collective bargaining\" in securing\nimproved labor conditions, as the history of strikes does also\nto the public loss and injury incident to this kind of industrial\nwarfare. If compulsory arbitration has been a successful\nmethod of dealing with labor difficulties in Australia in the\npast, we can, by a careful study and comparison of conditions\nthere and conditions current in our country at the present,\nilluminate and clarify our own problems. A campaign manager\nin one presidential campaign does not forget what was\neffective in the last, nor does he hesitate to profit by his\nmistakes or those of others.\n\nAn impartial survey of the heritage of the past undertakes\ncritically to examine institutions, customs, ideas still current\nwith a view to determining their relevancy and utility to our\npresent needs. This demands, on the one hand, clarity as to\nwhat those needs are, and, on the other hand, freedom from\nprejudice for or against existing modes of life simply because\nthey have a history. A critical examination of the past\namounts practically to a taking stock, a summary of our\nsocial assets and liabilities. We shall find our ideas, for\nexample, and our customs, a strange mixture of useful preservations,\nand absurd or positively harmful relics of the past.\nIdeas which were natural and useful enough in the situation\nin which they originated, live on into a totally changed situation,\nalong with other ideas, like that of gravitation, which are\nas true and as useful now as when they were first enunciated.\nMany customs and institutions which may be found to have\nas great utility now as when they were first practiced generations\nago, the customs and institutions, let us say, of family\nlife, may be found persisting along with customs and institutions,\nlike excess legal formalism (or, as their opponents claim,\na bi-cameral legislative system or a two-party system) which\nmay come generally to be regarded as impediments to progress.[1]\nThe unprejudiced observer, scientifically interested in\npreserving those forms and mechanisms of social life which\nare of genuine service to his own generation, will not condemn\nor applaud \"the past\" _en masse_. He will, rather, examine it\nin specific detail. He will not, for example, dismiss classical\neducation, because it is classical or old. He will rather try\nexperimentally to determine the actual consequences in the\ncase of those who study the classics. He will examine the\nclaims made for the study, try in specific cases to find out\nwhether those claims are fulfilled, and condemn or approve\nthe study, say, of Latin and Greek, according to his estimate\nof the desirability or undesirability of those consequences.\nIf he finds, for example, that the study of Latin does promote\ngeneral literary appreciation, his decision that it should or\nshould not be continued will depend on his opinion of the value\nof general literary appreciation as compared with other values\nin an industrial civilization. Similarly, with \"freedom of contract,\"\n\"freedom of the seas,\" military service, bi-cameral\nsystems, party caucuses, presidential veto, and all the other\npolitical and social heritages of the past.\n\n[Footnote 1: The situation in the case of outworn social\ninstitutions is paralleled in the case of the human appendix,\nonce possessing a function in the digestive system of primitive\nman, but now useless and likely on occasion to become a\npositive disutility.]\n\nBut a man who impartially examines the past will usually\nexhibit also an appreciation of its attainments and a sense of\nthe present good to which it has been instrumental. He will\nnot glibly dismiss institutions, habits, methods of life that\nare the slow accumulations of centuries. He will have a\nsense of the continuous efforts and energies that have gone\ninto the making of contemporary civilization. He will have,\nin suggesting ruthless innovations, a sobering sense of the\ngradual evolution that has made present institutions, habits,\nideas, what they are.\n\nThe student of the past knows, moreover, that the present\nwithout its background of history is literally meaningless.\nIn the words of a well-known student of the development of\nhuman culture:\n\nProgress, degradation, survival, modification, are all modes of the\nconnection that binds together the complex network of civilization.\nIt needs but a glance into the trivial details of our own daily life to\nset us thinking how far we are really its originators, and how far\nbut the transmitters and modifiers of the results of long past ages.\nLooking round the rooms we live in, we may try here how far he who\nknows only his own time can be capable of rightly comprehending\neven that. Here is the honeysuckle of Assyria, there the fleur-de-lis\nof Anjou, a cornice with a Greek border runs round the ceiling, the\nstyle of Louis XIV and its parent the Renaissance share the looking\nglass between them. Transformed, shifted or mutilated, such elements\nof art still carry their history plainly stamped upon them....\nIt is thus even with the fashion of the clothes men wear. The ridiculous\nlittle tails of the German postilion's coat show of themselves\nhow they came to dwindle to such absurd rudiments; but the English\nclergyman's bands no longer so convey their history to the eye, and\nlook unaccountable enough till one has seen the intermediate stages\nthrough which they came down from the more serviceable wide\ncollars, such as Milton wears in his portrait, and which gave their\nname to the \"band-box\" they used to be kept in. In fact, the books\nof costume showing how one garment grew or shrank by gradual\nstages and passed into another, illustrate with much force and\nclearness the nature of the change and growth, revival and decay, which\ngo on from year to year in more important matters of life. In books,\nagain, we see each writer not for and by himself, but occupying his\nproper place in history; we look through each philosopher, mathematician,\nchemist, poet, into the background of his education--through\nLeibnitz into Descartes, through Dalton into Priestly,\nthrough Milton into Homer.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Tylor, Edward B.: _Primitive Culture_, vol. I. pp. 17 ff.]\n\nBesides understanding the present better in terms of its\nhistory, there is much in the heritage of the past, especially\nof its finished products, that the citizen of contemporary\ncivilization will wish preserved for its own sake. The works\nof art, of music, and of literature which are handed down to us\nare \"possessions forever.\" Whatever be the limitations of\nour social inheritance, as instruments for the solution of our\ndifficulties, those finished products which constitute the \"best\nthat has been known and thought\" in the world are beyond\ncavil. They may not solve our problems, but they immensely\nenrich and broaden our lives. They are enjoyed because they\nare intrinsically beautiful, but also because they widen men's\nsympathies and broaden the scope of contemporary purposes\nand ideals.\n\nThe culture that this transmission of racial experience makes possible,\ncan be made perfect by the critical spirit alone, and, indeed,\nmay be said to be one with it. For who is the true critic but he who\nbears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad\ngenerations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no emotional\nimpulse obscure. And who is the true man of culture, if not he in\nwhom fine scholarship and fastidious rejection... develops that\nspirit of disinterested curiosity which is the real spirit, as it is the\nreal fruit of the intellectual life, and thus attains to intellectual\nclarity; and having learned the best that is known and thought in the\nworld, lives--it is not fanciful to say so--among the Immortals.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Oscar Wilde: _Intentions_, pp. 192-93.]\n\nThe student of Greek life knows that the Greeks in their\nview of Nature and of morals, in their conception of the way\nlife should be lived, in their discrimination of the beautiful,\nhave still much to teach us. He knows, however much we\nmay have outlived the hierarchy of obedience which constitutes\nmediaeval social and political life, we should do well to\nrecover the humility in living, the craftsmanship in industry,\nand precision in thinking which constituted so conspicuous\nfeatures of mediaeval civilization. He knows that progress\nis not altogether measured by flying machines and wireless\ntelegraphy. He is aware that speed and quantity, the key\nvalues in an industrial civilization, are not the only values\nthat ever have been, or ever should be cherished by mankind.\n\nLIMITATIONS OF THE PAST. Along with a sensitive appreciation\nof the achievements and values of the past, goes, in\nthe impartial critic, an acknowledgment of its limitations.\nWe can appreciate the distinctive contributions of Greek culture\nwithout setting up Greek life as an ultimate ideal. We\nknow that with all the beauty attained and expressed in\ntheir art and, to a certain extent, in their civilization, the\nAthenians yet sacrificed the majority to a life of slavery in\norder that the minority might lead a life of the spirit, that\ntheir religion had its notable crudities and cruelties, that\ntheir science was trivial, and their control of Nature negligible.\nIn the words of one of their most thoroughgoing\nadmirers:\n\nThe harmony of the Greeks contained in itself the factors of its\nown destruction. And in spite of the fascination which constantly\nfixes our gaze on that fairest and happiest halting place in the secular\nmarch of man, it was not there, any more than here, that he was\ndestined to find an ultimate reconciliation and repose.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: G. Lowes Dickinson: _Greek View of Life_, p. 248.]\n\nAgain, we know the many beautiful features of mediaeval\nlife through its painting and poetry and religion. We know\nSaint Francis and are familiar with the heroic records of\nsaintliness and renunciation. We know, the great cathedrals,\nthe pageantry and splendor, the exquisite handicraft, the\ntapestries and illuminated manuscripts, the vast learning\nand the incomparable dialectic. We know also the social\ninjustices, the misery and squalor the ignorance in which\nthe mass of the people lived.\n\nWe can stop, therefore, neither in perpetual adoration of nor\nperpetual caviling at the past. Each age had its special excellences\nand its special defects, both from the point of view\nof the ideals then current, and those current in our own day.\nIn so far as the past is dead and over with, we cannot legitimately\ncriticize it with standards of our own day. We cannot\nblame the Greeks for sanctioning slavery, nor criticize James I\nbecause he was not a thoroughgoing democrat. But in so far\nas the past still lives, it is open to critical examination and\nrevision. Traditions, customs, ideas, and institutions inherited\nfrom the past, which still control us, are subject to\nmodification. We are justified in welcoming changes and\nmodifications which, after careful inquiry, seem clearly to\npromise betterment in the life of the group. Thus to welcome\nchanges which upon experimental evidence show clearly the\nbenefits that will accrue to the group, is not radicalism. Nor\nis opposition to changes on the ground that upon critical\nexamination they give promise of harmful consequences, conservatism.\nVerdicts for or against change reached on such a\nbasis reflect the spirit and technique of experimental science.\nThey reflect the desire to settle a course of action on the basis\nof its results in practice rather than on any preconceived\nprejudices in favor either of stability or change. To the critical\nmind, neither stability nor change is an end in itself.\nThere is no hypnotism about \"things as they are\"; no lure\nabout things as they have not yet been. The problem is\nshifted to a detailed and thoroughgoing inquiry into the\nconsequences of specific changes in social habits, ideas and\ninstitutions, education, business, and industry. Whether changes\nshould or should not win critical approval depends on the kind\nof ideals or purposes we set ourselves and, secondly, on the\npracticability of the proposed changes. Change may thus\nbe opposed or approved, in a given case, on the grounds of\ndesirability or feasibility. Whether a change is or is not\ndesirable depends on the ideals of the individual or the group.\nWhether it is or is not feasible is a matter open increasingly to\nscientific determination. Thus a city may hire experts to\ndiscover what kind of transportation or educational system\nwill best serve the city's needs. But whether it will or will not\nspend the money necessary depends on the social interests\ncurrent.\n\nEDUCATION AS THE TRANSMITTER OF THE PAST. Education is the\nprocess by which society undertakes the transmission of its\nsocial heritage. Indeed the main function of education in\nstatic societies is the initiation of the young into already\nestablished customs and traditions. It is the method used\nto hand down those social habits which the influential and\narticulate classes in a society regard as important enough to\nhave early fixed in its young members. The past is simply\ntransmitted, handed down _en masse_. It is a set of patterns\nto be imitated, of ideals to be continued, of mechanisms for\nattaining the fixed purposes which are current in the group.\n\nIn progressive societies education may be used not simply\nto hand down habits of doing, feeling, and thinking, from the\nolder generation to the younger, but to make habitual in the\nyoung reflective consideration of the ends which must be\nattained, and reflective inquiry into the means for attaining\nthem. The past will not be handed down in indiscriminate\ncompleteness. The present and its problems are regarded as\nthe standard of importance, and the past is considered as an\nincomparable reservoir of materials and methods which may\ncontribute to the ends sought in the present. But there is so\nmuch material and so little time, that selection must be made.\nMany things in the past, interesting on their own merits, must\nbe omitted in favor of those habits, traditions, and recorded\nfiles of knowledge which are most fruitful and enlightening in\nthe attainment of contemporary purposes. What those purposes\nare depends, of course, on ideals of the group in control\nof the process of education. But these purposes of ideals may\nbe derived from present situations and not taken merely because\nthey have long been current in the group. Thus, in a\npredominantly industrial civilization, it may be found more\nadvisable and important to transmit the scientific and technical\nmethods of control which men have acquired in recent\ngenerations than the traditional liberal arts. Science may be\nfound more important than the humanities, medicine than\nmoral theory. Even such education that tends to call itself\n\"liberal\" or \"cultural\" is effective and genuine education\njust in so far as it does illuminate the world in which we live.\nThe religion and art, the literature and life of the past broaden\nthe meaning and the background of our lives. They are valuable\njust because they do enrich the lives of those who are\nexposed to their influence. If studying the great literature\nand the art of the past did not clarify the mind and emancipate\nthe spirit, enabling men to live more richly in the present,\nthey would hardly be as studiously cherished and transmitted\nas they are. We are, after all, living in the present.\nThe culture of the past either does or does not illuminate it.\nIf it does not it is a competing environment, a shadow world\nin which we may play truant from actuality, but which\nbrings neither \"sweetness nor light\" to the actual world in\nwhich we live.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\n\nTHE CAREER OF REASON\n\nThe foregoing analysis of human behavior might thus be\nbriefly summarized. We found that man is born a creature\nwith certain tendencies to act in certain definite ways,\ntendencies which he largely possesses in common with the lower animals.\nWe found also that man could learn by trial and error,\nthat his original instinctive equipment could be modified.\nThus far in his mental life man is indistinguishable from the\nbeasts. But man's peculiar capacity, it appeared, lay in his\nability to think, to control his actions in the light of a future,\nto choose one response rather than another because of its\nconsequences, which he could foresee and prefer. This capacity\nfor reflection, for formulating a purpose and being able to\nobtain it, we found to be practical in its origins, but persisting\non its own account in the disinterested inquiry of philosophy\nand science and the free imaginative construction of art. And\nin all man's behavior, whether on the plane of instinct, habit,\nor reflection, we found action to be accompanied by emotion,\nby love and hate, anger and awe, which might at once impede\naction by confusing it, or sustain it by giving it a vivid and\ncompelling motive.\n\nThe second part of the book was devoted to an analysis of\nthe various specific traits which human beings display and the\nconsequences that these have in men's relations with one\nanother. Under certain conditions, one or another of these\nmay become predominant; in particular historical conditions,\none or another of them may have a high social value or the\nreverse. These traits vary in different individuals; in any of\nthem, a man may be totally defective or abnormally developed.\nBut taken in general, they constitute the changeless pattern\nof human nature, and fix the conditions and the limits of\naction.\n\nBut while these universal traits determine what man may\ndo, and fix definitively the boundaries of human possibility,\nwithin these limits the race has a wide choice of ideals and\nattainments. The standards of what man will and should do,\nwithin the boundaries of the nature which is his inheritance,\nare to be found not in his original impulses, but in his mind\nand imagination. The human being is gifted with the ability\nto imagine a future more desirable than the present, and to\ncontrive ingeniously in behalf of anticipated or imagined\ngoods.\n\nThese anticipated goods we call ideals, and these ideals\narise, in the last analysis, out of the initial and inborn hungers\nand cravings of men. \"Intellect is of the same flesh and blood\nwith all the instincts, a brother whose superiority lies in his\npower to appreciate, harmonize, and save them all.\" The\nfunction of reason is not to set itself over against men's original\ndesires, but to envisage ideals and devise instruments\nwhereby they may all, so far as nature allows, be fulfilled.\n\nMan's reason, then, which has its roots in his instincts, is\nthe means of their harmonious fulfillment. It attempts, in\nthe various fields of experience, to effect an adjustment\nbetween man's competing desires, and between man and his\nenvironment. If instincts were left each to its own free course,\nthey would all be frustrated; if man did not learn reflectively\nto control his environment, and to make it subserve his own\nends, he would be a helpless pygmy soon obliterated by the\nincomparably more powerful forces of Nature.\n\nThese various attempts of man to effect an adjustment of\nhis passions with one another, and his life to his environment,\nmay be described as the \"Career of Reason.\" In this career\nman has formulated many ideals, not a small number of which\nhave led him into error, disillusion, and unhappiness.\nSometimes they have misled him by promising him fulfillments\nthat were in the nature of things unattainable. They have\nadded to the real evils of life a longing after impossible goods,\ngoods which an informed intelligence would early have dismissed\nas unattainable. Man has disappointed himself by\ncounting on joys which, had he been less incorrigibly addicted\nto imaginative illusions, he should never have expected.\nSometimes he has framed ideals which could be fulfilled, but\nonly at the expense of a large proportion of natural and\nirrepressible human desires. Such, for example, have been the\none-sided ascetic ideals of Stoicism or Puritanism, which in\ntheir attempt to give order and form to life, crush and distort\na considerable portion of it. The same is true of mysticism\nwhich seeks frequently to attain life by altogether denying its\ninstinctive animal basis. Yet though reason has led men\nastray, it is the only and ultimate hope of man's happiness.\nIt is responsible for whatever success man has had in mastering\nthe turmoil of his own passions and the obstacles of an\nenvironment \"which was not made for him but in which he\ngrew.\" It has given point and justice to Swinburne's exultant\nboast:\n\n\"Glory to man in the highest! For man is the master of things!\"\n\nThis Career of Reason has taken various parallel fulfillments,\nand in each of them man has in varying degrees attained\nmastery. Religion arose as one of the earliest ways by\nwhich man attempted to win for himself a secure place in the\ncosmic order. Science, in its earliest forms hardly distinguishable\nfrom religion, is man's persistent attempt to discover the\nnature of things, and to exploit that discovery for his own\ngood. Art is again an instance of man's march toward mastery.\nBeginning, in the broadest sense, in the industrial arts,\nin agriculture and handicrafts, it passes, as it were by\naccident, from the necessary to the beautiful. Having in his\nneedful business fortuitously created beautiful objects, man\ncomes to create them intentionally, both for their own sake\nand for the sheer pleasure of creation.\n\nFinally in morals men have endeavored to construct for\nthemselves codes of conduct, ideals of life, in which no possible\ngood should be needlessly or recklessly sacrificed, and in which\nmen might live together as happily as is permitted by the\nnature which is at once their life and their habitation. The\nCareer of Reason in these various fields we shall briefly trace\nand describe. We must expect to find, as in any career, however\nsuccessful, failures along with the triumphs, and, as in\nany notable career still unfinished, possibility and great\npromise. Man's reason and imagination have a long past;\nthey have also an indefinite future. Man has in the name of\nreason made many errors; but to reason he owes his chief\nsuccess, and with increasing experience he may be expected\nto attain continually to a more certain and effective wisdom.\nWith these provisos, let us address ourselves to the Career of\nReason, beginning with religion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nRELIGION AND THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. Since human nature remains\nconstant in its essential traits, despite the variations it exhibits\namong different individuals, it is to be expected that certain\nexperiences should be fairly common and recurrent among\nall human beings. Joy and sorrow, love and hate, jubilance\nand despair, disillusion and rapture, triumph and frustration,\nthese occur often, and to every man. They are, as it were,\nthe sparks generated by the friction of human desires with the\nnatural world in which they must, if anywhere, find fulfillment.\nJust such a normal, inevitable consequence of human\nnature in a natural world is the religious experience. It is\ncommon in more or less intense degree to almost all men, and\nmay be studied objectively just as may any of the other universal\nexperiences of mankind.\n\nThere are, however, certain peculiar difficulties in the study\nof the religious experience. Most men are by training emotionally\ncommitted to one particular religious creed which it is\nvery difficult for them impartially to examine or to compare\nwith others. In the second place, there is a confusion in the\nminds of most people between the personal religious experience,\nand the formal and external institution we commonly\nhave in mind when we speak of \"religion.\" When we ordinarily\nuse the term, we imply a set of dogmas, an institution,\na reasoned theology, a ritual, a priesthood, all the apparatus\nand earmarks of institutionalized religion. We think of\nChristianity, Mohammedanism, Judaism, the whole welter\nof churches and creeds that have appeared in the history of\nmankind. But these are rather the outward vehicles and\nvestments of the religious experience than the experience\nitself. They are the social expressions and external instruments\nof the inner spiritual occurrence. But the latter is\nprimary. If man had not _first been religious_, these would\nnever have arisen. In the words of William James:\n\nIn one sense at least, the personal religion will prove itself more\nfundamental than either theology or ecclesiasticism. Churches\nwhen once established live at second hand upon tradition, but the\n_founders_ of every Church owed their power originally to the fact of\ntheir direct personal communion with the divine. Not only the\nsuperhuman founders, the Christ, the Buddha, Mahomet, but all\nthe originators of Christian sects have been in this case; so personal\nreligion should still seem the primordial thing, even to those who\nesteem it incomplete.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 30.]\n\nBefore we examine the social institutions and fixed apparatus\nof ritual and of reasoned theology in which the religious\nexperience has become variously embodied, we must pause to\nanalyze the experience itself. To be religious, as a personal\nexperience, is, like being philosophical, to take a total attitude\ntoward the universe. But the religious attitude is one of a\nsomewhat specific kind. It is, one may arbitrarily but also\nsomewhat fairly say, to sense or comprehend one's relation to\nthe divine, however the divine be conceived. It is to have this\nsense and comprehension not only deeply, as one might in a\npoetic or a philosophical mood, but to have it suffused with\nreverence. We shall presently see that the objects of veneration\nhave had a different meaning for different individuals,\ngroups, and generations. But whatever be the conception of\nthe divine object, the religious attitude seems to have this\nstable feature. It is always an awed awareness on the part\nof the individual of his relation to that \"something not himself,\"\nand larger than himself, with whom the destinies of the\nuniverse seem to rest. This somehow sensed relation to the\ndivine appears throughout all the varieties of religion that\nhave appeared in the world, and among many individuals not\npopularly accounted religious.\n\nIt is just such an experience, for example, that Wordsworth\nexpresses when he says in the \"Lines Written Above Tintern\nAbbey\":\n\n               \"... And I have felt\n  A presence that disturbs me with the joy\n  Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime\n  Of something far more deeply interfused,\n  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,\n  And the round ocean and the living air,\n  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;\n  A motion and a spirit, that impels\n  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n  And rolls through all things.\"\n\nIt is the same sense that comes over so-called worldly people\nwhen oppressed suddenly by a great sorrow, or uplifted\nby a sudden great joy, an awareness of a divine power that\nmoves masterfully and mysteriously through the events of\nlife, provoking on the part of finite creatures a strange and\ncompelling reverence. This \"divinity that shapes our ends\"\nmay be variously conceived. It may be an intimately realized\npersonal God, \"Our Father which art in Heaven.\" It\nmay be such an abstract conception as the Laws of Nature or\nScientific Law, such a religion as is expounded by the\nTranscendentalists, in particular by Emerson:\n\nThese laws execute themselves. They are out of time, out of\nspace, and not subject to circumstance: thus in the soul of man there\nis a justice whose retributions are instant and entire.... If a man is\nat heart just, then, in so far is he God; the safety of God, the\nimmortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter into that man with\njustice.... For all things proceed out of the same spirit, which is\ndifferently named, love, justice, temperance, in its different applications,\njust as the ocean receives different names on the several shores which\nit washes.... The perception of this law awakens in the mind a\nsentiment which we call the religious sentiment, and which makes\nour highest happiness. Wonderful is its power to charm and to\ncommand. It is a mountain air. It is the embalmer of the world.\nIt makes the sky and the hills sublime, and the silent song of the\nstars is it. It is the beatitude of man. It makes him illimitable.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Emerson: _Miscellanies_, quoted by James in\n_Varieties_, pp. 32-33.]\n\nIt may be conceived as Nature itself, as it was by Spinoza,\nfor whom Nature was identical with God. It may be the\nWorld-Soul which Shelley sings with such rapture:\n\n  \"That Light whose smile kindles the universe,\n   That beauty in which all things work and move,\n   That benediction which the eclipsing curse\n   Of birth can quench not, that sustaining love,\n   Which through the web of being, blindly wove,\n   By man and beast and earth and air and sea,\n   Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of\n   The fire for which all thirst--now beams on me,\n   Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: From _Adonais_.]\n\nIn all these conceptions it still seems to be a hushed sense of\nreverential relationship to the divine power that most specifically\nconstitutes the religious experience. The latter exhibits\ncertain recurrent elements, any of which may be present\nin a more intense degree in some individuals than in others,\nbut all of which appear in some degree in most of the phenomena\nof personal life that we call religious.\n\n\"THE REALITY OF THE UNSEEN.\" In the first place may be\nnoted the sense of the actuality and nearness of the divine\npower, what James calls the \"reality of the unseen,\" and\nwhat is frequently spoken of by religious men as \"the presence\nof God.\" James quotes in this connection an interesting\nletter of James Russell Lowell's:\n\nI had a revelation last Friday evening.... Happening to say\nsomething of the presence of spirits of whom, as I said, I was often\ndimly aware, Mr. Putnam entered into an argument with me on\nspiritual matters. As I was speaking, the whole system seemed to\nrise up before me, like a vague destiny looming from the abyss. I\nnever before felt the spirit of God so keenly in me, and around me.\nThe whole room seemed to me full of God. The air seemed to waver\nto and fro with the presence of something I knew not what. I spoke\nwith the calmness and clearness of a prophet.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Lowell: _Letters_, I, p. 75.]\n\nThe archives of the psychology of religion are crowded\nwith instances of men who have felt deeply, intimately, and\nirrefutably the near and actual presence of God. This sense\nof the reality of an unseen Thing or Power is not always identified\nwith God. There come moments in the lives of normal\nmen and women when the world of experience seems alive\nwith something that is apprehended through none of the five\nsenses. There are times when things unseen, unheard, and\nuntouched seem to have, nay, for those concerned, do have,\na clearer and more unmistakable reality than the things we\ncan touch, hear, and see. Sometimes, in the hearing of\nbeautiful music, we sense a transcendent beauty which is\nsomething other than, something more real than, the specific\nharmonies which we physically hear. In rare moments of\nrapture, when the imagination or the affections are intensely\nstirred, we become intensely aware of this reality which is\nmade known to us through none of the ordinary avenues of\nexperience. The Unseen is not only vividly felt, but is deeply\nfelt and regarded as a thing of deep significance, and is\nexperienced in most cases with great inexplicable joy. And, not\ninfrequently, this significant and beautiful Unseen Somewhat\nis identified with God.\n\nThe sense of the reality of the divine, is, however, as it were,\nonly the prerequisite of the religious experience. When an\nindividual does have this sense, what interests the student of\nthe psychology of religion is the attitude it provokes and the\nsatisfactions it gives. These we can the better understand if\nwe examine the conditions in an individual's experience which\nmake this longing for the divine presence acute, and the\ngeneral circumstances of human life which make it a continuous\ndesire in many people.\n\nThere are, to begin with, constant facts of experience which\nmake the realization of the divine presence not only a satisfaction,\nbut the indispensable \"staff of life\" for certain human\nbeings. In their unfaltering faith in God's enduring and proximate\nactuality lies their sole source of security and trust.\nFor such persons a lapse or a lack of faith is the prelude to\nutter collapse. A vague general assurance of the dependability\nof the future is, for most people, a prerequisite for a\nsane and untroubled existence. Even those who live in unreflective\nsatisfaction with the fruits of the moment would\nfind these moments less satisfactory were they not set in a\nbackground of reasonably fair promise. The exuberant optimist,\nwhen he stops to reflect, has a buoyant and inclusive\nfaith in the essential goodness of man and the universe.\nWhitman stands out in this connection as the classic type.\nEvil and good were to him indifferently beautiful. He maintained\nan incredibly large-hearted and magnanimous receptivity\nto all things great or small, charming or ugly, that\nlightened or blackened the face of the planet.\n\nWhile the average man accepts the universe with a less\nwholesale and indiscriminate appreciation, yet he does feel\nvaguely assured that the nature of things is ordered, harmonious,\ndependable, and regular, that affairs are, cosmically\nspeaking, in a sound state. He feels a vast and comfortable\nsolidity about the frame of things in which his life is set; he\ncan depend on the familiar risings and settings of the sun, the\nrecurrent and assured movement of the seasons. Were this\ntrust suddenly removed, were the cosmic guarantee withdrawn,\nto live would be one long mortal terror. That this is\nprecisely what does happen under such circumstances, the\nvoluminous literature of melancholia sufficiently proves.\n\nThe sense of insecurity takes various forms. Sometimes\nthe patient experiences a profound and intimate conviction\nof the unreality of the world about him. His whole physical\nenvironment comes to seem a mere phantasy and a delusion.\nIn some cases he finds himself unmoved by the normal interests\nand excitements of men, unable to find any stimulus,\nvalue, or significance in the world.\n\nEsquirol observed the case of a very intelligent magistrate....\nEvery emotion appeared dead within him. He manifested neither\nperversion nor violence, but a complete absence of emotional reaction.\nIf he went to the theater, which he did out of habit, he could find no\npleasure there. The thought of his house, of his home, of his wife,\nand of his absent children, moved him as little, he said, as a theorem\nof Euclid.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Ribot: _Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 54.]\n\nThe sense of futility, of the flatness, staleness, and unprofitableness\nof the world, which is felt in such extreme forms by\npronounced melancholiacs, is experienced sometimes, though\nto a lesser degree, by every sensitive mind that reflects much\nupon life. Such an attitude, it is true, arises principally during\nmoments of fatigue and low vitality, and is undoubtedly\norganic in its origins, as for that matter is optimism. Again\nsuch a sense of world-weariness comes often in moments of\npersonal disappointment and disillusion, when friends have\nproved false, ambitions empty, efforts wasted. At such times\neven the normal man echoes Swinburne's beautiful melancholy:\n\n  \"We are not sure of sorrow,\n     And joy was never sure,\n   To-day will die to-morrow,\n     Time stoops to no man's lure;\n   And love grown faint and fretful,\n   With lips but half regretful,\n   Sighs, and with eyes forgetful,\n   Weeps that no loves endure.\n\n  \"From too much love of living,\n     From hope and fear set free,\n   We thank with brief thanksgiving,\n     Whatever gods may be,\n   That no life lives, forever;\n   That dead men rise up never;\n   That even the weariest river,\n     Winds somewhere safe to sea.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: From _A Garden of Proserpine_.]\n\nEven the eager and exuberant, if sufficiently philosophical\nand generous-minded, may come, despite their own success,\nto a deep realization of the utter futility, meaninglessness, and\nstupidity of life, of the essential blindnesses, cruelties, and\ninsecurities which seem to characterize the nature of things.\nUnless against this dark insight some reassuring faith arises,\nlife may become almost unbearable. In extreme cases it has\ndriven men to suicide. Take, for example, the picture of the\nuniverse as modern materialism presents it:\n\nPurposeless... and void of meaning is the world which science\nreveals for our belief.... That man is the product of causes that had\nno prevision of the end they were achieving, that his origin, his\ngrowth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome\nof accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no\nintensity of thought or feeling can preserve an individual life beyond\nthe grave, that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the\ninspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined\nto extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the\nwhole temple of man's achievements must inevitably be buried beneath\nthe debris of a universe in ruins--all these things if not quite\nbeyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which\nrejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these\ntruths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the\nsoul's habitation henceforth be safely built.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bertrand Russell: _Philosophical Essays_, pp. 60-61\n(\"The Free Man's Worship\").]\n\nSuch a prospect to the serious-minded and sensitive-spirited\ncannot but provoke the profoundest melancholy. There is,\neven for the most healthy-minded of us, sufficient ground for\npessimism, bitterness, insecurity. Even if we personally--largely\nthrough the accidents of circumstance--happen to\nbe successful, \"our joy is a vulgar glee, not unlike the snicker\nof any rogue at his success.\" The utter futility and evanescence\nof earthly goods, beauties, and achievements is sensed\nat least sometimes by normally complacent souls. And so\npatent and ubiquitous are the evidences of decay, disease, and\ndeath at our disposal, that they may easily be erected into a\nthoroughgoing philosophy of life:\n\nVanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is\nvanity.\n\nWhat profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the\nsun?...\n\nAll things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and\nto the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to\nhim that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good so\nis the sinner; and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath....\n\nFor the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not\nanything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of\nthem is forgotten.\n\nAlso their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished;\nneither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is\ndone under the sun.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Ecclesiastes_.]\n\nReligion offers solace to those perturbed and passionate\nsouls, among others, to whom these futilities have become a\nrankling, continuous torment and depression. When life on\nearth appears fragmentary and disordered, not only nonsense\nbut terrifying nonsense, full of hideous injustices, sickening\nuncertainties, and cruel destructions, men have not infrequently\nfound a refuge in the divine. \"Come unto me all\nye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.\"\n\nIn the religious experience man finds life to be made clear,\ncomplete, and beautiful. What seems a contradictory fragment\nfinds its precise niche in the divine scheme, what seems\ndark and cruel shines out in a setting of eternal beneficence\nand wisdom. The experience of the individual, even the happiest,\nis always partial, broken, and disordered. No ideal is\never completely realized, or if realized leaves some perfection\nto be desired. Men living in a natural existence imagine\nvalues and ideals which can never be realized there. In religion,\nif anywhere, men have found perfection, and ultimate\nsufficiency.\n\nThis perfection, completion, and clarification of life has been\nattained in various ways. The religious experience itself,\nwhen intense, may give to the individual apart from a reasoned\njudgment, or from any actual change in his physical\nsurroundings, a translucent insight during which he sees\ndeeply, calmly, joyously into the beautiful eternal order of\nthings. This mystic insight has been experienced on occasion\nby quite normal and prosaic men and women. While it lasts,\nreality seems to take on new colors and dimensions. It becomes\nvivid, luminous, and intense. The mystic seems to\nrise to a higher level of consciousness, in which he experiences\na universe more significant, ordered, and unified than any\ncommonly experienced through the senses. One may take,\nas an example, such an instance autobiographically and anonymously\nreported a few years ago, and well documented:\n\nIt was not that for a few keyed-up moments I _imagined_ all\nexistence as beautiful, but that my inner vision was cleared to the truth\nso that I _saw_ the actual loveliness which is always there, but which\nwe so rarely perceive; and I knew that every man, woman, bird, and\ntree, every living thing before me, was extravagantly beautiful, and\nextravagantly important. And as I beheld, my heart melted out of\nme in a rapture of love and delight. A nurse was walking past; the\nwind caught a strand of her hair and blew it out in a momentary\ngleam of sunshine, and never in my life before had I seen how\nbeautiful beyond all belief is a woman's hair. Nor had I ever guessed\nhow marvelous it is for a human being to walk. As for the internes\nin their white suits, I had never realized before the whiteness of\nwhite linen; but much more than that, I had never so much as\ndreamed of the beauty of young manhood. A little sparrow chirped\nand flew to a near-by branch, and I honestly believe that only \"the\nmorning stars singing together, and the sons of God shouting for\njoy\" can in the least express the ecstasy of a bird's flight. I cannot\nexpress it, but I have seen it.\n\nOnce out of all the gray days of my life I have looked into the\nheart of reality; I have witnessed the truth; I have seen life as it\nreally is--ravishingly, ecstatically, madly beautiful, and filled to\noverflowing with a wild joy, and a value unspeakable. For those\nglorified moments I was in love with every living thing before me--the\ntrees in the wind, the little birds flying, the nurses, the internes,\nthe people who came and went. There was nothing that was alive\nthat was not a miracle. Just to be alive was in itself a miracle. My\nvery soul flowed out of me in a great joy.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Twenty Minutes of Reality,\" _The Atlantic\nMonthly_, vol. 117, p. 592.]\n\nThe mystic experience is important in the study of religion\nbecause it has so frequently given those who have had it a\nvery real feeling of \"cosmic consciousness.\" The individual\nfeels \"for one luminously transparent conscious moment,\" at\none with the universe; he has a realization at once rapturous\nand tranquil of the passionate and wonderful significance of\nthings. He has moved \"from the chill periphery to the radiant\ncore.\" All the discrepancies which bestrew ordinary life\nare absent. All the negations of disappointment, all conflicts\nof desire disappear. The mystic lives perfection at first\nhand:\n\n  \"The One remains, the many change and pass,\n   Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly,\n   Life, like a dome of many colored glass,\n   Stains the white radiance of eternity.\"\n\nThis sense of splendid unity in which all the divisive and\ncorroding elements of selfhood are obliterated has \"to those\nwho have been there\" no refutation. \"It is,\" writes William\nJames, \"an open question whether mystic states may not be\nsuperior points of view, windows through which the mind\nlooks out on a more extensive and inclusive world.\"\n\nWhatever be the logical validity of the intense mystical\ninsight, of his singular gift for a vivid and intimate union with\neternity which has been known by so many mystics, the fruits\nof this insight are undeniable. During such a vision the world\nis perfect. There is no fever or confusion, but rapture and\nrest. And to some degree, at a religious service, a momentous\ncrisis, joy at deliverance or resignation at calamity, during\nbeatific interludes of friendship or of love, men have felt a\nclear enveloping oneness with divinity.\n\nSuch states of intense religious experience, however, are as\ntransient as they are ineffable. Though they recur, they are\nnot continuous, and something more than occasional vivid\nunions with the divine enter into the constant perfection with\nwhich the world, as it appears to the religious man, is endowed.\nHe feels himself, in the first place, to be part of a world scheme\nin which ultimate perfection is secured. It has already been\npointed out that any individual human life is characterized\nby negation, conflict, and disappointment. Our lives seem\nlargely to be at the mercy of circumstance. Our inheritance\nis fixed for us without our connivance in the matter; accident\ndetermines in which social environment we happen to be born.\nAnd these two facts are the chief determinants of our careers.\nEven when successful we realize either the emptiness of the\nprize we had desired, or the distance we are in reality from\nthe goal we had set ourselves. Generalizing thus from his\nown experience, the individual notes the similar disheartening\ndiscrepancies throughout human life. He sees the good\nsuffer, and the wicked prosper; the innocent die, and the\nguilty escape. Disease is no respecter of persons, and death\ncomes to the just and the unjust alike.\n\nWherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?\nTheir seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring\n    before their eyes.\nTheir houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.\nTheir bull gendereth and faileth not; their cow calveth and casteth\n    not her calf.\nThey send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.\nThey take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.\nThey spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.\nTherefore they say unto God; depart from us, for we desire not the\n    knowledge of thy ways.\nWhat is the Almighty that we should serve him? And what profit\n    should we have if we pray unto him?[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Job, chap. XXI.]\n\nIn contrast, in the religious experience man feels himself to\nbe a part of a world scheme in which justice and righteousness\nare assured by an incontestable and invulnerable power;\n\"God's in his Heaven; all's right with the world.\" Despite\nthe grounds he has for doubt, Job robustly avers: \"Though\nhe slay me, yet will I trust in him.\" Calamities are but\ntemporary; God will bring all things to a beautiful fruition.\n\nOr a man may feel that the evils he or others experience\nhere are not real evils, that, seen _sub specie oeternitatis_, they\nwould cease to be regarded as such. He may feel that God\nmoves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform, that\n\"somehow good may come of ill.\" He may feel, as does the\nChristian believer, that all the evils and pains unjustly\nexperienced in this world will be adjusted in the next. Whatever\nbe my privations from earthly good, \"in my Father's house\nare many mansions.\" Immortality is, indeed, the religious\nman's faith in a second chance. The surety of a world to\ncome, in which the blessed shall live in eternal bliss, is a\ncompensation and a redress for the ills and frustrations of life in\nthis world. Whatever be the seeming ills or injustices of life,\nthere is eventual retribution, both to the just and the unjust.\nOnce more to quote Emerson:\n\nAnd yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the\nunderstanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation,\na cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems\nat the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years\nreveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death\nof a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but\nprivation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for\nit commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an\nepoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks\nup a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and\nallows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of\ncharacter. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances,\nand the reception of new influences that prove of the first\nimportance to the next years; and the man or woman who would\nhave remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and\ntoo much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the\nneglect of the gardener, is made the banian of the forest, yielding\nshade and fruit to wide neighbourhoods of men.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Emerson: _Essay on Compensation_.]\n\nOn a larger scale, from the cosmic rather than from the\npersonal point of view, an individual, gifted with a large and\ncharitable interest in the future of mankind, is secured and\nsustained by the feeling that he is a part of that procession\nheaded to the \"one far-off divine event to which the whole\ncreation moves.\" The lugubrious picture of an utterly meaningless\nworld, blind, purposeless, and heartless, which materialistic\nscience reveals, is sufficient to wreck the equanimity\nof a sensitive and thoughtful mind.\n\nThat is the sting of it, that in the vast drifting of the cosmic\nweather, though many a jewelled shore appears, and many an enchanted\ncloud-bank floats away, long lingering ere it be dissolved--even\nas our world now lingers for our joy--yet when these transient\nproducts are gone, nothing, absolutely _nothing_ remains. Dead and\ngone are they, gone utterly from the very sphere and room of being.\nWithout an echo, without a memory; without an influence on aught\nthat may come after, to make it care for similar ideals. This utter\nwreck and tragedy is of the essence of scientific materialism, as at\npresent understood.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Pragmatism_, p. 105.]\n\nA belief that a divine power governs the universe, that all\nthese miscellaneous and inexplicable happenings will be\ngathered up into a smooth and ultimate perfection, gives\nfaith, comfort, and solace. We are on the side of the angels, or\nrather the angels are on our side. Human passion, purpose,\nand endeavor are not wasted. They are small but not altogether\nnegligible contributions to eventual cosmic good. And\ngood is eventual. Perfection may be long delayed, but God's\npresence assures it. \"Weeping may endure for a night, but\njoy cometh in the morning.\"\n\nA world with a God in it to say the last word may indeed burn up\nor freeze, but we then think of Him as still mindful of the old ideals,\nand sure to bring them elsewhere to fruition; so that where He is,\ntragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution\nnot the absolutely final things.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 106.]\n\nAmid tragic errors and pitiful disillusions, men have yearned\nfor \"a benediction perfect and complete where they might\ncease to suffer and desire.\" This perfection religion has, as\nwe have seen, accorded them in various ways. Some have\nfound it in the immediate vision, the ecstatic union with the\ndivine that, in intense degree, is peculiarly the mystic's. Some\nhave found it in the assured belief that evil is itself an illusion,\nand, if rightly conceived, a beautiful dark shadow to set\noff by contrast the high lights of a divinely ordered cosmos, a\nminor note giving lyric and lovely poignancy to the celestial\nmusic. Some have rested their faith in a perfect world not\nhere, but hereafter, \"where the blessed would enter eternal\nbliss with God their master.\" Thus man has in religion found\nthe fulfillment of his ideals, which always outrun the actualities\namid which he lives. In the religious experience, in all of\nits forms throughout the ages, man has had the experience\nof perfection at first hand, in the immediate and rich\nintensity of the mystic ecstasy, in the serene faith of a lifelong\nintuition or of a reasoned belief in the ultimate divinely\nassured rightness of things.\n\nBesides experiencing perfection, man has, in the sense of\nsecurity and trust afforded by the religious experience, found\nrelease from the fret, the fever, the compulsion, and constriction\nunder which so much of life must be lived. Whatever\nhappens, the truly devout man has no fears or qualms. He\nhas attained equanimity; the Lord is his shepherd; he shall\nnot want. There is a serenity experienced by the genuinely\nfaithful that the faithless may well envy. God is the believer's\neternal watcher; a wise and merciful Providence, his infinite\nguarantee.\n\nWhoever not only says but feels, \"God's will be done\" is mailed\nagainst every weakness; and the whole historic array of martyrs,\nmissionaries and religious reformers is there to prove the\ntranquil-mindedness, under naturally agitating or distressing circumstances,\nwhich self-surrender brings.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James; _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 285.]\n\nBut peace is attained not only through faith in the fulfillment\nof desire, but in a marked lessening in the tension of\ndesire itself, in a large and spacious freedom attained through\nrelease from the confinement of self. We saw in the chapter\non the Consciousness of Self how much exertion and energy\nmay be devoted to the enhancement of Self through fame,\nachievement, social distinction, power, or possession. We\nsaw how, in the frustration of self, the germ of great tragedy\nlay. From the tragedy and bitterness of such frustration\nmen have often been reassured by a genuine conversion to\nthe religious life. Through the negation of self rather than\nthrough its fulfillment men have found solace and rest. And\nthis negation, when it takes religious form, has consisted in\na rapturous submission to the will of God.\n\n  \"Outside, the world is wild and passionate.\n     Man's weary laughter and his sick despair\n   Entreat at their impenetrable gate,\n     They heed no voices in their dream of prayer.\n\n  \"Calm, sad, secure, with faces worn and mild,\n     Surely their choice of vigil is the best.\n   Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild;\n     But there beside the altar there is rest.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Ernest Dawson: _Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration._]\n\nEXPERIENCES WHICH FREQUENTLY FIND RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION.\nThe religious experience, as pointed out in the beginning of\nthis discussion, has its roots in the same impulses which cause\nmen to love and to hate, to be jubilant and sorrowful, exalted\nand depressed. All these human experiences sometimes take\na religious form, that is, their expressions have some reference\nto the supernatural and the divine. We find, in surveying the\nhistory of religion, that certain experiences more than others\ntend to find religious expression. We shall examine a few of\nthe chief of these.\n\nNEED AND IMPOTENCE. An awed, almost frightened sense of\ndependence overcomes even the most robust and healthy-minded\nman when he sees the forces of Nature suddenly unloosed\non a magnificent scale. A terrific peal of thunder, an\nearthquake or a cyclone will send thrills of terror through the\nnormally calm and self-sufficient. Even apart from such\nvivid and terrifying examples of the range and scale of non-human\npower, there comes to the reflective a sense of the\nfrailty of human life, of the utter dependability of all human\npurposes and plans on conditions beyond human control. In\nour most fundamental industry, agriculture, an untimely frost\ncan undo the work of the most ingenious industry and thrift.\nA tornado or a snowstorm can disorganize the cunning and\nsubtle, swift mechanisms of communication which men have\ninvented. In the field of humanly built-up relations, again, a\nfortune or a friendship may depend on some chance meeting;\na man's profession and ideals are fixed by a single fortuitous\nconversation, by a chance encouragement, opportunity or\nfrustration.\n\nThere is thus a psychological though perhaps not literal\ntruth in the figure of Fate, or in the metaphor that speaks of\nhuman destiny as lying on the knees of the gods. Action so\noften wanders from intent, so much in the best-laid plans is at\nthe mercy of external circumstance! A creature whose being\ncan be snuffed out in a moment, whose life is less than an\ninstant in the magnificent perspective of eternity, comes not\nunnaturally to be aware of his own insignificance as compared\nwith those vast forces, some auspicious and some terrible,\nwhich are patently afoot in the world.\n\nBut as patent a fact as man's impotence is his desire. The\nindividual realizes how powerless is a human being to fulfill,\nindependently of external forces, those impulses with which\nthese same inexplicable forces have launched him into the\nworld. Thus do we feel even to-day when we have learned\nthat the forces of Nature, obdurate to the ignorant, yet\nbecome flexible and fruitful under the knowing manipulation\nof science. We realize that despite our cunning and contrivance,\nour successes are, as it were, largely matters of grace;\nthe changes we can make in Nature are as nothing to the slow,\ngradual processes by which Nature makes mountains into\nmolehills, builds and destroys continents, develops man out of\nthe lower animals, and, by varying climates and topographies,\naffects the destinies of nations.\n\nTo primitive man the sense of impotence and need were not\nderived from any general reflections upon the insecurity of\nman's place in the cosmos, but rather from the sharp pressure\nof practical necessity.\n\nThe helplessness of primitive man set down in the midst of a universe\nof which he knew not the laws, may perhaps be brought home\nto the mind of modern man, if we compare the universe to a vast\nworkshop full of the most various and highly-complicated machinery\nworking at full speed. The machinery, if properly handled, is capable\nof producing everything that the heart of primitive man can\nwish for, but also, if he sets hand to the wrong part of the machinery,\nis capable of whirling him off between its wheels, and crushing\nand killing him in its inexorable and ruthless movement. Further,\nprimitive man cannot decline to submit himself to the perilous test:\nhe must make his experiments or perish, and even so his survival is\nconditional on his selecting the right part of the machine to handle.\nNor can he take his own time and study the dangerous mechanism\nlong and carefully before setting his hand to it: his needs are pressing\nand his action must be immediate.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Jevons: _An Introduction to the History of Religion_, p. 17.]\n\nThe very food of primitive man was to him as precarious as\nit was essential. His life was practically at the mercy of wind\nand rain and sun. His food and shelter were desperately\nlucky chances. Not having attained as yet to a conception of\nthe impersonality of Nature, he regarded these forces which\nhelped and hindered him as friendly and alien powers which\nit was in the imperative interests of his own welfare to placate\nand propitiate. It was in this urgent sense of helplessness and\nneed that there were developed the two outstanding modes of\ncommunication with the supernatural, _sacrifice_ and _prayer_.\n\nPrimitive man conceived his universe to be governed by\nessentially human powers; powers, of course, on a grand scale,\nbut human none the less, with the same weaknesses, moods,\nand humors as human beings themselves. They could be\nflattered and cajoled; they could be bribed and paid; they\ncould be moved to tenderness, generosity, and pity. \"Holiness,\"\nsays Socrates in one of Plato's dialogues, \"is an art in\nwhich gods and men do business with each other, ... Sacrifice\nis giving to the gods, prayer is asking of them.\"[2] In\nFrazer's _Golden Bough_ one finds the remarkably diverse\nsacrificial rites by which men have sought to win the favor of the\ndivine. Primitive man believed literally that the universe\nwas governed by superhuman personal powers; he believed\nliterally that these are human in their motives. He believed\nin consequence that sacrifices to the gods would help him to\ncontrol the controlling powers of Nature for his own good,\njust as modern man believes that an application of the laws of\nelectricity and mechanics will help him to control the natural\nworld for his own purposes. The sacrifices of primitive man\nwere immensely practical in character; they were made at the\ncrucial moments and pivotal crises of life, at sowing and at\nharvest time, at the initiation of the young into the responsibilities\nof maturity, at times of pestilence, famine, or danger.\nThe gods were given the choice part of a meal; the prize calf;\nin some cases, human sacrifices; the sacrifice, moreover, of the\nbeautiful and best. The chief sacrificial rites of almost all\nprimitive peoples are connected with food, the sustainer, and\nprocreation or birth, the perpetuator, of life.\n\n[Footnote 2: See Plato's _Euthyphro_.]\n\nAs Jane Harrison puts it:\n\nIf man the individual is to live, he must have food; if his race is to\npersist, he must have children. To live and to cause to live, to eat\nfood and beget children, these were the primary wants of man in the\npast, and they will be the primary wants of man in the future, so\nlong as the world lasts. Other things may be added to enrich and\nbeautify life, but unless these wants are first satisfied, humanity\nitself must cease to exist. These two things, therefore, were what\nmen chiefly sought to procure by the performance of magical rites\nfor the regulation of the seasons.... What he realizes first and foremost\nis that at certain times the animals, and still more the plants,\nwhich form his food, appear, at certain others they disappear. It is\nthese times that become the central points, the focusses of his interest,\nand the dates of his religious festivals.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Jane Harrison: _Ancient Art and Ritual_, p. 31.]\n\nSacrifice is only one way primitive man contrives of winning\nthe favor of the gods toward the satisfaction of his desires.\nAnother common method is prayer. In its crudest form\nprayer is a direct petition from the individual to divinity for\nthe grant of a specific favor. The individual seeks a kindness\nfrom a supernatural power whose motives are human, and\nwho may, therefore, be moved by human appeals; whose\npower is superhuman and can therefore fulfill requests.\nPrayer may become profoundly spiritualized, but in its primitive\nform it is, like sacrifice, a certain way of getting things\ndone. They are both to primitive man largely what our\nscience is to us.\n\nBoth prayer and sacrifice arise in primitive man's need and\nhelplessness and terror before mysterious supernatural powers,\nbut they may rise, in the higher form of religion, to genuine\nnobility, from this crass commerce with divinity, this religion\nof bargaining and _quid pro quo_. Sacrifice may change from a\ndesperate reluctant offering made to please a jealous god, to a\nthanksgiving and a jubilation, an overflowing of happiness,\ngratitude, and good-will.\n\nGreek writers of the fifth century B.C. have a way of speaking of\nan attitude toward religion, as though it were wholly a thing of joy\nand confidence, a friendly fellowship with the gods, whose service is\nbut a high festival for man. In Homer, sacrifice is but, as it were,\nthe signal for a banquet of abundant roast flesh and sweet wine; we\nhear nothing of fasting, cleansing, and atonement. This we might\nexplain as part of the general splendid unreality of the Greek saga,\nbut sober historians of the fifth century B.C. express the same spirit.\nThucydides is by nature no reveller, yet religion is to him, in the\nmain, a rest from toil. He makes Pericles say of the Athenians:\nMoreover we have provided for our spirit very many opportunities\nof recreation, by the celebration of games and sacrifices throughout\nthe year.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Jane Harrison: _Prolegomena to Greek Religion_, p. 1.]\n\nSacrifice may become spiritualized, as it is in Christianity,\n\"instead of he-goats and she-goats, there are substituted offerings\nof the heart for all these vain oblations.\" The sacrificial\nheart has at all times been accounted germane to nobility.\nThere is something akin to religion in the laying down of a\nlife for a cause or a country or a friend, in surrendering one's\nself for others. It is this power and beauty of renunciation\nthat is the spiritual value behind all the rituals of sacrifice\nthat still persist, as in the sacraments of Christianity. It is\nthe tragic necessity of self-negation that haloes, even in secular\nlife, the sacrificial attitude:\n\nBut there is in resignation a further good element. Even real\ngoods when they are attainable ought not to be fretfully desired.\nTo every man comes sooner or later the great renunciation. For\nthe young there is nothing unattainable; a good thing desired with\nthe whole force of a passionate will, and yet unattainable, is to them\nnot credible. Yet by death, by illness, by poverty, or, by the voice\nof duty, we must learn, each one of us, that the world was not made\nfor us, and that, however beautiful may be the things we crave,\nFate may nevertheless forbid them. It is the part of courage, when\nmisfortune comes, to bear without repining the ruin of our hopes,\nto turn away our thoughts from vain regrets. This degree of submission\nto power is not only just and right; it is the very gate of wisdom.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bertrand Russell: _Philosophical Essays_, p. 65.]\n\nThe spiritual meaning and value of sacrifice is thus seen to\nlie in self-surrender. The human being, born into a world\nwhere choices must be made, must make continual abnegation.\nAnd when the temporary good is surrendered in the\nmaintenance of an ideal, sacrifice becomes genuinely spiritual\nin character.\n\nPrayer, also, becomes genuinely spiritual in its values when\none ceases to believe in its practical efficacy and comes to\nthink it shameful to traffic with the divine. Prayer beautifully\nillustrates a point previously noted, how speech oscillates\nbetween the expression of feeling and the conveyance of ideas.\nBeginning in primitive religion as a crude and cheap petition\nfor favors, it becomes in more spiritual religious experience, a\nlyric cry of emotion, a tranquil and serene expression of the\nsoul's desire. Prayer is, moreover, \"religion in act.\" That\ndeep sense of an awed relationship to divine power which was,\nin the beginning of this discussion, noted as constituting\ncertainly one of the outstanding characteristics of the religious\nexperience, finds its most adequate emotional expression in\nprayer.\n\nReligion is nothing [writes Auguste Sabatier] if it be not the vital\nact by which the entire mind seeks to save itself by clinging to the\nprinciple from which it draws life. This act is prayer, by which I\nunderstand no vain exercise of words, no mere repetition of certain\nsacred formulas, but the very movement itself of the soul, putting\nitself in a personal relation of contact with the mysterious power of\nwhich it feels the presence--it may be even before it has a name\nby which to call it. Wherever this interior prayer is lacking, there\nis no religion; wherever, on the other hand, this prayer rises and\nstirs the soul, even in the absence of forms or doctrines, we have\nreligion.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: A. Sabatier: _Esquisse d'une Philosophie de la\nReligion_ (ed. 1897), pp. 24-26.]\n\nIn prayer, furthermore, we may hope to find not the fulfillment\nof our desires, but what our desires really are. We\nare released temporarily from tension of temporal and selfish\nlongings. We hold a tranquil and reverential speech with a\npower not ourselves, and in communion with the infinite\npurge ourselves of the dross of immediate personal needs.\nIn such a peaceful interlude we may find at once clarity and\nrest. Prayer, at its highest, might be defined as audible meditation,\ncontrolled by the sense of the divinity of the power we\nare addressing. So that the truly spiritual man prays not for\nthe fulfillment of his own accidental longings, but pleads\nrather: \"Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of\nmy heart be acceptable in thy sight, 0 Lord, my strength and\nmy redeemer.\"\n\nFEAR AND AWE. Man's attitude toward the divine was\nnoted to have arisen partly in his feeling of dependence on\npersonal forces incomparably superior to himself, and in his\nurgent need for winning their favor. In primitive man this\nsense of dependence was certainly bound up with a feeling of\nfear.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that uncivilized peoples had\npathetically little understanding or control of the forces of\nNature. In consequence on being afflicted with some sudden\ncatastrophe of famine or disease, on experiencing a sudden\nrevelation in storm, wind, or volcanic eruption, of the terrible\nmagnificence of elemental forces, he must have been struck\nwith dread. He was living in a world that appeared to him\nmuch less ordered and regular than ours appears to us. His\nprayers and sacrifices were not always friendly and confidential\nintercourse with the gods; they were as often ways of averting\nthe evils of malicious and terrifying demons. The enemies of\nreligion have been fond of pointing out how much of it has\nbeen a quaking fear of the supernatural. It is in this spirit\nthat Lucretius's bitter attack is conceived.\n\nWhen the life of man lay foul to see and grovelling upon the earth,\ncrushed by the weight of religion, which showed her face from the\nrealms of heaven, lowering upon mortals with dreadful mien, 't was\na man of Greece who dared first to raise his mortal eyes to meet her,\nand first to stand forth to meet her; him neither the stories of the\ngods nor thunderbolts checked, nor the sky with its revengeful roar,\nbut all the more spurred the eager daring of his mind to yearn to\nbe the first to burst through the close-set bolts upon the doors of\nnature.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Lucretius: _De Rerum Natura_, book I; lines 28-38.]\n\nPrimitive man feared the gods as much as he needed them.\nJane Harrison points out, for example, that as great a part of\nGreek religion was given over to the exorcising of the evil and\njealous spirits of the underworld, as in friendly communion\nwith the beautiful and gracious Olympians.\n\nBut what appears in the ignorant and harassed savage as\nfear may be transformed in civilized man into awe. Long\nafter man's crouching physical terror of the divine has passed\naway, he may still live awed by the ultimate power that orders\nthe universe. He may, \"at twilight, or in a mountain gorge,\"\nat a canon or waterfall, experience an involuntary thrill and\nbreathlessness, a deepened sense of the divinity which so\norders these things. He may have the same feeling at the\ncrises of life, at birth, disease, and death. He may sense on\noccasion that overwhelming and infinite power of which Job\nbecomes aware, as he listens to the voice out of the whirlwind:\n\nWho hath divided a water course for the overflowing of waters, or a\n      way for the lightning of thunder?\nTo cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness,\n      wherein there is no man;\nTo satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the\n      tender herb to spring forth? ...\nCanst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the\n      bands of Orion? ...\nKnowest thou the ordinances of Heaven? Canst thou set the\n      dominion thereof in the earth? ...\nCanst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee,\n      Here we are?\nWho hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given\n      understanding to the heart?\n\nWhere man experiences such awe, he will become reverential,\nand, if articulate, will express his reverence in prayer,\nagain not the prayer of practical requests for favors from God,\nbut a hushed meditation upon the assured eternity in which\nthe precarious and finite lives of men are set.\n\nREGRET, REMORSE--REPENTANCE AND PENANCE. Regret is a\nsufficiently common human experience. There are for most\nmen wistful backward glances in which they realize what\nmight have been, what might have been done, what might\nhave been accomplished. For many this never rises above\npique and bitterness over personal failure, a chagrin, as it\nwere, over having made the wrong move. But to some regret\nmay take on a deeply spiritual quality. Instead of regretting\nmerely the successes which he hoped, as it proved vainly, to\nattain, a man may become passionately aware of his own\nmoral and spiritual shortcomings. This sense of dereliction\nand delinquency may take extreme forms. James quotes a\nreminiscence of Father Gratry, a Catholic philosopher:\n\n... All day long without respite I suffered an incurable and\nintolerable desolation, verging on despair. I thought myself, in fact,\nrejected by God, lost, damned! I felt something like the suffering\nof hell. Before that I had never even thought of hell.... Now,\nand all at once, I suffered in a measure what is suffered there.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Quoted by James in his _Varieties_, p. 146.]\n\nNormal individuals may come to a deep consciousness of\nhaving left undone the things they ought to have done, of\nhaving done the things they ought not to have done. This\nrealization may be at once a \"consciousness of sin,\" and a\ndesire for a new life. If it is the consciousness of sin which\nbecomes predominant, then a desolate and tormenting remorse\nengulfs the individual. But the consciousness of sin\nfor the religious becomes simply a prelude to entrance upon a\nbetter life. The awareness of past sins is combined in the\nreligious, especially in devout Christians, with faith in God's\nmercy, and in his welcoming of the penitent sinner:\n\nThe sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite\n      heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.\nHave mercy upon me, O God; according to thy loving kindness, blot\n      out my transgressions.\nWash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.\nFor I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.\nPurge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be\n      whiter than snow.\n\nAgain the New Testament call to repentance is symbolic of\nthe experience of millions of religious people. \"Repent ye,\nfor the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.\" There is a terrible\nintensity and immediate imperativeness about this call. But\nto all there comes at one time or another an urgent sense of\nspiritual shortcoming and the desire to lead a better life.\nThe lamenting of sins becomes the least part; what is important\nis the immense new impetus toward a better life. The\nrecords of religious conversion are full of instances where men\nby this sudden penitential revulsion from their past life and a\nstartled realization of new spiritual possibilities, have broken\naway permanently from lifelong habitual vices. James cites\na case of an exceedingly belligerent and pugilistic collier\nnamed Richard Weaver, who was by a sudden conversion to\nreligion not only made averse to fighting, but persistently\nmeek and gentle under provocation. Similar cases, genuine\nand well documented, fill the archives of religious psychology.\n\nThe religious man in repenting knows that God will, if his\nrepentance is sincere, forgive him, and sustain and support\nhim in his new life.\n\nI say unto you that likewise Joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner\nthat repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which\nneed no repentance.\n\nI say unto you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God\nover one sinner that repenteth.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Luke, 15: 7,10.]\n\nWhile regret over sin, alienation from a past life of evil, and\na persistent dedication to a purified and righteous existence\nconstitute, spiritually, the phenomena of repentance and conversion,\nrepentance has had in religion certain fixed outward\nforms. If sin had been committed, merely inward spiritual\nrealization was not sufficient, penance must be done. Penance\nin the early days of the Christian Church was public.\nLater penance became a private matter (public penance was\nsuppressed by an ordinance of Pope Leo I in 461 A.D.).\n\nPrivate penance took various familiar forms, such as scourgings,\nfastings on bread and water, reciting a given number\nof psalms, prayers, and the like. Later penalties could be\nredeemed by alms. A penitent would be excused from the\nprescribed works of penance at the cost, _e. g._, of equipping a\nsoldier for the crusade, of building a bridge or road. Gradually\nin the history of the Christian religion, penances have\nbeen lightened. In the Protestant Church, with the enunciation\nof the principle of justification through faith alone\nthere could be no sacrament of penance.\n\nOne form in which the penitential mood receives expression\nis in confession in which the penitent acknowledges his sins.\nThere is no space here to trace the development of this practice\nin religion. It must suffice to point out that psychologically\nit is a cleansing or purgation. It clears the moral atmosphere.\nIt is a relief to the tormented and remorseful\nsoul to say \"Peccavi,\" and to confide either directly or indirectly\nto the divine the burden of his sins. It is for many\npeople the necessary pre-condition, as it is in the Catholic\nChurch, to penitence and the actual performance of penance.\n\nThe psychological value of confession varies with individual\ntemperaments; for many it is high. There are few so self-contained\nand self-sufficient that they do not seek to express their\nemotions to others. It is not surprising that the gregarious\nhuman creature should find confession a restorative and a\nsolace. Human beings are not only natively responsive to\nthe emotions of others, but by nature tend to express their\nown emotions and to be gratified by a sympathetic response.\nEmotions of any sort, joyous or sorrowful, find some articulation.\nThe oppressive consciousness of sin particularly must\nfind an outlet in expression. And the expression of sin must\nsomewhere be received. The wrong done rankles heavily in\nthe private bosom. The crucified soul demands a sympathetic\nspirit to receive its painful and personal revelation.\nHe that would confess his sins requires a listener of a large\nand understanding heart. Just such a merciful, forgiving, and\nunderstanding friend is the God whom Christianity pictures.\nGod waits with infinite patience for the confessions and the\nsurrender of the contrite heart. The normal human desire\nto rid one's self of a tormenting secret, to \"exteriorize one's\nrottenness,\" finds satisfaction on an exalted plane in confession\nto God, or to his appointed ministers.\n\nJOY AND ENTHUSIASM--FESTIVALS AND THANKSGIVINGS. So\nfar our account has been confined to experiences in which man\nfelt the need or fear of the divine, because of his own desires,\nweaknesses, or sins. But humans find religious expression\nfor more joyous emotions. Even primitive man lives not\nalways in terror or in tribulation. There are occasions, such\nas plentiful harvests, successful hunting, the birth of children,\nwhich stir him to expressions of enthusiastic appreciation and\ngratitude toward the divine. Some of the so-called Dionysiac\nfestivals in ancient Greece are examples of the enthusiasm,\njoy, and abounding vitality to which religion has, among so\nmany other human experiences, given expression. In the\nreligion of the Old Testament, again, we find that the Psalmist\nis time and again filled with rejoicing:\n\nO give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endureth\n    forever.\nLet the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from\n    the hand of the enemy.\nAnd he gathered them out of the lands from the east and from the\n    west, from the north and from the south.\nThey wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no\n    city to dwell in.\nHungry and thirsty their soul fainted in them.\nThen they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered\n    them out of their distresses.\nAnd he led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city\n    of habitation.\nO that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his\n    wonderful works to the children of men.\nFor he satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry heart with\n    goodness.\n\nNor need this rejoicing be always an explicit thanksgiving\nfor favors received. It may be, as were the dithyrambic\nfestivals of Greece, the riotous overflow of enthusiasm, a\njoyous, sympathetic exuberance with the vital processes of\nNature. Dionysos stood for fertility, life, gladness, all the\npositive, passionate, and jubilant aspects of Nature. And the\nwell-known satyr choruses, the wine and dance and song of\nthe Greek spring festivals, are classic and beautiful illustrations\nof the religion of enthusiasm. Euripides gives voice to\nthis spirit in the song of the Maenads in the _Bacchoe_:\n\n  \"Will they ever come to me, ever again,\n     The long, long dances,\n   On through the dark till the dim stars wane?\n   Shall I feel the dew on my throat and the stream\n   Of wind in my hair? Shall our white feet gleam\n     In the dim expanses?\n   O feet of a fawn to the greenward fled,\n     Alone in the grass and the loveliness?\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Euripides: _Bacchoe_ (Gilbert Murray translation).]\n\nEvery religion has its festival as well as its fast days. Sacrifices\ncome to be held less as offerings to jealous gods than as\nsacrificial feasts, in which the worshipers themselves partake,\nas opportunities for communal rejoicings and for friendly\nfellowship with divinity. At sacrificial feasts it is as if the\ngods themselves were at table.\n\nDance and song are a regular accompaniment of primitive\nreligion. Students of Greek drama, such as Jane Harrison\nand Gilbert Murray, trace Greek tragedy back to the choruses\nand dances of early Dionysiac festivals. Throughout the\nhistory of religion not only have man's sorrow and need been\nexpressed, but also his sympathetic gladness with vitality,\nfertility, and growth, his rejoicings over the fruitions and glad\neventualities of experience. Man has felt the decay and\nevanescence of human goods. He has felt also the exuberance\nof natural processes, the triumph of life over death when\na child is born, the renewal of life by food, the recurrence of\ngrowth and fertility in the processes of the seasons, of sowing\nand of harvest. And for all these enrichments and enlargements\nof life, he has rejoiced, and found rituals to express his\nrejoicings. He has had the impulse and the energy to sing\nunto the Lord a new song.\n\nTHEOLOGY. Thus far we have discussed the religious experience\n_as_ an experience, as normal, natural, and inevitable as\nare love and hate, melancholy and exaltation, joy and sorrow.\nLike these latter, the religious experience is subjected to\nrationalization. Like all other emotions, that of religion\nfinds for itself a logic and a justification. But so profoundly\ninfluential is \"cosmic emotion\" on men's lives that when it is\nreasoned upon, the results are nothing less than an attitude\ntaken toward the whole of reality. Theology arises as a\nworld view formulated in accordance with a reasoned interpretation\nof the religious experience. It must be noted again\nthat the experience is primary. If men had not first had the\nexperience of religion, they would not have reflected about it.\nEvery contact of the individual with the world to some degree\narouses emotion and provokes thought. It is not different\nwith religion. That theologies should differ and conflict is not\nsurprising. No two individuals, no two groups or ages have\nprecisely the same experiences of the world, and their reasonings\nupon their religious feelings are bound to differ, overlap,\nand at times to conflict. The variety of world views are\ntestimony to the genuineness of the religious experience as it\nfulfills the different needs, emotions, and desires of different\nages, groups, and generations of men.\n\nTHE DESCRIPTION OF THE DIVINE. Reasonings upon religion\nexhibit, like the religious emotions, certain recurrent features.\nThere is, in the first place, a certain universality in the\ndescription of the objects of veneration. These are nearly always\nregarded as self-sufficient in contrast with man. Man\nseeks, strives, desires, has partial triumphs and pitiful failures,\nis always in travail after some ideal. His life is incomplete;\nat best it is a high aspiration; it is never really fulfilled.\nBut divinity has nearly always been regarded as seeking\nnothing, asking nothing, needing nothing. This is what\ninfinity in practical terms means. And, with certain\nexceptions presently to be noted, the divine power has always\nbeen regarded as infinite. Thus Aristotle says that in man's\nbest moments, when he lives in reflection a life of self-sufficiency,\nhe lives just such a life as God lives continually. And\nPlato describes the philosopher as a man who because he can\nlive, at least temporarily, amid eternal, changeless beauty\nand truth, \"lives in recollection among those things among\nwhich God always abides, and in beholding which God is\nwhat he is.\" Lucretius also gives a simple picture of the\neven calmness and still, even security of the life of the gods\nas he and all the Epicureans conceived it. Tennyson paraphrases\nthe picture:\n\n      \"...The Gods, who haunt\n  The lucid interspace of world and world,\n  Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,\n  Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,\n  Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,\n  Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar\n  Their sacred everlasting calm!\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Tennyson: _Lucretius_.]\n\nDivinity has, again, quite universally been recognized as\nexerting over the individual a compelling power, and of\ninsistently arousing his veneration. The psychological origins\nof this phenomenon have already been noted. Men fear,\nneed, feel themselves dependent on the gods. But further\nthan this many religious thinkers hold that man cannot even\nbe aware of the divine power without wishing to adjust himself\nharmoniously to it. And they hold, as did Immanuel\nKant, that man is born with an awareness of the divine.\n\nThe attributes of divinity have been differently assigned at\ndifferent times in the history of religion. In general two\nqualities have been regarded as characteristic: power and\ngoodness. In primitive belief, the first received the predominant\nemphasis; the higher religions have emphasized the\nsecond. For savage man, as we have seen, the divine personages\nwere conceived in effect as human beings with superhuman\npowers. They were feared and flattered, needed and\npraised. Adjustment to them was a practical, imperative\nnecessity. They combined infinite capacity with human and\nfinite caprice. The attention they received from humans was\ndistinctly utilitarian in character. These forces of wind and\nsun and rain might be brutal or benignant. Primitive man\nestablished, therefore, a system of magic, sacrifice, and prayer,\nwhereby he might minimize the precariousness of existence,\nand keep the gods on his side.\n\nIn the more spiritualistic monotheistic religions, while the\npower of God has been insistently reiterated, there has been\nan increasing emphasis upon the divine goodness. The\nPsalmist is continually referring to both:\n\n  Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good:\n    for his mercy endureth forever.\n  Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord?\n       .       .       .       .       .\n  Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his\n    wonderful works to the children of men!\n  For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in\n    sunder.\n\nWrath and terror gradually give place to mercy and benevolence\nas the primary attributes of the divine. The power of\nGod, in Christianity, for example, is still regarded as unlimited,\nbut it is completely expended in the loving salvation of mankind.\nWhere the divinity has ceased to be a willful power and\nhas become instead the God of mercy and loving kindness, it is\nno longer necessary to placate him by material sacrifice, to\nwin his favor by trivial earthly gifts. Divine favor is sought\nrather by aspiration after and the practice of a better life.\nThe mighty but capricious deity gives place to the God of\nunfailing charity and love. One earns God's mercies by walking\nin the ways of the Lord. \"Blessed are the pure in heart,\nfor they shall see God.... Blessed are they which do hunger\nand thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.\"\nIn both Christianity and Judaism, God's grace and mercies\ngo always to the pure in heart, and the righteous in spirit.\n\"What doth the Lord require of thee,\" proclaims Micah, \"but\nto do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy\nGod?\"\n\nTHE DIVINE AS THE HUMAN IDEAL. There has been in certain\nlatter-day philosophies, a tendency to interpret the divine as\nthe objectification of human ideals. That is, according to this\ntheory, men have found in their imagined divinities the\nfulfillment of ideals that they could never have realized on earth.\nMen, says this theory, long to be immortal, so they imagine\ngods who are. Finite man has infinite desires. In God is\ninfinite fulfillment through eternity. No men are all good;\nsome desire to be. Such fulfillment they find in the divine.\nOur conception of God is an index of our own ideals. When\nmen were savages, their divinity was a jealous monster. In\nthe refinement and spiritualization of the human imagination,\ndivinity becomes all-beautiful and all-benevolent as well as\nthe wielder of infinite power. John Stuart Mill gives possibly\nthe clearest expression to this attitude which is, if not in the\nstrictest sense religious, at least deeply spiritual:\n\nReligion and poetry address themselves, at least in one of their\naspects, to the same part of the human constitution; they both\nsupply the same want, that of ideal conceptions grander and more\nbeautiful than we see realized in the prose of human life. Religion,\nas distinguished from poetry, is the product of the craving to know\nwhether these imaginative conceptions have realities, answering to\nthem in some other world than ours. The mind, in this state, eagerly\ncatches at any rumors respecting other worlds, especially when\ndelivered by persons whom it deems wiser than itself. To the poetry of\nthe supernatural, comes to be thus added a positive belief and expectation,\nwhich unpoetical minds can share with the poetical. Belief\nin a God or gods, and in a life after death, becomes the canvas which\nevery mind, according to its capacity, covers with such ideal pictures\nas it can either invent or copy. In that other life each hopes to find\nthe good which he has failed to find on earth, or the better which is\nsuggested to him by the good which on earth he has partially seen\nand known. More especially this belief supplies the finer minds with\nmaterial for conceptions of beings more awful than they _can_ have\nknown on earth, and more excellent than they probably _have_ known.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Three Essays on Religion_ (Henry Holt & Co.),\npp. 103-04.]\n\nIn his religion, Mill maintains, man thus finds the fulfillment\nof unfulfilled desire. Religion is thus conceived as an imaginative\nenterprise of a very high and satisfying kind. It\npeoples the world with perfections, not true perhaps to actual\nexperience, but true to man's highest aspirations. It gives\nman companionship with divinity at least in imagination.\nIt enables him to live, at least spiritually, in such a universe as\nhis highest hopes and desires would have him live in, in fact.\nIt must be pointed out, however, that the devoutly religious\ndo not regard their God as a beautiful fiction, but as a dear\nreality whom they can serenely trust and love, and whose\nexistence is the certain faith by which they live.\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND SCIENCE. It has\nalready been pointed out that theology is the reasoned formulation\nof the religious experience which comes to men with\nvarying degrees of intensity, or the revelation by which some\nman, a Moses or a Mohammed, has been inspired. Such a\nformulation has a dual importance. For the individual it\nbrings clarity, order, and stability into his religious experience.\nFor the group, it makes possible the social transmission of\nreligious conceptions and ideals.\n\nReason in a man's religion, as in any other experience, introduces\nstability, consistency, and order. It makes distinctions;\nit resolves doubts, confusions, and uncertainties. It\nis true that there have been in religion, as in politics and\nmorals, rebels against reason. There have been mystics who\npreferred their warm ecstatic visions to the cold formulations\nand abstractions of theology. But there have been, on the\nother hand, those gifted or handicapped, according to one's\npoint of view, by an insistence on reason as well as rapture in\ntheir religion. These have not been satisfied with an intuition\nof God. They have wished to know God, as the highest\npossible object of knowledge. Thus in the Middle Ages\nphilosophy and science were regarded as the Handmaids of\nTheology. All was dedicated to, as nothing could be more\nimportant than, a knowledge of God. So we have, in contrast\nwith ecstatic visions of God, the plodding analysis of the\nscholastics, the subtle and clean-cut logic by which such men\nas Saint Anselm sought to give form, clarity, and ultimacy\nto their sense of the reality of God. There has possibly\nnowhere in the history of thought been subtler and more\nthoroughgoing analysis than some of the mediaeval schoolmen\nlavished upon the clarification and demonstration of the\nconcept of God. The necessity for reasoning upon one's sense\nof the reality of the divine, as it was felt by many mediaeval\nschoolmen, is thus stated by one historian:\n\nAnselm, Archbishop of Canterbury ... is the true type of the\nschoolman; firmly convinced of the truth of the dogmas and yet\npossessed of a strong philosophical impulse, he seeks to prove to\nreason what has to be accepted on authority. He bravely includes\nin his attempt to rationalize the faith not only such general\npropositions as the existence of God, but the entire church scheme of\nsalvation, the Trinity, and Incarnation, and the Redemption of man. We\nmust believe the Catholic doctrine--that is beyond cavil--but we\nshould also try to understand what we believe, understand _why_ it is\ntrue.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thilly: _History of Philosophy_, p. 169.]\n\nBut theology has public as well as purely private importance.\nIt must not be forgotten that religion is a social habit\nas well as a personal activity. From primitive life down to\nour own day, religion has been intimately associated with the\nother social activities of a people, and has indeed been one of\nthe chief institutions of moral and social control. Ethical\nstandards have been until very recent times in the history of\nChristian Europe almost exclusively derived from religion.\nWhere the religious experience is of such crucial importance, it\nhas been necessary to give it a fixed form and content which\nmight be used to initiate the young and the outsider.\n\nTheology, though essentially a product of reflection upon\nthe religious experience itself, tends to incorporate extra-religious\nmaterial into its system. In its demonstration of the\ndivine order and of man's relationship to the divine, it incorporates\nboth science and history. Science becomes for it the\nmanifestation of the divine arrangements of the universe;\nhistory becomes a revelation of the divine purpose and its\nrealization. In primitive belief science and religion are practically indistinguishable from each other. The way of the\ngods is the way of the universe. The attribution of personal\nmotives to the gods was primitive man's literal and serious\nway of conceiving the government of the cosmos. He believed\nhimself actually to be living in a world governed by living\nand personal powers, an animistic world. The myths which\ndescribe the birth and life of the gods, the creation of\nman, the bestowing of the gift of fire are conceived as the\nliteral and natural history of creation.\n\nChristianity affords a striking example of how theology\nincorporates science and natural history into its world view.\nFor the early Christian Fathers, natural science was interesting\nand useful in so far as it illustrated, which it did, the ways\nof God upon earth.\n\n\"The sole interest [of the Fathers] in natural fact,\" writes Henry\nOsborn Taylor, \"lay in its confirmatory evidence of Scriptural truth.\nThey were constantly impelled to understand facts in conformity\nwith their understanding of Scripture, and to accept or deny accordingly.\nThus Augustine denies the existence of Antipodes, men on\nthe opposite side of the earth, who walk with their feet opposite to\nour own. That did not harmonize with his general conception of\nspiritual cosmogony.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: H. O. Taylor: _The Medioeval Mind_, vol. I, pp. 75-76.]\n\nAll the natural science current, as represented, for example,\nin the compilation called the _Physailogus_, is used as\nsymbolical of the ways of the Lord to man.\n\nThe Pelican is distinguished by its love for its young. As these\nbegin to grow they strike at their parents' faces, and the parents\nstrike back and kill them. Then the parents take pity, and on the\nthird day the mother comes and opens her side and lets the blood\nflow on the dead young ones, and they become alive again. Thus\nGod cast off mankind after the Fall, and delivered them over to\ndeath; but he took pity on us, as a mother, for by the Crucifixion He\nawoke us with His blood to eternal life.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Thilly: _loc. cit._, p. 76.]\n\nHistory is treated in the same way. Nearly all the histories\nwritten by the early Christian Fathers were written in deliberate\nadvocacy of the Faith. It was to silence the heresies of\nthose who attributed to the Church the entrance of Alaric into\nRome that Augustine wrote his famous _City of God_. The\nwhole of history is a revelation of the divine purpose which is\neventually to be fulfilled. Orosius, again, a disciple of Augustine,\nwrote his _Seven Books of Histories against the Pagans_ to\nprove the abundance of calamities which had afflicted mankind\nbefore the birth of Christ. He gathers together all the\nevidence he can to exhibit at once the patience and the power\nof God. \"Straitened and anxious minds\" might not be able\nto see the purpose always, but all was ordained for one end.\nThus he writes at the beginning of his seventh book:\n\nThe human race from the beginning was so created and appointed\nthat living under religion with peace without labor, by the fruit of\nobedience it might merit eternity; but it abused the Creator's goodness,\nturned liberty into wilful license, and through disdain fell into\nforgetfulness; now the patience of God is just and doubly just, operating\nthat this disdain might not wholly ruin those whom He wished\nto spare ... and also so that He might always hold out guidance\nalthough to an ignorant creature, to whom if penitent He would\nmercifully restore the means to grace.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Orosius: _Seven Books of Histories against the Pagans_, II, 3.]\n\nHistory thus comes to reveal the fulfillment of the divine\npurpose, as science reveals the divine arrangements of the\nuniverse.\n\nIt has already been noted that theology, certainly Christian\ntheology, maintains that God is all-good. In consequence the\nnatural world which scientific inquiry reveals must be all-good\nin its operations and its fruits. The history of the universe\nmust be a steady and unfaltering fulfillment of the\ndivine, of the beneficent eternal purpose. The ways of the\nAlmighty, so theology tells us, are just ways, and the universe\nin which we live, so theology tells us, is a revelation of\nthat justice. The eighteenth century \"natural theologians\"\nspent much energy in demonstrating how perfectly adapted to\nhis needs are man's natural environment and his organic structure.\nThey pointed to the eye with its delicate membranes\nso subtly adapted to the function of sight. All Nature was\na continuous and magnificent revelation of God's designs,\nwhich were good. Christian Wolff, for example, a rationalistic\ntheologian of the late eighteenth century, writes:\n\nGod has created the sun to keep the changeable conditions on the\nearth in such an order that living creatures, men and beasts, may\ninhabit its surface.... The sun makes daylight not only on our\nearth, but also on the other planets; and daylight is of the utmost\nutility to us; for by its means we can commodiously carry on those\noccupations which in the night-time would either be quite impossible,\nor at any rate impossible without our going to the expense of artificial\nlight.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Christian Wolff: _Vernuenftige Gedanken von den\nAbsichten der natuerlichen Dinge_, 1782, pp. 74 ff.; quoted by\nJames in _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p.492.]\n\nMECHANISTIC SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. With the rise of mechanistic\nscience there has come about a sharp collision between\nthe conception of the goodness of the universe as theology declares\nit, and of its blindnesses and indifference as science seems\nto unfold it to us. Contrast the picture of a cosmos which\nwas deliberately and considerately made by God to serve\nevery exigency of man's welfare, with the picture earlier\nquoted from Bertrand Russell as the natural scientist gives it\nto us. It is no longer easy to say the Heavens declare the\nglory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. As\nfar as we can see natural processes go on without the slightest\nreference to the welfare of man, who is but an accidental\nproduct of their indifferent forces. The universe is a system\nof blind regularities. \"Omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless\nway.\" Nature is thoroughly impersonal, and indeed,\nwere it to be judged by personal or human standards, it could\nwith more accuracy be maintained that it is evil than that it is\ngood. As Mill puts it in a famous passage:\n\nIn sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or\nimprisoned for doing to one another, are Nature's everyday\nperformances. Killing, the most criminal act recognized by human laws,\nNature does once to every being that lives, and in a large proportion\nof cases, after protracted tortures such as only the greatest monsters\nwhom we read of ever purposely inflicted on their living fellow-creatures....\nNature impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel,\ncasts them to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them to death,\ncrushes them with stones like the first Christian martyr, starves\nthem with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick\nor slow venom of her exhalations.... A single hurricane destroys\nthe hopes of a season; a flight of locusts or an inundation desolates a\ndistrict; a trifling chemical change in an edible root starves a million\nof people.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Three Essays on Religion_ (Holt), pp. 28-30.]\n\nThe theology which insists on the patent and ubiquitous\nevidences of God's beneficent purpose, attempts, as already\npointed out, to demonstrate that purpose in the history of\nmankind. Orthodox Christian doctrine, for example, insists\nthat man has been especially created by God, as were the\nother animals each after their kind, and that man's ultimate\nand unique destiny is salvation through God's grace. Man\nwas created in perfection in the Garden of Eden, sinned, and\nwill, through God's mercy, find eventual redemption.\n\nFollowing the publication of Darwin's _Origin of Species_, in\n1859, the rapid spread of evolutionary doctrine aroused violent\nopposition on the part of Christian thinkers and devout\nChristians generally. In the first place it conflicted sharply\nwith the orthodox version of special creation. Secondly, it\nmade more difficult the insistence on marks of design or purpose\nin Nature. These two points will be clearer after a brief\nconsideration of the nature of Darwinian evolution, with\nwhose thoroughgoing mechanical principles nineteenth-century\ntheology came most bitterly in conflict. The theory\nexplains the origins of species, somewhat as follows:\n\nThe variety of species now current developed out of simpler\nforms of animal life, from which they are lineally descended.\nTheir present forms and structures are modifications from the\ncommon forms possessed by their remote ancestors. These\nmodifications are, in the stricter forms of Darwinian evolution,\nexplained in mechanical terms by the theory of the \"survival\nof the fittest.\" That is, those animals with variations\nadapted to their environment survive; those without, perish.\nIn consequence when any individual in a species happens to be\nborn with a variation specially adapted to its environment, in\nthe sharp \"struggle for existence\" that characterizes animal\nlife in a state of nature, it alone will be able to survive and\nreproduce its kind. All the variations of species current are,\ntherefore, examples of this continuous process of descent with\nadaptive modifications. The origin of the human species\ncame about through just such a variation or mutation from\none of the higher mammals (we have reason to believe, a\nspecies similar to that of the anthrapoid ape). Man's\nancestry, it seems, from the scientific evidence which has been\nmarshaled, may be traced back biologically, in an almost\nunbroken chain to unicellular animals.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: For detailed discussion see Scott: _Theory of Evolution_.]\n\nThis theory profoundly affected theological thinking. In\nthe first place, the evolutionary account not only of the origin\nof man, but of the origin of all species, as a descent with\nmodification from simpler-animal forms, conflicts with the account\nof special creation, certainly in the literal form of the Biblical\nstory. Secondly, the arguments from design which had been\ndrawn from the adaptation of organic life to environment were,\nif not disproved, at least rendered dubious. Although evolution\ndid not account for the first appearance of life on earth,\nit did account for the processes of adaptation, and without\ninvoking design or purpose.\n\nThe eye, for example, as explained by the theory of evolution,\ncame to its present perfection through a series of fortunate\nand cumulative variations through successive generations.\nEven in its imperfect form, it was a variation with\nhigh \"survival value.\" Even when it was no more than a\npigmented spot peculiarly sensitive to light, so the theory\nholds, it was a variation that enabled a species to survive and\nperpetuate its kind. Those not possessing these fortunate\nvariations were wiped out. The process of Nature, certainly,\nin the development of biological life thus appears to be no\neconomical convergence of means upon an end. Nature has\nbeen recklessly prodigal. Millions more seeds of life are\nproduced than ever come to fruition. And only animals perfectly\nadapted to their environment survive, while an incomparably\ngreater number perish.\n\nTheology, when it incorporates science and sets itself up as\na direct and factual description of the universe, thus comes\nsharply in rivalry with modern mechanistic science. The\nconflict is crucial with regard to the purpose which theology\nholds to be evident in the universe, and the lack of purpose,\nthe purely blind regularity, which science seems to reveal.\nThe mechanical laws by which natural processes take place\nexhibit a fixed and changeless regularity, in which man's good\nor ill counts absolutely nothing. The earth instead of being\nthe center of the solar system, is a cosmic accident thrown\nout into space. Man instead of being a little lower than the\nangels is revealed by science as a little higher than the ape.\n\nThere is no space in these pages to trace the various\nreconciliations that have been made between theology and science.\nIt must be pointed out, however, that Christian theology has\nincreasingly accepted modern mechanistic doctrines, including\nthe doctrine of evolution. But it has attempted to show\nthat, granting all the facts of physical science, the universe\ndoes still exhibit the divine purpose and its essential beneficence.\nThe very order and symmetry of physical law have\nbeen taken as testimony of divine instigation. Mechanism\nwas set in motion by God. In answer to this, it is pointed\nout by the non-theologian that then God's goodness cannot\nbe maintained. Mechanical processes are indiscriminate in\ntheir distribution of goods and evils to the just and the unjust:\n\nAll this Nature does with the most supercilious disregard both of\nmercy and of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest,\nindifferently with the meanest and worst; upon those who are\nengaged in the highest and worthiest enterprises, and often as the\ndirect consequence of the noblest acts; and it might almost be imagined\nas a punishment for them. She mows down those on whose\nexistence hangs the well-being of a whole people; perhaps the\nprospects of the human race for generations to come, with as little\ncompunction as those whose death is a relief to themselves, or a blessing\nto those under their noxious influence.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Three Essays on Religion_ (Holt), p. 29.]\n\nModern theology sometimes grants the apparent reality of\nthe evils which are current in a mechanistic world, but insists\nthat they are making for goods which we with our finite\nunderstanding cannot comprehend. Were our intelligence\ninfinite, as is God's, we should see how \"somehow good\nwill be the final goal of ill.\"\n\nEvolution has also been explained as God's method of\naccomplishing his ends. By some evolutionists, Driesch and\nBergson for example, evolution itself, in its steady production\nof higher types, has been held to be too purposive in character\nto permit of a purely mechanical explanation. The process of\nevolution has itself thus come to be taken by some theologians\nas a clear manifestation of God's beneficent power at work\nin the universe.\n\nBut theology, in the more spiritualistic religions, has always\ninsisted on the primacy of God's goodness. There has\nbeen, therefore, in certain theological quarters the tendency\nto surrender the conception of divine omnipotence in the face\nof the genuine human evils that are among the fruits of blind\nmechanical forces. The idea of a finite God who is infinitely\ngood in his intentions, but limited in his powers, has been\nadvocated by such various types of mind as John Stuart Mill,\nWilliam James, and H. G. Wells. The first mentioned of\nthese writes:\n\nOne only form of belief in the supernatural--one theory respecting\nthe origin and government of the universe--stands wholly clear\nboth of intellectual contradiction and of moral obliquity. It is that\nwhich, resigning irrevocably the idea of an omnipotent creator, regards\nNature and Life not as the expression throughout of the moral\ncharacter and purpose of the Deity, but as the product of a struggle\nbetween contriving goodness and an intractable material, as was\nbelieved by Plato, or a principle of evil as was believed by the\nManicheans. A creed like this ... allows it to be believed that all the\nmass of evils which exists was undesigned by, and exists not by the\nappointment of, but in spite of the Being whom we are called upon\nto worship.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _loc, cit._, p. 116.]\n\nRELIGION AND SCIENCE. While there have thus been genuine\npoints of conflict between theology and science, these are\nessentially irrelevant to the religious experience itself. Man\nis still moved by the same emotions, sensations, needs, and\ndesires which have, from the dawn of history, provoked in\nhim a sense of his relationship with the divine. There comes\nto nearly all individuals at some time, not without rapture,\na sudden awareness of divinity.\n\nIt is the terror and beauty of phenomena, the \"promise\" of the\ndawn and of the rainbow, the \"voice\" of the thunder, the \"gentleness\"\nof the summer rain, the \"sublimity\" of the stars, and not the\nphysical laws which these things follow, by which the religious mind\ncontinues to be most impressed; and just as of yore, the devout man\ntells you that in the solitude of his room or of the fields he still feels\nthe divine presence, that inflowing of help come in reply to his\nprayers, and that sacrifices to this unseen reality fill him with\nsecurity and peace.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 498.]\n\nModern man, just as his savage ancestor cowering before\nforces he did not understand, realizes sometimes--some\npersons realize it always--how comparatively helpless is man\namid the magnificent and eternal forces in which his own\nlife is infinitesimally set. Even when one has been educated\nto the sober prose of science, one feels still the ancient emotions\nof joy, sorrow, and regret. Birth and death, sowing and\nharvest, conquest or calamity, as of old, evoke a sympathetic\nfeeling with the movement of cosmic processes. All of these\nemotions to-day, as in less sophisticated times, may take\nreligious form.\n\nNor does the universe because we understand it better\nseem, to many, less worthy of worship. The most thorough-going\nscientific geniuses have felt most deeply the nobility\nand grandeur of that infinite harmony and order which their\nown genius has helped to discover. It has been well said the\n\"undevout astronomer is mad.\" And it is not only the student\nof the stars who has intimations of divinity. As Professor\nKeyser puts it: \"The cosmic times and spaces of modern\nscience are more impressive and more mysterious than\na Mosaic cosmogony or Plato's crystal spheres. Day is just\nas mysterious as night, the mystery of knowledge is more\nwonderful and awesome than the darkness of the unknown.\"[2]\nIt is significant that such men as Newton, Pasteur, and Faraday,\ngiants of modern physical inquiry, were devoutly religious.\n\n[Footnote 2: Keyser: _Science and Religion_, p. 30.]\n\nIt would appear indeed that the objects which men revere\nare not the subject-matter of science. Physics and chemistry\ncan tell us what Nature is like; they cannot tell us to what in\nNature we shall give our faith and our allegiance. Religion\nremains, as ever, \"loyalty to the highest values of life.\"\nScience instead of making the world less awesome has made it\nmore mysterious than ever. Origins and destinies are still\nunknown. Science tells how; it describes. It does not tell\nwhy things occur as they do; or what is the significance of\ntheir occurrence. Worship can never be reduced to molecules\nor atoms. While man lives and wonders, hopes and fears,\nfeels the clear beauty, the infinite mystery, and the eternal\nsignificance of things, the religious experience will remain, and\nmen will find objects worthy of their worship.\n\nTHE CHURCH AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION. Religion being so\ncrucial a set of social habits, institutions arise for the perpetuation\nof its traditions, and for the social expression of the religious\nlife. The churches perpetuate the religious tradition in\na number of ways. Fixed ecclesiastical systems, recitals and\ndefinitions of creeds, the regular and meticulous performance\nof rites and ceremonies, become powerful instruments for the\ntransmission of religious ideas and standards. Rites frequently\nperformed by men in mass have a deep and moving\ninfluence. They have at once all the pressure and prestige of\ncustom, confirmed by the mystery and awe that attends any\nexpression of man's relationship to the divine. The church,\nmoreover, by the mere fact of being an institution, having a\nhierarchy, an ordered procedure, a definite assignment and\ndivision of ecclesiastical labor, becomes thereby an incomparable\npreserver and transmitter of traditional values.\n\nChurches, ecclesiastical organizations in general, may be\nsaid to arise because of the necessity felt by men for\nintermediaries between themselves and the divine. We have\nalready seen of what vast practical moment in savage life was\ncommunication with the gods. Upon the success of such\naddresses to deity, depended not only the salvation of the soul,\nbut the actual welfare of the body--shelter, harvest, and\nvictory. The gods among many tribes were held to be\nmeticulous about the forms and ceremonies which men addressed\nto them. In consequence it became important to have,\nas it were, experts in the supernatural, men who knew how to\nwin the favor of these watchful powers. The priests were\noriginally identical with medicine men and magicians. They\nknew the workings of the providential forces. In their hands\nlay, at least indirectly, the welfare of the tribe. Their\nprincipal duties were to administer and give advice as to the worship\nof the gods. Often it was necessary for them to point out to\nthe lay members of the tribe which gods to worship on special\noccasions. The priests being accredited with a superior\nknowledge of the ways of the gods, they were required to\ninfluence the wind and rain, to cause good growth, to ensure\nsuccess in hunting and fishing, to cure illness, to foretell the\nfuture, to work harm upon enemies.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: For a detailed discussion see Hastings: _Encyclopoedia\nof Religion and Ethics_, vol. II, pp. 278-335.]\n\nThere is more than one criterion by which men may be set\napart as priests. Sometimes they are those who in a mystic\nstate of ecstasy are supposed to be inspired by the gods.\nDuring their trance such men are questioned as to the will of\nthe divine. Sometimes they become renowned through their\nreputed performance of an occasional miracle. Again, as\nmagical and religious ceremonies become more complicated,\nthere is a deliberate training of an expert class to perform\nthese essential acts. And, whatever be the source of the\nselection of the priestly class, the immense influence which\ntheir functions are regarded as having on the welfare of the\ntribe causes them to be particularly revered and often feared\nby the lay members of the tribe. In more civilized and\nspiritual religions, the priestly or professional ecclesiastical\nclass is no longer regarded as possessed of magical powers by\nwhich it can coerce divinity. It is the official administrator\nof the ceremonies of religion, is especially trained, versed and\ncertificated in doctrine, is empowered to receive confession,\nfix penance, and the like. It is still an intermediary between\nman and the divine, although itself not possessing any supernatural\npowers.\n\nWhere ecclesiastical organization is highly developed and\nhas become controlling in the life of a people, it may be one of\nthe most powerful forces in social life. Such, for example,\nmight be said of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages:\n\nA life in the Church, for the Church, through the Church; a life\nwhich she blessed in mass at morning and sent to peaceful rest by\nthe vesper hymn; a life which she supported by the constantly recurring\nstimulus of the sacraments, relieving it by confession, purifying\nit by penance, admonishing it by the presentation of visible objects\nfor contemplation and worship--this was the life which they of the\nMiddle Ages conceived as the rightful life of Man; it was the actual\nlife of many, the ideal of all.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bryce: _Holy Roman Empire_, p. 423.]\n\nChurches may also come to acquire political functions.\nThe history of the Church is for many centuries the leading\nfactor in the political history of Europe, nor is it only in\nChristendom that political institutions have been inextricably\nassociated with religion.\n\nReligious institutions may, as pointed out in the case of\nprimitive tribes, acquire educational functions. The initiation\nceremonies in Australian tribes have a markedly religious\ncharacter. In the higher and more modern religions educational\nfunctions still persist. The Catholic Church has been\nregarded as the educator of Europe. Charlemagne's endowment\nand encouragement of education was largely made\neffectual through the Church. The grammarians and didactic\nwriters, the poets, the encyclopaedists, the teachers whom\nCharlemagne endowed and gathered about him, the heads of\nthe schools which he founded, were all churchmen. Until\nvery recently in the history of Europe the universities and\neducation in general were nearly all under the domination of\nthe Church. The secularization of primary education in\nEngland took place only late in the nineteenth century, and it\nis not yet a generation since the battle over the secularization\nof education was waged in France. All religious sects\nmaintain on a smaller or larger scale educational functions.\nParochial and convent schools and denominational colleges\nare contemporary examples.\n\nTHE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RELIGION. The\nconsequences of institutionalized religion in social development\nhave been very marked. The mere association of large\ngroups in a common faith and a common religious interest has\nbeen a considerable factor in their integration. There is to\nbe noted in the first place the common emotional sympathies\naroused by the participation of great numbers in identical\nrites and ceremonies. Any widespread social habit becomes\nweighted with emotional values for its members. Particularly\nis this true of religious habits, the mystery and magnificence\nassociated with which deeply intensify their emotional\ninfluence. Again religious habits are given a unanimous and\nhigh social approval, especially where the prohibitions and\ncommands enforced by religion are conceived intimately to\naffect the welfare of the tribe. The prophets reiterated to the\npeople of Israel that their calamities were the result of their\nhaving ceased to follow in the ways of the Lord. The possession\nof a common religious history and tradition may also give\na people a deepened sense of group solidarity. The national\ndevelopment of the ancient Hebrews was undoubtedly promoted\nby their sense of being the chosen people, of possessing\nexclusively the law of Jehovah.\n\nAgain religious sanction is given to codes of belief, modes of\nconduct, and to institutions, thus at once strengthening them\nand making change difficult. It is not merely customs that\nare obeyed and disobeyed, but the sacred commands. A\npremium is put upon the regular and traditional because of\nthe divine sanction associated with them. To violate a\nprohibition, even a slight one, becomes thus the most terrible\nsacrilege. Customs that, like the hygienic rules of the Mosaic\ncode, may have started as genuine social utilities are maintained\nbecause they have become fixed in the religious traditions\nas enjoined by the Lord. In consequence there may be a\nPharisaical insistence on the performance of the letter of the\nlaw, long after its practical utility or spiritual significance is\nforgotten. It is this persistence in the literal fulfillments of\nreligious commands at the expense of the spirit, that the\nHebrew prophets so vehemently condemned. Thus proclaims\nIsaiah:\n\nTo what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Saith\nthe Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed\nbeasts....\n\nBring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto\nme....\n\nYour new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they\nare a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them....\n\nWash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from\nbefore mine eyes; cease to do evil;\n\nLearn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the\nfatherless, plead for the widow.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Isaiah I: 11-17.]]\n\nInstitutions and modes of life, even when they are not,\nstrictly speaking, part of the religious tradition proper, are\ngiven tremendous sanction and confirmation when they become\nembodied in the religious tradition. The institution of\nthe family, for example, through the strong religious sanctions\nand values implied in the marriage ceremony and relationship\n(especially the marriage sacrament of the Catholic Church),\ncomes to be strongly fortified and entrenched. Change in\nthe form of an institution so hallowed by religion is something\nmore than change; it is sacrilege. Governments and dynasties,\nagain, when they have a religious sanction, when the\nKing rules by \"divine right,\" acquire a strong additional\nsource of persistence and power. The imperial character of\nthe Japanese government to-day, for example, is said to be\ngreatly enhanced in prestige by the widespread popular belief\nthat the Emperor is lineally descended from divinity.\n\nSometimes religious sanctions have inspired and promoted\nzeal for social enterprise. The Crusades stand out as classic\ninstances, but in the name of religion men have done more\nthan build cathedrals and go on pilgrimages. In the Middle\nAges, bridges and roads were constructed, alms were given,\npictures were painted, books illuminated, encyclopaedias\nmade, education conducted, all under the auspices and\ninspiration of the Church. The mediaeval universities started\nas church schools. In our own day, the expansion of the\nchurches in the direction of welfare work and social reform,\nthe use of the church as a community center, are examples of\nthis development. Men have found justification by good\nworks as well as faith.\n\nINTOLERANCE AND INQUISITION. The influence of religious\ntradition over the minds of its followers has had, among many\nnoble and beautiful consequences, the dark fruits of intolerance,\npersecution, inquisition, and torture. Part of the bitter\nnarrow-mindedness which has characterized the history of\necclesiastical institutions is not to be attributed specifically\nto religion. It is rather to be explained by the general uneasiness\nwhich the gregarious human creature feels at any\ndeviation from the accustomed. In addition men have felt\nfrequently that any divergence from the divinely ordained\nwould bring destruction upon the whole group. In the Christian\ntradition there was an additional reason for intolerance:\nthe heretic was willfully losing his own soul, and it was only\nhumane to compel him to come \"into the fold, to rescue him\nfrom the pains he would otherwise suffer in Hell.\"\n\nThe profound conviction that those who did not believe in its\ndoctrines would be damned eternally, and that God punishes theological\nerror as if it were the most heinous of crimes, led naturally to\npersecution. It was a duty to impose on men the only true doctrine,\nseeing that their own eternal interests were at stake, and to hinder errors\nfrom spreading. Heretics were more than ordinary criminals, and\nthe pains that man could inflict on them were as nothing to the\ntortures awaiting them in hell.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bury: _History of Freedom of Thought_, pp. 52-53.]\n\nIn fevered zeal for the Faith began that long hunting and\npunishment of heresy, which has done so much to darken the\nhistory of religion in Western Europe. There were, as in the\nAlbigensian Crusade, wholesale burnings and hangings of men,\nwomen, and children.[1] Heresy was hunted out in secret retreats.\n\"It was the foulest of crimes; to prevail against it\nwas to prevail against the legions of Hell.\" The culmination\nof intolerance was, of course, the Inquisition. One need not\npause to recall its espionage system, its search for the spreaders\nof false doctrine, its use of any and every witness against the\nsuspect, its granting of indulgences to any one who should\nbear witness against him, its \"relaxing of the criminal to the\nsecular arm,\" which unfailingly punished him with death. It\nmust be pointed out that in the instance of the Inquisition,\njust as in the case of all religious persecution, the motives\nwere most frequently of the noblest. \"In the Middle Ages\nand after, men of kindly temper and the purest zeal were\nabsolutely devoid of mercy when heresy was suspected.\" Nor\nare intolerance and persecution to be laid exclusively at the\ndoor of any one religion. In Protestant countries, in England\nand Scotland, the persecution and torture of alleged witches is\none of the most painful instances of the cruelties into which\nmen can be led by loyalty to their religious convictions. And\nMohammedanism vividly taught men how a faith might be\nspread by fire and sword.\n\n[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, pp. 56-57.]\n\nQUIETISM AND CONSOLATION--OTHER-WORLDLINESS. Many\nreligions, including Christianity, have emphasized \"other-worldliness.\"\nThis has most frequently taken the form of\nemphasis on the life to come. This world has been conceived,\nas it were, as a prelude to eternity. In the Christian world\nscheme, as most clearly expounded and universally accepted\nduring the Middle Ages, man's chief imperative business was\nsalvation. All else was trivial in comparison with that\nincomparable eternal bliss which would be the reward of the\nvirtuous, and that unending agony which would be the penalty\nfor the damned. \"Salvation was the master Christian motive.\nThe Gospel of Christ was a gospel of salvation unto\neternal life. It presented itself in the self-sacrifice of divine\nlove, not without warnings touching its rejection.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: H. O. Taylor: _Medioeval Mind_, vol. I, p. 61.]\n\nWhere interest is centered on a world to come, there not\ninfrequently results a loss of interest and discrimination in the\ngoods of earthly life. \"For what shall it profit a man if he\nshall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?\" The\nbeauties, goods, and distinctions of this world coalesce into an\nindiscriminate triviality in comparison with that infinite glory\nhereafter to be attained. One does not trouble one's self\nabout the furniture of earthly life any more than one would\ntake pains with the beautification of a room in which one happens\nto be lodged for a night.\n\nLay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and\nrust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.\n\nBut lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth\nnor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor\nsteal.\n\nThough on earth you may live in squalor, poverty, and disease,\nyet \"in my Father's house are many mansions.\"\n\nPoverty, indeed, became in the Middle Ages one of the vows\nof monastic orders. In the New Testament it is prescribed,\n\"Blessed are the poor in spirit\" and the doctrine was in many\ncases literally accepted.\n\nIf any one of you will know whether he is really poor in spirit, let\nhim consider whether he loves the ordinary consequences and effects\nof poverty, which are hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue, and the denudation\nof all conveniences. See if you are glad to wear a worn-out\nhabit full of patches. See if you are glad when something is lacking\nto your meal, when you are passed by in serving it, when what you\nreceive is distasteful to you, when your cell is out of repair. If you\nare not glad of these things, if instead of loving them you avoid\nthem, then there is proof that you have not attained the perfection\nof poverty of spirit.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Alfonso Rodriguez: _Pratique de la Perfection Chretienne_,\npart III, treatise III, chap. VI; quoted in James's _Varieties of\nReligious Experience_, p. 315.]\n\nContempt for this world's goods, when generalized, promotes\nan attitude of indifference to the social conditions in\nwhich men live. The history of the saints is filled with\nreferences to their endurance of pain, ill health, poverty, and\ndisease. And the \"world, the flesh, and the devil\" are for\nsome types of religious mind all one. For such, to be\nengaged in social betterment is an irrelevant business, it is to\nbe lost in the world. People's souls must be saved; not their\nbodies.\n\nReligions, on the other hand, have frequently emphasized\nman's social duty. In Christianity this is largely a derivative\nof the highly regarded virtue of Charity. Interest in one's\nown well-being was a prerequisite for the devout, but interest\nin the welfare of others was equally enjoined. To help the\npoor and the needy, the widowed and the fatherless, to bring\nsuccor to the oppressed and justice to the downtrodden, have\nbeen part of the religion whose Founder taught that all men\nwere the children of their Father in Heaven. The mendicant\norders of the Middle Ages were devoted to philanthropic works;\nand with religious institutions, throughout their history, have\nbeen associated works of philanthropy and social welfare.\nVery recently urban churches in this country have been showing\na tendency to reorganize with emphasis on the church as an\ninstrument of social cooeperation rather than as an aloof\nexponent of dogmatic theology. It is the ideal of some liberal\ntheologians to use the churches chiefly as instruments for\ngiving social effectiveness to the religious impulse and at the\nsame time for making social betterment a spiritual enterprise.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nART AND THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE\n\nART _VERSUS_ NATURE. In the Career of Reason man has gradually\nlearned to control the world in which he lives in the interests\nof his own welfare as he imaginatively contemplated it.\nDeliberate control has been made necessary because of the\nfact that man is born into a world which was not made for\nhim, but in which he must, if anywhere, grow; in a world which\nwas not designed to fulfill his desires, but where alone his\ndesires can find fulfillment. Art may thus, in the broadest\nsense, be set over against Nature. It is the activity by which\nman realizes ideals. He may realize them practically, as when\nhe builds a house which he has first imagined, or reaps a\nharvest in anticipation of which he has first sown the seeds. He\nmay realize them imaginatively, as when in color, form, or\nsound he creates some desiderated beauty out of the crude\nmiscellaneous materials of experience. Art, in the broad\nsense of control or direction of Nature, arises in the double\nfact of man's instinctive activities and desires and the\ninadequacy of the environment as it stands to afford them\nsatisfaction. Because nature is not considerate of his needs, man\nmust himself take forethought, and devise means by which\nthe forces and the materials of Nature may be exploited to his\nown good. And the realization of this forethought is made\npossible through the fact that natural conditions do lend\nthemselves to modification. Nature, though indifferent to man's\nwelfare, is yet partly congruous with it. While the wind\nblows careless of the good or ill it does to him, yet man may\nlearn by means of windmills or sailboats to turn the wind to\nhis own interest. Though the river may flow on forever,\noblivious to the men that come and go along its shores, yet\nthe passing generations may transform this undeliberate\nflowing into the power that yields them clothing, machinery,\nand transportation. All civilization is, as Mill says, an\nexhibition of Art or Contrivance; it is illustrated by\n\nthe junction by bridges of shores which Nature had made separate,\nthe draining of Nature's marshes, the excavation of her wells, the\ndragging to light of what she has buried at immense depths in the\nearth; the turning away of her thunderbolts by lightning rods; of her\ninundations by embankments, of her oceans by breakwaters.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Three Essays on Religion_, p. 19 (essay on \"Nature\").]\n\nBy irrigation man has learned to make the \"wilderness blossom\nas the rose.\" By railways, telegraphs, and telephones, he\nhas learned to minimize the obstacles that time and space offer\nto the fulfillment of his desires. By controlling, by means of\neducation and social organization, his own instincts in the\nlight of the purposes he would attain, by studying \"the secret\nprocesses of Nature,\" man has learned to make the world a fit\nhabitation for himself. To dig, to plough, to sow, to reap, are\ninstances of the means whereby man has applied intelligent\ncontrol to his half-friendly, half-hostile environment.\n\nMan's deliberate control of Nature arises thus under the\nsharp pressure of practical necessity. Man is inherently\nactive, but, as pointed out in an earlier connection, his activity\ntakes coherent and consecutive form primarily under the compulsion\nof satisfying his physical wants, of finding food, clothing,\nand shelter. The greater part of human energy, certainly\nunder primitive conditions, is devoted to maintaining a\nprecarious equilibrium among the mysterious and terrifying\nforces of a half-understood environment. There is not much\ntime for leisure, play, or art, where food is a continuously\nurgent problem, where one's shelter is likely to be destroyed by\nstorm or wind, where one is threatened incessantly by beasts\nof prey, and, as primitive man supposed, by capricious supernatural\npowers. Under such circumstances, life is largely\nspent in instrumental or imperative pursuits. Action is\nfixed by necessity. It is controlled with immediate and urgent\nreference to the business of keeping alive. There is scarcely\ntime for the activity of art, which is spontaneous and free.\n\nIn civilized life, also, the greater part of human energy\nmust be spent in necessary or instrumental business. Men\nmust, as always, be fed, clothed, and housed, and the fulfillment\nof these primary human demands absorbs the greater\npart of the waking hours of the majority of mankind. Our\ncivilization is predominantly industrial; it is devoted almost\nentirely to the transforming of the world of nature into products\nfor the gratification of the physical wants of men. These\nwants have, of course, become much complicated and refined:\nmen wish not only to live, but to live commodiously and well.\nThey want not merely a roof over their heads, but a pleasant\nand comfortable house in which to live. They want not\nmerely something to stave off starvation, but palatable foods.\nIn the satisfaction of these increasingly complicated demands\na great diversity of industries arises. With every new want to\nbe fulfilled, there is a new occupation, pursued not for its own\nsake, but for the sake of the good which it produces. There\nare industrial leaders, of course, who find in the development\nand control of the productive energies of thousands of men,\nin the manipulation of immense natural resources, satisfactions\nanalogous to that of the fine artist. But for most\nmen engaged in the routine operations of industry, the work\nthey do is clearly not pursued on its own account. Industry,\nviewed in the total context of the activities of civilization,\nis a practical rather than a fine art. Its ideal is efficiency,\nwhich means economy of effort. Its interest is primarily in\nproducing many goods cheaply.\n\nTHE EMERGENCE OF THE FINE ARTS. In the sharp struggle of\nman with his environment, those instincts survived which\nwere of practical use. The natural impulses with which a\nhuman being is at birth endowed, are chiefly those which\nenable him to cope successfully and efficiently with his\nenvironment. But even in primitive life, so exuberant and resilient\nis human energy that it is not exhausted by necessary labors.\nThe plastic arts, for example, began in the practical business\nof pottery and weaving. The weaver and the potter who\nhave acquired skill and who have a little more vitality than\nis required for turning out something that is merely useful,\nturn out something that is also beautiful. The decorations\nwhich are made upon primitive pottery exhibit the excess\nvitality and skill of the virtuoso. Similarly, religious ritual,\nwhich, as we have seen, arises in practical commerce with\nthe gods, comes to be in itself cherished and beautiful. The\nchants which are prescribed invocations of divinity, become\nsongs intrinsically interesting to singer and listener alike; the\ndance ceases to be merely a necessary religious form and becomes\nan occasion of beauty and delight. Jane Harrison has\nshown in detail how ritual arises out of practical need, and\nart out of ritual.[1] Thus the Greek drama had its beginnings\nin Greek religion; the incidental beauty of the choruses of\nthe Greek festivals developed into the eventual tragic art of\nAEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Ceasing to be a practical\ninvocation to the gods it became an artistic enterprise\nin and for itself. Repeatedly we find in primitive life that\nactivity is not exhausted in agriculture, hunting, and handicraft,\nor in a desperate commerce with divinity. Harvest\nbecomes a festival, pottery becomes an opportunity for decoration,\nand prayer, for poetry. Even in primitive life men\nfind the leisure to let their imaginations loiter over these\nintrinsically lovely episodes in their experience.\n\nThe potter may be more interested in making a beautifully\nmoulded and decorated vessel than merely in turning out a\nthing of use; the maker of baskets may come to \"play with\nhis materials,\" to make baskets not so much for their usefulness\nas for the possible beauty of their patterns. When this\ninterest in beauty becomes highly developed, and when\ncircumstances permit, the fine arts arise. The crafts come to\nbe practiced as intrinsically interesting employments of the\ncreative imagination. The moulding of miscellaneous materials\ninto beautiful forms becomes a beloved habitual practice.\n\n[Footnote 1: See Jane Harrison: _Ancient Art and Ritual_, especially chap. I.]\n\nThe context in which art appears in primitive life is paralleled\nin civilized society. The energies of men are still largely\nconsumed in necessary pursuits. Men must, as of old, by the\ninadequacy of the natural order in which they find themselves,\nfind means by which to live; and, being by nature constituted\nso that they must live together, they must find ways\nof living together justly and harmoniously. \"Industry,\"\nwrites Santayana, \"merely gives to Nature that form which,\nif more thoroughly humane, she might already have possessed\nfor our benefit.\" It is creative in so far as it transforms matter\nfrom its crude indifferent state to forms better adapted to\nhuman ideals. It makes cotton into cloth, wool into clothing,\nwheat into flour, leather into shoes, coal into light and power,\niron into skyscrapers. It is devoted to annulling the discrepancies\nbetween nature and human nature. It turns refractory\nmaterials and obdurate forces into commodious goods\nand useful powers.\n\nBut, in the broadest sense, industry is a means to an end.\nInteresting and attractive it may well become, as when a\nbookbinder or a printer takes a craftsman's proud delight in\nthe manner in which he performs his work, and in the quality\nof its product. But the industrial arts, for the most part,\nserve more ultimate purposes. It is imaginable that Nature\nmight have provided clothing, food, and shelter ready to our\nhand. It is questionable whether under such circumstances\nmen would out of deliberate choice continue industries which\nare now made imperative through necessity. The mines and\nthe stockyards are necessary rather than beautiful or intrinsically\nattractive occupations. But in the world of fact, those\nthings which are necessary to us are not ready to our hand.\nOur civilization is predominantly industrial, and must be so,\nif the billion and a half inhabitants of our world are to be\nmaintained by the resources at our command.\n\nNevertheless despite the absorption of a large proportion of\ncontemporary society in activities pursued not for their own\nsakes, but for the goods which are their fruits, there is still, as\nit were, energy left over. This excess vitality may, as it does\nfor most men, take the form of mere unorganized play or\nrecreation. But not so for those born with a singular gift for\nrealizing in color or form or sound the ideal values which they\nhave imagined. For these \"play\" is creative production.\nThe fine arts are, in a sense, the play of the race. They are\nthe fruits of such energy as is, through some fortunate accident\nof temperament or circumstance, not caught up in the\nroutine and mechanics of industry or the trivialities of sport\nor pleasure. They are human activities, freed from the limitations\nimposed by the exigencies of practical life, and controlled\nonly by the artist's imagined visions. Creative activity is\nmost explicit and most successful in the fine arts, because in\nthese there are fewer obstacles to the material realization of\nimagined perfections. \"The liberal arts bring to spiritual\nfruition the matter which either nature or industry has prepared\nand rendered propitious.\"\n\nThe industrial arts are, as already pointed out, man's\ntransformation of natural resources to ideal uses. In the same\nway political and social organization are human arts, enterprises,\nat their best, in the moulding of men's natures to their\nhighest possible realization. But in the world of action,\nwhether political or industrial, there are incomparably greater\nhindrances to the realization in practice of imagined goods\nthan there are, at least to the gifted, in the fine arts. Every\nideal for which men attempt to find fulfillment in the world of\naction is subject to a thousand accidental deflections of circumstance.\nEvery enterprise involves conflicting wills; the\nlarger the enterprise, the more various and probably the more\nconflicting the interests involved. Social movements have\ntheir courses determined by factors altogether beyond the control\nof their originators. Statesmen can start wars, but cannot\ndefine their eventual fruits. A man may found a political\nparty, and live to see it wander far from the ideal which he\nhad framed. But in the fine arts, to the imaginatively and\ntechnically endowed, the materials are prepared and controllable.\nIn the hands of a master, action does not wander\nfrom intent. Language to the poet, for example, is an\nimmediate and responsive instrument; he can mould it precisely\nto his ideal intention. The enterprise of poetry is less\ndependent almost than any other undertaking on the accidents\nof circumstance, outside the poet's initial imaginative resources.\nIn music, even so simple an instrument as a flute\ncan yield perfection of sound. The composer of a symphony\ncan invent a perpetual uncorroded beauty; the sculptor an\nimmortality of irrefutably persuasive form. This explains in\npart why so many artists, of a reflective turn of mind, are\npessimists in practical affairs. The world of action with its\nperpetual and pitiful frustrations, failures, and compromises,\nseems incomparably poor, paltry, and sordid, in comparison\nwith the perfection that is attainable in art.\n\nHaunting foreshadowings of the temple appear in the realm of\nimagination, in music, in architecture, in the untroubled kingdom of\nreason, and in the golden sunset magic of lyrics, where beauty shines\nand glows, remote from the touch of sorrow, remote from the fear of\nchange, remote from the failures and disenchantment of the world of\nfact. In the contemplation of these things the vision of heaven will\nshape itself in our hearts, giving at once a touchstone to judge the\nworld about us, and an inspiration by which to fashion to our needs\nwhatever is capable of serving as a stone in the sacred temple.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bertrand Russell: _Philosophical Essays_, pp. 65-66.]\n\nThe creative artist gives such form to the miscellaneous\nmaterials at his disposal that they give satisfaction not only\nto the senses or the intellect, but to the imagination. What\nconstitute some of the chief elements in the aesthetic experience,\nwe shall presently examine. It must first be pointed\nout that in general in the fine arts creative genius has found\nways of imaginatively attaining perfections not usually accorded\nin the experiences of the senses, in the life of society,\nor in the life of the mind.\n\nThe region called imagination has pleasures more airy and luminous\nthan those of sense, more massive and rapturous than those of\nintelligence. The values inherent in imagination, in instant\nintuition, in sense endowed with form, are called aesthetic values; they are\nfound mainly in nature and in living beings, but also in man's artificial\nworks, in images evoked by language, and in the realm of sound.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Santayana: _Reason in Art_, p. 15.]\n\nThe painter imagines and seeks to realize hues and intensities\nof color more satisfying and more suggestive than those\ncommonly experienced in nature, save in the occasional grace\nof sunset on a mountain lake, or the miracle of moonlight\non the ocean. The artist takes his hints from nature, but\nclothes the suggestions of sense with the values and motives\nwhich exist only in his own mind and imagination. A Turner\nsunset is, as Oscar Wilde points out, in a sense incomparably\nsuperior to one provided by nature. It not only gives the\nbeautiful sensations to be had in a landscape suffused with\nthe sunset glow; it infuses into this experience the passionate\nand penetrating insight of a genius. The artist, to an extent,\nimitates nature. But, if that were all he did, he would be no\nmore than a photographer. He pictures nature, but gives it\n\"tint and melody and breath\"; he gives it a value and significance\nderived from his own imaginative vision. The musician\ncombines sounds more significant, ordered, and rhythmical\nthan those miscellaneous noises which, in ordinary\nexperience, beat indifferently or painfully upon our ears.\nThe poet selects words whose specific music, rhythmical\ncombinations, and lyrical context produce a something more\nevocative, compelling, and euphonic than the casual and\nraucous instrument of communication which constitutes\nordinary speech.\n\nNot only do poets give imaginative and ideal extensions to\nsense experience; they do as much with and for social life.\nIn the dreaming of Utopias, in the building of the Perfect\nCity, men have found compensations for the imperfect cities\nwhich have been their experiences on earth. They build\nthemselves in imagination a world where all injustices are\nerased, where beauty is perennial, where truth, courage,\nkindliness, and merriment are the pervasive colors of life.\nIn the activity of creative art, man's imagination has reached\nout beyond the confines of nature and of history, and built\nitself, in marble and in music, in lyrics and in legends, hints\nof that enchanting possible, of which the impoverished actual\ngives tentative and tenuous hints.\n\nIn some men sensitivity to the imaginative possibilities of\nthe materials of Nature is so high, that they can find satisfactory\nactivity nowhere else than in one or another of the\nfine arts. These are the poets, the musicians, and the sculptors,\nwho seek to give realization in the arts in the technique\nof which they are especially gifted, to that imagined beauty\nby the intimate experience of which they live. In one way or\nanother the creative artist seeks to give form and dimension to\n\n  \"The light that never was on sea or land,\n   The consecration and the poet's dream.\"\n\nThis creative impulse may find its realization, as already\npointed out, in industry, though, with the highly routine\ncharacter of most men's occupations in present-day industrial\nlife, there is not much opportunity for imaginative activity.\nThat both work and happiness would be promoted by the\nencouragement of the craftsman ideal goes without saying.\nWhether or not it is possible to utilize the creative impulses\nin the processes of industry as now organized, there are instances\nwhere the joy of craftsmanship may be exploited both\nfor the happiness of the worker and the good of the work.\nThe William Morris ideal of the artist-worker may be hard to\nattain, but it is none the less desirable, both for the sake of the\nworker and his work.\n\nIn science the uses of the imagination have been frequently\ncommented on, not least by scientists. The patient\ncollection of facts, the digging and measurement and\ninquiry that characterize so much of scientific investigation\nare not the whole of it. Inference, the forming of a generalization,\nis frequently described \"as a leap from the known to\nthe unknown,\" and this discovery of a binding principle that\nbrings together a wide variety of disconnected facts is not\nunlike the process of the creative artist. The same unconscious\nmethod by which a poet hits upon an appropriate epithet, a\nmusician upon a melody, a painter upon an effect of color\nor line is displayed in that sudden vivid flash of insight by\nwhich a scientist sees a mass of facts that have long seemed\nbafflingly contradictory, gathered up under a single luminous\nlaw. In his famous essay on \"The Scientific Uses of the\nImagination,\" Tyndall writes:\n\nWe are gifted with the power of Imagination, ... and by this\npower we can lighten the darkness which surrounds the world of the\nsenses. There are tories even in science who regard imagination as\na faculty to be feared and avoided rather than employed. They had\nobserved its action in weak vessels and were unduly impressed by its\ndisasters. But they might with equal justice point to exploded\nboilers as an argument against the use of steam. Bounded and\nconditioned by cooeperant Reason, imagination becomes the mightiest\ninstrument of the physical discoverer. Newton's passage from a\nfalling apple to a falling moon was, at the outset, a leap of the\nimagination. When William Thomson tries to place the ultimate\nparticles of matter between his compass points, and to apply to them\na scale of millimetres, he is powerfully aided by this faculty. And\nin much that has been recently said about protoplasm and life, we\nhave the outgoings of the imagination guided and controlled by the\nknown analogies of science. In fact, without this power, our knowledge\nof Nature would be a mere tabulation of coexistences and\nsequences. We should still believe in the succession of day and\nnight, of summer and winter; but the soul of Force would be\ndislodged from our universe; causal relations would disappear, and\nwith them that science which is now binding the parts of nature into\nan organic whole.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Tyndall: _Fragments of Science_, pp. 130-31.]\n\nAs we shall presently see, this imaginative leap is guarded\nand controlled, so that no flash of insight, however attractive,\nis uncritically accepted. But the origin of every eventually\naccepted hypothesis lies in the upshoot of irresponsible fancy,\ndiffering not at all from the images in the mind of a poet or\npainter or the melodies that unpredictably occur to a musician.\n\nTHE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE. Art is, on its creative side, as we\nhave seen, the control of Nature in the practical or imaginative\nrealization of ideals. The industrial arts are pursued out\nof necessity, because man must find himself ways of living\nin a world which he must inhabit, though it is not _a prior_\narranged for his habitation. The fine arts are pursued as\nends in themselves.[1] The genuinely gifted sing, paint, write\npoetry, apart from fame and reward, for the sheer pleasure of\ncreation. But the products of these creative activities themselves\nbecome satisfactions on a par with other natural goods.\nThe objects of art--poems, paintings, statues, symphonies--are\nthemselves prized and sought after. They afford satisfaction\nto that large number of persons who are sensitive to\nthe beautiful without having a gift for its creation.\n\n[Footnote 1:\nMany industrial processes exhibit elements of the fine arts. This is the\ncase whenever there is opportunity for the worker to feel, and to have some\nground for the feeling, that he is not merely turning out a product, but turning\nout a well-made or a beautiful one, to which his own skill is contributing.\nThe makers of fine books or bindings or furniture, of fine embroidery and the\nlike, are examples. But such conditions occur chiefly in the so-called luxury\ntrades. There is very little opportunity for the display of creative talent in\nquantity manufacture.\n\nOn the other hand, every fine art involves some elements of merely technical\nskill or craftsmanship, which is important in achieving an imaginative\nresult, but is the skill of the mechanic rather than the vision of the artist.\nIn surveying the finished product of art as it appears in a painting by a\nTurner or a Cezanne, we may forget the \"dust and ointment of the calling,\"\nbut it is none the less there. The drudgery of art, the practicing of scales.\nthe mixing of colors, the rehearsing of plays, are, as it were, the necessary preliminary industry in art.]\n\nAEsthetic appreciation is indeed shared by all men, and is\ncalled out by other objects than paintings or poems. There is\nhardly anything men do which is not affected by what has\nbeen called \"an irrelevant access of aesthetic feeling.\" We saw\nin another connection how our estimates of persons and situations\nare qualified by love and hate, sympathy and revulsion.\nIn the same way all our experiences have an aesthetic coloring.\nIt may be nothing more than the curious jubilance and\nvivacity, the thrill and tingle of the blood that comes upon a\ncrisp autumn day. It may be, as Mill pointed out, the largeness\nof thought and vision promoted by habitually working\nin a spacious and dignified room. AEsthetic influences are\nalways playing upon us; they determine not only our tastes in\nthe decoration of our houses, our choices of places to walk and\nto eat, but even such seemingly remote and abstract matters\nas a scientific theory or a philosophy of life. Even the industrial\nideal of efficiency has, \"with its suggestion of Dutch\nneatness and cleanliness,\" order and symmetry, an aesthetic\nflavor. Similarly is there an appeal to our aesthetic sensibilities\nin the grouping of a wide variety of facts under sweeping\ninclusive and simple generalizations. There is, as has often\nbeen pointed out, scarcely anything to choose from as regards\nthe relative plausibility of the Copernican over the Ptolemaic\nsystem. The former we choose largely because of its greater\nsymmetry and simplicity in accounting for the facts. Even a\nworld view may be chosen on account of its artistic appeal.\nOne feels moved imaginatively, even if one disagrees with the\nlogic of those philosophies which see reality as one luminously\ntransparent conscious whole, in which every experience is\ndelicately reticulated with every other, where discord and\ndivision are obliterated, and the multiple variety of mundane\nfacts are gathered up into the symmetrical unity of the eternal.\n\nAPPRECIATION _VERSUS_ ACTION. Every human experience has\nthus its particular and curious aesthetic flavor, as an inevitable\nthough undetected obligato. AEsthetic values enter into and\nqualify our estimates of persons and situations, and help to\ndetermine that general sympathy or revulsion, that love or\nhate for people, institutions, or ideas, which make the pervasive\natmosphere of all human action. But in the world of\naction, we cannot emphasize these irrelevant aesthetic feelings.\nThe appreciative and the practical moods are sharply contrasted.\nIn the latter we are interested in results, and insist\non the exclusion of all considerations that do not bear on\ntheir accomplishment. The appreciative or aesthetic mood is\ndetached; it is interested not to act, but to pause and consider;\nit does not want to use the present as a point of departure.\nIt wants to bask in the present perfection of color, word, or\nsound. The practical man is interested in a present situation\nfor what can be done with it; he wants to know, in the vernacular,\n\"What comes next?\" \"Where do we go from here?\"\nThe appreciator wishes to remain in the lovely interlude of\nperfection which he experiences in music, poetry, or painting.\n\nThe aesthetic mood is obviously at a discount in the world\nof action. To bask in the charm of a present situation, to\nlinger and loiter, as it were, in the sun of beauty, is to accomplish\nnothing, to interrupt action. It is precisely for this\nreason that persons with extremely high aesthetic sensibilities\nare at such a discount in practical life. They are too easily\ndissolved in appreciation. They are too much absorbed, for\npractical efficiency, in the tragic, the whimsical, the beautiful,\nor the comic aspects of men and affairs. The same sensitivity\nto the innuendoes and colors of life that enable some of\nsuch men to give an exquisite and various portraiture of\nexperience, incapacitates them for action. The practical man\nmust not observe anything irrelevant to his immediate business.\nHe must not be dissolved, at every random provocation,\ninto ecstacy, laughter, or sorrow. There is too much to\nbe done in business, government, mechanics, and the laboratory,\nto allow one's attention to wander dreamingly over the\ntragic, the beautiful, the pathetic, the comic, and the\ngrotesque qualities of the day's work. To take an extreme case,\nit would, as Jane Harrison observes, be a monstrosity, when\nour friend was drowning, to note with lingering appreciation\nthe fluent white curve of his arm in the glimmering waters of\nthe late afternoon. The man to whom every event is flooded\nwith imaginative possibilities and emotional suggestions is a\nuseless or a dangerous character in situations where it is\nessential to discriminate the immediate and important bearings\nof facts. We cannot select an expert accountant on the\nbasis of a pleasant smile, nor a chauffeur for his sense of\nhumor.\n\nBut while, in the larger part of the lives of most men, observation\nof facts is controlled with reference to their practical\nbearings, observation may sometimes take place for its own\nsake. The glory of a sunset is not commonly prized for any\ngood that may come of it; nobody but a general on a campaign\nor a fire warden looks out from a mountain peak upon\nthe valley below for reasons other than the pleasure of the\nbeholding. In the case of persons, also, we are not always\ninterested in them for their uses; we are sometimes delighted\nwith them in themselves. We pause to watch merry or\nquaint children, experts at tennis, beautiful faces, for their\nown sakes.\n\nWhile even in nature and in social experience, we thus sometimes\nnote specifically aesthetic values, the objects of fine art\nhave no other justification than the immediate satisfactions\nthey produce in their beholder. Those intrinsic pleasures\nwhich go by the general name of beauty are various and\ncomplicated. Our joy may be in the sheer delight of the senses,\nas in the hearing of a singularly lucid and sustained note of a\nclarinet, a flute, a voice, or a violin. It may be in the appreciation\nof form, as in the case of the symmetry of a temple, an\narch, or an altar. It may be in the simultaneous stirring of\nthe senses, the imagination, and the intellect, by the presentation\nof an idea suffused with music and emotion, as in the case\nof an ode by Wordsworth or a sonnet by Milton.\n\nIn all these instances we are not interested in anything beyond\nthe experience itself. The objects of the fine arts are\nnot drafts on the future, anticipations of future satisfactions\neventually to be cashed in. They are immediate and intrinsic\ngoods, absolute fulfillments. They are not signals to action;\nthey are releases from it. A painting, a poem, a symphony,\ndo not precipitate movement or change. They invite a restful\nabsorption. It was this that made Schopenhauer regard art\nas a rest from reality. During these interludes, at least, we\nlive amid perfections, and are content there to move and have\nour being.\n\nSENSE SATISFACTION. Appreciation of the arts begins in the\nsenses. Sight and sound, these are unquestionably the chief\navenues by which the imagination is stirred.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: The so-called lower senses are not regarded as\nyielding aesthetic\nvalues. Smell, taste, and touch are not generally, certainly\nin Occidental art, made\nmuch of.]\n\nIn the words of Santayana:\n\nFor if nothing not once in sense is to be found in the intellect,\nmuch less is such a thing to be found in the imagination. If the\ncedars of Lebanon did not spread a grateful shade, or the winds\nrustle through the maze of their branches, if Lebanon had never\nbeen beautiful to sense, it would not now be a fit or poetic subject of\nallusion.... Nor would Samarcand be anything but for the mystery\nof the desert, and the picturesqueness of caravans, nor would an\nargosy be poetic if the sea had no voices and no foam, the winds and\noars no resistance, and the rudder and taut sheets no pull. From\nthese real sensations imagination draws its life, and suggestion its\npower.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Santayana: _Sense of Beauty_, p. 68.]\n\nSatisfaction in sounds arises from the regular intervals of\nthe vibrations of the air by which it is produced. The rapidity\nof these regular beats determines the pitch. But sounds also\ndiffer in _timbre_ or quality, depending on the number of overtones\nwhich occur in different modes of production. This explains\nwhy a note on the scale played on the piano, differs\nfrom the same note played on the 'cello or the organ. From\nthese fundamental sensuous elements of sound, elaborate\nsymphonic compositions may be built up, but they remain\nprimary nevertheless. Unless the sensuous elements of sound\nwere themselves pleasing it is difficult to imagine that a musical\ncomposition could be. Music would then be like an orchestra\nwhose members played in unison, but whose violins were\nraucous and whose trumpets hoarse.\n\nColor again illustrates the aesthetic satisfactions that are\nfound in certain kinds of sense stimulation, apart from the\nform they are given or the emotions or ideas they express.\nThe elements of color, _as_ color, may be reduced to three simple\nelements: First may be noted _hue_, as yellow or blue; second,\n_value_ (or _notan_) dark or light red; and third _intensity_ (or\nbrightness to grayness), as vivid blue or dull blue. Specific\nvivid aesthetic combinations and variations are made possible\nby variations or combinations of these three elements of\ncolor. If a color scheme is displeasing, the fault may be in the\nwrong selection of hues, in weak values, in ill-matched intensities\nor all three.\n\nDutch tiles, Japanese prints and blue towels, Abruzzi towels,\nAmerican blue quilts, etc., are examples of harmony built up with\nseveral values of one hue.\n\nWith two hues innumerable variations are possible. Japanese\nprints of the \"red and green\" period are compositions in light\nyellow-red, middle green, black, and white....\n\nColor varies not only in hue and value [_notan_] but in intensity--ranging\nfrom bright to gray. Every painter knows that a brilliant\nbit of color, set in grayer tones of the same or neighboring hues, will\nilluminate the whole group--a distinguished and elusive harmony.\nThe fire opal has a single point of intense scarlet, melting into pearl;\nthe clear evening sky is like this when from the sunken sun the red-orange\nlight grades away through yellow and green to steel gray.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dow: _Composition_, p. 109.]\n\nThese variations in hue, value, and intensity of color afford\nspecific aesthetic satisfactions. The blueness of the sky is its\nspecific beauty; the greenness of foliage in springtime is its\ncharacteristic and quite essential charm. Apart from anything\nelse, sensations themselves afford satisfaction or the\nreverse. A loud color, a strident or a shrill sound may cause\na genuine revulsion of feeling. A soft hue or a pellucid note\nmay be an intrinsic pleasure, though a formless one, and one\nexpressive of no meaning at all.\n\nFORM. While the imagination is stirred most directly by\nthe immediate material beauty, by the satisfaction of the\nsenses, beauty of form is an important element in the enhancement\nof appreciation. In the plastic arts and in music,\nit is, next to the immediate appeal of the sensuous elements\ninvolved, the chief ingredient in the effects produced. And\neven in those arts which are notable for their expressive values,\npoetry, fiction, drama and painting, the appeal of form, as\nin the plot of a drama, or the structure of an ode or it sonnet\nis still very high. Certain dispositions of line and color in\npainting; of harmony and counterpoint in music; rhythm,\nrefrain, and recurrence in poetry; symmetry and balance in\nsculpture; all have their specific appeal, apart from the materials\nused or the emotions or ideas expressed. Certain harmonic\nrelations are interesting in music apart from the particular\nrange of notes employed, or the particular melody upon\nwhich variations are made. The pattern of a tapestry may\nbe interesting, apart from the color combinations involved.\nThe structure of a ballade or a sonnet may be beautiful, apart\nfrom the melody of the words or the persuasiveness of the\nemotion or idea. Out of the factors which enter into the\nappreciation of form certain elements stand out.\n\nThere is, in the first place, _symmetry_, the charm of which\nlies partly in recognition and rhythm. \"When the eye runs\nover a facade, and finds the objects that attract it at equal\nintervals, an expectation, like the anticipation of an inevitable\nnote or requisite word, arises in the mind, and its non-satisfaction\ninvolves a shock.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Santayana: _The Sense of Beauty_, p. 92.]\n\nSimilarly, form given to material brings a variety of details\nunder a comprehensive unity, enabling us to have at once the\nstimulation of diversity and the clarification of a guiding\nprinciple. We cherish sensations in themselves, when they\nconsist of elements like limpidness of color and lucidity of\nsound. But too much miscellany of sensation is disquieting;\nit has an effect analogous to noise. A baby or a barbarian\nmay delight in loud heterogeneity and vivid confusion, but\nextravagance of sensation does not constitute an aesthetic\nexperience.\n\nThe discovery of the one in the many, the immediate apprehension\nof the fluent tracing of a pattern, a form, or a structure,\nis intrinsically delightful. The pattern of a tapestry\ndesign is as striking and suggestive as the colors themselves.\nWhen musical taste has passed from a sentimental intoxication\nwith the sensuous beauty of the sounds themselves, the\nbeauty we admire is primarily beauty of form or structure.\nThe musical connoisseur likes to trace the recurrence of a\ntheme in a symphony, its deviations and disappearances, its\ndistribution in the various choirs of wood-wind, brass, and\nstrings, its interweaving with other themes, its resilient,\nsurprising, and apposite emergences, its pervasive penetration of\nthe total scheme.\n\nThe aesthetic experience, indeed, as specifically aesthetic,\nrather than merely sensuous or intellectual, is, it might be\nsaid, almost wholly a matter of form. It is the artist's function,\nas it is occasionally his achievement, to give satisfying,\ndeterminate forms to the indeterminate and miscellaneous\nmaterials at his command. Formlessness is for the creator of\nbeauty the unpardonable sin. To give clarity and coherence\nto the vague ambiguous scintillations of sound, to chisel a\nspecific perfection out of the indefinite inviting possibilities\nof marble, to form precise and consecutive suggestions out of\nthe random and uncertain music of words, is to achieve, in so\nfar, success in art. Nor does form mean formality. Experience\nis so various and fertile, and so far outruns the types under\nwhich human invention and imagination can apprehend\nit, that inexhaustible novelty is possible. Novelty, on the\nother hand, does not mean formlessness. The artist must, if\nhe is to be successful, always remain something of an artisan.\nHowever beautiful his vision, he must have sufficient command\nof the technical resources to his craft to give a specific\nand determinate embodiment to his ideal.\n\nEvery one has haunting premonitions of beauty; it is the\nbusiness of the artist to give realization in form to the hints of\nthe beautiful which are present in matter as we meet it in\nexperience, and to the imaginative longings which they provoke.\n\nIn which forms different individuals will find satisfaction\ndepends on all the circumstances which go to make one individual\ndifferent from another. There cannot be in the case of\nart, any more than in any other experience, absolute standards.\nWe can be pleased only with those arrangements of sound\nor color to which our sensibilities have early been educated.\nEven the most catholic of tastes becomes restricted in the\ncourse of education. To Western ears, there is at first no\nmusic at all in Chinese music, and Beethoven would appear to\nthe Chinese as barbarous as their compositions appear to us.\n\nBut while in a wide sense, conformity to the average determines\nor limits our possible appreciation of the beautiful,\nwithin these limits certain elements are intrinsically more\npleasing than others. Those elements of experience, in the\nfirst place, more readily acquire aesthetic values, which in\nthemselves strikingly impress the senses. Thus tallness in a\nman, because it is in the first place striking, becomes readily\nincorporated into our standard of the beautiful. And all elements\nin themselves beautiful, the human eye, the curve of\nthe arm, the wave of the hair, come to be emphasized. These\noutstanding elements may themselves become conventionalized\nand standardized, so that objects of art which conform\nto them are insured thereby of a certain degree of recognition\nas beautiful. Too close a conformity produces monotonous\nformalities, cloying classicisms. Too wide a divergence\nresults in shock and unpleasantness. The history of all the arts,\nhowever, is full of instances of how the taste of a people can be\neducated to new forms. Ruskin had to educate the English\npeople to an appreciation of Turner. The poets of the Romantic\nperiod were condemned by the critics brought up on\nthe rigid classic models. The so-called Romantic movements\nin the arts are, at their best, departures from old forms, not\ninto formlessness, but into new, various, and more fruitful\nforms. Romanticism at its worst dissolves into mere formlessness\nand inarticulate ecstacies. Infinite variety of forms\nthe world of experience may be made to wear, but sensations,\nemotions, and ideas must be given some form, if they are to\npass from a fruitless yearning after beauty into its positive\nincarnation in objects of art.\n\nAll forms have their characteristic emotional effects, as have\nall materials, even apart from the emotions or ideas they express.\nThe glitter of gold and the sparkle of diamonds, the\nstrength of marble, the sturdiness of oak--we hardly can\nthink of these materials without thinking of the associations\nwhich go with them. Similarly the symmetry of the colonnades\nof a temple, the multiplicity and variety of Gothic\narchitecture, even so simple a form as a circle, provoke a\ngreat or slight characteristic emotional reaction. Likewise,\na staccato or a fluent rhythm in music, a march, or a dance\nmovement, have, even apart from their unconscious or intentional\nexpressiveness, specific emotional values. In literature,\nalso, where the value of the words themselves might\nbe expected to give place entirely to the emotions or ideas of\nwhich they are the expressive instruments, poems may themselves,\nby their form and music, be provocative of specific\nemotional effects.\n\n  \"...And over them the sea wind sang,\n   Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down\n   By zigzag paths and juts of pointed rock,\n   Came on the shining levels of the lake.\n\n   Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves,\n   And barren chasms, and all to left and right,\n   The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he based\n   His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang,\n   Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels--\n   And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,\n   And the long glories of the winter moon.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: From Tennyson's _Morte d'Arthur_.]\n\nHere the effect lies partly in the form, but more especially in\nthe _timbre_ and reverberation of the words themselves. In\nother cases, it is the form that is the chief ingredient in the\neffect produced. In Alfred Noyes's \"The Barrel Organ,\"\napart from the meaning, it is the rhythmic form that is of chief\naesthetic value:\n\n  \"Come down to Kew in lilac time, in lilac time, in lilac time,\n   Come down to Kew in lilac time, it is n't far from London,\n   And you shall wander hand-in-hand with love in summer's wonderland.\n   Come down to Kew in lilac time; it is n't far from London.\n\n  \"The cherry trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume.\n   The cherry trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)\n   And there they say, when dawn is high, and all the world's a blaze of sky,\n   The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.\"\n\nApart from all considerations of meaning, set the easy fluent\ngrace of this lyric over against the march and majesty of the\n\"Battle Hymn of the Republic.\"\n\n  \"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;\n   He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;\n   He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;\n       His truth is marching on.\n\n  \"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;\n   He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;\n   Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!\n       Our God is marching on.\"\n\nEXPRESSION. The objects of art, as we have seen, are interesting\nand attractive in themselves, for the material of\nwhich they are formed, and for the form which the artist has\ngiven them. But they are interesting in another and possibly\nas important a way: they are instruments of expression.\nThat is, a painting is something more than an intrinsically\ninteresting disposition of line and color, a statue something\nmore than an exquisite or sublime chiseling of marble, a poem\nmore than a rhythmic combination of the music of words.\nAll of these are expressive. Something in their form is\nassociated with something in our past experience. Thus, as\nJames somewhere suggests, \"a bare figure by Michelangelo,\nwith unduly flexed joints, may come somehow to suggest the\nmoral tragedy of life.\" Something in the face of an old man\npainted by Rembrandt may recall to us a similar outward\nevidence of inner seriousness, wistfulness, and resignation\nwhich we have ourselves beheld in living people. And we\nclearly value the poems of a Wordsworth, a Milton, a Matthew\nArnold, not solely for the magnificent form and music\nof their words, but also for the sober beauty of their meaning.\nWe may come to appreciate even the highly immediate\nsensuous and formal pleasure of music for the reverie or\nrapture into which by suggestion it throws us. \"Expression may,\ntherefore, make beautiful by suggestion, things in themselves\nindifferent, or it may come to heighten the beauty which they\nalready possess.\"\n\nThe objects of art may be appreciated chiefly either for\ntheir material and form, or for the values which they express.\nIn some cases the actual object may be beautiful; sometimes\nthe beauty may lie almost wholly in the image, emotion, or\nidea evoked. \"Home, Sweet Home,\" for example, may be\nplausibly held to win admiration rather for the sentimental\nassociations which it evokes in the singer or hearer than for its\nverbal or melodic beauty. The enjoyment which people without\nany musical gifts, out on a camping or canoeing trip,\nexperience from singing a rather cheap and frayed repertory\nis obviously for sentimental rather than for aesthetic satisfaction.\nSimilarly, we may cherish the mementos of a lost\nfriend or child, not for their intrinsic worth, but for the\ntenderness of the memories they arouse. The situation is\ndelicately described in Eugene Field's \"Little Boy Blue\":\n\n  \"The little toy dog is covered with dust,\n     But sturdy and staunch he stands,\n   And the little toy soldier is red with rust,\n     And his musket moulds in his hands.\n   Time was when the little toy dog was new,\n     And the soldier was passing fair,\n   And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue\n     Kissed them and put them there.\"\n\nSome objects of art may indeed become beautiful almost\ncompletely through their expressiveness. There are certain\npoets whose music is raucous and who make little appeal\nthrough clarity of form. These survive almost completely by\nvirtue of the persistent strength and enduring sublimity of the\nideas which they express. Much of Whitman may be put in\nthis class, and also much of Browning. Similarly a sculptor\nmay not captivate us by the fluent beauty of his marble, but\nby the power and passion which his crude mighty figures express.\nIn such cases we may even come to regard what, from\na purely formal point of view, is unlovely, as a thing of the\nmost extreme beauty. Even the roughness in such direct\nrevelations of strength, may come to be regarded as elements\nof the beautiful. And where massiveness of effect does not\nsuffice to retrieve a work of art from its essential crudities, we\nmay still come to accept it as beautiful, as it were, in intention,\nand for what comes to be regarded as its essence, namely,\nthe idea or emotion it expresses. We forgive the imperfections\nof form as we forgive the stammerings and stutterings of\npersons whose broken sayings are yet full of wisdom.\n\nUsually even where the object, emotion, or idea expressed is\nbeautiful, we demand certain formal and material elements of\nbeauty. A telegram may convey the very apex of felicity,\nyet be not at all felicitous in its form or in the music of its\nwords. If in such cases, we speak of beauty, the term is\naltogether metaphorical and imputed; we are using it in the\nsame analogical sense as when we speak of a \"beautiful operation\"\nor a \"beautiful deed\"; it is a moral rather than an\naesthetic term. We may find the letter of a friend expressive of\nthe gentleness, fidelity, and charm that have endeared him to\nus, but unless these have attained sufficiently clear and explicit\nform and determinate unmistakable music, the letter will\nhave a meaningful beauty only in the light of the peculiar\nrelation existing between us and the writer. From an impartial\naesthetic point of view, the epistle can only by affectionate\nexaggeration be called beautiful.\n\nBut the arts, through their beauty of form, may present\npleasingly objects, emotions, ideas, not in themselves beautiful\nor pleasing. The clearest case of this kind is tragedy,\nwhere we may enjoy at arm's length and through the medium\nof art, experiences which would in the near actualities of life be\nonly unmitigated horror. Refracted through the medium of\npoetry and drama, they may appear beautiful pervasively\nand long.\n\nWe are enabled through the arts to survey sympathetically\nuniversal emotions, those by which our own lives have been\ntouched, or to which they are liable; we are enabled to survey\nbitterness and frustration calmly because they are set in a\nperspective, a beautiful perspective, in which they shine out clear\nand persuasive, purified of that bitter personal tang which\nmakes sorrow in real life so different in tone from the beauty\nwith which in tragedy it is halved. Any sensation, as Max\nEastman justly remarks in his \"Enjoyment of Poetry,\" may,\nif sufficiently mild, become pleasing. And there is hardly any\nhuman action or experience, however terrible, which cannot\nin the hands of a master be made appealing and sublime in its\nemotional effect.\n\nThe beauty of Tragedy does but make visible a quality which,\nin more or less obvious shapes, is present always and everywhere in\nlife. In the spectacle of death, in the endurance of intolerable pain,\nand in the irrevocableness of a vanished past, there is a sacredness,\nan overpowering awe, a feeling of the vastness, the depth, the\ninexhaustible mystery of existence, in which, as by some strange marriage\nof pain, the sufferer is bound to the world by bonds of sorrow. In\nthese moments of insight we lose all eagerness of temporary desire,\nall struggling and striving for petty ends, all care for the little trivial\nthings that, to a superficial view, make up the common life of day\nby day; we see, surrounding the narrow raft, illumined by the flickering\nlight of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling\nwaves we toss for a brief hour.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bertrand Russell: _Philosophical Essays_, pp. 67-68.]\n\nBut emotions and experiences that in real life are displeasing\ncan be made pleasing in art chiefly by virtue of the qualities\nof material and form already discussed. The disappointment,\ndisillusion, or terror which tragedy so vividly reveals is\nmade tolerable chiefly through the intrinsic beauty of the vehicle\nin which it is set forth. The high and breathless beauty\nof rhythm, the verve, the mystery, and music with which evils\nare set forth, may make them not only tolerable but tender\nand appealing. What would be as immediate experience\naltogether heartrending, for example the torturing remorse of\na Macbeth, is made splendid and moving in the incisive\nmajesty and penetration of his monologues. At the end of\nHamlet, the utter wreck, unreason, and confusion is made\nbearable and beautiful by the tender finality of Hamlet's\ndying words to Horatio:\n\n  \"Absent thee from felicity awhile\n   And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,\n   To tell my story.\"\n\nGreek tragedy had the additional accouterments of a\nchorus, of music, of production in a vast amphitheater to give\nan atmosphere of outward grandeur to the glory of its intent.\nTragedy often relieves the net horror which is its burden by\nthe pomp and circumstance of the associations it suggests:\n\nWe have palaces for our scene, rank, beauty, and virtues in our\nheroes, nobility in their passions and in their fate, and altogether a\nsort of glorification of life without which tragedy would lose both in\ndepth of pathos--since things so precious are destroyed--and in\nsubtlety of charm, since things so precious are manifested.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Santayana: _Sense of Beauty_, p. 228.]\n\nTragedy still more subtly attains the beauty of expressiveness\nby making the very evils and confusions and terrors it\npresents somehow the exemplifications of a serene eternal\norder. The function of the chorus in Greek tragedy was indeed\nchiefly to indicate in solemn strophe and antistrophe the\nordered and harmonious verities of which these particular\nfollies and frustrations were so tender and terrible an\nillustration. They catch up the present and particular evil into\nthe calm and splendid interplay of cosmic forces. Thus at the\nend of Euripides's play _Medea_, when the heroine has slain\nthe children she has borne to Jason and in her fury refuses to\nlet him gather up their dead bodies, when Jason in utter\ninconsolable despair, casts himself upon the earth, out of all\nthis wrack and torture the chorus raises the audience into a\ncontemplation of the ordered eternity by which these things\ncome to be. It sings:\n\n  \"Great treasure halls hath Zeus in Heaven,\n   From whence to man strange dooms be given,\n       Past hope or fear;\n   And the end men looked for cometh not,\n   And a path is there where no man thought:\n       So hath it fallen here.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Euripides: _Medea_ (Gilbert Murray translation).]\n\nART AS VICARIOUS EXPERIENCE. The drama, art, and painting\nare, in general, ways by which we can vicariously experience\nthe emotions of others. All of the expressive arts are made\npossible by the fundamental psychological fact that human\nbeings give certain instinctive and habitual signs of emotion\nand instinctively respond to them. In consequence, through\nart experience may be immeasurably broadened, deepened,\nand mellowed. Through the medium of art, modes of life long\npast away can leave their imperishable and living mementos.\nDante opens to the citizen of the twentieth century the mind\nand imagination of the Middle Ages. A Grecian urn can\narouse, at least to a Keats, the whole stilled magic of the\nGreek spirit. And not only can we live through the life and\nemotion of times long dead, but the fiction and drama and\npoetry of our own day permit us to enter into realms of\nexperience which in extent and variety would not be possible to\none man. Indeed, the possibility of vicariously enlarging\nexperience is one of the chief appeals of art. We cannot all be\nrovers, but we can have in reading Masefield a pungent sense\nof romantic open spaces, the salt winds, the perilous motion\nor the broad calm of the sea. We feel something of the same\nurgency as that of the author when we read:\n\n  \"I must go down to the seas again, the lonely sea and the sky,\n   And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,\n   And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,\n   And a gray mist on the sea's face and a gray dawn breaking.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Masefield: _Sea-Fever_.]\n\nArt opens up wide avenues of possibility; it releases us from\nthe limitations to which a particular mode of life, an accidental\nniche in a business or profession has committed us. It\nenables us vividly to experience and sympathetically to\nappreciate the lives which are led by other men, and in which\nsomething in our own personalities could have found fulfillment.\n\nWhile the objects of art thus broaden our experience by\ntheir precise and contagious communication of emotion, they\nmay also express ideas. Thus a play may have a message, a\npoem a vision, a painting an allegory. Art is both at an\nadvantage and at a disadvantage in the communication of\nideas. Ideas, if they are to be accurately conveyed, should\nbe devoid of emotional flourish, and presented with telegraphic\ndirectness and precision. They should have the clarity of\nformulas, rather than the distracting array and atmosphere\nof form. But ideas presented in the persuasive garb of\nbeauty, gain in their hold over men what they lose in\nprecision. Thus an eloquent orator, a touching letter, a vivid\npoem, may do more than volumes of the most definitive and\nconvincing logic to insinuate an idea into men's minds. Compare\nin effectiveness the most thoroughgoing treatise on the\nstatus of the agricultural laborer with the stirring momentum\nof Edwin Markham's\" The Man With the Hoe\":\n\n  \"Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans\n   Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,\n   The emptiness of ages in his face,\n   And on his back the burden of the world.\n   Who made him dead to rapture and despair,\n   A thing that grieves not, and that never hopes,\n   Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?\n   Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?\n   Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?\n   Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?\n\n  \"Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave\n   To have dominion over sea and land;\n   To trace the stars and search the heavens for power,\n   To feel the passion of Eternity?\n   Is this the Dream he dreamed who shaped the suns,\n   And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?\n   Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf\n   There is no shape more terrible than this--\n   More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed--\n   More filled with signs and portents for the soul--\n   More fraught with menace to the universe.\"\n\nAn idea clothed with such music and passion is an incomparably\neffective means of arousing a response. It is this\nwhich makes art so valuable an instrument of propaganda.\nPeople will respond actively to ideas set forth with fervor by\na Tolstoy or an Ibsen who would be left cold by the flat and\nerudite accuracy of a volume on economics. And the confirmed\nPlatonist is made so perhaps less by the convincingness\nof Plato's logic, than by the inevitable and irrefutable grace\nof his dramatic art.\n\nThere is, for certain persons educated in the arts, a satisfaction\nthat is neither sensuous nor emotional, but intellectual.\nThese come to discriminate form with the abstract\nthough warm interest of the expert. The well-informed concert-goer\nbegins to appreciate beauties hidden to the uninitiate.\nHe notes with eager anticipation the technical genius\nof a composition as it unfolds, admiring the craft and skill\nas well as the vision of the artist. In extreme cases this may,\nof course, degenerate into mere pedantry. But at its best,\nit is the satisfaction of the man who, having a keen eye for\nbeauty, is all the more solicitous for its accurate realization.\nThe satisfactions of the connoisseur are merely a refinement\nof less sophisticated forms of appreciation. To appreciate\nthe bare sounds of music, or the vividness of color in a painting\nis the prelude to more discriminating tastes. It is impossible\nfor most men to have in all the arts expert judgment,\nbut the ability to be able to discriminate with authority the\ntechnical achievements of a work of genius, while it does not\nsupplant the emotional and sense satisfaction derived from\nthe arts, nevertheless enhances them.\n\nART AND AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN THE SOCIAL ORDER. The\ncreative activity which is, to a peculiar extent, the artist's,\nis sought and practiced to some degree by all men. Genius\nis rare, but talent of a minor sort is frequent. In the playing\nof a musical instrument, in the practice of a handicraft, in\nthe cultivation of a garden, ordinary men in modern society\nfind an outlet for invention, craftsmanship, and imagination.\nTo give this joy of creation, in smaller or larger measure, to\nall men is to promote social happiness. In the discussion of\ninstinct it was pointed out that men come nearest to attaining\nhappiness when they are doing what is their bent by original\nnature, when they are acting out of sheer love of the activity\nrather than from compulsion. And since all men possess,\nalthough in moderate degree, the creative impulse, to give\nthis impulse a chance is a distinct social good.\n\nThe employment of the creative imagination demands both\nleisure and training. Leisure is needed because, in the routine\nactivities of industry, men's actions are determined not by\ntheir imagination, but by the immediacies of practical demands.\nThere may be, as Helen Marot suggests, a possibility\nof a wide utilization of the creative impulse in industry. But\na large part of industrial life must of necessity remain routine.\nIn consequence, during their leisure hours alone, can men\nfind free scope for some form of aesthetic interest and activity.\nThe second requisite is training. Even the poor player of an\ninstrument can derive some pleasure from his performance.\nAnd, under the accidents of economic and social circumstance,\nmany a flower may really be born to blush unseen through the\nfact that its talents receive no opportunity. The occasional\n\"discovery\" by a wealthy man of a genius in the slums, indicates\nhow a more liberal and general provision of training in\nthe arts might redound to the general good. And a more\nwidespread endowment of training in the fine arts, if it did\nnot produce many geniuses, might at least produce a number\nof competent painters and musicians, who, in the practice of\ntheir skill, during their leisure, would derive considerable and\naltogether wholesome pleasure.\n\nWhile high aesthetic capacity may be lacking in most people,\naesthetic appreciation is widely diffused, and the education of\ntaste and the growth in appreciation of the arts have been\nmarked. The museums of art in our large cities report a\nconstantly increasing attendance, both of visitors to the\ngalleries and attendants at lectures. And the crowds which\nregularly attend musical programs of a sustainedly high\ncharacter in many cities, winter and summer, are evidence of how\nwidespread and eager is appreciation of the fine arts. In\nthe Scandinavian countries and in Germany one of the most\nremarkable social phenomena has been the growth of a\nwidely supported people's theater movement, in which there\nhas been consistent support of the highest type of operas and\nplays.\n\nART AS AN INDUSTRY. The fact that objects of art are\nthemselves immediate satisfactions and supply human wants,\nmakes their provision for large numbers an important social\nenterprise. Certain forms of art, therefore, become highly\nindustrialized. The provision of the objects of art becomes\na profitable business, as it is also made possible only by a large\neconomic outlay. Tolstoy in his _What is Art?_ brings out\nstrikingly the economic basis of artistic enterprises in\ncontemporary society:\n\nFor the support of art in Russia [1898], the government grants\nmillions of roubles in subsidies to academies, conservatories, and\ntheatres. In France, twenty million francs are assigned for art, and\nsimilar grants are made in Germany and England.\n\nIn every large town enormous buildings are erected for museums,\nacademies, conservatories, dramatic schools, and for performances\nand concerts. Hundreds of thousands of workmen--carpenters,\nmasons, painters, joiners, paperhangers, tailors, hairdressers, jewelers,\nmolders, type-setters--spend their whole lives in hard labor to\nsatisfy the demands of art, so that hardly any other department of\nhuman activity, except the military, consumes so much energy as this.\n\nNot only is enormous labor spent on this activity, but in it, as in\nwar, the very lives of men are sacrificed. Hundreds of thousands of\npeople devote their lives from childhood to learning to twirl their legs\nrapidly (dancers), or to touch notes and strings very rapidly (musicians)\nor to turn every phrase inside out and find a rhyme for every\nword.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Tolstoy: _What is Art?_ pp. 1-2 (written in 1898).]\n\nTolstoy's point in thus emphasizing the immense energies\ndevoted to artistic enterprises is to lead us to consider what is\nthe end of all this labor. He points out scathingly the ugliness,\nfrivolity, and crudity of much that passes for drama in\nthe theater, for music in the concert hall, and for literature\nbetween covers. He pleads for a simple art that shall express\nwith sincerity the genuine emotions of the great mass of men.\n\nWhatever be our estimate of Tolstoy's sweeping condemnation\nof so much of what has come to be regarded as classic\nbeauty, the point he makes about the commercialization of\nart is incontrovertible. If art is an industry, the good is\ndetermined, as it were, by popular vote. The many must be\npleased rather than the discriminating. While, as has been\nnoted, aesthetic appreciation is fairly general, appreciation of\nthe subtler forms of art requires training. The glaring, the\nconspicuous, the broad effect, is more likely to win rapid\npopular approval than the subtle, the quiet, and the fragile.\nThat taste is readily educable is true. But when immediate\nprofits are the end, one cannot pause to educate the public.\nAnd publishing and the theater are two conspicuous instances\nof the conflicts that not infrequently arise between standards\nof economic return and standards of aesthetic merit. Even\nwhere there is no deliberate selection of the worse rather than\nthe better, commercial standards operate to put the novel in art\nat a discount. As already pointed out, we tend to appreciate\nforms and ideas to which we are accustomed. In consequence,\nwhere commercial demands make immediate widespread\nappreciation necessary, the untried, the odd, the radical\ninnovation in music, literature, or drama, is a questionable\nventure. There are notable instances of works which, though\neventually recognized as great, had to go begging at first for\na publisher or a producer. This was the case with some of\nMeredith's earlier novels; later Meredith, as a publisher's\nreader, turned down some of Shaw. The same inhospitality\nmet some of the plays of Ibsen and some of the symphonies of\nTschaikowsky.\n\nART AND MORALS. Attention has already been called to the\nfact that objects of art are powerful vehicles for social\npropaganda. Indeed some works become famous less for their\nintrinsic beauty than for their moral force.[1] The effectiveness\nof art forms as instruments of propaganda lies in the fact,\npreviously noted, that the ideas presented, with all the accouterments\nof color, form, and movement, are incomparably\neffective in stimulating passion; ideas thus aroused in the\nbeholder have the vivid momentum of emotion to sustain them.\nThere is only rhetorical exaggeration in the saying, \"Let me\nsing a country's songs, and I care not who makes its laws.\"\nPlato was one of the first to recognize how influential art\ncould be in influencing men's actions and attitudes. So keenly\ndid he realize its possible influence, that in constructing his\nideal state he provided for the rigid regulation of all artistic\nproduction by the governing power, and the exile of all poets.\nHe felt deeply how insinuatingly persuasive poets could become\nwith their dangerous \"beautiful lies.\" Artists have,\nindeed, not infrequently been revolutionaries, at least in the\nsense that the world which they so ecstatically pictured makes\neven the best of actual worlds look pale and paltry in comparison.\nThe imaginative genius has naturally enough been\ndiscontented with an existing order that could not possibly\nmeasure up to his ardent specifications. Shelley is possibly\nthe supreme example of the type; against his incorrigible\nconstruction of perfect worlds in imagination he set the real\nworld in which men live, and found it hateful.\n\n[Footnote 1: The classic instance of a work that certainly was notable\nin its early history for its propaganda value is _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.\nAn extreme instance of a book famous almost exclusively for its vivid\npropaganda is Upton Sinclair's _The Jungle_.]\n\nIn consequence of this discontent which the imaginative\nartist so often expresses with the real world, and the power of\nhis enthusiastic visions to win the loyalties and affections of\nmen, many moralists and statesmen have, like Plato, regarded\nthe creative artist with suspicion. They have half believed\nthe lyric boast of the Celtic poet who wrote:\n\n  \"One man with a dream at pleasure,\n     Shall go forth and conquer a crown,\n   And three with a new song's measure,\n     Can trample an empire down.\n\n  \"We, in the ages lying,\n     In the buried past of the earth,\n   Built Nineveh with our sighing,\n     And Babel itself with our mirth;\n   We o'erthrew them with prophesying\n     To the old of the new world's worth,\n   For each age is a dream that, is dying,\n     Or one that is coming to birth.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: O'Shaughnessy: _Ode to the Music-Makers_.]\n\nMany, therefore, who have reflected upon art--Plato first\nand chiefly--have insisted that art must be used to express\nonly those ideas and emotions which when acted upon would\nhave beneficent social consequences. Only those stories are\nto be told, those pictures to be painted, those songs to be sung,\nwhich contribute to the welfare of the state. Many artists\nhave similarly felt a Puritanical responsibility; they have told\nonly those tales which could be pointed with a moral. The\nsupreme example of this dedication of art to a moral purpose\nis found in the Middle Ages, when all beauty of architecture,\npainting, and much of literature and drama, was pervaded, as\nit was inspired, with the Christian message. Later Milton\nwrites at the beginning of _Paradise Lost_:\n\n  \"... What in me is dark,\n   Illumine, what is low--raise and support,\n   That to the height of this great argument\n   I may assert Eternal Providence,\n   And justify the ways of God to man.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Milton: _Paradise Lost_, book I, lines 22-26.]\n\nIn a sense, the supreme achievements of creative genius\nhave been notable instances of the expression of great moral\nor religious or social ideals. Lucretius's _On the Nature of\nThings_ is the noblest and most passionate extant rendering\nof the materialistic conception of life. Goethe's _Faust_\nexpresses in epic magnificence a whole romantic philosophy\nof endless exploration and infinite desire. Dante's _Divine\nComedy_ sums up in a single magnificent epic the spirit and\nmeaning of the mediaeval point of view. As Henry Osborn\nTaylor writes of it:\n\nYet even the poem itself was a climax long led up to. The power\nof its feeling had been preparing in the conceptions, even in the\nreasonings, which through the centuries had been gaining ardour as\nthey became part of the entire natures of men and women. Thus\nhad mediaeval thought become emotionalized and plastic and living\nin poetry and art. Otherwise, even Dante's genius could not have\nfused the contents of mediaeval thought into a poem. How many\npassages in the _Commedia_ illustrate this--like the lovely picture of\nLia moving in the flowering meadow, with her fair hands making her\na garland. The twenty-third canto of the _Paradiso_, telling of the\ntriumph of Christ and the Virgin, yields a larger illustration; and\nwithin it, as a very concrete lyric instance, floats that flower of\nangelic love, the song of Gabriel circling the Lady of Heaven with its\nmelody, and giving quintessential utterance to the love and adoration\nwhich the Middle Ages had intoned to the Virgin. Yes, if it be\nDante's genius, it is also the gathering emotion of the centuries,\nwhich lifts the last cantos of the _Paradiso_ from glory to glory, and\nmakes this closing singing of the _Commedia_ such supreme poetry.\nNor is it the emotional element alone that reaches its final voice in\nDante. Passage after passage of the _Paradiso_ is the apotheosis of\nscholastic thought and ways of stating it, the very apotheosis, for\nexample, of those harnessed phrases in which the line of great scholastics\nhad endeavoured to put in words the universalities of substance\nand accident and the absolute qualities of God.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Taylor: _The Mediaeval Mind_, vol. II, pp. 588-89.]\n\nIn these supreme instances the ideas have been given a genuinely\naesthetic expression. They are beautiful in form and\nmusic, as well as in content and vision. But not infrequently\nwhere propaganda appears, art flies out of the window. Many\nmodern plays and novels might be cited, which in their serious\ndevotion to the enunciation of some social ideal, lapse from\nsong into statistics. The artist with his eye on the social\nconsequences of his work may come altogether to cease to regard\nstandards of beauty. It is only the rare genius who can make\npoetry out of politics. Even Shelley lapses into deadly and\narid prosiness when his chief interest becomes the presentation\nof the political ideas of Godwin.\n\nIn contrast with the theory that art has a social responsibility,\nthat so powerful an instrument must be used exclusively\nin the presentation of adequate social ideals, must be\nset the doctrine, widely current in the late nineteenth century,\nof \"art for art's sake.\" To the exponents of this point of view,\nthe artist has only one responsibility, the creation of beauty.\nIt is his to realize in form every pulsation of interest and\ndesire, to provide every possible exquisite sensation. The\nartist must not be a preacher; he must not tell men what is\nthe good; he must show them the good, which is identical\nwith the beautiful. And he must exhibit the beautiful in\nevery unique and lovely posture which can be imagined,\nand which he can skillfully realize in color, in word, or in\nsound. Art is its own justification; \"a thing of beauty is a\njoy forever.\"\n\nWhere art is governed by such intentions, form and material\nbecome more important than expression. Thus there\ndevelops in France in the late nineteenth century a school of\nSymbolists and Sensationalists in poetry, whose single aim is\nthe production of precise and beautiful sensations through\nthe specific use of evocative words. The form and the style\nbecome everything in literature, in painting, and the plastic\narts. The emphasis is put upon exquisiteness in decoration,\nupon precision in technique, upon loveliness of material. The\nPre-Raphaelite movement in poetry, with its emphasis on the\nuse of picturesque and decorative epithets, the exclusive\nemphasis in some modern music on subtlety of technique in tone\nand color, are recent examples.\n\nThe position taken has clearly this much justification. A\nwork does not become a work of art through the fact that it\nexpresses noble sentiments. The most righteous sermon may\nnot be beautiful. Whatever be the source of its inspiration,\nart must make its appeal through the palpable and undeniable\nbeauty of the formal embodiment it has given to its\nvision. However much an object be prized as a moral instrument,\nunless it stirs the senses and the imagination, it hardly\ncan be called a work of art. On the other hand, things intrinsically\nbeautiful do seem to be their own justification. A\npoem of Keats, a Japanese print, a delicate vase, or an exquisite\nsong demand no moral justification. They are their\nown sufficient excuse for being.\n\nBut the \"art for art's sake\" doctrine, carried to extremes,\nresults in mere decadence or triviality. It produces at best\nexquisite decorative trifles rather than works of a large and\nserious beauty. Music seems to be the art where sheer beauty\nof form is its own justification, for music can hardly be used as\na specific medium of communication. Those compositions\nthat purport to be \"program music,\" to convey definite\nimpressions of particular scenes or ideas, are somewhat\nhalting attempts to use music as one uses language. Yet\neven in music, though we may enjoy ingenious and fluent\nmelodic trifles, we regard them less highly than the earnest\nand magnificent beauty of a Beethoven symphony.\n\nBut because art is only effective when it appeals to the\nsenses and to the imagination does not mean that the senses\nand the imagination must be stirred by insignificance. The\nartist may use the rhythms of music, line and color, the\nsuggestiveness of words, in the interests of ideal values. Gifted,\nas he is, with imaginative foresight to imagine a world better\nthan the one in which he is living, he may, by picturing ideals\nin persuasive form, not only bring them before the mind of\nman, but insinuate them into his heart. The rational artist\nmay note the possibilities afoot in his environment. He may\ntreasure these hints of human happiness, and by giving them\nvivid reality in the forms of art indicate captivatingly to men\nwhere possible perfections lie. \"For your young men shall\nsee visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.\" The artist\nmay become the most influential of prophets, for his prophecies\ncome to men not as arbitrary counsels, but as pictures of\nPerfection intrinsically lovely and intriguing. When Socrates\nis asked whether or not his perfect city exists, he replies that\nit exists only in Heaven, but that men in beholding it may, in\nthe light of that divine pattern, learn to attain in their earthly\ncities a not dissimilar beauty.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nSCIENCE AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD\n\nWHAT SCIENCE IS. Science may be considered either as the\nproduct of a certain type of human activity, or as a human\nactivity satisfactory even apart from its fruits. As an activity,\nit is a highly refined form of that process of reflection by\nwhich man is, in the first place, enabled to make himself at\nhome in the world. It differs from the ordinary or common-sense\nprocess of thinking, as we shall presently see, in being\nmore thoroughgoing, systematic, and sustained. It is common\nsense of a most extraordinarily refined and penetrating\nkind. But before examining the procedure of science, we\nmust consider briefly its imposing product, that science whose\nvast structure seems to the layman so final, imposing, and\nirrefragable.\n\nFrom the point of view of the product which is the fruit of\nreflective activity, Science may be defined as _a body of\nsystematized and verified knowledge, expressing in general terms the\nrelations of exactly defined phenomena._ In all the respects here\nnoted, science may be contrasted with those matters of _common\nknowledge_, of _opinion_ or _belief_ which are the fruit of our\ncasual daily thinking and experience. Science is, in the first\nplace, a body of _systematized_ knowledge. One has but to\ncontrast the presentation of facts in an ordinary textbook in\nzooelogy with the random presentation of facts in a newspaper\nor in casual conversation. In science the facts bearing on a\ngiven problem are presented as completely as possible and\nare classified with reference to their significant bearings upon\nthe problem. Moreover the facts gathered and the classifications\nof relationship made are not more or less accurate, more\nor less true; they are tested and verified results. That\nputrefaction, for example, is due to the life of micro-organisms in\nthe rotting substance is not a mere assumption. It has been\nproved, tested, and verified by methods we shall have occasion\npresently to examine.\n\nScientific knowledge, moreover, is general knowledge. The\nrelations it expresses are not _true_ in some cases of the precise\nkind described, _untrue_ in others. The relations hold true\nwhenever these precise phenomena occur. This generality\nof scientific relations is closely connected with the fact that\nscience expresses relations of exactly defined phenomena.\nWhen a scientific law expresses a certain relation between _A_\nand _B_, it says in effect: Given _A_ as meaning this particular\nset of conditions and no others, and _B_ as meaning this particular\nset of conditions and no others, then this relation holds\ntrue. The relations between _exactly_ defined phenomena\nare expressed in general terms, that is, the relations expressed\nhold true, given certain conditions, whatever be the accompanying\ncircumstances. It makes no difference what be the\nkind of objects, the law of gravitation still holds true: the\nattraction between objects is directly proportional to the product\nof their masses and inversely proportional to the square\nof the distance between them.\n\nThus science as an activity is marked off by its method and\nits intent rather than by its subject-matter. As a method it\nis characterized by thoroughness, persistency, completeness,\ngenerality, and system. As regards its intent, it is characterized\nby its freedom from partiality or prejudice, and its interest\nin discovering what the facts are, apart from personal\nexpectations and desires. In the scientific mood we wish to\nknow what the nature of things is. There are men who seem\nto have a boundless, insatiable curiosity, who have a lifelong\npassion for acquiring facts and understanding the relationship\nbetween them.\n\nSCIENCE AS EXPLANATION. The satisfactions which scientific\ninvestigators derive from their inquiries are various. There\nis, in the first place, the sheer pleasure of gratifying the normal\nhuman impulse of curiosity, developed in some people to an\nextraordinary degree. Experience to a sensitive and inquiring\nmind is full of challenges and provocations to look\nfurther. The appearance of dew, an eclipse of the sun, a flash\nof lightning, a peal of thunder, even such commonplace phenomena\nas the falling of objects, or the rusting of iron, the\nevaporation of water, the melting of snow, may provoke inquiry,\nmay suggest the question, \"Why?\" Experience, as it\ncomes to us through the senses, is broken and fragmentary.\nThe connections between the occurrences of Nature seem\ncasual, and connected, as it were, purely by accident. A\nblack sky portends rain. But such an inference made by the\nuntrained mind is merely the result of habit. A black sky\nhas been followed by rain in the past; the same sequence of\nevents may be expected in the future. But the connection\nbetween the two is not really understood. Sometimes\nexperiences seem to contradict each other. The straight stick\nlooks crooked or broken in water. The apparent anomalies\nand contradictions, the welter of miscellaneous facts with\nwhich we come in contact through the experiences of the\nsenses, are clarified by the generalizations of science. The\nworld of facts ceases to be random, miscellaneous, and\nincalculable. Every phenomenon that occurs is seen to be an\ninstance of a general law that holds among all phenomena that\nresemble it in certain definable respects. Thus the apparent\nbending of the stick in water is seen to be a special case of the\nlaws of the refraction of light; the apparent anomaly or\ncontradiction of our sense experiences is, as we say, explained.\nWhat seemed to be a contradiction and an exception is seen\nto be a clear case of a regular law.\n\nThe desire for explanation in some minds is very strong.\nScience _explains_ in the sense that _it reduces a phenomenon to\nthe terms of a general principle, whatever that principle may be._\nWhen we meet a phenomenon that seems to come under no\ngeneral law, we are confronted with a mystery and a miracle.\nWe do not know what to expect from it. But when we can\nplace a phenomenon under a general law, applicable in a wide\nvariety of instances, everything that can be said of all the\nother instances in which the law applies, applies also to this\nparticular case.\n\nThink of heat as motion, and whatever is true of motion will be\ntrue of heat; but we have had a hundred experiences of motion for\neveryone of heat. Think of the rays passing through this lens as\nbending toward the perpendicular, and you substitute for the\ncomparatively unfamiliar lens the very familiar notion of a particular\nchange in direction of a line, of which motion every day brings us\ncountless examples.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. II, p. 342.]\n\nIt must be noticed that the explanation which science gives,\nis really in answer to the question, \"How?\" not the question,\n\"Why?\" We are said to understand phenomena when\nwe understand the laws which _govern_ them. But to say that\ncertain given phenomena--the appearance of dew, the falling\nof rain, the flash of lightning, the putrefaction of animal\nmatter--_obey_ certain laws is purely metaphorical. Phenomena\ndo not _obey_ laws in the sense in which we say the child\nfollows the commands of his parents, or the soldier those of\nhis officer. The laws of science simply describe the relations\nwhich have repeatedly been observed to exist between phenomena.\nThey are laws in the sense that they are invariably\nobserved successions. When it has been found that\nwhenever _A_ is present, _B_ is also present, that the presence of\n_A_ is always correlated with the presence of _B_, and the\npresence of _B_ is always correlated with the presence of _A_, we say\nwe have discovered a scientific law.\n\nScience thus explains in the sense that it reduces the multiplicity\nand variety of phenomena to simple and general laws.\nThe ideal of unity and simplicity is the constant ideal toward\nwhich science moves, and its success in thus reducing the miscellaneous\nfacts of experience has been phenomenal. The\nhistory of science in the nineteenth century offers some\ninteresting examples. The discovery of the conservation of\nenergy and its transformations has revealed to us the unity\nof force. It has shown, for example, that the phenomenon of\nheat could be explained by molecular motions. \"Electricity\nannexed magnetism.\" Finally the relations of electricity and\nlight are now known; \"the three realms of light, of electricity\nand of magnetism, previously separated, form now but one;\nand this annexation seems final.\"\n\nThere has been thus an increasing approach toward unity,\ntoward the summation of phenomena under one simple, general\nformula.[1] Poincare, in reviewing this progress, writes:\n\n[Footnote 1: Poincare notes also the opposite tendency, for\nscience to grow more complex. As he says: \"And Newton's law\nitself? Its simplicity, so long undetected, is perhaps only\napparent. Who knows whether it is not due to some complicated\nmechanism, to the impact of some subtile matter animated\nby irregular movements, and whether it has not become simple\nonly through the action of averages and of great numbers? In\nany case it is difficult not to suppose that the true law\ncontains complementary terms, which would become sensible\nat small distances.\" (_Foundations of Science_, p. 132.)]\n\nThe better one knows the properties of matter the more one sees\ncontinuity reign. Since the labors of Andrews and Van der Wals, we\nget an idea of how the passage is made from the liquid to the gaseous\nstate and that this passage is not abrupt. Similarly there is no gap\nbetween the liquid and solid states, and in the proceedings of a recent\ncongress is to be seen, alongside of a work on the rigidity of liquids,\na memoir on the flow of solids....\n\nFinally the methods of physics have invaded a new domain, that\nof chemistry; physical chemistry is born. It is still very young, but\nwe already see that it will enable us to connect such phenomena as\nelectrolysis, osmosis, and the motions of ions.\n\nFrom this rapid exposition what shall we conclude?\n\nEverything considered, we have approached unity; we have not\nbeen as quick as we had hoped fifty years ago, we have not always\ntaken the predicted way; but, finally, we have gained ever so much\nground.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Poincare: _loc. cit._, pp. 153-54.]\n\nThe satisfaction which disinterested science gives to the\ninvestigator is thus, in the first place, one of clarification.\nScience, by enabling us to see the wide general laws of which\nall phenomena are particular instances, emancipates the\nimagination. It frees us from being bound by the accidental\nsuggestions which come to us from mere personal caprice,\nhabit, and environment, and enables us to observe facts\nuncolored by passions and hope, and to discover those laws of\nthe universe which, in the words of Karl Pearson, \"hold for\nall normally constituted minds.\" In ordinary experience,\nour impressions and beliefs are the results of inaccurate sense\nobservation colored by hope and fear, aversion and revulsion,\nand limited by accidental circumstance. Through science\nwe are enabled to detach ourselves from the personal and the\nparticular and to see the world, as, undistorted, it must\nappear to any man anywhere:\n\nThe scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all\nother desires in the interests of the desire to know--it involves\nsuppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the whole subjective\nemotional life, until we become subdued to the material, able to see\nit frankly, without preconceptions, without bias, without any wish\nexcept to see it as it is, and without any belief that what it is must be\ndetermined by some relation, positive or negative, to what we should\nlike it to be, or to what we can easily imagine it to be.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bertrand Russell: _Mysticism and Logic_, p. 44.]\n\nBesides the satisfactions of system and clarity which the\nsciences give, they afford man power and security. \"Knowledge\nis power,\" said Francis Bacon, meaning thereby that to\nknow the connection between causes and effects was to be\nable to regulate conditions so as to be able to produce desirable\neffects and eliminate undesirable ones. Even the most\ndisinterested inquiry may eventually produce practical\nresults of a highly important character. \"Science is,\" as\nBertrand Russell says, \"to the ordinary reader of newspapers,\nrepresented by a varying selection of sensational triumphs,\nsuch as wireless telegraphy and aeroplanes, radio-activity,\netc.\" But these practical triumphs in the control of natural\nresources are often casual incidents of patiently constructed\nsystems of knowledge which were built up without the slightest\nreference to their fruits in human welfare. Wireless\ntelegraphy, for example, was made possible by the disinterested\nand abstract inquiry of three men, Faraday, Maxwell,\nand Hertz.\n\nIn alternating layers of experiment and theory these three men\nbuilt up the modern theory of electromagnetism, and demonstrated\nthe identity of light with electromagnetic waves. The system which\nthey discovered is one of profound intellectual interest, bringing\ntogether and unifying an endless variety of apparently detached\nphenomena, and displaying a cumulative mental power which cannot\nbut afford delight to every generous spirit. The mechanical details\nwhich remained to be adjusted in order to utilize their discoveries\nfor a practical system of telegraphy demanded, no doubt, very\nconsiderable ingenuity, but had not that broad sweep and that\nuniversality which could give them intrinsic interest as an object of\ndisinterested contemplation.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bertrand Russell: _Mysticism and Logic_, p. 34\n(\"Science and Culture\").]\n\nSCIENCE AND A WORLD VIEW. One of the values of disinterested\nscience that is of considerable psychological importance\nis the change in attitude it brings about in man's realization\nof his place in the universe. Lucretius long ago thought to\nfree men's minds from terror and superstition by showing\nthem how regular, ordered, and inevitable was the nature of\nthings. The superstitious savage walks in dread among natural\nphenomena. He lives in a world which he imagines to be\ngoverned by capricious and incalculable forces. To a certain\nextent he can, as we have seen, control these. But he is ill at\nease. He is surrounded by vast ambiguous forces, and moves\nin a trembling ignorance of what will happen next.\n\nTo those educated to the scientific point of view, there is a\nsolidity and assurance about the frame of things. Beneath\nthe variability and flux, which they continually perceive, is\nthe changeless law which they have learned to comprehend.\nAlthough they discover that the processes of Nature move on\nindifferent to the welfare of man, they know, nevertheless,\nthat they are dependable and certain, that they are fixed\nconditions of life which, to a certain extent, can be controlled, and\nthe incidental goods and ills of which are definitely calculable.\nHeraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, noted the eternal\nflux, yet perceived the steady order beneath, so that he could\neventually assert that all things changed save the law of\nchange. The magnificent regularity of natural processes has\nbeen repeatedly remarked by students of science.\n\nTHE AESTHETIC VALUE OF SCIENCE. As pointed out in the\nchapter on Art, scientific discovery is more than a mere\ntabulation of facts. It is also a work of the imagination, and\ngives to the worker in the scientific field precisely the same\nsense of satisfaction as that experienced by the creative artist.\nOf Kelvin his biographer writes:\n\nLike Faraday and the other great masters in science, he was accustomed\nto let his thoughts become so filled with the facts on which his\nattention was concentrated that the relations subsisting between\nthe various phenomena gradually dawned upon him, and he _saw_\nthem, as if by some process of instinctive vision denied to others.\n... His imagination was vivid; in his intense enthusiasm, he seemed\nto be driven rather than to drive himself. The man was lost in his\nsubject, becoming as truly inspired as is the artist in the act of\ncreation.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Sylvanus P. Thompson; _The Life of William Thomson,\nBaron Kelvin of Largs_, pp. 1125 ff.]\n\nIn the working-out of a principle, the systematizing of\nmany facts under a sweeping generalization, the scientist\nfinds a creator's joy. He is giving form and significance to\nthe disordered and chaotic materials of experience. The\nscientific imagination differs from the artistic imagination\nsimply in that it is controlled with reference to facts. The\nfirst flash is subjected to criticism, examination, revision, and\ntesting. But the grand generalizations of science originate\nin just such an unpredictable original vision. The discovery\nof the fitting formula which clarifies a mass of facts hitherto\nchaotic and contradictory is very closely akin to the process\nby which a poet discovers an appropriate epithet or a musician\nan apposite chord.\n\nBut in its products as well as in its processes, scientific\ninvestigations have a high aesthetic value. There is symmetry,\norder, and splendor in the relations which science reveals.\nThe same formal beauty that appeals to us in a Greek statue\nor a Beethoven symphony is to be found in the universe, but\non a far more magnificent scale. There is, in the first place,\nthe sense of rhythm and regularity:\n\nThere comes [to the scientific investigator] a sense of pervading\norder. Probably this began at the very dawn of human reason--when\nman first discovered the year with its magnificent object-lesson\nof regularly recurrent sequences, and it has been growing ever\nsince. Doubtless the early forms that this perception of order took\nreferred to somewhat obvious uniformities; but is there any essential\ndifference between realizing the orderliness of moons and tides, of\nseasons and migrations, and discovering Bodes's law of the relations\nof the planets, or Mendeleeff's \"Periodic Law\" of the relations of\nthe atomic weights of the chemical elements?[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Thomson: _Introduction to Science_, p. 174.]\n\nEver since Newton's day the harmony of the spheres has\nbeen a favorite poetic metaphor. The spaciousness of the\nsolar system has captivated the imagination, as have the time\ncycles revealed by the paths of comets and meteors. The\nuniverse seems indeed, as revealed by science, to present that\nquality of aesthetic satisfaction which is always derived from\nunity in multiplicity. The stars are as innumerable as they\nare ordered. And it was Lucretius, the poet of naturalism,\nwho was wakened to wonder and admiration at the ceaseless\nproductivity, inventiveness, and fertility of Nature. We find\nin the revelations of science again the same examples of delicacy\nand fineness of structure that we admire so much in the\nfine arts. The brain of an ant, as Darwin said, is perhaps the\nmost marvelous speck of matter in the universe. Again \"the\nphysicists tell us that the behaviour of hydrogen gas makes it\nnecessary to suppose that an atom of it must have a constitution\nas complex as a constellation, with about eight hundred\nseparate corpuscles.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 176.]\n\nTHE DANGER OF \"PURE SCIENCE.\" The fascinations of\ndisinterested inquiry are so great that they may lead to a kind of\nscientific intemperance. The abstracted scientific interest\nmay become so absorbed in the working-out of small details\nthat it becomes over-specialized, narrow, and pedantic. The\npure theorist has always been regarded with suspicion by the\npractical man. His concern over details of flora or fauna,\nover the precise minutiae of ancient hieroglyphics, seems\nabsurdly trivial in comparison with the central passions and\ncentral purposes of mankind. There are workers in every\ndepartment of knowledge who become wrapt up in their\nspecialties, forgetting the forest for the trees. There are men\nso absorbed in probing the crevices of their own little niche of\nknowledge that they forget the bearings of their researches.\nEspecially in time of stress, of war or social unrest, men have\nfelt a certain callousness about the interests of the abstrusely\nremote scholar. We shall have occasion to note presently\nthat it is in this coldness and emancipation from the pressing\ndemands of the moment that science has produced its most\npronounced eventual benefits for mankind. But an uncontrolled\npassion for facts and relations may degenerate into a\nmere play and luxury that may have its fascination for the\nexpert himself, but affords neither sweetness nor light to any\none else. One has but to go over the lists of doctors' dissertations\npublished by German universities during the late nineteenth\ncentury to find examples of inquiry that seem to afford\nnot the slightest justification in the way of eventual good to\nmankind.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: It is only fair to say that literary studies have\nbeen marked by more barren and fruitless investigations (purely\nphilological inquiry, for example) than have the physical sciences.]\n\nPRACTICAL OR APPLIED SCIENCE. Thus far we have been\nconsidering science chiefly as an activity which satisfies some\nmen as an activity in itself, by the aesthetic, emotional, and\nintellectual values they derive from it. But a fact at once\nparadoxical and significant in the history of human progress is\nthat this most impersonal and disinterested of man's activities\nhas been profoundly influential in its practical fruits.\nThe practical application of the sciences rests on the utilization\nof the exact formulations of pure science. Through these\nformulations we can control phenomena by artificially setting\nup relations of which science has learned the consequences,\nthus attaining the consequences we desire, and avoiding those\nwe do not.\n\nThe _direct_ influence of pure science on practical life is enormous.\nThe observations of Newton on the relations between a falling stone\nand the moon, of Galvani on the convulsive movements of frogs' legs\nin contact with iron and copper, of Darwin on the adaptation of\nwoodpeckers, of tree-frogs, and of seeds to their surroundings, of\nKirchhoff on certain lines which occur in the spectrum of sunlight,\nof other investigators on the life-history of bacteria--these and\nkindred observations have not only revolutionized our conception\nof the universe, but they have revolutionized or are revolutionizing,\nour practical life, our means of transit, our social conduct, our\ntreatment of disease.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Karl Pearson: _The Grammar of Science_, pp. 35-36.]\n\nFrancis Bacon was one of the first to appreciate explicitly\nthe possibilities of the control of nature in the interests of\nhuman welfare. He saw the vast possibilities which a careful\nand comprehensive study of the workings of nature had in the\nenlargement of human comfort, security, and power. In _The\nNew Atlantis_ he envisages an ideal commonwealth, whose\nunique and singular institution is a House of Solomon, a kind\nof Carnegie Foundation devoted to inquiry, the fruits of\nwhich might be, as they were, exploited in the interests of\nhuman happiness: \"The end of our foundation is the knowledge\nof causes and the secret motions of things; and the\nenlarging of the bounds of human empire to the effecting\nof all things possible.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _The New Atlantis_.]\n\nScience sometimes appears so remote and alien to the immediate\nconcrete objects which meet and interest us in daily\nexperience that we tend to forget that historically it was out of\nconcrete needs and practical interests that science arose. Geometry,\nseemingly a clear case of abstract and theoretical\nscience, arose out of the requirements of practical surveying\nand mensuration among the Egyptians. In the same way\nbotany grew out of herb gathering and gardening.\n\nThe application of the exact knowledge gained by the pure\nsciences, may, if properly directed, immeasurably increase the\nsum of human welfare. One has but to review briefly the\nhistory of invention to appreciate this truth with vividness\nand detail. The great variety of the \"applied sciences\"\nshows the extent and multiplicity of the fruits of theoretical\ninquiry. Astronomy plays an important part in navigation; but\nit also earns its living by helping the surveyor and the mapmaker\nand by supplying the world with accurate time. Industrial\nchemistry offers, perhaps, the most striking examples.\nThere is, for example, the fixation of nitrogen, which makes\npossible the artificial production of ammonia and potash;\nthe whole group of dye industries made possible through the\nchemical production of coal tar; the industrial utilization of\ncellulose in the paper, twine, and leather industries; the promise\nof eventual production on a large scale of synthetic rubber;\nthe electric furnace, which, with its fourteen-thousand-degree\nrange of heat, makes possible untold increase in the effectiveness\nof all the chemical industries.\n\nIndustrial chemistry is only one instance. The application\nof theoretical inquiry in physics has made possible the telegraph,\nthe telephone, wireless telegraphy, electric motors, and\nflying machines. Mineralogy and oceanography have opened\nup new stores of natural resources. Biological research has\nhad diverse applications. Bacteriological inquiry has been\nfruitfully applied in surgery, hygiene, agriculture, and the\nartificial preservation of food. The principles of Mendelian\ninheritance have been used in the practical improvement of\ndomestic animals and cultivated plants. The list might be\nindefinitely extended. The sciences arose as attempts, more\nor less successful, to solve man's practical problems. They\nbecame historically cut off, as they may in the case of the pure\nscientist still be cut off, from practical considerations. But no\nmatter how remote and abstract they become, they yield\nagain practical fruits.\n\nApplied science, if it becomes too narrowly interested in\npractical results, limits its own resources. Purely theoretical\ninquiry may be of the most immense ultimate advantage. In\na sense the more abstract and remote science becomes, the\nmore eventual promise it contains. By getting away from the\nconfusing and irrelevant details of particular situations,\nscience is enabled to frame generalizations applicable to a wide\narray of phenomena differing in detail, but having in common\nsignificant characteristics. Men can learn fruitfully to control\ntheir experience precisely because they can emancipate\nthemselves from the immediate demands of practical life,\nfrom the suggestions that arise in the course of instinctive and\nhabitual action. \"A certain power of _abstraction_, of\ndeliberate turning away from the habitual responses to a situation,\nwas required before men could be emancipated to follow up\nsuggestions that in the end are fruitful.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _How We Think_, p. 156.]\n\nToo complete absorption in immediate problems may operate\nto deprive action of that sweeping and penetrating vision\nwhich a freer inquiry affords. The temporarily important\nmay be the less important in the long run. A practical\nadjustment of detail may produce immediate benefits in the way of\nimproved industrial processes and more rapid and economical\nproduction, but some seemingly obscure discovery in the most\nabstruse reaches of scientific theory may eventually be of\nuntold practical significance.\n\nOnly the extremely ignorant can question the utility of, let us say,\nthe prolonged application of the Greek intellect to the laws of conic\nsections. Whether we think of bridges or projectiles, of the curves\nof ships, or of the rules of navigation, we must think of conic sections.\nThe rules of navigation, for instance, are in part based on astronomy.\nKepler's Laws are foundation stones of that science, but Kepler discovered\nthat Mars moves in an ellipse round the sun in one of the\nfoci by a deduction from conic sections.... Yet the historical fact\nis that these conic sections were studied as an abstract science for\neighteen centuries before they came to be of their highest use.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Thomson: _Introduction to Science_, pp. 239-40.]\n\nPasteur, whose researches are of such immediate consequence\nin human health, began his studies in the crystalline forms\nof tartrates. The tremendous commercial uses which have\nbeen made of benzene had their origin \"in a single idea,\nadvanced in a masterly treatise by Auguste Kekule in the year\n1865.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Quoted by Thomson from an address on \"Technical\nChemistry\" by C. E. Munroe.]\n\nPractical life has been continually enriched by theoretical\ninquiry. Scientific descriptions increase in value as they\nbecome absolutely impersonal, absolutely precise, and especially\nas they become condensed general formulas, which will\nbe applicable to an infinite variety of particular situations.\nAnd such descriptions are necessarily abstract and theoretical.\n\nANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURE. Scientific method is\nmerely common sense made more thoroughgoing and systematic.\nReflection of a more or less effective kind takes place\nin ordinary experience wherever instinctive or habitual action\nis not adequate to meet a situation, whenever the individual\nhas a problem to solve, an adjustment to make. Thinking,\nof some kind, goes on continually. Scientific thinking merely\nmeans careful, safeguarded, systematic thinking. It is thinking\nalert and critical of its own methods. As contrasted\nwith ordinary common-sense thinking, it is distinguished by\n\"caution, carefulness, thoroughness, definiteness, exactness,\norderliness, and methodic arrangement.\" We think, in any\ncase, because we have to, being creatures born with a set of\ninstincts not adequate to meet the conditions of our environment.\nWe can think carelessly and ineffectively, or carefully\nand successfully.\n\nScientific method, or orderly, critical, and systematic\nthinking, is not applicable to one subject-matter exclusively.\nExamples are commonly drawn from the physical or chemical\nor biological laboratory, but the elements of scientific method\nmay be illustrated in the procedure of a business man meeting\na practical problem, a lawyer sifting evidence, a statesman\nframing a new piece of legislation. In all these cases the\ndifference between a genuinely scientific procedure and mere\ncasual and random common sense is the same.\n\nScience is nothing but _trained and organized common sense_,\ndiffering from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit:\nand its methods differ from those of common sense only so far as the\nguardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage\nwields his club. The primary power is the same in each case, and\nperhaps the untutored savage has the more brawny arm of the two.\nThe _real_ advantage lies in the point and polish of the swordsman's\nweapon; in the trained eye quick to spy out the weakness of the\nadversary; in the ready hand prompt to follow it on the instant.\nBut, after all, the sword exercise is only the hewing and poking of the\nclubman refined and developed.\n\nSo, the vast results obtained by science are won by ... no mental\nprocesses, other than those which are practiced by everyone of us,\nin the humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective policeman\ndiscovers a burglar from the marks made by his shoe, by a mental\nprocess identical with that by which Cuvier restored the extinct animals\nof Montmartre from fragments of their bones.... Nor does\nthat process of induction and deduction by which a lady finding a\nstain of a peculiar kind upon her dress, concludes that somebody has\nupset the inkstand thereon, differ, in any way, in kind, from that by\nwhich Adams and Leverrier discovered a new planet.\n\nThe man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness\nthe methods which we all, habitually and at every moment, use\ncarelessly; and the man of business must as much avail himself of\nthe scientific method--must as truly be a man of science--as the\nveriest bookworm of us all.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Huxley: _Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews_,\npp. 77, 78 (in \"The Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences\").]\n\nThe scientific procedure becomes, as we shall see, highly\ncomplicated, involving elaborate processes of observation,\nclassification, generalization, deduction or development of\nideas, and testing. But it remains thinking just the same,\nand originates in some problem or perplexity, just as thinking\ndoes in ordinary life.\n\nSCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE. It is profitable to note in\nsome detail the ways in which scientific method, in spirit and\ntechnique, differs from common-sense thinking. It is more\ninsistent in the first place on including the whole range of\nrelevant data, of bringing to light all the facts that bear on a\ngiven problem. In common-sense thinking we make, as we\nsay, snap judgments; we jump at conclusions. Anything\nplausible is accepted as evidence; anything heard or seen is\naccepted as a fact. The scientific examiner insists on examining\nand subjecting to scrutiny the facts at hand, on searching\nfor further facts, and on distinguishing the facts genuinely\nsignificant in a given situation from these that happen to be\nglaring or conspicuous. This is merely another way of saying\nthat both accuracy and completeness of observation are\ndemanded, accuracy in the examination of the facts present,\nand completeness in the array of facts bearing on the question\nat hand.\n\nScientific thinking is thus primarily inquiring and skeptical.\nIt queries the usual; it tries, as we say, to penetrate beneath\nthe surface. Common sense, for example, gives suction as the\nexplanation of water rising in a pump. But where, as at a great\nheight above sea level, this mysterious power of suction does\nnot operate, or when it is found that it does not raise water\nabove thirty-two feet, common sense is at a loss. Scientific\nthinking tries to analyze the gross fact, and by accurately and\ncompletely observing all the facts bearing on the phenomenon\nendeavors to find out \"what _special_ conditions are present\nwhen the effect occurs\" and absent when it does not occur.\nInstead of trying to fit all unusual, contradictory, or exceptional\nfacts into _a priori_ ideas based on miscellaneous and\nunsifted facts, it starts without any _fixed_ conclusions beforehand,\nbut carefully observes all the facts which it can secure\nwith reference to a particular problem, deliberately seeking\nthe exceptional and unusual as crucial instances. Thus in a\nsociological inquiry, the scientist, instead of accepting\n\"common-sense\" judgments (based on a variety of miscellaneous,\nincomplete, and unsifted facts) that certain races are inferior\nor superior, tries, by specific inquiries, to establish the facts\nof racial capacities or defects. Instead of accepting proverbial\nwisdom and popular estimates of the relative capacities\nof men and women, he tries by careful observation and\nexperiment accurately to discover all the facts bearing on\nthe question, and to generalize from those facts.\n\nScientific method thus discounts prejudice or dogmatism.\nA prejudice is literally a pre-judgment. Common sense sizes\nup the situation beforehand. Instead of examining a situation\nin its own terms, and _arriving_ at a conclusion, it _starts_\nwith one. The so-called hard-headed man of common sense\n_knows_ beforehand. He has a definite and stereotyped reaction\nfor every situation with which he comes in contact.\nThese rubber-stamp responses, these unconsidered generalizations,\noriginate in instinctive desires, or in preferences acquired\nthrough habit. Common sense finds fixed pigeon holes\ninto which to fit all the variety of specific circumstances and\nconditions which characterize experience. \"When its judgments\nhappen to be correct, it is almost as much a matter of\ngood luck as of method.... That potatoes should be planted\nonly during the crescent moon, that near the sea people are\nborn at high tide and die at low tide, that a comet is an\nomen of danger, that bad luck follows the cracking of a\nmirror,\" all these are the results of common-sense observation.\nMatters of common knowledge are thus not infrequently\nmatters of common misinformation.\n\nCommon-sense knowledge is largely a matter of uncritical\nbelief. When there is absent scientific examination of the\nsources and grounds of belief, those judgments and conclusions\nare likely to be accepted which happen to have wide\nsocial currency and authority. In an earlier chapter, it was\nshown how the mere fact of an opinion prevailing among a\nlarge number of one's group or class gives it great emotional\nweight. Where opinions are not determined by intelligent\nexamination and decision, they are determined by force of\nhabit, early education, and the social influences to which one\nis constantly exposed.\n\nThe scientific spirit is a spirit of emancipated inquiry as\ncontrasted with blind acceptance of belief upon authority.\nThe phenomenal developments of modern science began\nwhen men ceased to accept authoritatively their beliefs about\nman and nature, and undertook to examine phenomena in\ntheir own terms. The phenomenal rise of modern science is\ncoincident with the collapse of unquestioning faith as the\nleading ingredient of intellectual life.\n\nCommon sense renders men peculiarly insensitive to the\npossibilities of the novel, peculiarly susceptible to the\ninfluence of tradition. It was common sense that credited the\ninfluence of the position of the stars upon men's welfare, the\npower of old women as witches, and the unhealthiness of night\nair. It was common sense also that ridiculed Fulton's steamboat,\nlaughed at the early attempts of telegraphy and telephony,\nand dismissed the aeroplane as an interesting toy. The\ncharacteristic feature of common sense or empirical thinking\nis its excess traditionalism, its wholesale acceptance of authority,[1]\nits reliance upon precedent. Where beliefs are not subjected\nto critical revision and examination, to the constant\nsurveillance of the inquiring intelligence, there will be no\ncriterion by which to estimate the true and the false, the\nimportant and the trivial. All beliefs that have wide social\nsanction, or that chime in with immediate sense impressions,\nestablished individual habits, or social customs will be accepted\nwith the same indiscriminate hospitality. To common sense\nthe sun _does_ appear to go round the earth; the stick _does_\nappear broken in water. Thus \"totally false opinions may\nappear to the holder of them to possess all the character of\nrationally verifiable truth.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Authority\" in this sense of social prestige must\nbe distinguished from \"authority\" in the sense of scientific\nauthority. The acceptance of the authority of the expert is the\nacceptance of opinions that we have good reason to believe are\nthe result of scientific inquiry.]\n\nThe dangers and falsities of common-sense judgments are\nconditioned not only by expectations and standards fixed by\nthe social environment, but by one's own personal predilections\nand aversions. Recent developments in psychology\nhave made much of the fact that many of our so-called\nreasoned judgments are rationalizations, secondary reasons\nfound after our initial, primary, and deep-seated emotional\nresponses have been made. They are the result of emotional\n\"complexes,\" fears, expectations, and desires of which we are\nnot ourselves conscious.[1] It is from these limiting conditions\nof personal preference and social environment that scientific\nmethod frees us.\n\n[Footnote 1: \"When a party politician is called upon to consider\na new measure, his verdict is largely determined by certain\nconstant systems of ideas and trends of thought, constituting\nwhat is generally known as 'party bias.' We should describe\nthese systems in our newly acquired terminology as his 'political\ncomplex.' The complex causes him to take up an attitude toward\nthe proposed measure which is quite independent of any absolute\nmerits that the latter may possess. If we argue with our politician,\nwe shall find that the complex will reinforce in his mind those\narguments which support the view of his party, while it will\ninfallibly prevent him from realizing the force of the arguments\npropounded by the opposite side. Now, it should be observed that\nthe individual himself is probably quite unaware of this mechanism\nin his mind. He fondly imagines that his opinion is formed solely\nby the logical pros and cons of the measure before him. We see,\nin fact, that not only is his thinking determined by a complex\nof whose action he is unconscious, but that he believes his\nthoughts to be the result of other causes which are in reality\ninsufficient and illusory. This latter process of self-deception,\nin which the individual conceals the real foundation of his\nthought by a series of adventitious props, is termed\n'rationalization.'\n\n\"The two mechanisms which manifest themselves in our example of\nthe politician, the unconscious origin of beliefs and actions,\nand the subsequent process of rationalization to which they are\nsubjected, are of fundamental importance in psychology.\"\n(Bernard Hart: _The Psychology of Insanity_, pp. 64-66.)]\n\nAgain, even where common-sense judgments are not particularly\nqualified by such conditions, they are frequently\nbased upon the observation of purely accidental conjunctions\nof circumstances. A sequence once or twice observed is taken\nas the basis of a causal relation. This gives rise to what is\nknown in technical logic as the _post hoc ergo propter hoc_\nfallacy; that is, the assumption that because one thing happens\nafter another, therefore it happens _because_ of it. Many\nsuperstitions probably had their origin in such chance observations,\nand belief in them is strengthened by some accidental\nconfirmation. Thus if a man walks under a ladder one\nday and dies the next, the believer in the superstition that\nwalking under a ladder brings fatal results will find in this\ninstance a clear ratification of his belief. There seems to be\nan inveterate human tendency to seek for causes, and by\nthose who are not scientific inquirers causes are lightly\nassigned. It is easiest and most plausible to assign as a cause\nan immediately preceding circumstance. Exceptional or contradictory\ncircumstances are then either unnoticed or pared\ndown to fit the belief.\n\nScientific method does not depend on such chance conjunctions\nof circumstance, but controls its observations or\nexperimentally arranges conditions so as to discover what are\nthe conditions necessary to produce given effects, or what\neffects invariably follow from given causes. It does not\naccept a chance conjunction as evidence of an invariable\nrelation, but seeks, under regulated conditions, to discover what\nthe genuinely invariable relations are. This method of\ncontrolling our generalizations about the facts of experience, we\nshall presently examine in some detail.\n\nCURIOSITY AND SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY. Curiosity, the instinctive\nbasis of the desire to know, is the basis of scientific inquiry.\nWithout this fundamental desire, there could be no sustaining\nmotive to deep and thoroughgoing scientific research, for\ntheoretical investigations do not always give promise of immediate\npractical benefits. The scientific interest is a development\nof that restless curiosity for a knowledge of the world in\nwhich they are living which children so markedly exhibit.\nBeginning as a kind of miscellaneous and omnivorous appetite\nfor facts of whatever description, it grows into a desire to\nunderstand the unsuspected and hidden relations between\nfacts, to penetrate to the unities discoverable beneath the\nmysteries and multiplicities of things.\n\nThe scientific mood is thus in the first place a sheer instinctive\ncuriosity, a basic passion for facts. It is this which sustains\nthe scientific worker in the sometimes long and dreary\nbusiness of collecting specimens, instances, details. Many of\nthe most notable scientific advances, as Lord Kelvin pointed\nout, must be attributed to the most protracted and unmitigated\ndrudgery in the collection of facts, a thoroughgoing and\ntrying labor in which the scientific worker could persist only\nwhen fortified by an eager and insistent curiosity. This\n\"hodman's work\" is the basis of the great generalizations\nwhich constitute the framework of the modern scientific\nsystems. \"The monotonous and quantitative work of star-cataloguing\nhas been continued from Hipparchus, who began\nhis work more than a century before Christ, work which is\ncontinued even to the present day. This work, uninspiring\nas it seems, is yet an essential basis for the applications of\nastronomy, the determination of time, navigation, surveying.\nFurthermore, without good star places, we can have no theory\nof the motions of the solar system, and without accurate\ncatalogues of the stars we can know nothing of the grander\nproblems of the universe, the motion of our sun among the\nstars, or of the stars among themselves.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Hinks: _Astronomy_, p. 162.]\n\nNot only is curiosity a sustaining motive in the drudgery of\ncollection and research incident and essential to scientific\ngeneralization; it alone makes possible that suspense of\njudgment which is necessary to fruitful scientific inquiry. This\nsuspense is, as we have already seen, difficult for most men.\nAction demands immediate decision, and inquiry deliberately\npostpones decision. It is only a persistent desire to \"get at\nthe bottom of the matter\" that will act as a check upon the\ndemands of social life and of individual impatience which rush\nus to conclusions. In most men, as earlier noted, the sharp\nedge of curiosity becomes easily blunted. They are content,\noutside their own immediate personal interests, \"to take\nthings for granted.\" They glide over the surfaces of events,\nthey cease to query the authenticity of facts, or to examine\ntheir relevance and their significance, or to be concerned about\ntheir completeness. For an example, one has but to listen to\nor partake in the average discussion of any political or social\nissue of the present day. There are few men who retain, even\nas far as middle life, a genuinely inquiring interest in men and\naffairs. Their curiosity is dulled by fatigue and the pressure\nof their own interests and preoccupations, and they allow\ntheir prejudices and formulas to pass for judgments and conclusions.\nThe scientist is the man in whom curiosity has\nbecome a permanent passion, who, as long as he lives, is\nunwilling to forego inquiry into the processes of Nature, or of\nhuman relations.\n\nTHINKING BEGINS WITH A PROBLEM. While the general habit\nof inquiry is developed in the satisfaction of the instinct of\ncuriosity, any particular investigation begins with a felt\ndifficulty. By difficulty is not meant one of an imperative\nand practical kind, but any problem whether theoretical or\npractical. For many men, it is true, thinking occurs only\nwhen instinct and habit are inadequate to adjust them to\ntheir environment. Any problem of daily life affords an\nexample. To borrow an illustration from Professor Dewey:\n\nA man traveling in an unfamiliar region comes to a branching of\nthe roads. Having no sure knowledge to fall back upon, he is\nbrought to a standstill of hesitation and suspense. Which road is\nright? And how shall the perplexity be resolved? There are but\ntwo alternatives. He must either blindly and arbitrarily take his\ncourse, trusting to luck for the outcome, or he must discover grounds\nfor the conclusion that a given road is right.[1]\n\n[Footnote l: Dewey: _How We Think_, p. 10.]\n\nTo the inquiring mind, purely theoretical difficulties or\ndiscrepancies will provoke thought. To the astronomer an\nunaccounted-for perturbation in the path of a planet provokes\ninquiry; the chemist is challenged by a curious unexplained\nreaction of two chemical elements, the biologist, anterior to\nthe discovery of micro-organisms, by the putrefaction of\nanimal tissues. The degree to which curiosity persists and\nthe extent of training a man has had in a given field largely\ndetermine the kind of situations that will provoke inquiry.\n\"A primrose by the river's brim\" may be simply a primrose\nto one man, while to another, a botanist, it may suggest an\ninteresting and complex problem of classification.\n\nBut however remote and recondite thinking becomes, however\nfar removed from immediate practical concerns, it occurs\nessentially in a situation analogous to the \"forked-road situation\"\ndescribed above. The situation as it stands is confused,\nambiguous, uncertain. In a practical problem, for example,\nthere are two or more courses of action open to us, all of them\ngiving promise as solutions of our difficulties. We aim through\nreflection to reduce the uncertainty, to clarify the situation,\nto discover more clearly the consequences of the various\nalternatives which suggest themselves to us. When action is\nunimpeded, suggestions flow on just as they arise in our\nminds. This is illustrated best in the reveries of a day-dream\nwhen casual and disconnected fancies follow each other in\nrandom and uncontrolled succession. But when there is a\nproblem to be settled, an ambiguity to be resolved, suggestions\nare held in check and controlled with reference to the\nend we have in view; each suggestion is estimated with regard\nto its relevance to the problem in hand. Every idea that\narises is, so to speak, queried: \"Is it or is it not a solution to\nour present difficulty?\"\n\nWe are indebted to Professor Dewey, for an analysis of the\nthought process. Every instance of thinking reveals five\nsteps:\n\n(1) A felt difficulty, (2) its location and definition, (3)\nsuggestions of possible solutions, (4) development by reasoning\nof the bearings of the most promising suggestion, (5) further\nobservation or experiment leading to its acceptance or rejection,\nthat is a conclusion either of belief or disbelief.\n\nWhen instinct or habit suffices to adjust us to our environment,\naction runs along smoothly, freely, uninterruptedly. In\nconsequence the provocation to thinking may at first be a\nmere vague shock or disturbance. We are, as it were, in\ntrouble without knowing precisely what the trouble is. We\nmust carefully inquire into the nature of the problem before\nundertaking a solution. To take a simple instance, an automobile\nmay suddenly stop. We know there is a difficulty,\nbut whether it is a difficulty with the transmission, with the\ncarburetor, or with the supply of gasoline, we cannot at first\ntell. Before we do anything else in solving our problem, we\nfind out literally and precisely _what the trouble is_. To take a\ndifferent situation, a doctor does not undertake to prescribe\nfor a patient until he has diagnosed the difficulty, found out\nprecisely what the features of the problem are.\n\nThe second step after the situation has been examined and\nits precise elements defined, is _suggestion_. That is, we\nconsider the various possibilities which _suggest_ themselves as\nsolutions to our problem. There may be several ways of temporarily\nrepairing our engine; the doctor may think of two or\nthree possible treatments for a disease. In one sense, suggestion\nis uncontrollable. The kind of suggestions that occur to\nan individual depend on his \"genius or temperament,\" on his\npast experiences, on his hopes or fears or expectations when\nthat particular situation occurs. We can, however, through\nthe methods of science, control suggestions indirectly. We\ncan do this, in the first place, by reexamining the facts which\ngive rise to suggestion. If upon close examination, the facts\nappear differently from what they did at first, we will derive\ndifferent inferences from them. Different suggestions will\narise from the facts _A, B, C_, than from the facts _A', B', C'_.\nAgain we can regulate the conditions under which credence is\ngiven to the various suggestions that arise. These suggestions\nare entertained merely as tentative, and are not accepted\nuntil experimentally verified. \"The suggested conclusion as\nonly tentatively entertained constitutes an idea.\"\n\nAfter the variety of suggestions that proffer themselves as\nsolutions to a problem have been considered, the third step is\nthe logical development of the idea or suggestion that gives\nmost promise of solving the difficulty. That is, even before\nfurther facts are sought, the idea that gives promise of being a\nsolution is followed out to its logical consequences. Thus, for\nexample, astronomers were for a long time puzzled by unexplained\nperturbations in the path of the planet Uranus. The\nsuggestion occurred that an unseen planet was deflecting it\nfrom the path it should, from observation and calculation,\nbe following. If this were the case, from the amount of deflection\nit was mathematically calculated, prior to any further\nobservation, that the supposed planet should appear at a certain\npoint in space. It was by this deductive elaboration that\nthe planet Neptune was discovered. It was figured out deductively\nthat a planet deflecting the path of the planet Uranus\nby just so-and-so much should be found at just such and such\na particular point in the heavens. When the telescopes were\nturned in that direction, the planet Neptune was discovered\nat precisely the point deductively forecast.\n\nThe elaboration of an idea through reasoning it out may\nsometimes lead to its rejection. But in thinking out its\ndetails we may for the first time note its appositeness to the\nsolution of the problem in hand. The gross suggestion may\nseem wild and absurd, but when its bearings and consequences\nare logically developed there may be some item in\nthe development which dovetails into the problem as its\nsolution. William James gives as the outstanding feature of\nreasoning, \"sagacity, or the perception of the essence.\"[1] By\nthis he meant the ability to single out of a complex situation\nor idea the significant or key feature. It is only by a logical\ndevelopment of a suggested solution to a problem that it is\npossible to hit upon the essence of the matter for a particular\nsituation, to single out of a gross total situation, the key to\nthe phenomenon. \"In reasoning, _A_ may suggest _B_; but _B_,\ninstead of being an idea which is simply _obeyed_ by us, is an\nidea which suggests the distinct additional idea _C_. And\nwhere the train of suggestion is one of reasoning distinctively\nso-called as contrasted with mere 'revery,' ... the ideas bear\ncertain inward relations to each other which we must carefully\nexamine. The result _C_ yielded by a true act of reasoning\nis apt to be a thing voluntarily _sought_, such as the means\nto a proposed end, the ground for an observed effect, or the\neffect of an assumed cause.\"[2] Thus what at first sight might\nseem a fantastic suggestion may, when its bearings are logically\nfollowed out, be seen in one of its aspects to be the key\nto the solution of a problem. To primitive man it might have\nseemed absurd to suggest that flowing water might be used\nas power; to the man in Franklin's day that the same force\nthat was exhibited in the lightning might be used in transportation\nand in lighting houses.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: James: _Psychology_, vol. II, p. 343.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 329.]\n\n[Footnote 1: James gives an illuminating passage on the importance\nof the effectiveness of _reasoning_ things out: \"I have a\nstudent's lamp, of which the flame vibrates most unpleasantly unless\nthe collar which bears the chimney be raised about a sixteenth of\nan inch. I learned the remedy after much torment by accident, and\nnow always keep the collar up with a small wedge. But my procedure\nis a mere association of two totals, diseased object and remedy.\nOne learned in pneumatics could have named the _cause_ of the\ndisease, and thence inferred the remedy immediately. By many\nmeasurements of triangles, one might find their area always equal\nto their height multiplied by half their base, and one might\nformulate an empirical law to that effect. But a reasoner saves himself\nall this trouble, by seeing that it is the essence (_pro hac vice_)\nof a triangle to be the half of a parallelogram whose area is the height\ninto the entire base. To see this he must invent additional lines; and\nthe geometer must often draw such to get at the essential properties\nhe may require in a figure. The essence consists in some _relation\nof the figure to the new lines_, a relation not obvious at all until\nthey are put in. The geometer's sagacity lies in the invention of the\nnew lines.\" (_Psychology_, vol. II, pp. 339-40.)]\n\nBut no thinking is conclusive until after the experimental\ncertification and warranting of the idea which has been held\nin mind as the solution of the problem. By deduction, by\nlogical elaboration of an idea, we find its adoption involves\ncertain consequences. Some of the logical consequences\nwhich follow from an idea may indicate that it is a plausible\nsolution of our problem. But no matter how plausible a\nsuggestion looks, until it is verified by observation or experiment\nthe thinking process is not concluded, is not finished,\nas we say, _conclusively_. When an idea or a suggestion has\nbeen developed, and seen to involve--as an idea--certain\ninevitable logical consequences, the idea must be tested by\nfurther observation and experiment. Suggestions arise _from_\nfacts and must be tested _by_ them. Until the suggestion is\nverified, it remains merely a suggestion, a theory, a hypothesis,\nan idea. It is only when the consequences implied logically\nin the very idea itself are found in the actual situation\nthat the idea is accepted as a solution to the problem. Sometimes\nthe suggestion may be verified by observation; sometimes\nconditions must be deliberately arranged for testing its\nadequacy. In either case it is only when the facts of the\nsituation correspond to the conditions theoretically involved that\nthe tentative idea is accepted as a conclusion.\n\nThus a treatment that is regarded by the doctor as a possible\ncure can be called an actual cure only when its beneficent\nresults are observed. The supposition about the planet\nNeptune is only verified when the planet is actually observed\nin the heavens. Thinking ends, as it begins, in observation.\nAt the beginning the facts are carefully examined to see\nprecisely where the difficulty lies; at the end they are again\nexamined to see whether an idea, an entertained hypothesis,\na suggested solution, can be verified in actual observable\nresults.\n\nTHE QUALITY OF THINKING--SUGGESTION. The quality of thinking\nvaries, first, with the fertility of suggestion of the analyzing\nmind. Ease of suggestion, in the first place, depends on innate\nindividual differences. There are some minds so constituted\nthat every fact provokes a multitude of suggestions.\nReadiness in responding with \"ideas\" to any experience is\ndependent primarily on initial differences in resilience and\nresponsiveness. But differences in training and past experience\nare also contributory. A man who has much experience\nin a given field, say in automobile repairing, will, given a\ndifficulty, not only think of more suggestions, but think more\nrapidly in that field.\n\nAgain persons differ in range or number of suggestions that\noccur. The quality of the thinking process and of the results\nit produces depends, in part, on the variety of suggestions which\noccur to an individual in the solution of a given problem. If\ntoo few suggestions occur one may fail to hit upon any promising\nsolution. If too many suggestions occur one may be\ntoo confused to arrive at any conclusion at all. Whether an\nindividual has few or many suggestions depends largely on\nnative differences. It depends, also, however in part, on\nacquaintance with a given field. And the fertility of suggestions\nmay be increased by a careful survey and re-survey of\nthe facts at hand, and by the deliberate searching-out of\nfurther facts from which further suggestions may be derived.\nSuggestions differ, finally, in regard to depth or significance;\nby nature and by training, individuals produce ideas of varying\ndegrees of significance in the solution of problems. Ease\nand versatility of suggestion not infrequently connote\nsuperficiality; to make profound and far-reaching suggestions takes\ntime.\n\nIt is further requisite, as already pointed out, that the analyzing\nmind be free from prejudice. Thinking is continually\nqualified, as we have seen, by preferences and aversions.\nEvery prejudice, every _a priori_ belief we have, literally\nprejudges the inquiry. Whenever we are moved by a \"predominant\npassion,\" we cannot survey the facts impartially.\nIt is hard to think clearly and justly about people whom we\nlove or hate, or to estimate with precision the morality of\nactions toward which we are moved by very strong impulses.\nIt is only the mind that remains resolutely emancipated from\nthe compulsions of habit and circumstances, that persists in\nsurveying facts as they are, letting the chips, so to speak, fall\nwhere they will, that can be really effective in thinking. In\nthe physical sciences it is comparatively easy to start with no\nprejudices; in social inquiries where we are bound by traditions,\nloyalties, and antipathies it is much more difficult.\n\nNot the least essential to effective thinking is persistence\nand thoroughness of investigation. Since we are primarily\ncreatures of action, we crave definiteness and immediacy of\ndecision, and there is a constant temptation to rush to a\nconclusion. In order to attain genuine completeness of the facts\nand certainty and accuracy as to what the facts are, long,\nunwavering persistence is required. There must be persistence,\nmoreover, not merely because of the length of time and the\namount of labor involved in the collection of data; steadiness\nis required in holding in mind the end or purpose of the investigation.\nToo often in inquiry into the facts of human relations,\nthe specific problem is forgotten and facts are collected\nwith an indiscriminate omnivorousness. There is in such\ncases plodding, but of an unenlightened and fruitless sort.\nNot only _persistency_ but _consistency_ is required. The\ninvestigation must be steadily carried on with persistent and\nunwavering reference to the specific business in hand.\n\nEffective thinking depends further on familiarity with the\nfield of facts under investigation. Even the most ready and\nfertile of minds, the most orderly habits of thought, are at a\nloss without a store of material; that is, facts from which\nsuggestions may arise. And this store of materials can only\nbe attained through a thoroughgoing acquaintance with the\nparticular field of inquiry. Thinking aims to explain the\nrelations between facts, and an intimate acquaintance with\nfacts involved in a given situation is prerequisite to any\ngeneralization whatsoever.\n\nWhile the native fertility of given minds cannot be controlled,\nsuggestions can be controlled indirectly. Suggestions\narise from the data at hand, but the data themselves change\nunder more precise conditions of observation, and the suggestions\nthat arise from them change in consequence. The\nwhole elaborate apparatus of science, its instruments of\nprecision, are designed to yield an exact determination of the\nprecise nature of the data at hand. The scientist attempts to\nprevent \"reading-in\" of meanings. \"Reading-in\" of meanings\nmay be due to various causes. In the first place there\nmay be purely physical causes: a dim light, a fog, a cracked\nwindow-pane are examples of how ordinary observation may\nlead us astray. Again, physiological causes may be at work\nto distort sensations: imperfection's in the sense organs,\nfatigue, illness, and the like are examples. But not least among\nthe causes of error must be set psychological causes. That is,\nwe read facts differently in the light of what we fear or hope,\nlike or dislike, expect or recall. We see things the way we\nwant them to be, or the way previous experience has taught\nus to expect them to be.\n\nBoth physiological and psychological causes may be checked\nup by instruments. Indeed, one of the chief utilities of\ninstruments of precision is that they do serve to check up personal\nerror. They prevent scientific inquirers from reading in\nmeanings to which they are led by hope, fear, preference, or\naversion. They help us to see the facts as they are, not as for\nvarious social and personal reasons we want or expect them\nto be. They help to give precise and permanent impressions\nwhich are not dependent for their discovery or for their preservation\non the precariousness of human observation or memory.\n\nCLASSIFICATION. Next only in importance to accurate\nobservation of the facts is their classification. Objects of\nexperience as they come to us through the senses appear in a\nsequence which is random and chaotic. But in order to deal\neffectively with our experience we must arrange facts according\nto their likenesses and differences. Whenever we discover\ncertain striking similarities between facts, we classify\nthem, place them in a class, knowing that what will apply to\none will apply to all. Some logicians go so far as to say that\nscience cannot go any further than accurate classification.\nIn the words of Poincare:\n\nThe most interesting facts are those which may serve many times;\nthese are the facts which have a chance of coming up again. We\nhave been so fortunate as to have been born in a world where there\nare such. Suppose that instead of sixty chemical elements there\nwere sixty milliards of them, that they were not some common, the\nothers rare, but that they were equally distributed. Then, every\ntime we picked up a new pebble there would be great probability of\nits being formed of some unknown substance; all that we knew of\nother pebbles would be worthless for it; before each new object we\nshould be as the new-born babe; like it we could only obey our\ncaprices or our needs. Biologists would be just as much at a loss if\nthere were only individuals and no species, and if heredity did not\nmake sons like their fathers.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Poincare: _Foundations of Science_, p. 363.]\n\nThe aim of classification in science is grouping in such a way\nas to make manifest at once similarities in the behavior of\nobjects. That characteristic is selected as a basis of classification\nwith which is correlated the greatest number of other\ncharacteristics belonging to the facts in question. It would\nbe possible to classify all living things according to color, but\nsuch a classification would be destitute of scientific value.\nBiology offers some interesting examples of how an illuminating\nclassification may be made on the basis of a single characteristic.\nIt has been found, for example, that the differences\nor resemblances of animals are correlated with corresponding\ndifferences or resemblances in their teeth. In general, the\nfunction of classification may be summarized in Huxley's\ndefinition as modified by Jevons:\n\nBy the classification of any series of objects is meant the actual\nor ideal arrangement together of those things which are like and the\nseparation of those things which are unlike, the purpose of the\narrangement being, primarily, to disclose the correlations or laws of\nunion of properties and circumstances, and, secondarily, to facilitate\nthe operations of the mind in clearly conceiving and retaining in\nmemory the characters of the object in question.\n\nIt should be noted that the object of classification is not\nsimply to indicate similarities but to indicate distinctions or\ndifferences. In scientific inquiry, differences are as crucial in\nthe forming of generalizations as similarities. It is only possible\nto classify a given fact under a scientific generalization\nwhen the given fact is set off from other facts, when it is seen\nto be the result of certain special conditions.\n\nIf a man infers from a single sample of grain as to the grade of\nwheat of the car as a whole, it is induction, and under certain\ncircumstances, a _sound_ induction; other cases are resorted to simply for the\nsake of rendering that induction more guarded and correct. In the\ncase of the various samples of grain, it is the fact that the samples\nare unlike, at least in the part of the carload from which they are\ntaken, that is important. Were it not for this unlikeness, their likeness\nin quality would be of no avail in assisting inference.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _How We Think_, pp. 89-90.]\n\nEXPERIMENTAL VARIATION OF CONDITIONS. In forming our\ngeneralizations from the observation of situations as they occur\nin Nature, we are at a disadvantage. If we observe cases\njust as we find them, there is much present that is irrelevant\nto our problem; much that is of genuine importance in its\nsolution is hidden or obscure. In experimental investigation\nwe are, in the words of Sir John Herschel, \"active observers\";\nwe deliberately invent crucial or test cases. That is, we\ndeliberately arrange conditions so that every factor is definitely\nknown and recognized. We then introduce into this set of\ncompletely known conditions one change, one new circumstance,\nand observe its effect. In Mill's phrase, we \"take a\nphenomenon home with us,\" and watch its behavior. Mill\nstates clearly the outstanding advantage of experimentation\nover observation:\n\nWhen we can produce a phenomenon artificially, we can take it, as\nit were, home with us, and observe it in the midst of circumstances\nwith which in all other respects we are accurately acquainted. If\nwe desire to know what are the effects of the cause _A_, and are able to\nproduce _A_ by means at our disposal, we can generally determine at\nour own discretion ... the whole of the circumstances which shall\nbe present along with it; and thus, knowing exactly the simultaneous\nstate of everything else which is within the reach of _A's_ influence,\nwe have only to observe what alteration is made in that state by the\npresence of _A_.\n\nFor example, by the electric machine we can produce, in the midst\nof known circumstances, the phenomena which Nature exhibits on\na grander scale in the form of lightning and thunder. Now let any\none consider what amount of knowledge of the effects and laws of\nelectric agency mankind could have obtained from the mere observation\nof thunderstorms, and compare it with that which they have\ngained, and may expect to gain, from electrical and galvanic\nexperiments....\n\nWhen we have succeeded in isolating the phenomenon which is\nthe subject of inquiry, by placing it among known circumstances,\nwe may produce further variations of circumstances to any extent,\nand of such kinds as we think best calculated to bring the laws of the\nphenomenon into a clear light. By introducing one well-defined\ncircumstance after another into the experiment, we obtain assurance\nof the manner in which the phenomenon behaves under an indefinite\nvariety of possible circumstances. Thus, chemists, after having\nobtained some newly discovered substance in a pure state, ... introduce\nvarious other substances, one by one, to ascertain whether it\nwill combine with them, or decompose them, and with what result;\nand also apply heat or electricity or pressure, to discover what will\nhappen to the substance under each of these circumstances.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Logic_ (London, 1872), vol. I, pp. 441-42.]\n\nThrough experiment, we are thus enabled to observe the\nrelation of specific elements in a situation. We are, furthermore,\nenabled to observe phenomena which are so rare in occurrence\nthat it is impossible to form generalizations from\nthem or improbable that we should even notice them: \"We\nmight have to wait years or centuries to meet accidentally\nwith facts which we can readily produce at any moment in a\nlaboratory; and it is probable that many of the chemical\nsubstances now known, and many excessively useful products,\nwould never have been discovered at all, by waiting till Nature\npresented them spontaneously to our observation.\" And\nphenomena, such as that of electricity, which can only be\nunderstood when the conditions of their occurrence are varied,\nare presented to us in Nature most frequently in a\nfixed and invariable form.\n\nGENERALIZATIONS, THEIR ELABORATION AND TESTING. So far\nwe have been concerned with the steps in the control of\nsuggestion, the reexamination of the facts so that significant\nsuggestions may be derived, and the elimination of the\nsignificant from the insignificant in the elements of the situation\nas it first confronts us. In logically elaborating a suggestion,\nas we have already seen, we trace out the bearings of a given\nsituation. We expand it; we see what it _implies_, what it\nmeans. Thus, if we came, for example, to a meeting that\nhad been scheduled, and found no one present, we might\nhave several solutions arise in our minds. The meeting, we\nmight suppose, had been transferred to another room. If\nthat were the case, there would probably be some notice\nposted. In all cases of deductive elaboration, we go through\nwhat might be called the If-Then process. If _such-and-such_ is\nthe case, then _such-and-such_ will follow. We can then verify\nour suggested solution to a problem, by going back to the\nfacts, to see whether they correspond with the implications\nof our suggestion. We may, to take another example, think\nthat a man who enters our office is an insurance agent, or a\nbook solicitor who had said he would call upon us at a definite\ndate. If such is the case, he will say such-and-such things.\nIf he does say them, then our suggestion is seen to be correct.\nThe advantages of developing a suggestion include the fact\nthat some link in the logical chain may bear a more obvious\nrelation to our problem than did the undeveloped suggestion\nitself.\n\nThe systematic sciences consist of such sets of principles\nso related that any single term implies certain others, which\nimply certain others and so on _ad infinitum_.\n\nAfter the facts have been elaborated, the generalization,\nhowever plausible it may seem, must be subjected to experimental\ncorroboration. That is, if a suggestion is found\nthrough local elaboration to mean _A, B, C_, then the situation\nmust be reexamined to see if the facts to be found tally with\nthe facts deduced. In the case cited, the suggestion that the\nman who entered the room was the insurance agent we expected\nwould be verified if he immediately broached the subject\nand the fact, say, of a previous conversation. In the case\nof disease, if the illness is typhoid, we shall find certain specific\nconditions in the patient. If these are found, the suggestion\nof typhoid is verified.\n\nThe _reliability_ of generalizations made by this scientific\nprocedure varies according to several factors. It varies, in\nthe first place, according to the correspondence of the predictions\nmade on the basis of the generalization, with subsequent\nevents. The reason we say the law of gravitation holds\ntrue is because in every instance where observations or\nexperiments have been made, the results have tallied precisely\nwith expectations based upon the generalization. We can, to\na certain extent, determine the reliability of a generalization\nbefore comparing our predictions with subsequent events.\nIf a generalization made contradicts laws that have been\nestablished in so many instances that they are practically\nbeyond peradventure, it is suspect. A law, for example, that\nshould be an exception to the laws of motion or gravitation,\nis _a priori_ dubious.\n\nIf an induction conflicts with stronger inductions, or with conclusions\ncapable of being correctly deduced from them, then, unless on\nreconsideration it should appear that some of the stronger inductions\nhave been expressed with greater universality than their evidence\nwarrants, the weaker one must give way. The opinion so long prevalent\nthat a comet, or any other unusual appearance in the heavenly\nregions, was the precursor of calamities to mankind, or to those at\nleast who witnessed it; the belief in the veracity of the oracles of\nDelphi or Dodona; the reliance on astrology, or on the weather\nprophecies in almanacs, were doubtless inductions supposed to be\ngrounded on experience.... What has really put an end to these\ninsufficient inductions is their inconsistency with the stronger\ninductions subsequently obtained by scientific inquiry, respecting the\ncauses on which terrestrial events really depend.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Logic_ (London, 1872), vol. I, pp. 370-71.]\n\nTHE QUANTITATIVE BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURE. Science _is_\nscience, some scientists insist, in so far as it is mathematical.\nThat is, in the precise determination of facts, and in their\nrepetition with a view to their exact determination, quantities\nmust be known. The sciences have developed in exactness,\nin so far as they have succeeded in expressing their\nformulations in numerical terms. The physical sciences, such\nas physics and chemistry, which have been able to frame their\ngeneralizations from precise quantities, have been immeasurably\nmore certain and secure than such sciences as psychology\nand sociology, where the measurement of exact quantities is\nmore difficult and rare. Jevons writes in his _Principles of\nScience_:\n\nAs physical science advances, it becomes more and more accurately\nquantitative. Questions of simple logical fact resolve themselves\nafter a while into questions of degree, time, distance, or weight.\nForces hardly suspected to exist by one generation are clearly\nrecognized by the next, and precisely measured by the third generation.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Jevons: _Principles of Science_, p. 270.]\n\nThe history of science exhibits a constant progress from\nrude guesses to precise measurement of quantities. In the\nearliest history of astronomy there were attempts at quantitative\ndeterminations, very crude, of course, in comparison\nwith the exactness of present-day scientific methods.\n\nEvery branch of knowledge commences with quantitative notions\nof a very rude character. After we have far progressed, it is often\namusing to look back into the infancy of the science, and contrast\npresent with past methods. At Greenwich Observatory in the present\nday, the hundredth part of a second is not thought an inconsiderable\nportion of time. The ancient Chaldreans recorded an eclipse to\nthe nearest hour, and the early Alexandrian astronomers thought it\nsuperfluous to distinguish between the edge and center of the sun.\nBy the introduction of the astrolabe, Ptolemy, and the later\nAlexandrian astronomers could determine the places of the heavenly\nbodies within about ten minutes of arc. Little progress then ensued\nfor thirteen centuries, until Tycho Brahe made the first great step\ntoward accuracy, not only by employing better instruments, but\neven more by ceasing to regard an instrument as correct.... He\nalso took notice of the effects of atmospheric refraction, and\nsucceeded in attaining an accuracy often sixty times as great as that of\nPtolemy. Yet Tycho and Hevelius often erred several minutes in\nthe determination of a star's place, and it was a great achievement of\nRoemer and Flamsteed to reduce this error to seconds. Bradley, the\nmodern Hipparchus, carried on the improvement, his errors in right\nascension, according to Bessel, being under one second of time, and\nthose of declination under four seconds of arc. In the present day\nthe average error of a single observation is probably reduced to the\nhalf or the quarter of what it was in Bradley's time; and further\nextreme accuracy is attained by the multiplication of observations,\nand their skillful combination according to the theory of error. Some\nof the more important constants... have been determined within\na tenth part of a second of space.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, pp. 271-72.]\n\nThe precise measurement of quantities is important because\nwe can, in the first place, only through quantitative determinations\nbe sure we have made accurate observations, observations\nuncolored by personal idiosyncrasies. Both errors of\nobservation and errors of judgment are checked up and\naverted by exact quantitative measurements. The relations\nof phenomena, moreover, are so complex that specific causes\nand effects can only be understood when they are given precise\nquantitative determination. In investigating the solubility\nof salts, for example, we find variability depending on\ndifferences in temperature, pressure, the presence of other salts\nalready dissolved, and the like. The solubility of salt in\nwater differs again from its solubility in alcohol, ether, carbon,\nbisulphide. Generalization about the solubility of salt,\ntherefore, depends on the exact measurement of the phenomenon\nunder all these conditions.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: See Jevons, p, 279 ff.]\n\nThe importance of exact measurement in scientific discovery\nand generalization may be illustrated briefly from one\ninstance in the history of chemistry. The discovery of the\nchemical element _argon_ came about through some exact measurements\nby Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay of the\nnitrogen and the oxygen in a glass flask. It was found that\nthe nitrogen derived from air was not altogether pure; that\nis, there were very minute differences in the weighings of\nnitrogen made from certain of its compounds and the weight\nobtained by removing oxygen, water, traces of carbonic acid,\nand other impurities from the atmospheric air. It was found\nthat the very slightly heavier weight in one case was caused\nby the presence of argon (about one and one third times as\nheavy as nitrogen) and some other elementary gases. The\ndiscovery was here clearly due to the accurate measurement\nwhich made possible the discovery of this minute discrepancy.\n\nIt must be noted in general that accuracy in measurement\nis immediately dependent on the instruments of precision\navailable. It has frequently been pointed out that the Greeks,\nalthough incomparably fresh, fertile, and direct in their thinking,\nyet made such a comparatively slender contribution to\nscientific knowledge precisely because they had no instruments\nfor exact measurement. The thermometer made possible the\nscience of heat. The use of the balance has been in large part\nresponsible for advances in chemistry.\n\nThe degree to which sciences have attained quantitative\naccuracy varies among the physical sciences. The phenomena\nof light are not yet subject to accurate measurement;\nmany natural phenomena have not yet been made the subject\nof measurement at all. Such are the intensity of sound, the\nphenomena of taste and smell, the magnitude of atoms, the\ntemperature of the electric spark or of the sun's atmosphere.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: See Jevons, p. 273.]\n\nThe sciences tend, in general, to become more and more\nquantitative. All phenomena \"exist in space and involve\nmolecular movements, measurable in velocity and extent.\"\nThe ideal of all sciences is thus to reduce all phenomena to\nmeasurements of mass and motion. This ideal is obviously\nfar from being attained. Especially in the social sciences\nare quantitative measurements difficult, and in these sciences\nwe must remain therefore at best in the region of shrewd\nguesses or fairly reliable probability.\n\nSTATISTICS AND PROBABILITY. While in the social sciences,\nexact quantitative measurements are difficult, they are to an\nextent possible, and to the extent that they are possible we\ncan arrive at fairly accurate generalizations as to the probable\noccurrence of phenomena. There are many phenomena where\nthe elements are so complex that they cannot be analyzed\nand invariable causal relations established.\n\nIn a study of the phenomena of the weather, for example, the phenomena\nare so exceedingly complex that anything approaching a\ncomplete statement of their elements is quite out of the question.\nThe fallibility of most popular generalizations in these fields is\nevidence of the difficulty of dealing with such facts. Must we be\ncontent then simply to guess at such phenomena? ... In instances of\nthis sort, another method ... becomes important: The Method of\nStatistics. In statistics we have an _exact_ enumeration of cases. If\na small number of cases does not enable us to detect the causal\nrelations of a phenomenon, it sometimes happens that a large number,\naccurately counted, and taken from a field widely extended in time\nand space, will lead to a solution of the problem.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Jones; _Logic, Inductive and Deductive_, p. 190.]\n\nIf we find, in a wide variety of instances, two phenomena\noccurring in a certain constant correlation, we infer a causal\nrelation. If the variations in the frequency of one correspond\nto variations in the frequency of the other, there is probability\nof more than connection by coincidence.\n\nThe correlation between phenomena may be measured\nmathematically; it is possible to express in figures the exact\nrelations between the occurrence of one phenomenon and\nthe occurrence of another. The number which expresses this\nrelation is called the coefficient of correlation. This\ncoefficient expresses relationship in terms of the mean values of the\ntwo series of phenomena by measuring the amount each individual\nphenomenon varies from its respective mean. Suppose,\nfor example, that in correlating crime and unemployment,\nthe coefficient of correlation were found to be .47. If in\nevery case of unemployment crime were found and in every\ncase of crime, unemployment, the coefficient of correlation\nwould be +1. If crime were never found in unemployment,\nand unemployment never in crime, the coefficient of correlation\nwould be -1, indicating a perfect inverse relationship.\nA coefficient of 0 would indicate that there is no relationship.\nThe coefficient of .47 would accordingly indicate a significant\nbut not a \"high\" correlation between crime and unemployment.\n\nWe cannot consider here all the details of statistical methods,\nbut attention may be called to a few of the more significant\nfeatures of the process. Statistics is a science, and consists\nin much more than the mere counting of cases.\n\nWith the collection of statistical data, only the first step has been\ntaken. The statistics in that condition are only raw material showing\nnothing. They are not an instrument of investigation any more\nthan a kiln of bricks is a monument of architecture. They need to\nbe arranged, classified, tabulated, and brought into connection with\nother statistics by the statistician. Then only do they become an\ninstrument of investigation, just as a tool is nothing more than a\nmass of wood or metal, except in the hands of a skilled workman.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mayo-Smith: _Statistics and Sociology_, p. 18.]\n\nThe essential steps in a statistical investigation are: (1) the\ncollection of material, (2) its tabulation, (3) the summary,\nand (4) a critical examination of the results. The terms are\nalmost self-explanatory. There are, however, several general\npoints of method to be noted.\n\nIn the collection of data a wide field must be covered, to be\nsure that we are dealing with invariable relations instead of\nwith mere coincidences, \"or overemphasizing the importance\nof one out of a number of cooeperating causes.\" Tabulation\nof the data collected is very important, since classification of\nthe data does much to suggest the causal relations sought.\nThe headings under which data will be collected depend on\nthe purposes of the investigation. In general, statistics can\nsuggest generalizations, rather than establish them. They\nindicate probability, not invariable relation.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: See Jones: _Logic_, pp. 213-25, for a discussion\nof Probability.]\n\nSCIENCE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF HUMAN PROGRESS. We have, in\nan earlier section of this chapter, referred to the practical\nvalue of science. \"Man's power of deliberate control of his\nown affairs depends upon ability to direct energies to use; an\nability which is, in turn, dependent upon insight into nature's\nprocesses. Whatever natural science may be for the specialist,...\nit is knowledge of the conditions of human action.\"[3]\nAnd the wider, the more complete and the more penetrating\nour knowledge of the world in which we live, the more extended\nbecome the boundaries of human action. Through\na knowledge of natural processes, men have passed from a\nfrightened subjection to Nature to its conscious control. And\nthe fruits of that control are, as we have already had occasion\nto notice, all-pervading in practical life. That complete\ntransformation of life known as the Industrial Revolution,\nwhich came about with such swiftness and completeness in\nthe early nineteenth century, and whose effects have not yet\nceased to accumulate, was the direct outcome of the application\nof the experimental science which had begun in the\nsixteenth. Some of the consequences of the application of\ntheoretical investigation to practical life have already been\nnoted. There are first the more obvious facts of the inventions,\ngreat and small--the railways, steamships, electric\ntransportation, automobiles, and telephones--which have\nchanged in countless details our daily life. There are the\nprofound and all-pervasive changes which have been brought\nabout in industrial and social relations: the building-up of\nour vast industrial centers, the change from small-scale\nhandicrafts to large-scale machine production, the factory\nsystem, with its concomitants of immensely increased resources\nand immensely complicated problems of human\nlife. Science in the short span of three centuries has shown\nhow rapid and immediate could be the fruits of human control\nof Nature, and its further fruits are incalculable.\n\n[Footnote 3: Dewey: _Democracy and Education_, p. 267.]\n\nScience has indeed already begun to affect men's attitude\ntowards experience as well as their material progress. It is\nonly when men set out with the conscious realization that\nintelligence does make a difference in the world, that science\nbecomes articulate. Science is the guarantee of progress. It\nhas shown men that the future is to some extent in their own\nhands; that by dint of a laborious and detailed application of\nintelligence to the processes of nature, those processes can be\ncontrolled in the interests of human welfare.\n\nScience has led men to look to the future instead of the past. The\ncoincidence of the ideal of progress with the advance of science is not\na mere coincidence. Before this advance men placed the golden age\nin remote antiquity. Now they face the future with a firm belief\nthat intelligence properly used can do away with evils once thought\ninevitable. To subjugate devastating disease is no longer a dream;\nthe hope of abolishing poverty is not Utopian.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _Democracy and Education_, pp. 262-63.]\n\nBut science may be used for any end. It reveals the relations\nof phenomena, relations which hold for all men. It\nshows what causes are connected with what consequents, and,\nas already pointed out, in the knowledge of causes lies the\npossible control of effects. We can secure the results we\ndesire, by discovering what antecedents must first be established.\nScience is thus a fund of common resources. Specific causes\nare revealed to be connected with specific effects, and men, by\nmaking a choice of antecedents, can secure the consequences\nthey desire. But which effects they will desire depends on the\ninstincts, standards, and habits of the individual, and the\ntraditions and ideals of the group. A knowledge of chemistry\nmay be used for productive industrial processes, or in the\ninvention of poison gas. Expert acquaintance with psychology\nand educational methods may be used to impress upon a\nnation an arbitrary type of life (an accusation justly brought\nagainst the Prussian educational system), or to promote the\nspecific possibilities that each individual displays.\n\nNot only are the fruits of scientific inquiry used in different\nways by different individuals and groups, but scientific inquiry\nis itself affected by the prevailing interests and mode\nof life. What inquiries shall be furthered depends on _what_\nthe individual or group feels it important to know. From\na social point of view, certain scientific developments are of\nmore urgency and imperativeness than others. During an\nemergency, as during the Great War, it might be necessary\nto turn all the energies of scientific men into immediately\nproductive pursuits. And, since the pursuit of inquiry on a\nlarge scale demands large resources, those researches which\ngive promise of beneficent human consequences will the more\nreadily command social sanction and approval and will be\ndeveloped at the expense of more remote speculations however\nintrinsically interesting these latter may be.\n\nScience has proved so valuable a human instrument that it\nhas attained a moral responsibility. Men have increasingly\ncome to realize that the pressing problems of our industrial\nlife require for their solution not the confusions and incompetences\nof passion and prejudice, but an application of the\nfruits of scientific inquiry. Science has already so completely\ndemonstrated its vast fruitfulness in human welfare, that it\nmust be watched with jealous vigilance. It must result as it\nbegan, in the improvement of human welfare.[1] But what\nconstitutes human welfare is a question which leads us into\nthe final activity of the Career of Reason, Morals and Moral\nValuation, man's attempt to determine what happiness is,\nand how he may attain it.\n\n[Footnote 1:\nWe have already noted the danger of too complete a commitment of\nscience to immediately practical results. This narrows instead of broadening\npossibility. As Mr. F. P. Keppel points out in a recent article, \"Scholarship\nin War\" (_Columbia University Quarterly_, July, 1919), some of the most\nimportant and immediately practical contributions during the Great War came\nfrom the ranks of those who would be regarded as \"pure theorists.\"]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nMORALS AND MORAL VALUATION\n\nTHE PRE-CONDITIONS OF MORALITY--INSTINCT, IMPULSE, AND\nDESIRE. In Art and Science, man attempts to transform the\nworld of nature into conditions more in conformity with his\ndesires. In the enterprise of Morals, man attempts to discover\nhow to control his own nature in the attainment of happiness.\nWe have already had occasion to see that Art, in the\nbroad sense of human contrivance, is made necessary by the\nincongruity between nature and human nature. We shall\nexamine now the conditions which make it necessary and\nmake it possible for man to consider and to control those\nelementary impulses with which he is endowed.\n\nThe origin of the moral problem will become clearer after\na brief recapitulation of those elements of original nature\nwhich form the basis of all human action. We have seen\nthat human beings are equipped, apart from education or\ntraining, with certain tendencies to act in certain definite\nways, given certain definite stimuli. Any single activity of\nan average human being in a modern civilized community is\ncompounded of so many modifications of original tendencies\nto action that these latter seem often altogether obliterated.\nThe conditions of civilized life, moreover, place continual\nchecks on the free activity of any given impulse, and there\nare so many stimuli playing upon an individual at once that\nthe responses called out tend to inhibit each other. The\nparticular thing we say to an acquaintance we happen to\nmeet is not determined by a single original impulse, by love\nor hate, fear or sympathy, pugnacity or pity. It is a compound\nof some or of most of these. On the other hand, no\nmatter how complicated or sophisticated human action\nbecomes, it is built out of these same impulses, which were\noperative when human beings had not yet passed out of\nsavagery. We may check and control our responses through\nhabitual repressions, through deliberate forethought, through\nconscious or mechanical acquiescence in the ways of the\ngroup among which we live. But these original impulses are\nstill the mainspring of our activities.\n\nThe complex, highly artificial character of our civilization\noften obscures the presence of these powerful instinctive\ntendencies, but that they _are_ present and powerful several\nfacts bear witness. They manifest themselves, as the newer\npsychology of the subconscious has repeatedly pointed out,\nin roundabout ways; they are, in the technical phrase, sublimated.\nInstincts find, as it were, substitute realizations.\nThis process of sublimation of unfulfilled desire has been\nnoted particularly with regard to the sex instinct, but the\nprinciple applies to the others.\n\nThe continual suppression of instincts results in various\nforms of morbidity, in what Graham Wallas calls \"baulked\ndispositions.\" To say that instincts are repressed, is to say\nthere is a maladjustment between the individual as he comes\ninto the world, and the world as he finds it. This maladjustment\nmay vary in intensity. It may be exhibited in nothing\nmore serious than boredom, or petulance, or hyper-sensitiveness.\nIt may be a chronic sense of not fitting in, of being\nlost in a blind alley. One has but to review one's list of\nacquaintances to see how many people there are who feel\nsomehow frustrated in the work they happen to be doing,\nwho feel themselves inexplicably at odds with the world.\nGraham Wallas well describes the situation when he writes:\n\nFor we cannot in Saint Paul's sense mortify our dispositions. If\nthey are not stimulated, they do not therefore die, nor is the human\nbeing what he would be if they had never existed. If we leave\nunstimulated, or, to use a shorter term, if we \"baulk\" any one of our\nmain dispositions, Curiosity, Property, Trial and Error, Sex, and the\nrest, we produce in ourselves a state of nervous strain. It may be\ndesirable in any particular case of conduct that we should do so, but\nwe ought to know what we are doing.\n\nThe baulking of each disposition produces its own type of strain;\nbut the distinctions between the types are, so far, unnamed and\nunrecognized, and a trained psychologist would do a real service to\ncivilized life if he would carefully observe and describe them.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Wallas: _The Great Society_, p. 65.]\n\nThe presence of instinctive activities is seen in stark immediacy\nand directness every now and then in civilized life.\nLynchings and mob violence in general are illustrations of\nwhat happens when groups throw to the winds the multiple\ninhibitions of custom and law. And the records of the criminal\ncourts exhibit more cases than are commonly realized of\nsheer crimes of violence. In some instances these can be set\ndown as pathological, but in many more they are normal\ninstincts breaking through the fixed channels set by public\nopinion, tradition, and legal compulsion. On a smaller scale\nan outburst of anger, a fit of temper, sulk or spleen, exhibits\nthe enduring though often obscured presence of instinctive\ntendencies in civilized life.\n\nTHE CONFLICT OF INTERESTS BETWEEN MEN AND GROUPS. How\ncomes it, then, that men whose whole activity is a complication\nof these powerful original tendencies to action should not\nfollow these native impulses freely? The answer is that men\nnot only live, but live together. Wherever human wants, as\nin any group, even a small one, must be filled through\ncooperation, accommodation, compromise, give-and-take,\nadjustment must be made. \"Man,\" to adapt Kant's phrase,\n\"cannot get on with his fellows; and he cannot get on without\nthem.\" Other men are necessary to help us fulfill our desires,\nand yet our desires conflict with theirs. The dual fact of\ncooperation and conflict is, in a sense, the root of the moral\nproblem. How is one individual to attain happiness without\nat the same time interfering with the happiness of others?\nHow can the desires with which all men come into the world be\nfulfilled for all men?\n\nThe adjustment of these problems is at once complicated\nand facilitated by the fact that one of man's most powerful\nnative desires is, as we have already seen, his desire to please\nother men. This extreme sensitivity to the praise and blame\nof his fellows operates powerfully to qualify men's other\ninstincts. The ruthlessness with which men might otherwise\nfulfill their desires is checked by the fact that within\nthemselves there is a conflict between the desire to win other sorts\nof gratification, and the desire to win the praise of others and\nto avoid their blame. This is simply one instance of what we\nshall have occasion presently to note, that not only is there a\nconflict between men in the fulfillment of their native instincts,\nbut within individuals an adjustment must be made between\ncompeting impulses themselves.\n\nThe kinds of conflict that occur between men in the fulfillment\nof their original native tendencies, are as various as\nthose tendencies and their combinations. It may be a conflict,\nas in primitive life, between individuals seeking food\nfrom the same source. It may be a clash in the pursuit of one\nform or another of self-enhancement, enhancement which\ncan come to only some individual out of a group. The sex\ninstinct has afforded, in the case of the \"eternal triangle,\"\nan example of the sharing by two people of an imperious\ndesire for precisely the same object of satisfaction. These\nconflicts of interest are an inevitable result of the constitution\nof human nature. It is perfectly natural that human beings\nconstituted with largely identical impulses should not\ninfrequently seek identical satisfactions. Groups as well as\nindividuals may come into collision, and for analogous reasons.\nClass divisions over the distribution of wealth, international\nwars over the distribution of territory, are sufficiently\nfamiliar examples.\n\nTHE LEVELS OF MORAL ACTION--CUSTOM--THE ESTABLISHMENT\nOF \"FOLKWAYS.\" No anthropologist seems to have\ndiscovered anywhere individuals living totally alone or in total\noblivion to the needs or interests of others. The human\nnecessity for cooeperation and the human desire for companionship\nbring individuals together. And individuals, once living\ntogether, find some _modus vivendi_. Adjustments are, in\ngeneral, effected through established and authoritative \"folkways.\"[1]\nThat is, certain acts come to be recognized as sanctioned\nor as disapproved by the group. And these sanctions\nor disapprovals are powerful in the control of human action.\nThe fact that individuals live and must live together is thus\nthe surest guarantee that they will not, once they have grown\nold enough to communicate with other people, altogether follow\ntheir immediate capricious desires.\n\n[Footnote 1: Professor Sumner's convenient term.]\n\nThe reason for the power of social approvals and disapprovals\nover individuals lies partly in the fact, already noted,\nof the human being's extremely high sensitivity to the praise\nand blame of others. But part of the explanation is social\nrather than psychological. Even primitive tribes take special\npains to make public and pervasive the commands and prohibitions\nwhich have become affixed to given acts. The mere\nfact that an act _is_ customary is itself a sufficiently strong\nguarantee that it will be practiced, since the human being\ntends to perform, as he likes to perform, the habitual. But\nin primitive life, the enforcement of custom is not left to the\ninfluence of habit. The prohibitions and sanctions, both in\nsavage and in civilized society, are made into law. In the\nformer instance, there are most elaborate devices and institutions\nfor enforcing the traditional approvals and disapprovals.\nTabus are one important instrument of the enforcement\nof social checks upon individual action; \"tabus\nare perhaps not so much a means for enforcing custom as they\nare themselves customs invested with peculiar and awful\nsanction. They prohibit or ban any contact with certain\npersons or objects under penalty of danger from unseen\nbeings.\"\n\nThrough ritual certain acts come to be performed with\ngreat regularity, thoroughness, detail, and solemnity. \"In\nprimitive life it [ritual] is widely and effectively used to insure\nfor educational, political, and domestic customs obedience to\nthe group standards.\" In contemporary life, certain social\nforms and observances, as well as certain religious ceremonies,\nare examples of the enforcement of given acts, by ritual.\n\nPraise and blame are equally effective enforcements of\ncertain types of action and of the avoidance of others. In\nprimitive life, praise is as likely as not to take the form of\nart--decorations, costumes, songs, and tattoos. In modern\nlife, as we have seen, praise and blame take the form of public\nopinion, as expressed by friends, acquaintances, newspapers,\nand the like.[1] Praise and blame are not so fixed and rigid\nin civilized communities; individuals move freely among diverse\ngroups whose standards differ. But group approval is\nnone the less effective.\n\n[Footnote 1: See page 106.]\n\nIn primitive life and, though less patently, in contemporary\nsociety, physical force is the ultimate power for enforcing\ncustom. Primitive chiefs are usually the strong men\nof the tribes; and behind law in modern social organization\nis the physical power of the State to enforce it.\n\nMORALITY AS CONFORMITY TO THE ESTABLISHED. The beginning\nof morals is thus to be found in conformity to the established\nor customary. The criterion of morality is compliance--compliance\nwith the regular, the socially approved, the common\n(that is, the communal) ways of action. Apart from\nthe consequences of violation, violation _per se_ is impure,\nunholy, immoral. The terms are, in some cases, interchangeable.\nIn primitive life, violations are regarded with particular\nhorror, because they are frequently held to be not only\ninfringements of established ways of the tribe, but as offenses\nagainst the gods, offenses which involve the whole tribe in\nthe retributive punishments of the gods. Violation of the\ncustomary may, indeed, apart from arousing intellectual disapproval,\nprovoke a genuine revulsion of feeling on the part\nof a group which has acquired certain fixed habits. We still\nfeel emotionally shocked by the infringement of a custom\nthat we do not intellectually value highly. If we examine our\nmoral furniture we find it made up of an immense number of\nearly acquired inhibitions or \"checks.\" These not only prevent\nus from violating, at least without qualms, standards to\nwhich we have early been trained; they make deviations or\nirregularities on the part of others appear as \"immoral,\" even\nbefore or without our intellectually classifying them as such.\nThere are adults, for example, who cannot outgrow the feeling\nto which they have early been habituated, that card-playing\nat any time, or baseball-playing on Sunday, is \"evil,\" even\nthough they are no longer intellectually affected by scruples\nin those respects. There is significance in the fact that by\nspeaking of \"irregularities\" in a man's conduct, we signify.\nor imply moral disapproval.\n\nThe group, in any stage of civilization, rewards in some\nform conformity to group standards, and punishes infringements\nof them. Punishment may be nothing more tangible\nthan disrepute or ostracism; it may be as serious as execution.\nReward may range from a decoration or a chorus of praise\nto all forms of compensation in the way of wealth, rank, and\npower.\n\nWe have noted how sanctions and prohibitions are made\npublic and effective among the members of a group. But\nit is further regarded as important by the group that these\ncustoms, positive and negative, should be handed down from\nthe current to succeeding generations. In primitive life\ntransmission of the traditional practices is made a very special\noccasion in the form of initiation ceremonies.\n\n[Initiation ceremonies] are held with the purpose of inducting\nboys into the privileges of manhood and into the full life of the group.\nThey are calculated at every step to impress upon the initiate his\nown ignorance and helplessness in contrast with the wisdom and\npower of the group; and as the mystery with which they are\nconducted imposes reverence for the elders and the authorities of the\ngroup, so the recital of the traditions and performances of the tribe,\nthe long series of ritual acts, common participation in the mystic\ndance and song and decorations, serve to reinforce the ties that bind\nthe tribe.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey and Tufts: _Ethics_, pp. 57-58.]\n\nIn civilized life, the whole institution of education, as\nhas been repeatedly emphasized in these pages, is designed\nto transmit to the young those habits of thought, feeling,\nand action which their influential elders wish to perpetuate.\nAs was noted in connection with man's gregariousness, the\nnormal becomes the \"respectable,\" the regular becomes the\n\"proper.\" We still speak of things that it is not \"nice\" to\ndo. This tendency to identify the moral with the customary\nis brought about through early habituating the members of\nthe group to the group standards and securing for them\nthereby the emotional support that goes with all habitual\naction.\n\nMorality at this stage is clearly social in its origins and\nits operations. The standards are group standards, and the\nindividual's single duty is obedience and conformity to the\nestablished social sanctions.\n\nTHE VALUES OF CUSTOMARY MORALITY. The problem of morals\nbegins, as we have seen, in the collision of interests of similarly\nconstituted individuals living together. Adjustments of\nconflicting interests are effected by group standards more or\nless consciously transmitted and enforced by education, public\nopinion, and law. We shall note presently that reflection\noperates to modify and criticize these customary approvals\nand disapprovals and to substitute more effective\nstandards. But whether on the level of custom or reflection,\nthe moral problem is essentially a _social_ problem, the problem\nof the adjustment of the desires of individuals living together.\nFor an individual living altogether alone in the world there\ncould hardly be a moral problem, a question of \"ought.\"\nThere might be problems of how to attain satisfaction, but no\nsense of duty or moral obligation. Custom is the first great\nstage through which morality passes, and the only form in\nwhich morality exists for many people. In civilized life there\nis, to be sure, considerable reflection and querying of custom,\nbut for the vast majority of men \"right\" and \"wrong\" are\ndetermined by the standards to which their early education\nand environment have accustomed them. In primitive life,\nreflective criticism on the part of the individual is almost\nunknown, and custom remains the great arbiter of action, the\noutstanding source of social and moral control.\n\nThe values of custom as a moral force are, in both primitive\nand civilized life, notable and not to be despised. Custom\nis, in the first place, frequently rational in its origin. That\nis, in general, those acts are made habitual in the group\nwhich are associated with the general welfare. The customary\nis the \"right,\" but those activities most frequently\ncome to be regarded as \"right\" which are favorable to the\nwelfare of the group. In the literal struggle for existence\nwhich characterizes primitive life, those tribes may alone\nbe expected to survive whose customs do promote the welfare\nof their members. Persistence by a group in customs\nlike infanticide or excessive restriction of population will\nresult in their extinction. Customs are, for the most part,\nstandards of action established in the light of the conceptions\nof well-being as understood at the time of their origin. The\nintensity with which they are maintained, enforced, and\ntransmitted is an indication of how supremely and practically\nimportant they are regarded by primitive groups.\n\nCustom is valuable, if for nothing else, in the fact that\nit makes possible some accommodation or adjustment of\ncompeting individual interests--and on the basis of a widely\nconsidered social welfare. Customs are _social_, they are\nbinding on all; they apply to all, and to the extent that they do\npromote welfare, they promote, within limits, the welfare\nof all. A man conforming to custom is thereby consulting\nsomething other than his arbitrary caprice or personal desire.\nOn the level of customary morality, action through\nconformity to custom is referred to a wider context than\nunconsidered individual impulse; it is, for better or worse,\nperformed with reference to the group with whose standards\nit is in conformity. It is the beginning of the socialization\nof human interests. Though unconsciously, the man conforming\nto a custom is considering his fellows, and the values\nand traditions which have become current among them.\n\nCustoms, moreover, are the first invasion of moral chaos.\nThey establish enduring standards; they give common and\npermanent bases of action. It is only through the establishment\nand transmission of customary standards that one generation\nis in any way superior to its predecessors. Customs,\nin civilized life, include all the established effective\nways of civilization, its arts, its sciences, its industries, and\nits useful modes of cooeperation.\n\nIf a plague carried off the members of a society all at once, it is\nobvious that the group would be permanently done for. Yet the\ndeath of each of its constituent members is as certain as if a plague\ntook them off all at once. But the graded difference in age, the fact\nthat some are born as some die, makes possible through transmission\nof ideas and practices the constant reweaving of the social fabric.\nYet this renewal is not automatic. Unless pains are taken to see\nthat genuine and thorough transmission takes place, the most civilized\ngroup will relapse into barbarism and then into savagery.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _Democracy and Education_, p. 4.]\n\nIn all levels of civilization, there is a conscious transmission\nof those social habits which are regarded as of importance.\nIf this transmission were suddenly to cease, not\nonly would each generation have to start afresh, but it would\nbe altogether impossible for it to grow to maturity.\n\nTHE DEFECTS OF CUSTOMARY MORALITY. While custom is thus\nvaluable as a moral agent in establishing standards of social\nlife and rendering them continuous and enduring, a morality\nthat is completely based upon it has serious defects. Though\ncustoms may start as allegedly or actually useful practices,\nthey tend, so strong is the influence of habit over the individual,\nto outlive their usefulness, and may become, indeed,\naltogether disadvantageous conventions. \"Dr. Arthur Smith\ntells of the advantage it would be in some parts of China to\nbuild a door on the south side of the house, in order to get\nthe breeze, in hot weather.\" The simple and sufficient\nanswer to such a suggestion is, \"We don't build doors on the\nsouth side.\"\n\nWe have but to examine our own civilization to see that\nthere are many customs which are practiced not for any\ngood assignable reason, but simply because they have become\nfixed and traditional. This is not to say that everything\nthat has become \"merely conventional\" is evil. It is\nto suggest how, even in civilized society, groups may fall\ninto modes of action that are practiced simply because they\n_have been_ practiced, rather than from any reasoned\nconsideration that they _should_ be. An illustration may be taken\nfrom the experience of civilians drawn into the military\nroutine during the Great War. Men engaged in war work\nat Washington in civilian capacities reported repeatedly\ntheir impatience at the \"red tape\" of tradition with which\ncertain classes of business were conducted by the military\nestablishment. In law also, progressive practitioners and\nstudents have pointed out the well-known fact of the immense\nand beclogging ritual which has come to surround\nlegal procedure. It is the contention of critics of one or\nanother of our contemporary social habits and institutions\nthat traditionalism, the persistence of custom simply because\nit _is_ custom, is responsible for many of the anachronisms\nin our social, political, and industrial life. Space does\nnot permit here a detailed consideration of this question,\nbut it must be noted that social habits, when they are acquired,\nas they are, unreflectively by the vast majority of\npeople, will tend to be repeated and supported, apart from\nany consideration of their consequences. This tendency\ntoward social inertia, earlier noted in connection with habit,\ncan only be checked by reflective criticism and appraisement\nof our current accustomed ways of action.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: See chapter on \"Cultural Continuity.\"]\n\nIn the case of the group, too complete a domination by\ncustom is dangerous in that it sanctions and promotes the\ncontinuance of habits that have become useless or harmful.\nIn the case of the individual, the determination of action by\ncustom alone has its specific dangers and defects. Even\nthough the individual happens to conform to useful customs,\nhis conformity is purely mechanical. It involves no intelligent\ndiscrimination. Merely to conform places one at\nthe disposition of the environment in which one chances to\nbe. There is not necessary any intelligent analysis on the\npart of the agent, of the bearings and consequences of his\nactions. He takes on with fatal facility the color of his\nenvironment. To all men, however critical and reflective, a\ncertain degree of conformity to custom is both necessary and\nuseful. There must, in any social enterprise, be some common\nbasis of action. Because taking the right-hand side of the road\nis a convention, it is none the less a useful one. But reflective\nacquiescence in a custom differs from merely mechanical\nconformity. It transforms a custom from a blind mechanism\ninto a consciously chosen instrument for achieving good.\n\nThe trivial and the important in a morality based upon\ncustom receive the same unconsidered support. \"Tithing\nmint, anise, and cummin are quite likely to involve the neglect\nof weightier matters of the law.\" Physical, emotional, and\nmoral energies that should be devoted to matters genuinely\naffecting human welfare are lavished upon the trivial and the\nincidental. We may come to be concerned more with manners\nthan with morals; with ritual, than with right. Customary\nmorality tends to emphasize, moreover, the letter\nrather than the spirit of the law. It implies complete and\npunctilious obedience, meticulous conformity. It emphasizes\nform rather than content. Since conformity is the only\ncriterion, the appearance of conformity is all that is required.\nThe individual may fear to dissent openly rather than actually.\nThis is seen frequently in the ritualistic performance\nor fulfillment of a duty in all its external details, rather\nthan the actual and positive performance of its content. It\nis just such Pharisaism that is protested against in the Sermon\non the Mount:\n\nAnd when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are;\nfor they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners\nof the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you,\nThey have their reward....\n\nBut when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do; for\nthey think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.\n\nFormalism in morality has periodically roused protest from\nthe Prophets down, and formalism is the result of an unconsidered\nmechanical acquiescence in custom, or deliberate insistence\non traditional details when the spirit and motive are\nforgotten.\n\nCUSTOM AND PROGRESS. Emphasis upon customs as already\nestablished tends to promote fixity and repetition, and to discourage\nchange regardless of the benefits to be derived from\nspecific changes. Custom is supported by the group merely\nbecause it is custom; and the ineffective modes of life are\nmaintained along with those which are more useful. Progress\ncomes about through individual variation, and conformity\nand individual variation are frequently in diametrical collision.\nIt is only when, in Bagehot's phrase, \"the cake of\ncustom\" is broken, that changes making for good have a\npossibility of introduction and support. Where the only\nmoral sanctions are the sanctions of custom, change of\nwhatever sort is at a discount. For change implies deviation\nfrom the ways of life sanctioned by the group, and\ndeviation is itself, in a custom-bound morality, regarded with\nsuspicion.\n\nIt is clear that complete conformity is impossible save in\na society of automata. There will be some individuals who\nwill not be able to curb their desires to fit the inhibitions\nfixed by the group; there will be some who will deliberately\nstand out against the group commands and prohibitions, and\nassert their own imperious impulses against their fellows.\nWhere such men are powerful or persuasive they may indeed\nbring about a transvaluation of all values; they may create\na new morality. There are geniuses of the moral as well\nas the intellectual life, whose sudden insight becomes a\nstandard for succeeding generations.\n\nThere may, again, be more infringement of the moral code\nthan is overtly noticeable. Frequently, as in a Puritanical\nregime, there may be, along with fanatic public professions\nand practice of virtue, private violation of the conventional\nmoral codes. Our civilization is unpleasantly decorated with\ncountless examples of this discrepancy between professed\nand practiced codes. The desire for praise and the fear of\nblame and its consequences, the desire, as we say, for the\n\"good-will\" and \"respect of others,\" will lead to all the public\nmanifestations of virtue, \"with a private vice or two to\nappease the wayward flesh.\" The utterance of conventional\nmoral formulas by men in public, and the infringement of\nthose high doctrines in private, needs unfortunately not to\nbe illustrated. Moliere drew Tartuffe from real life.\n\nORIGIN AND NATURE OF REFLECTIVE MORALITY. If the customs\ncurrent were adequate to adjust men to their environment,\nreflection upon them might never arise. Reflection does\narise precisely because customs are not, or do not remain,\nadequate. An individual is brought up to believe that certain\nactions are good, and that their performance promotes\nhuman happiness. He discovers, by an alert and unclouded\ninsight, that in specific cases the virtues highly regarded by\nhis group do not bring the felicitous results which they are\ncommonly and proverbially held to produce. He observes,\nlet us say, that meekness, humility, honesty are not modes\nof adaptation that bring happy results. He observes, as\nJob observed, that the wicked prosper; he notes that those\nwho follow the path called righteous bring unhappiness\nto themselves and to others.\n\nOr the individual's first reflection upon moral standards\nmay arise in his discovery that moral standards are not\nabsolute, that what is virtue in the Occident is vice in the\nOrient, and _vice versa_. He discovers that those actions which\nhe regards as virtuous are so regarded by him simply because\nhe has been trained to their acceptance. Given another\nenvironment, his moral revulsions and approvals might be\ndiametrically reversed. He makes the discovery that Protagoras\nmade two thousand years ago: \"Man is the measure\nof all things\"; standards of good and evil depend on the\naccidents of time, space, and circumstance. In such a discovery\nan individual may well query, What _is_ the good? Not\nwhat passes for good, but what is the essence of goodness?\nWhat is justice? Not what is accredited justice in the courts\nof law, or in the market-place, or in the easy generalizations\nof common opinion. But what constitutes _justice_ essentially?\nWhat is the _standard_ by which actions may be rated just and\nunjust?\n\nWhere individuals are habituated to one single tradition\nor set of customs, such questions may not arise. But where\none, through personal experience or acquaintance with history\nand literature, discovers the multiplicity of standards\nwhich have been current with regard to the just and the good\nin human conduct, the search for some reasonable standard\narises. The great historical instance of the discovery of the\nrelativity and irrationality of customary morality and the\nemergence of reflective standards of moral value is the Athenian\nperiod of Greek philosophy. The Sophists pointed out\nwith merciless perspicuity the welter, the confusion, the\nessential irrationality of current social and religious traditions\nand beliefs. They went no further in moral analysis than\ndestructive criticism. They pointed out the want of authenticity\nor reason in the traditional morality by which men lived.\nSocrates went a step further. If current customs are not\nauthoritative, he said, let us find those that have and _ought_ to\nhave enduring authority over men. If the traditional standards\nare proved to be futile and inefficacious, let us find the\nunfaltering standards authenticated by reason. Let us substitute\nrelevant and adequate codes and creeds for those\nwhich have by reason been shown to be unreasonable. Beneath\nthe multiplicity of contradictory and often vicious\ncustoms, reason must be able to discover ways of life, which,\nif followed, will lead men to eventual happiness.\n\nThere are thus two stages in the process of reflection upon\nmorals. In the first stage reflection does no more than to\npoint out the essential discrepancies and absurdities of the\ncurrent moral codes. Reflection upon morals begins by\nbeing critical and querying. It starts when an individual,\na little more thoughtful and perspicacious than his fellows,\nnotes the discrepancies between the customs of different\nmen, and notes also the discrepancies between the threatened\nresults of the violation of traditional codes and the actual\nresults. He may then come to the cynic's conclusion that\nmorality is a myth and a delusion, and, in the words of the\nSophist in Plato's _Republic_, \"justice is merely the right of\nthe stronger.\" Men in whom reflection or social sympathy\nextends not very far may, as they frequently do, stop at this\npoint. These are the worldly wise; they are interested not\nin goodness, truth, and justice, but in those effective\nrepresentations of those things publicly accounted good, true, and\njust which will win them public approval and increase their\nown wealth or power and position. Plato, in the _Republic_,\npictures the type with magnificent irony:\n\nAll those mercenary adventurers who, as we know, are called\nsophist by the multitude, and regarded as rivals, really teach nothing\nbut the opinions of the majority to which expression is given when\nlarge masses are collected, and dignify them with the title of wisdom.\nAs well might a person investigate the caprices and desires of some\nhuge and powerful monster in his keeping, studying how it is to be\napproached, and how handled,--at what times and under what\ncircumstances it becomes most dangerous, or most gentle--on what\noccasions it is in the habit of uttering its various cries, and further,\nwhat sounds uttered by another person soothe or exasperate it,--and\nwhen he has mastered all these particulars, by long-continued\nintercourse, as well might he call his results wisdom, systematize\nthem into an art, and open a school, though in reality he is wholly\nignorant which of these humours and desires is fair, and which foul,\nwhich good and which evil, which just and which unjust; and therefore\nis content to affix all these names to the fancies of the huge\nanimal, calling what it likes good, and what it dislikes evil, without\nbeing able to render any other account of them,--nay, giving the\ntitles of \"just\" and \"fair\" to things done under compulsion, because\nhe has not discerned himself, and therefore cannot point out to\nothers, that wide distinction which really holds between the nature\nof the compulsory and the good.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Plato: _Republic_ (Golden Treasury edition), pp. 209-10.]\n\nThroughout human history, there have been periods of\nindividualism, of self-assertion against the traditional morality,\nwhich have been marked by loss of moral restraints,\nby a breakdown of the old standards without a substitution\nof new and sounder ones. There has been, in the beginning\nof almost every advance toward a new stage of moral valuation,\nthe accompaniment of liberty by license.\n\nReflection upon morals is not likely to produce immediately\ngood results. The established morality is at least established.\nIn so far as it is controlling in men's actions, it keeps those\nactions ordered and regular. The traditional code by which\na man's life is governed may be a poor code, but it is more\nsatisfactory than no code at all. On discovering the inadequacy\nof the morality by which he has lived, a man may reject\nmorality altogether. From that time forth he may have\nno other standard than his own selfish desires. When a whole\nsociety, as at the time of the Renaissance, throws its traditional\nmorality to the winds, it may make havoc of its freedom.\nIn place of a bad moral order it may cease to have any\nmoral order at all.\n\nThe discovery that the codes by which we have lived are\nmisleading and delusive may lead us to have nothing whatsoever\nto do with morals. The individual may decide simply\nto employ his superior insight in the exploitation of other people.\nIt is something of this point of view that is expressed\nin the rampant individualism of Nietzsche and Max Stirner.\nThe customary morality is meant for slaves; the Superman\nmust stride above the signs and shibboleths by which men\nare led, and create himself a morality more adequate to his\nown superb and insolent welfare.\n\nFor the reconstruction of a morality more adequate than the\nprevailing codes, more is demanded than merely a reflective\ncriticism of prevailing standards. Where reflection\ngoes no further than this, the net result is merely cynicism\nand libertinism. For moral progress there is needed \"a person\nwho is individual in choice, in feeling, in responsibility,\nand at the same time social in what he regards as good, in his\nsympathies and in his purposes.\"\n\nREFLECTIVE RECONSTRUCTION OF MORAL STANDARDS. The second\nstage of reflection upon morals consists in the reconstruction\nof moral standards, in a deliberate discovery of codes by\nwhich men can live together happily. It attempts to establish\nstandards of action which are enforced and recommended\nnot because they have been current and are currently\napproved, but because they give promise, upon critical\nexamination, of contributing to human happiness. It must be\nrecalled here that reflective morality is not a substitute for\naction based upon instinct or custom. It merely modifies these\ntypes of action in the light of the desirable consequences which\nwould result from such modification.\n\nThe establishment of reflective standards is limited by two\ngeneral conditions. The first, previously mentioned, is that\nhuman beings come into the world with certain fixed tendencies\nto act. These original impulses may be obscured,\nbut cannot be abolished. Secondly, reflection upon morals\nalways must occur in a given social situation, that is, in a\nsituation where certain habits of mind, emotion and action,\nare already in operation. Moral standards are not fresh\nconstructions; they are _reconstructions_. We may want to\n_change_ current customs and traditions; but that is simply\nanother way of iterating the fact that they _are there to be\nchanged_. The moral reformer who would improve society\nmust take into account the fact that there exist among the\nadult members of a generation, powerful habits, which may\nbe improved or amended, but which cannot be ignored. Any\nattempt to improve men's ways of action starts within\nprocesses of action already going on. It is not as if we could\nhold up the processes of human life, and say, \"Let us begin\nafresh.\" The generation whose habits are to be changed\nconsists of living men, who are acting on the basis of\ncustoms which have become intimately and powerfully controlling\nin their lives. These customs, though they may not\nbe altogether satisfactory, are yet great social economies.\nThey give men certain determinate and efficacious modes of\naction. Reflection must start with them and from them.\nUnless men, furthermore, did act according to custom, they\nwould have to reflect in detail about every step of their\nconduct. The aim of reflection is simply to transform existing\ncustoms into more effective methods for achieving the good.\n\nReflection, indeed, must move within certain limits; it must\ntake certain things for granted. We have already seen that\nreflection arises in a crisis of greater or lesser degree; it settles\nambiguities, resolves the obscure and doubtful phases of\nsituations. It is designed to secure adjustments where instinct and\nhabit are inadequate to adapt the individual to his environment.\nBut unless there were certain fixed, determined points\nto start with, certain limits within which reflection could\noperate, and which it could use as points of reference or\ndeparture, all would be chaos, and reflection would be impossible.\nIt is precisely because we do take certain things as settled,\nbecause, as the phrase runs, \"they go without saying,\" that we\ncan think to any purpose whatsoever. Useful customs once\nestablished provide precisely these fixed points. If arbitration\nof labor disputes has become a fixed social habit, for\nexample, attention can be turned to ways and means. If\neducation has become a generally approved social habit, we\ncan spend our time on instruments and methods. Every useful\ncustom firmly established gives a basis of operations.\nThat much is settled; that much does not demand our alert\nattention and inquiry. A society without any fixed habits\nwould be sheer anarchy. The aim of intelligent consideration\nof morals is not to abolish customs, but to bring about their\nmodification so that they will be the most effective adjustment\nof the individual and the group to their environment.\n\nIndeed, in advanced societies, reflection may itself become\na custom, and the most highly valued of all. For where alert\nand conscious criticism of existing folkways is habitual among\nall the members of a society, that society is saved from\nsubjection through inertia to disserviceable habits. It acts as\na continual check and control; it prevents social and moral\nstagnation. The habit of reflection upon conduct, if it could\nbe made generally current, would insure social progress.\nFor customs would be regarded merely as tools, as instruments\nto be modified and adapted to new circumstances, as\nprovisional modes of attaining the good. Fixity and rigidity\nin social life would give place to flexibility and wise continual\nadaptation.\n\nTHE VALUES OF REFLECTIVE MORALITY. Some of these have\nalready been noted. We may briefly summarize the foregoing\ndiscussion, and call attention to some additional values of a\nmorality based upon reason, as contrasted with a morality of\nmere mechanical conformity to custom. It has already been\npointed out that intellectual preferences and valuations are\nrooted in primary impulses; that is, our desires are anterior to\nreflection. What we intellectually value and prefer has its\nroots in primary impulses. Reason can discover how man may\nattain the good; but what _is_ good is determined by the\ndesires with which man is, willy-nilly, endowed. Our preferences\nare, within limits, fixed for us. As Santayana writes:\n\nReason was born, as it has since discovered, into a world already\nwonderfully organized, in which it found its precursor in what is\ncalled life, its seat in an animal body of unusual plasticity, and its\nfunction in rendering that body's volatile instincts and sensations\nharmonious with one another and with the outer world on which\nthey depend.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Santayana: _Life of Reason_, vol. I, p. 40.]\n\nOur chief aim in reflective behavior is to discover ways and\nmeans by which a harmony may be achieved, a harmony of\nthose very instincts which, left to themselves, would be in\nperpetual collision, frustrating and checking each other.\n\nReflection not only seeks to find a way of life in which no\nnatural impulse shall be frustrated, but it is through reflection\nthat desires are broadened, and that new desires arise. Out\nof reflection upon social relations, which is in the first instance\nprompted by man's innate gregariousness, arise the conception\nof ideal friendship and the thirst for and movement\ntoward ideal society. Out of reflection upon the animal\npassion of sex may rise Dante's beatific vision of Beatrice.\nConduct, consciously controlled, finds not only ways by which\nanimal desires may be fulfilled without catastrophe; it\ntransmutes animal desires into ideal values.\n\nREFLECTION TRANSFORMS CUSTOMS INTO PRINCIPLES. In\nreflective behavior, as contrasted with that which is controlled by\ninstinct and custom, there are established standards of action\nto which the individual consciously conforms. That is, instead\nof merely conforming to custom, an individual comes to\nact upon principles, consciously avowed and maintained. A\nman who sets up a standard of action in his professional or\nbusiness relations is not conforming to an arbitrary code; he is\nliving according to a way of life which he has deliberately and\nconsciously chosen. When a man acts upon principles because\nhe has consciously adopted them in view of the consequences\nwhich he believes to be associated with them, he will\nnot make his standard an idol. Reflection establishes standards,\nbut it is not mastered by them. It is persistently critical.\nStandards are tools, instruments toward the achievement\nof the good. They are merely general rules, derived from\nexperience and retained so long as they bear desirable fruits\nin experience. Moral laws are not regarded as arbitrary and\neternal, but as good only in so far as they produce good. A\nvirtue is a virtue because it is conducive to human well-being.\nStandards are not absolute, but relative--relative to their\nfruits in practice.\n\nREFLECTIVE ACTION GENUINELY MORAL. Action is most genuinely\nmoral when it is reflective. It is only then that the\nindividual is a conscious and controlling agent. It is only\nthen that he knows what he is doing. When a machine performs\nactions that happen to have useful results, we do not\nspeak of the action as moral or virtuous. And action in\nconformity with custom is purely mechanical and arbitrary. An\nindividual who is merely conforming to the customary is no\nmore moral than an automaton. Given a certain situation,\nhe makes a certain response. It makes no difference that the\nact happens to have fruitful consequences. It is not a matter\nof individual choice, of conscious volition. Aristotle long ago\nstated the indispensable conditions of moral actions:\n\nIt is necessary that the agent at the time of performing them\nshould satisfy certain conditions, _i.e._ in the first place that he should\nknow what he is doing, secondly that he should deliberately choose\nto do it and to do it for its own sake, and thirdly that he should do\nit as an instance of a fixed and immutable moral state.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Aristotle: _Ethics_, book II, p. 42 (Weldon translation).]\n\nOnly when the individual is aware of the consequences of\nhis action, and deliberately chooses those consequences, is\nthere any individuality, any exhibition of choice--in other\nwords, any moral value in the act. When an act is prompted\nby mere habit and custom, we have an evidence of an individual's\nenvironment rather than of his character. Creatures\nthus moved by capricious and arbitrary impulse are hardly\npersons, and certainly not personalities. They are played\nupon by every whimsicality of circumstance; their own character\nmakes no difference at all in the world in which they live.\nTo act reflectively is to be the controlling rather than the\ncontrolled element in a situation. Action guided by intelligence\nis freed from the enslavement of passion, prejudice, and\nroutine. It becomes genuinely free. The individual, emancipated\nfrom emotion, sense, and circumstance, from the accidental\nenvironment in which he happens to be born, is in command\nof his conduct. \"Though shakes the magnet, steady is\nthe pole.\" Morally, at least, he is \"the master of his fate, the\ncaptain of his soul.\"\n\nREFLECTION SETS UP IDEAL STANDARDS. Reflection constantly\nsets up ideal standards by which current codes of conduct are\njudged and corrected. It is clear that ideals of life, even when\nsincerely entertained, are not always possible of immediate\nfulfillment. Theory tends continually to outrun practice,\nsince human reflection tends to set up goals in advance of its\nachievement. For many individuals, anxious to attain immediate\nself-enhancement, the current cones are not criticized\nat all, but are taken for granted, as inevitable and irrefragable\nbases of operation.\n\nMany men, perhaps after a first flush of altruistic rebellion\nin adolescence, settle down with more or less complacency to\nthe current moral codes. They do in Rome as the Romans do.\nThey may have an intellectual awareness of the crassness, the\nstupidity, the essential injustice and inadequacy of the codes\nby which men in contemporary society live, but they may also,\nout of selfish preoccupation with their own interests, let things\ngo at that. If the established ways are not as they ought to\nbe, at least they are as they are. And since the current system\nis the one by which a man must live, assent is the better\npart of wisdom. There are comparatively few who persist in a\ncriticism of prevailing standards, or who are troubled very\nmuch beyond their early twenties by a tormenting conviction\nthat things are not done as they ought to be done. It is from\nthe few who realize intellectually the inadequacies of prevailing\ncustoms, and are emotionally disturbed by them, that\nmoral criticism arises. And it is only by such criticism that\nmoral progress is made possible. \"The duty of some exercise\nof discriminating intelligence as to existing customs, for the\nsake of improvement and progress, is thus a mark of reflective\nmorality--of the regime of conscience as over against custom.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey and Tufts: _Ethics_, pp. 181-82.]\n\nReflection is thus the process by which progress is made\npossible, although, as we shall presently see, it is not thereby\ninsured. The function of intelligence is precisely to indicate\nanticipated goods, \"to imagine a future which is the projection\nof the desirable in the present.\" Even the best ordered\nlife or society reveals some maladjustment, some remove,\nnear or far, from perfection. It is the business of\nreflection and imagination to note the discrepancy between\nwhat is, and what ought to be, and assiduously to foster the\nvision of the latter, so that in the light of that imagined good,\nmen's ways of life may be amended.\n\nNor does the setting-up of ideal standards mean the construction\nof fruitless Utopias. Reflection upon the present\nways of life and the prospect of their improvement does not\nmean a mere wistful yearning after better things. It means\ncareful inquiry into those elements of established ways which\nmay be incorporated into the construction of the ideal. It\nmeans the resolute application of intelligence to an analysis of\npresent maladjustments in the interests of preserving out of\ninherited and current ways those factors which point towards\nthe goal desired. It means to be eager for perfection, and\nsensitive to current imperfections. Moral progress demands a\nvision of the desirable future, and a persistent and discriminating\nreflection upon the means of its attainment out of the\nmaterials of the present.\n\nTHE DEFECTS OF REFLECTIVE MORALITY. Reflection, as already\npointed out, tends to stop with merely destructive criticism.\nProvoked by maladjustment and imperfection, it frequently\ngoes no further than to note these, with cynicism or despair.\nCriticism of established customs and ways of life frequently\nrests with the exhibition of absurdities in men's ways, finding\nrefuge in laughter or rebellion. There is no one so cynical as\nthe man who has been recently wakened out of dogmatic and\ninnocent faith in the traditions to which he has been reared.\n\nThe child receives from the herd the doctrines, let us say, that\ntruthfulness is the most valuable of all the virtues, that honesty is\nthe best policy, that to the religious man death has no terrors, and\nthat there is in store a future life of perfect happiness and delight.\nAnd yet experience tells him with persistence that truthfulness as\noften as not brings him punishment, that his dishonest playfellow has\nas good if not a better time than he, that the religious man shrinks\nfrom death with as great a terror as the unbeliever, is as broken-hearted\nby bereavement, and as determined to continue his hold\nupon this imperfect life rather than trust himself to what he declares\nto be the certainty of future bliss.... Who of us is there who cannot\nremember the vague feeling of dissatisfaction, the obscure and elusive\nsense of something being wrong, which is left by these and\nsimilar conflicts?[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Trotter: _Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_, p. 49.]\n\nA little reflection is, in morals, a dangerous thing. It discovers\ndifficulties, and does not solve them. It finds that\nhuman life is darkly strewn with hypocrisies, with shams, with\nmakeshifts and compromises. And having made this discovery,\nit sighs or satirizes or forgets. It is notorious with\nwhat frequency men \"go to pieces\" when they are loosed from\nthe moorings of their childhood moralities, before they have\nhad a chance to acquire new and more reasonable constraints.\nPlato, in protesting that young men should not study philosophy\ntoo early, has well described the dangers of shallow\nanalysis.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: \"And will it not be one great precaution to forbid\ntheir meddling with it [philosophy] while young? For I suppose\nyou have noticed, that whenever boys taste dialectic for the\nfirst time, they pervert it into an amusement, and always employ\nit for purposes of contradiction, and imitate in their own persons\nthe artifices of those who study refutation,--delighting, like\npuppies, in pulling and tearing to pieces with logic any one who\ncomes near them.... Hence, when they have experienced many triumphs\nand many defeats, they fall, quickly and vehemently, into an utter\ndisbelief of their former sentiments: and thereby both they and\nthe whole cause of philosophy have been prejudiced in the eyes\nof the world.\" (Plato: _Republic_, Golden Treasury edition,\np. 267.)]\n\nTHE INADEQUACY OF THEORY IN MORAL LIFE. Reflection upon\nmorals, even when it goes beyond the stage of criticism and\nproceeds to the reconstruction of habits and customs upon a\nmore reasonable basis, is yet inadequate. However logically\nconvincing a code of morals may be, it is not efficacious simply\nas logic. In Aristotle's still relevant words:\n\nIt may fairly be said then that a just man becomes just by doing\nwhat is just and a temperate man becomes temperate by doing what\nis temperate, and if a man did not so act, he would not have so much\nas a chance of becoming good. But most people, instead of doing\nsuch actions, take refuge in theorizing; they imagine that they are\nphilosophers and that philosophy will make them virtuous; in fact\nthey behave like people who listen attentively to their doctors, but\nnever do anything that their doctors tell them. But it is as improbable\nthat a healthy state of the soul will be produced by this kind of\nphilosophizing as that a healthy state of the body will be produced\nby this kind of medical treatment.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Aristotle: _Ethics_, book II, chap. III,\npp. 42-43 (Weldon translation).]\n\nMoral standards, in order to be effective, must have emotional\nsupport and be constantly applied. Men must be in\nlove with the good, if good is to be their habitual practice.\nAnd only when the good is an habitual practice, can men be\nsaid to be living a moral life instead of merely subscribing\nverbally to a set of moral ideals. Justice, honesty, charity,\nmercy, benevolence, these are names for types of behavior,\nand are real in so far as they do describe men's actions. As\nAristotle says, in another connection: \"A person must be\nutterly senseless if he does not know that moral states are\nformed by the exercise of the powers in one way or another.\"\nThe virtues are not static or frozen; they are names we give\nto varieties of action, and are exhibited, as they exist, _only_ in\naction.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: \"But the virtues we acquire by first exercising them,\nas is the case with all the arts, for it is by doing what we ought\nto do when we have learned the arts, that we learn the arts\nthemselves; we become, _e.g._ builders by building, and harpists\nby playing the harp. Similarly it is by doing just acts that we\nbecome just, by doing temperate acts that we become temperate,\nby doing courageous acts that we become courageous.... Again\nthe causes and means by which any virtue is produced, and by\nwhich it is destroyed, are the same; and it is equally so with\nany art; for it is by playing the harp that both good and bad\nharpists are produced, and the case of builders and all other\nartisans is similar, as it is by building well that they will\nbe good builders, and by building badly that they will be bad\nbuilders.... It is by acting in such transactions as take place\nbetween man and man that we become either just or unjust. It is\nby acting in the face of danger and habituating ourselves to\nfear or courage that we become either cowardly or courageous.\nIt is much the same with our desires and angry passions. Some\npeople become temperate and gentle, others become licentious\nand passionate, according as they conduct themselves in one way\nor another way in particular circumstances.\" (Aristotle:\n_Ethics_, pp. 35-36, Weldon translation.)]\n\nThe mere preaching of virtue will thus not produce its\npractice. Those standards which reflection discovers, however\nuseful in the guidance of life, are not sufficient to improve\nhuman conduct. They must, as noted above, be emotionally\nsanctioned to become habitual, and, on the other\nhand, only if they are early acquired habits, will the emotions\nassociated with them be pleasant rather than painful.\n\"Accordingly the difference between one training of habits\nand another from early days is not a light matter, but is serious\nor rather all-important.\"[1] Ideals of life, when they remain\nmere closet-ideals, are interesting academic specimens,\nbut are hardly effective in the helpful amendment of the lives\nof mankind. \"Whoever contemplates the world in the light\nof an ideal,\" writes Bertrand Russell, \"whether what he seeks\nbe intellect or art, or love, or simple happiness, or all together,\nmust feel a great sorrow in the evils which men allow needlessly\nto continue and--if he is a man of force and vital\nenergy--an urgent desire to lead men to the realization of\nthe good which inspires his creative vision.\" Great thinkers\nupon morals have not been content to work out interesting\nsystems which were logically conclusive, abstract methods of\nattaining happiness. They have worked out their ethical\nsystems as genuinely preferred ways of life, they have offered\nthem as solutions of the difficulties men experience in controlling\ntheir own passions and in adapting their desires to the\nconditions which limit their fulfillment.\n\n[Footnote 1: Aristotle: _loc. cit._, p. 36.]\n\n\"Our present study,\" writes Aristotle, \"is not, like other\nstudies, purely speculative in its intention; for the object\nof our inquiry is not to know the nature of virtue, but to\nbecome ourselves virtuous, as that is the sole benefit which\nit conveys.\"[2] Reflection upon morals can map out the road;\nit cannot make people travel it. For that, an early habituation\nto the good is necessary.\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 36.]\n\nBut it should be noted further that the greatest ethical\nreformers have not been those who have convinced men\nthrough the impeccability of their logic. They have been\nrather the supreme seers, the Hebrew prophets, Christ, Saint\nFrancis, who have won followers not so much by the conclusiveness\nof their demonstration as through the persuasive\nfervor and splendor of their vision.\n\nTHE DANGER OF INTELLECTUALISM IN MORALS. There has been\nthroughout the history of ethical theory a tendency to oversimplify\nlife by cramping it into the categories fixed by reason.\nReflection tends to set up certain standards which the infinite\nvariety of human experience tends to outrun. In the mere\nfact of setting up generalizations, reflection is arbitrary. Any\ngeneralization, by virtue of the very fact that it does apply\nto a wide variety of situations, must forego concern with the\npeculiar colors and qualities inhering in any specific experience.\nVarious ethical writers have set up general rules, which\nthey have attempted to apply to life with indiscriminate\nruthlessness. They have tried to shear down the endless rich\nvariety of human situations to fit the categories which they\nassume to start with. Unsophisticated men have complained\nwith justice against the recurrent attempts of moralists to set\nup absolute laws, standards, virtues, which were to be applied\nregardless of the specific circumstances of specific situations.\nIt was such formalism that Aristotle protested against\nthroughout his _Ethics_.\n\nThere is the same sort of uncertainty with regard to good things,\nas it often happens that injuries result from them; thus there have\nbeen cases in which people were ruined by wealth, or again by courage.\nAs our subjects [moral inquiries] then and our premises are of\nthis nature, we must be content to indicate the truth roughly, and\nin outline.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Aristotle: _loc. cit._, pp. 3-4.]\n\nHe points out repeatedly that situations are specific, that\nlaws or generalization can only be tentatively made.\n\nQuestions of practice and expediency no more admit of invariable\nrules than questions of health. But if this is true of general reasoning\nupon Ethics, still more true is it that scientific exactitude is impossible\nin reasoning upon particular ethical cases. They do not fall\nunder any art or any law, but the agents themselves are always\nbound to pay regard to the circumstances of the moment, as much\nas in medicine or navigation.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Aristotle: _loc. cit._, p. 37.]\n\nInstead of framing absolute general rules, Aristotle points\nout those specific conditions which must be taken into account\nin any act that can, without quibbling, be called good\nor virtuous.\n\nIt is possible to go too far, or not to go far enough, in respect of\nfear, courage, desire, anger, pity, and pleasure and pain generally,\nand the excess and the deficiency are alike wrong; but to experience\nthese emotions at the right time, and on the right occasions and\ntowards the right persons, and for the right causes and in the right\nmanner is the mean or the supreme good, which is characteristic of\nvirtue.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Ibid_. p. 46.]\n\nReflection thus unduly simplifies the moral problem by\nsetting up general standards which are not adequate to the\nmultiple variety of specific situations which constitute human\nexperience. But in reasoning upon the conduct of life, there\nhas been displayed, furthermore, by ethical writers an inveterate\ntendency to identify the processes of life with the process\nof reason. One may cite as a classic instance of this point\nof view the ethical theory of Jeremy Bentham and the Utilitarians.\nAccording to the Utilitarians human beings judged\nacts in terms of their utility, as measured in the amount of\npleasure and pain produced by an action. The individual\nfigured out the pleasures and pains that would be the consequences\nof his action. We shall in the next section examine\nthis point of view in more detail; we are referring to it here\nsimply as an illustration of intellectualizing of morals. Few\nindividuals go through anything remotely resembling the\n\"hedonic calculus\" laid down by Bentham.[3] The individual\nis not a static being, mathematically considering the amount\nof pleasure and pain associated with the performance of specific\nactions. We are, in the vast majority of cases, prompted\nto specific responses, not by any mathematical considerations\nof pleasures and pains, but by the immediate urgency of\ninstinctive and habitual desires. Reflection arises in the\nprocess of adjustment of competing impulses, in the effecting of\na harmony between various desires that are much more primary\nand fundamental than the reflection that arises upon\nthem. We may largely agree with McDougall when he writes:\n\n[Footnote 3: The hedonic calculus of Bentham was, briefly, the\nfollowing: \"Every proposed act is to be viewed with reference\nto its probable consequences, in (1) intensity of pleasures and\npains, (2) their duration, (3) their certainty or uncertainty,\n(4) their nearness or remoteness, (5) their fecundity, _i.e._,\nthe tendency of a pleasure to be followed by others, or a pain\nby other pains; (6) their purity, _i.e._, the tendency of a\npleasure to be followed by pains and _vice versa_; (7) their extent,\nthat is, the number or range of persons whose happiness is\naffected--with reference to whose pleasures and pains each one of\nthe first six items ought in strictness also to be calculated.\nThen sum up all the pleasures which stand to the credit side of\nthe account; add the pains which are the debit items, or liabilities,\non the other; then take their algebraic sum, and the balance of\nit on the side of pleasure will be the good tendency of the act\nupon the whole.\" (Dewey and Tufts: _Ethics_, pp. 275-76.)\n\nWe may say, then, that directly or indirectly, the instincts are the\nprime movers of all human activity; by the conative or impulsive\nforce of some instinct (or of some habit derived from an instinct)\nevery train of thought, however cold and passionless it may seem,\nis borne along towards its end, and every bodily activity is initiated\nand sustained. The instinctive impulses determine the ends of all\nactivities and supply the driving power by which all mental activities\nare sustained; and all the complex intellectual apparatus of the most\nhighly developed mind is but a means towards these ends, is but the\ninstrument by which these impulses seek their satisfactions, while\npleasure and pain do but serve to guide them in their choice of the\nmeans.\n\nTake away these instinctive dispositions with their powerful impulses,\nand the organism would become incapable of activity of\nany kind; it would lie inert and motionless, like a wonderful clockwork\nwhose mainspring had been removed, or a steam-engine whose\nfires had been drawn.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 44.]\n\nReflection is last rather than first; it is provoked and sustained\nby instinctive desires, and is the means whereby they\nmay be fulfilled.\n\nTYPES OF MORAL THEORY. Reflection upon morals produces\ncertain characteristic types of moral theory. These may be\nclassified, although, because of the complexity of factors\ninvolved in any moral theory, cross-division is inevitable. But\nin the long history of human reflection upon a reasonable way\nof life, certain divisions stand out clearly. The first great\ncontrast that may be mentioned is that existing between Absolutism\nand Relativism, the contrast, namely, between theories\nof morals that regard right and wrong as absolute and\n_a priori_, unconditioned by time, place, and circumstance; and\ntheories of morals that judge the rightness and wrongness of\nacts in terms of their consequences, in the happiness or welfare\nof human beings, however that be conceived. These two\npoints of view represent radically different temperaments and\ndiffer radically in their fruits. The contrast will stand out\nmore clearly after a brief discussion of each.\n\nABSOLUTISM. Absolutistic moralities are distinguished by\ntheir maintenance of the fundamental moral idea of Duty,\nDuty consisting in an obligation to conform to the Right.\nImplied in this obligation of absolute conformity is the\nconception that the Right is unalterable, universally binding, and\nimperative. Good and evil are not discoverable in experience,\nbut are standards to which human beings must in experience\nconform. The right is not simply the desirable--frequently\nit is, from the standpoint of impulses and emotion,\nthe undesirable; but it is a universal, an _a priori_ standard to\nwhich human beings must in experience conform. Morals\nare \"eternal and immutable\" principles, absolutely irrefutable\nand indefeasible in experience. We shall, in approaching\nthe problem from the standpoint of moral knowledge, see\nthat most absolutist moral philosophers have also supposed\nthat these eternal principles of right action are intuitively\nperceived. What concerns us in this connection, however, is the\nnature of this absolutistic conception, and its bearings on the\ngovernance of human conduct.\n\nAccording to the absolutist, the \"goodness\" of an act is\nnot at all affected by its immediate consequences. The value\nof a good or a moral act does not consist in its results. The\nmoral value of an act consists in the \"good-will\" of the agent,\nand the \"good-will\" of the agent consists in his willing and\nconscious conformity to the absolute moral principle involved.\n\"Nothing is fundamentally good but the good-will.\" That is,\nan act to be moral, must be the conscious conformity of a\nrational agent to the moral law, which he recognizes to be\nmorally binding. To Kant, the classic exponent of this position,\nan act performed out of mere inclination, if not immoral,\ncertainly was not moral. A moral act could only flow from\nreason, and reason would dictate to an individual conformity\nto the moral law, which was a law of reason. Conduct that\nis determined by mere circumstance is not moral conduct.\nMorality is above the domain of circumstance. And the\nmoral agent is above the defeats and compromises imposed\nby time and place. He is a free agent, that is, morally free.\nHe accepts no commands, except those of reason. A man, in\nfollowing impulse or being dictated to by circumstance, is a\nmere animal or a machine. He is only a reasonable, that is, a\nmoral being, when he conforms to the laws which are above\ntime and place and circumstance, and above the whirls and\neddies of personal inclination.\n\nConcretely, one may take the absolutistic attitude toward\na specific virtue: honesty. The morality of telling the truth\nconsists in a conscious conformity to the moral standard of\nhonesty in the face of all deflections of inclination and\nparticular situations. It makes no iota of difference what the\nresult of telling the truth in a particular instance may be.\nIt makes no difference what urgent and plausible and practically\ndecent reason one has for not telling the truth. The\ntruth must be told, as justice must be done, though the\nheavens fall. We have a case, let us suppose, where telling\nbad news to a very sick man may kill him. That temporally\ndisastrous consequence is, from an absolutistic point of view,\na totally irrelevant consideration, as is also the pain we feel\nin telling the truth under such conditions. But the single\nmoral course is clear; there is no alternative; in absolutistic\nmorals there are no extenuating circumstances. The truth\nmust be told, whatever be the consequences. For to tell\nthe truth is a universal moral law, and conformity to that law\na universal moral obligation.\n\nThe defects of this position, if they are not obvious from\nits bare statement, will become clearer from the analysis of\nthe relativist or teleological positions. But its specific virtues\ndeserve attention. The Kantian or absolutistic position, by\nits emphasis on the indefeasible and unwavering character of\nmoral action, suggests something that rouses admiration from\ncommon sense, unsophisticated by moral theory. We do not\nthink highly of the man who is at the mercy of every chance\nappetite, or every casual incident. Morality must be constituted\nof more enduring stuff. We do not deeply admire the\ncaliber of a man who yields to every pressing exigency,\nsurrendering thereby every ideal, principle, or value, the\nattainment of which demands some postponement or some privation\nof the fulfillment of immediate desire. The man who compromises\nhis political ideals in the attainment of his personal\nsuccess, is a scornful figure morally. And we estimate more\nhighly the character of an individual who can persist in the\nstrenuous attainment of an ideal in the face of the counter-inclination\nof passing pleasures. In its emphasis on the autonomy\nand integrity of moral action, even its opponents credit\nthe Kantian or absolutistic position with having hit upon a\ngenuinely moral aspect of human action. It is, as we shall\nsee, in the rigidity and formalism of its conception, in its\nfanatical allegiance to _a priori_ standards, and its absolute\nsanctification of given ways of action, that the theory is\nquestionable.\n\nRELATIVISTIC OR TELEOLOGICAL MORALITY. Contrasted with the\ntheories of morals that maintain that right and wrong are\nabsolute and eternal principles unaffected by time, place, and\ncircumstance, are those moral philosophies which set out\nexplicitly to discover a way of life by which human happiness\nin this world of time and place and circumstance may be\nattained. To know what is the supreme good, and to discover\nwhat are the means of its attainment, are, as Aristotle\nlong ago and justly observed, of great importance in the regulation\nof life. It is this knowledge and discovery that constitute,\naccording to Aristotle, the business of ethics. Regarding\nthis \"supreme good,\" we may quote his own expressions:\n\nWe speak of that which is sought after for its own sake, as more\nfinal than that which is sought after as a means to something else;\nwe speak of that which is never desired as a means to something else\nas more final than the things which are desired both in themselves\nand as means to something else; and we speak of a thing as absolutely\nfinal, if it is always desired in itself and never as a means to something\nelse.\n\nIt seems that happiness preeminently answers to this description,\nas we always desire happiness for its own sake, and never as a means\nto something else, whereas we desire honour, pleasure, intellect, and\nevery virtue, partly for their own sakes,... but partly also as being\nmeans to happiness, because we suppose they will prove the instruments\nof happiness. Happiness, on the other hand, nobody desires\nfor the sake of these things, nor indeed as a means to anything else\nat all.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Aristotle: _loc. cit._, pp. 13-14.]\n\nHappiness may, as Aristotle observes, be differently conceived\nby different people. To some it may mean a life of\nsensual enjoyment; to some men a life of money-making.\nBut it is the attainment of _complete_ satisfaction and\nself-realization by the individual that ethical theories should\npromote; for such self-realization constitutes happiness. It is\nsufficient here to point out that all so-called \"teleological\"\nor \"relativistic\" moralities, insist that the morality of an\naction is not determinable _a priori_, or absolutely. They are\n_relativistic_ in the sense that they insist on taking into account\nthe specific circumstances of action in the determination of its\nmoral value. They are _teleological_ in that they insist on measuring\nthe moral value of an action in terms of its consequences\nin human well-being or happiness, however those be conceived.\nTo revert to the illustration used in connection with the discussion\nof Absolutism, to lie in order to save a life would, on\nthis basis, be construed as good rather than evil.\n\nUTILITARIANISM. One of the classic statements of relativistic\nand teleological morality is Utilitarianism. According to the\nUtilitarians the criterion of the worth of a deed was to be\nfound in an estimation of the relative pleasures and pains produced\nby it. The view is thus stated by John Stuart Mill:\n\nThe creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or\nthe Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in\nproportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to\nproduce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure,\nand the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of\npleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the\ntheory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it\nincludes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this\nis left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do\nnot affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality\nis grounded--namely, that pleasure and freedom from pain are the\nonly things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which\nare as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable\neither for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to\nthe promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mill: _Utilitarianism_ (London, 1907), pp. 9-10.]\n\nSimply stated, Utilitarianism says: \"Add together all the\npleasures promised by a contemplated course of action, then\nthe pains, and note the difference; the nature of the difference\nwill determine whether the course is right or wrong.\" Pleasures\nand pains are thus conceived as being open to quantitative\ndetermination. Action is determined by mathematical\ncalculation in advance of the pleasure and pain produced by\nany action. Bentham's name is particularly associated with\nthe dictum, \"the greatest happiness for the greatest number.\"\nBut two implications of this doctrine must be taken into\naccount, at least as Bentham interpreted it. The greatest\nhappiness meant the maximum amount of pleasure. And\neach individual could desire the greatest happiness, only in\nso far as it contributed to his own happiness or pleasure.\nAnd, for Bentham, as for all strict Utilitarians, there was no\nqualitative distinction in the amounts of pleasure. \"The\nquantity being the same,\" said Bentham, \"pushpin is as good\nas poetry.\"\n\nUtilitarianism is here considered as an instance of a type\nof ethical theory that set human happiness as the end, and\nmade its judgments of actions depend on their consequences\nin human welfare. It must be pointed out, however, that its\nconception of happiness was dependent on a psychology now\nalmost unanimously recognized as false: Bentham's assumption\nthat the _reason_ human beings performed certain actions\nwas _because_ they desired certain pleasures, completely\nreverses the actual situation. It puts, as it were, the cart\nbefore the horse. Pleasure is psychologically the accompaniment,\nwhat psychologists call the \"feeling tone\" of the satisfaction\nof any instinctive or habitual impulse. Human beings\nhave certain native or habitual tendencies to action, and\npleasure attends the performance of these. It is not because\nwe want the pleasure of eating, that we decide to eat;\nwe want to eat, and eating is therefore pleasant.\n\nIf the good Samaritan cared about the present feelings or the\nfuture welfare of the man fallen among thieves, it would no doubt give\nhim some pleasure to satisfy that desire for his welfare; if he had\ndesired his good as little as the priest and the Levite, there would\nhave been nothing to suggest the strange idea that to relieve him, to\nbind up his nasty wounds, and to spend money upon him, would be\na source of more pleasure to himself than to pass by on the other side\nand spend the money upon himself. In the case of the great majority\nof our pleasures, it will probably be found that the desire is the\ncondition of the pleasure, not the pleasure of the desire.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Rashdall: _Ethics_, p. 18.]\n\nAs has been previously pointed out in this and other chapters,\naction does not start with reflection upon pleasures, or,\nfor that matter, upon anything else. Action is fundamentally\ninitiated by instinctive promptings, or the promptings of\nhabit. Satisfaction or pleasure attends the fulfillment of any\ninborn or acquired impulse, and dissatisfaction or pain its\nobstruction or frustration. Apart from the satisfactions\nexperienced in the fulfillment in action of such impulses,\npleasure does not exist. Actions, situations, persons, or ideas\ncan be pleasant to us, but \"pleasure\" as a separate objective\nentity cannot be said to exist at all. The Utilitarians, again,\nmade the intellectualist error of supposing that men dispassionately\nand mathematically weighed the consequences of\ntheir actions, whereas their relative impulsions to action are\ndetermined by the instincts they inherit and the habits they\nhave already acquired.\n\nDespite its false psychology, Utilitarianism does stand out\nas one of the great classic attempts to build an ethical theory\nsquarely designed to promote human happiness. An execution\nof the same worthy intention, more acceptable to those\ntrained in the modern psychology of instinct, is that moral\nconception variously known as Behaviorism, or Energism,\na point of view maintained by thinkers from Aristotle to\nProfessor Dewey in our own day. All behavioristic theories\ntake the position that in order to find out what is good for\nman, we must begin by finding out what man is. In order to\ndiscover what will give man satisfaction, we must discover\nwhat his natural impulses and capacities are. In the utilization\nand fulfillment of these will man find his most complete\nrealization and happiness. The standard of goodness, therefore,\nis measured in terms of the extent to which action promotes\na complete and harmonious utilization of natural impulses\nand natural capacities. Ethics, from such a viewpoint,\ncannot set up arbitrary standards, but must form its standards\nby inquiries into the fundamental and natural needs and\ndesires of men. Instead of laying down eternal principles to\nwhich human beings must be made to conform, it must derive\nits principles from observations of human experience, and test\nthem there. The good is what does good; the bad what does\nharm. And what is good for men, and bad for men, depends\nnot on rigid _a priori_ intellectual standards, but on the original\nnature which is each man's inheritance.\n\nTo base ethics upon an analysis of the conditions of human\nnature, as scientific inquiry reveals it, carries with it two\nimplications. It means that nothing that is shown to be a part of\nman's inevitable original equipment can with justice to man's\nwelfare be ruled out. Every instinct taken by itself is as good\nas any other. It is only when one instinct competes with\nanother, so that excessive indulgence of one, as, for example,\nthat of sex or pugnacity, interferes with all a man's other\ninstincts or interests (or with those of other men), that an\ninstinct becomes evil. It means, secondly, that since individuals\ndiffer, and since situations are infinitely various and\nindividual, no arbitrary and fixed laws can be laid down as\nfundamental eternal principles.\n\nMORAL KNOWLEDGE. The contrast between the two types\nof morality that have been historically current may be\napproached from the standpoint of moral knowledge. That is,\nmoral theories may be classified on the basis of their answer\nto the question: How do moral judgments arise? The chief\ncontrast to be drawn is that between Intuitionalism on the\none hand, and Empiricism on the other. Intuitionalism holds\nbriefly that the moral quality of an act is intuitively perceived,\nand is recognized apart from experience of its consequences.\nThe empirical theory holds that moral judgments come to be\nattached to acts as a result of experience, and particularly\nexperiences of the approval and disapproval of other people.\nThe contrast will again become clearer by a discussion of each\ntheory separately.\n\nINTUITIONALISM. Intuitionalism takes two chief forms. The\nfirst, Perceptual Intuitionalism, as Sidgwick calls it, holds that\nthe rightness of each particular act is immediately known.\nThe second, called by the same author Dogmatic Intuitionalism,\nholds that the general laws of common-sense morality\nare immediately perceived. The popular view of \"conscience,\"\nwell illustrates the first-mentioned position of the\nIntuitionalist.\n\nWe commonly think of the dictates of conscience as relating to\nparticular actions, and when a man is bidden in a particular case to\n\"trust to his conscience,\" it commonly seems to be meant that he\nshould exercise a faculty of judging morally this particular case\nwithout reference to general rules, and even in opposition to\nconclusions obtained by systematic deduction from such rules.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Sidgwick: _Methods of Ethics_ (4th edition), p. 99.]\n\nConscience, this organ of immediate moral perception, is\nfrequently taken to be divinely given at birth. There is no\none so certain or immovable as the man whose actions are\ndictated by his \"conscience.\" He does not have to think\nabout his actions; he knows immediately what is right and\nwhat is wrong. The intuitionalist does not go into the natural\nhistory of scruples for or against the performance of\ncertain actions. He takes these immediate aversions or\npromptings to act as the revelations of immediate and unquestionable\nknowledge, frequently presumed to be divinely implanted.\nMost Intuitionalists hold not that we experience an\nimmediate intuition of the rightness or wrongness of action\nin every single situation, but that the common rules of morality,\nsuch common rules as good faith and veracity, are immediately\nrecognized and assented to as moral. They insist\nthat these are not determined by experience or by reflection,\nsince stealing, lying, and murder are _known_ to be wrong by\neveryone, though most men could not tell way.\n\nIntuitionalism carried out to logical extremes is represented\nby such men as Tclstoy, and, in general, those who genuinely\nand persistently act according to the dictates of their conscience,\n\"who hold, and so far as they can, act upon the principle\nthat we must never resist force by force, never arrest a\nthief, must literally give to him that asketh, up to one's last\npenny, and so on.\"\n\nEMPIRICISM. To explain the grounds of the Empirical\nposition is to exhibit the arguments in refutation of Intuitionalism.\nThe most obvious and frequent line of attack\nthat empirical moralists make upon Intuitionalism is to\nexamine and compare the various \"intuitions\" of right conduct\nwhich have been held by men in different ages and places.\n\nThe traditional method of combating intuitionalism from the time\nof John Locke to that of Herbert Spencer has been to present the\nreader with a list of cruel and abominable savage customs, ridiculous\nsuperstitions, acts of religious fanaticism and intolerance, which\nhave all alike seemed self-evidently good and right to the peoples or\nindividuals who have practised them. There is hardly a vice or a\ncrime (according to our own moral standard) which has not at some\ntime or other in some circumstances been looked upon as a moral\nand religious duty. Stealing was accounted virtuous for the young\nSpartan, and among the Indian caste of Thugs. In the ancient\nworld, piracy, that is, robbery and murder, was a respectable\nprofession. To the mediaeval Christian, religious persecution was the\nhighest of duties, and so on.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Rashdall: _loc. cit._, p. 59.]\n\nThe Empiricist asks: If all these intuitions are absolute;\nif men at various times and at various places, indeed, if,\nas is the case, men of different social classes and situations at\nthe present time, differ so profoundly in their \"intuitions\" of\nthe just, the noble, and the base, which of the conflicting\nintuitions, all equally absolute, is _the_ absolute? The Intuitionalist\ncontinually appeals to the universal intuition and assent of\nMankind. But there is scarcely a single moral law for which\nuniversal assent in even a single generation can be found.\nOne has but to survey the heterogeneous collection of customs\nand prohibitions collected in such a work as Frazer's _Golden\nBough_, to see how little unanimity there is in the moral\nintuitions of mankind.\n\nThe Empiricist finds the origin of these divergent moral\nconvictions in the divergent environments to which individuals\nin different places, times, and social situations are exposed.\nThe intensity and apparent irrefutability of these\nconvictions, which the Intuitionalist ascribes to their innateness,\nthe Empiricist ascribes to their early acquisition, and\nthe deep emotional hold which early acquired habits have\nover the individual. Those moral beliefs which we hold with\nthe utmost conviction and intensity are, instead of being\nthereby guaranteed as most reasonable and genuinely moral,\nthereby rendered, says the Empiricist, the more suspect.\nThey are evidences of the effectiveness of our early education,\nor of our high degree of sensitiveness to our fellows. Conscience\nis thus reduced to habitual emotional reactions produced\nby the contact of a given individual temperament with\na given environment.\n\nThus acts come by the individual to be recognized as right\nor wrong, according to the tradition to which he has been\neducated and the contacts with other people to which he is\ncontinually exposed. The Empiricist does not deny that\nthere are intuitions, or apparent intuitions. He denies their\nultimacy, their unquestionable validity.\n\nWhen ... we find ourselves entertaining an opinion about the\nbasis of which there is a quality of feeling which tells us that to\ninquire into it would be absurd, obviously unnecessary, unprofitable,\nundesirable, bad form, or wicked, we may know that that opinion is\na non-rational one, and probably, therefore, founded upon inadequate\nevidence.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Trotter: _Instincts of the Herd_, p. 44.]\n\nThese so powerful convictions are the immediate promptings\nof instincts, or of the habits into which they have been modified.\nThe humane Christian, had he been brought up in the\nEskimo tradition, would with the most tender solicitude\nslaughter his aged parents, just as the humane Christian in\nthe Middle Ages thought it his duty to slay heretics. There\nis no limit to the excesses to which men have gone on the\ndictates of conscience. To put actions on the basis of conscience\nis to put them beyond the control of reflection or the check\nof inquiry. It is to reduce conduct to caprice; to exalt\nimpulse into a moral command. And the results of accepting\nblind intuitions as rational knowledge have been in many\ncases catastrophic.\n\nIf reason has slain its thousands, the acceptance of instinct as\nevidence has slain its tens of thousands. Day by day, in the ordinary\ndirection of their lives, men have learned during hundreds of\ngenerations how untrustworthy is the interpretation of fact which\nInstinct offers, and how bitter is the truth contained in such proverbs\nas \"Anger is a bad counsellor,\" or \"Love is blind.\" ... Wars\nare often started and maintained, neither from mere blind anger,\nnor because those on either side find that they desire the results\nwhich a cool calculation of the conditions makes them regard as\nprobable, but largely because men insist on treating their feelings as\nevidence of fact and refuse to believe that they can be so angry\nwithout sufficient cause.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Graham Wallas: _The Great Society_, pp. 224-25.]\n\nThe Empiricist insists that the morality of an act cannot\nbe told from the intensity of approval or disapproval which\nit arouses in the individual. Actions are not moral or\nimmoral in themselves, but in their consequences or relations,\nwhich are only discoverable in experience. The goodness or\nbadness of an act is measurable in terms of its consequences,\nand the consequences of action are discoverable only in experience.\nThis does not imply that we calculate the results of\nevery action before performing it, or measure the consequences\nof the acts of other persons before judging them.\nOur immediate reactions are frequently not the result of reflection\nat all, but are responses prompted by previously formed\nhabits, or by instinctive caprice. These immediate intuitions\nare not to be relied upon as moral standards, precisely because\nreflection frequently comes to an estimate of an act, directly\nat variance with our instinctive reaction to it. We come,\nupon reflection, to approve acts that we are, by instinct,\nmoved to condemn. And the reverse holds true.\n\nWhen we see that a child's clothes have caught fire, we do not\nneed to reflect on any consequences for universal well-being before\nwe make up our minds that it is a duty to extinguish the flames, even\nat the cost of some risk to ourselves. It is clear that the act will\nconduce to pleasure and to the avoidance of pain. We should feel\nan equally instinctive desire to kick out of the room a man whom we\nsaw making incisions in the flesh of a human being if we did not know\nthat he was a surgeon, and that the making of incisions will tend to\nsave the man's life. Were a competent physician to suggest that\nthe burning of the child's clothes upon its back would cure it of a\nfever, every reasonable person would consider it his duty to reconsider\nhis _prima-facie_ view of the situation.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Rashdall: _Ethics_, pp, 51-52.]\n\nThe Empiricist insists that moral standards are matters of\ndiscovery; that the laws of conduct must be derived from\nexperience, just as must the laws of the physical sciences.\nTo condemn an act as evil means that the performance of that\nact has in experience been found to produce harmful results.\nThose moral laws which at the present stage of civilized society\nseem to have attained universal assent, _have_ attained it\nbecause they are rules whose practice has, in the history of\nthe race, repeatedly been found to produce desirable results.\nEven the conception of justice, which has by so many thinkers\nbeen held to be absolute, to inhere somehow in the nature\nof things, is by Mill demonstrated at length to be merely a\nparticularly highly regarded utility:\n\nIt appears ... that justice is a name for certain moral requirements,\nwhich, regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale of\nsocial utility, and are therefore of more paramount obligation than\nany others; though particular cases may occur where some other\nsocial duty is so important as to overrule any one of the general\nmaxims of justice. Thus, to save a life, it may not only be allowable,\nbut a duty, to steal, or take by force, the necessary food or medicine,\nor to kidnap, and compel to officiate, the only qualified medical\npractitioner.[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Mill: _Utilitarianism_ (London, 1907), p. 95.]\n\nIndeed it is clear, that in the processes of natural selection\nthose tribes would survive whose rules of morality did in\ngeneral promote welfare. And it is the business of reflection,\nsays the Empiricist, not to accept either his own conviction\nor those of others on ethical questions, but in cases of ambiguity\nto establish, after inquiry, a standard the practice of\nwhich promises the widest benefits in human happiness.\n\nETHICS AND LIFE. All ethical theories are more or less\ndeliberately intended as definitions of the good, and as instruments\nfor its attainment. They must, therefore, be immediately\ntested by their fruits in life. An ethical theory\nthat is only verbally concerned with the good, but does not\nin practice promote human welfare, is futile pedantry or worse.\nReflection upon conduct arises in man's attempt to control\nthe nature which is his inheritance in the interests of his\nhappiness. Men have learned through experience that to\nfollow each impulse without forethought brings them pain,\nmisery, and sometimes destruction. They have found that\nto achieve happiness some harmony must be established\nbetween competing desires, and that only by balances,\nadjustment, and control, can they make the most of the nature\nwhich is theirs inescapably. This nature consists, as we have\nseen, in certain specific tendencies to action. Men are natively\nendowed with instincts to love, to fight, to be curious,\nto long for and enjoy the companionship of their fellows, to\nwish privacy and solitude, to follow a lead and to take it,\nto fear and hate, and sympathize with others. The satisfaction\nof any one of these impulses gives pleasure. Any one\nof these may become a dominant passion. But it is not\nthrough yielding to a single imperious impulse that men attain\ngenuine happiness. To be excessively pugnacious or amorous\nor fearful is to court unhappiness, both for the individual\nand his fellows. It is only by giving each instinct its\nproportionate chance in the total context of all the instincts, that\nhappiness is to be found.\n\nIt is for this reason that, as Aristotle first pointed out, a\nstudy of what is good for man must start with a study of\nwhat man himself is. The study of ethics must consequently\nfall back for its data upon psychology. It must note with\nprecision the things that men can do, before it tells them what\nthey ought to do. For the things they ought to do, are\ndependent on the conditions which limit and determine their\nideals. Any ethical system that deliberately excludes from\nits formulation natural human desires and capacities, is\ndenying the very sources of all morality. For every ideal\nhas its root back in some unlearned human impulse, and an\nideal that has no basis in the nature of man, is not an ideal,\nbut a negation. The ideal \"way of life\" is one that provides\nfor the harmonious utilization of all those possibilities which\nlie in man's original nature. To deny a place to the sex\nimpulse is to deny a place to ideal love. To deny the moral\nlegitimacy of the fighting instinct is to take away the basis\nof that immense energy which goes to sustain great moral\nreformers. The place of ethical theory is not to deny human\nimpulses, but to turn them to uses in which they will not\nhinder other impulses either of the individual or of others.\nThrough physical science, men have sought to make the most\nof their physical environment; through moral science, they\ncan try to make the most of the human equipment which is\ntheirs for better or for worse. This human equipment is an\nopportunity; and the utilization of this opportunity constitutes\nhappiness. It is in the realization of the possibilities\noffered by our original human nature that reflection upon\nmorals is justified. It is in the effective fulfillment of this\nopportunity that its success must be measured.\n\nMORALITY AND HUMAN NATURE. A moral theory that is\nmerely coercive and arbitrary, therefore, is not in a genuine\nsense moral. A morality, to justify itself, must appeal to\nthe heart of man. The good which it recommends must be\na good which man can without sophistry approve. And the\ngood for which man can whole-heartedly strive is not determined\nby logic, but, in the last analysis, by biology. Human\nbeings cannot freely call good that to which they have no\nspontaneous prompting. Those ascetics who have denied\nthe flesh may have displayed a certain degree of heroism, but\nthey displayed an equal lack of insight. For it is out of\nphysical impulses alone that any ideal values can arise.\n\nIt is only when one instinct interferes with its neighbors,\nor one individual with his fellows, that instincts or activities\ncan be called evil. They are called evil in relation, in\ncontext, with reference to their consequences. In itself no\nnatural impulse is subject to condemnation. It is just as\nnatural as thunder or sunshine, and is to be taken as a point\nof departure, as a basis for action, rather than as a chance\nfor censure. Impulses demand control simply because, left\nto themselves, they collide with each other, just as individuals\nuncontrolled by custom, law, and education, collide\nwith each other in the pursuit of satisfaction. The ideal is\na way of life, which will allow as much spontaneity as the\nconditions of nature and life allow, and provide as much control\nas they make necessary. To be thus in control of one's\ndesires is to be free. It is to utilize one's interests and capacities\nin the light of a harmony both of one's own desires, and\nin so far as this harmony is universal, of the desires of all men.\nIt is to lead the Life of Reason:\n\nEvery one leads the Life of Reason in so far as he finds a steady\nlight behind the world's glitter, and a clear residuum of joy beneath\npleasure and success. No experience not to be repented of falls\nwithout its sphere. Every solution to a doubt, in so far as it is not\na new error, every practical achievement not neutralized by a second\nmaladjustment consequent upon it, every consolation not the seed\nof another, greater sorrow, may be gathered together and built into\nthis edifice. The Life of Reason is the happy marriage of two\nelements--impulse and ideation--which if wholly divorced would\nreduce man to a brute or to a maniac. The rational animal is\ngenerated by the union of these two monsters. He is constituted by\nideas which have ceased to be visionary and actions which have\nceased to be vain.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Santayana: _Reason in Common Sense_, p. 6.]\n\nNor does the leading of a moral life, as Kant and other\nmoralists said or implied, demand a stern and lugubrious\ncountenance and a sad, resigned determination to be good.\nA moral system should promote rather a hallelujah than a\nhalo. One may suspect the adequacy to human happiness of\nthose moral systems which promote in their holders or\npractitioners a virtuous somberness and a moral melancholy. A\nmorality that demands such unwholesome outward evidences\nis inwardly not beautiful. As art is an attempt to give perfection\nand fulfillment to matter, so is morals an attempt to\ngive perfect and complete fulfillment to human possibility.\nA genuine morality will, in consequence, be spontaneous and\nfree. In Matthew Arnold's well-known lines:\n\n  \"Then, when the clouds are off the soul,\n   When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,\n   Ask, how _she_ view'd thy self-control,\n   Thy struggling task'd morality.\n   Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air\n   Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.\n       *       *       *       *       *\n  \"There is no effort on _my_ brow--\n   I do not strive, I do not weep.\n   I rush with the swift spheres, and glow\n   In joy, and when I will, I sleep.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: From _Morality_.]\n\nMORALS, LAW, AND EDUCATION. No moral code, however\nadequate in its theoretical formulation or the means of its\nattainment, is socially effective merely as theory. No matter\nhow completely it takes into account all the natural desires\nand possibilities which demand fulfillment, it remains merely\nan academic yearning. It becomes an instrument of happiness\nonly when it has been made the habitual mode of life of\nthe individual and the group, through the long continuous\nprocesses of education and law. There is a familiar discrepancy\nbetween theory and practice, even when the discrepancy\nis not due to insincerity. Philosophy cannot make a man\nvirtuous, however much it may convince him of the path to\nvirtue. Socrates thought that if men only knew the good\nthey would follow it. But modern psychologists and ordinary\nlaymen know better. The good must become a habitual\npractice if men are to follow it, and it can only become a\nhabitual practice if education and social conditions in general\nprovide for the early habituation of the individual to conduct\nthat is socially useful. Aristotle, who himself framed a\ntheory of morals that was built on the firm foundation of\nhuman possibility, was aware of the inadequacy of theory\nby itself to make men good:\n\nSome people think that men are made good by nature, others by\nhabit, others again by teaching.\n\nNow it is clear that the gift of Nature is not in our own power,\nbut is bestowed through some divine power upon those who are\ntruly fortunate. It is probably true also that reason and teaching\nare not universally efficacious; the soul of the pupil must first have\nbeen cultivated by habit to a right spirit of pleasure and aversion,\nlike the earth that is to nourish the seed.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Aristotle: Ethics, book X, chap. X, p. 344 (Weldon translation).\n\nIt is only when people find pleasure in the right actions,\nthat they can be depended upon to perform them. And it\nis by their early and habitual performance that they will\nbecome pleasant. In the formation of such socially and\nindividually useful habits, education is the incomparable\ninstrument. The conduct of individuals is, as we have\nrepeatedly seen, largely fixed by the customary recognition of\ncertain acts as approved, and others as disapproved. These\napprovals and disapprovals are transmitted through education.\nEducation is used here to refer not simply to the formal\ninstitutions of teaching, but to the complete social environment,\nthe approvals and disapprovals with which an individual\ncomes in contact. Formal education is, however, the\nchief means by which society inculcates into younger members\nthose values, traditions, and customs which its controlling\nelements regard as of the most pivotal importance.\n\nSocial customs which are transmitted in education, become\nfixed in law. So that, as Aristotle points out in this same\nconnection, laws are symptomatic of the moral values which\nthe group regards as of the highest importance. Laws are\ncustoms given all the sanction, support, and significance that\nthe group can put into them. Education transmits the values,\nideals, and traditions cherished by the group, but the\nlaws and customs already current largely control the scope\nand methods of education. \"Education proceeds ultimately\nfrom the patterns furnished by institutions, customs, and\nlaws. Only in a just state will these be such as to give the\nright education.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Dewey: _Democracy and Education_, p. 103.]\n\nThe state of law and education which is exhibited by a\nsociety, thus accurately mirrors the degree of moral progress\nof the group. And what is, perhaps, more significant, the\nkind of law and education current determines the moral\nideals and conditions the moral achievements of the maturing\ngeneration. Education, more especially, is the instrument\nthrough which the young can be educated not only to ideals\nand customs already current, but to their reflective modification\nin the light of our ever-growing knowledge of the conditions\nof human welfare.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\nAbility, education and native.\nAbsolutism in morality.\nAcquisitive instinct.\nActivity, creative (see Creative activity); mental; physical; social.\nAEsthetic experience; and form; in industry; in science; sense satisfaction\n  basis of; standards, effect of custom on; value of science; values; _vs._\n  moral values; _vs._ practical values. _See also_ Art.\nAffection. _See_ Love.\nAge, influence of on learning.\nAltruism.\nAmbition.\nAnimal, instincts compared with human; man as an; man a social.\nAppreciation. _See_ AEsthetic.\nAristocracy.\nAristotle.\nArnold, Matthew.\nArt, and emotion; and morals; and nature; appreciation of; as an industry;\n  as propaganda; as realization of ideals; as recreation; as vicarious\n  experience; expression of ideas by; fine; for art's sake; imagination in;\n  industrial; origin of; standards in. _See also_ AEsthetic.\nAttention in habit formation.\nAwe.\n\n  Bacon, Francis.\nBagehot.\nBain.\nBeauty. _See_ Art, and AEsthetic.\nBehavior, habitual; instinctive; types of human.\nBehaviorism.\nBelief, gregariousness in; individuality in.\nBentham.\nBergson.\nBible.\nBlame. _See_ Praise.\nBloomfield, Leonard.\nBoas.\nBryce.\nBurke, Edmund.\nBurns, C. Delisle.\nBury.\nButler.\n\nCannon.\nCareer of reason.\nCarlyle.\nCarnegie.\nCattell.\nChange, in customs; in habits; in language; opposition to.\nCharacter. _See_ Personality, and Self, development of.\nChrist.\nChristianity.\nChurch, the, as a social institution; educational functions of; political\n  functions of.\nCivilization, and acquisitive instinct; control of instincts in; factors\n  in development of. _See also_ Society.\nClassification in science.\nCoefficient of correlation.\nCommon sense and science.\nCommunication. _See_ Language.\nCompanionship. _See_ Gregariousness.\nComte, Auguste.\nConduct, cultivation of socially desirable; social standards of.\nConfession.\nConscience.\nConservatism, place of fear in; of habit.\nContinuity, cultural.\nCooley.\nCourage.\nCreative activity, and eccentricity; as sublimation of sex instinct; in\n  art; in industry; in society. _See also_ Imagination.\nCulture, continuity of; dependent on environment.\nCuriosity, instinct of; and scientific inquiry.\nCustom, attitudes toward; and art; and morals; changes in; effects of on\n  progress; preservation of; social value of.\n\nDante.\nDarwin.\nDeduction.\nDemocracy.\nDewey.\nDickens.\nDickinson, G. Lowes.\nDifferences, individual, and education; causes of; in industry; in leadership;\n  in reflection: influence of environment on; of heredity; of race; of sex.\nDiscontent, due to repression of instincts.\nDislike. _See_ Hate.\nDivine, as the human ideal; description of.\nDogmatism.\nDow.\nDowson, Ernest.\n\nEccentrics.\nEducation, and individual differences; and morals; as transmitter of the\n  past; by the church; instrument for social betterment and control; made\n  possible by prolonged period of infancy; and by language. _See also_\n  Learning.\nEgoism.\nEmerson.\nEmotion, accompanies satisfaction or frustration of instincts or habits;\n  and art; and language; aroused in maintenance of self; as driving power;\n  difficulty of classifying; in morals; impedes reflection; James-Lange\n  theory of; of dislike or hate; of fear; of pity; of love; physical\n  indications of.\nEmpirical morality.\nEnthusiasm; religious.\nEnvironment, control of by science; influence of on aesthetic appreciation;\n  on individual differences; on racial differences; on instincts;\n  maladjustment between individual and; possibility of choice of.\nEthics, and life; contrast between professed and practiced. _See also_\n  Morality.\nEuripedes.\nEvolution.\nExperience, art as vicarious; modifies man's instincts.\nExperiment, to determine learning process in animals; number of instincts\n  in animals; in children.\nExperimental moral standards.\nExperimentation in science.\nExpression, art as means of. _See also_ AEsthetic, and Religion.\n\nFatigue, influence of on learning; in relation to industry; mental; nervous;\n  physical.\nFear, and religious experience; instinct of; of the new.\nField, Eugene.\nFighting instinct. _See_ Pugnacity.\nFiske.\nFolkways.\nFood, instinct of.\nForm, and aesthetic experience.\nFreedom of speech.\nFreudian psychology.\nFriendship. _See_ Love.\nFrost, Robert.\n\nGalton, Francis.\nGaribaldi.\nGeneralization in reflection.\nGenius.\nGod.\nGoethe.\nGoff.\nGoldmark.\nGregariousness, effect of on innovation; importance of for social solidarity;\n  in action; in belief; instinct of.\nGroup-feeling; influence of on language. _See also_ Society.\n\nHabit, as time-saver; importance of in morals; language as a; of reflection,\n  importance of; strength of in individual; in society.\nHabits, and emotion; and instincts; disserviceable; education a deliberate\n  acquisition of; formation of, influence of on thinking; modification of\n  by reflection; of mind; specific not general; transference of.\nHard, William.\nHarrison, Jane.\nHart.\nHate.\nHealth, influence of on learning.\nHegel.\nHenley.\nHeraclitus.\nHerd instinct. _See_ Gregariousness.\nHeredity.\nHinks.\nHistory, and religion.\nHobhouse.\nHousman.\nHunger, instinct of.\nHuxley.\n\nIdeals, created by reflection; devotion to; foundation of; realization of\n  in art; in morals; in religion.\nIdeas, expressed in art; fear of the novel in; man alone reacts to.\nImagination, as form of mental activity; in art; in science. _See also_\n  Creative activity.\nImpotence. _See_ Need.\nImpulses. _See_ Instincts.\nIndividual, and education; differences (_see_ Differences, individual);\n  maladjustment between environment and.\nIndividualism.\nIndividuality, and progress; consciousness of unique in man; in opinion\n  and belief.\nInduction.\nIndustry, art as an; individual differences in; need of\ncreative activity in.\nInfancy, prolonged period of in man.\nInquisition.\nInstinct, and habit; acquisitive; definition of; of curiosity; fear;\n  gregariousness; hunger; leadership; mental activity; parental; physical\n  activity; pity; play; pugnacity; self-preservation; sex; shelter;\n  submission; sympathy.\nInstincts, and education; and emotion; basis of morals; conflict of;\n  control of; happiness comes from satisfaction of; interpenetration of;\n  modification of; number and variety of; repression of; specific not\n  general; unchanged since prehistoric times.\nIntelligence, a conscious adjustment of habits; influence of heredity on,\n  of race, of sex; makes possible control of nature; measurement of; types of.\nInterests, conflict of in society.\nIntolerance.\nIntuition.\nIntuitionalism.\nInvention of tools.\n\n  James, William.\nJennings.\nJevons.\nJob.\nJones, A. L..\nJoy, religious expression of.\n\n  Kant.\nKelvin.\nKerr-Lawson.\nKeyser.\nKropotkin.\n\nLadd.\nLang.\nLange.\nLanguage, and emotion; and logic; and thought; as a social habit; changes\n  in; importance of for civilization; man alone possesses; origin of;\n  primitive; uniformities in.\nLaw, and morals; and society; scientific.\nLeadership, instinct of; submission to.\nLearning, affected by age, fatigue, and health; capacity for in men and\n  animals; drill and attention in; importance of habit of; process of\n  (_see also_ Education, and Reflection); trial-and-error.\nLe Bon.\nLee, Frederick S..\nLincoln.\nLogic, and language.\nLove.\nLowell.\nLoyalty.\nLucretius.\n\nMcDougall.\nMalthus.\nMan, as social being; primitive; study of, basis of ethics; unique\n  characteristics of.\nMarett.\nMarkham, Edwin.\nMarot, Helen.\nMarx, Karl.\nMasefield.\nMayo-Smith.\nMendelian laws of heredity.\nMental activity.\nMeyer, Eduard.\nMill, John Stuart.\nMills.\nMilton.\nMoral action; knowledge; standards; theory, types of; values.\nMorality, absolutistic; and art; and education; and emotion; and habit;\n  and human nature; and intellectualism; and law; based on instincts;\n  customary; empirical; inadequacy of theory in; intuitional; reflective;\n  relativistic and teleological; spontaneous.\nMorley, John.\nMysticism.\n\nNapoleon.\nNature, and art; man's control of; science as explanation of;\n  unchangeability of.\nNeed, and religious experience.\nNew, progress and the; distrust of; idealization of. _See also_ Originality.\nNewton.\nNietzsche.\nNorthcliffe, Lord.\nNoyes, Alfred.\n\nObservation in science.\nOpinion, individuality in; suppression of.\nOriginality in thinking, causes of; encouragement of; fear of, in society.\n  _See also_ New.\nOrosius.\nO'Shaughnessy.\nOther-worldliness.\n\nParental instinct.\nPascal.\nPast, critical examination of; disparagement of; education as transmitter\n  of; idealization of; limitations of; our heritage from; veneration of.\nPasteur.\nPater, Walter.\nPearson, Karl.\nPenance.\nPersonality. _See also_ Self.\nPhysical activity, instinct of; fatigue.\nPity, instinct of.\nPlato.\nPlay. _See_ Physical activity, and Recreation.\nPleasure.\nPoe.\nPoincare.\nPope.\nPopulation; restriction of.\nPossession. _See_ Acquisitive.\nPraise and blame, as instruments of social control; determine professed\n  standards; in development of self; indifference to; man responsive to.\nPrayer.\nPrejudice, influences thinking.\nPrimitive and civilized races; language; man's manufacture of tools;\n  morality; religion; science.\nPrinciples.\nPrivacy, instinctive demand for.\nProbability.\nProgress, and custom; and pugnacity; and reflection; and variation from\n  normal; science as an instrument of.\nPropaganda, art as; emotional value of words in.\nPsychological tests. _See_ Intelligence, measurement of.\nPsychology, and ethics; behavioristic; \"faculty\"; Freudian; of Utilitarianism.\nPublic opinion; opposition to.\nPugnacity, instinct of.\n\nQuiescence.\n\nRace, continuity of human; influence of on individual differences.\nRashdall.\nReason, and religion; as director of life; career of; in absolutistic\n  morality. _See also_ Reflection, and Thinking.\nRecreation; art as; form dependent on work and habits.\nReflection, and individual differences; and morality; creates moral standards;\n  in art; in science; inadequacy of in morals; limited by instinct and habit;\n  modifier of instinct and habit; process of; value of for society. _See also_\n  Learning, Scientific method, and Thinking.\nReflex.\nRelativistic morality.\nReligion, and history; and science; experiences giving rise to expression\n  of; institutionalized; offers solace; realization of ideals in; primitive;\n  rationalization of personal.\nRemorse and religion.\nRepentance.\nRepetition in habit formation.\nRepression of instincts.\nRibot.\nRobinson, James Harvey.\nRobinson, Edwin Arlington.\nRoosevelt.\nRoss.\nRussell, Bertrand.\n\nSabatier.\nSacrifice.\nSantayana.\nSchopenhauer.\nScience, aesthetic aspect of; and common sense; and progress; and religion;\n  as explanation of natural phenomena, classification in; definition of;\n  experimentation in; imagination in; innovation in; observation in;\n  practical; primitive; pure; social.\nScientific inquiry, curiosity and; law; method.\nSelf-assertion; consciousness of the; development of; display; preservation;\n  sufficiency; surrender; satisfaction and dissatisfaction; the divided;\n  the negative; the permanent; the social; types of the.\nSense satisfaction basis of aesthetic experience.\nSex, and creative activity; and racial continuity; influence of on\n  individual differences; instinct of.\nShakespeare.\nShelley.\nSidgwick.\nSmith, Adam.\nSocial activity; being, man as a; consequences of fear; of leadership; of\n  opposition to public opinion; of pity; of submission; inertia; institution,\n  the church as a; motive; sciences; self; solidarity; standards of conduct;\n  value of consciousness of self; of custom; of individuality in opinion; of\n  praise and blame; of prolonged period of infancy; of pugnacity; of reflection.\nSocialism.\nSociety, and education; and individual happiness; and law; based on instinct\n  of gregariousness; conflict of interests in; control of instincts in.\nSocrates.\nSolitude.\nSorel, Georges.\nSpecificity of instincts; of habits.\nSpeech (_see also_ Language); freedom of.\nStandards, aesthetic; _a priori_; experimental; ideal; language; moral; social.\nStatistics.\nStirner, Max.\nStork, Charles Wharton.\nSubmissive instinct.\nSuggestion, in thinking.\nSutherland.\nSwinburne.\nSympathy.\n\nTabu.\nTarde.\nTaylor, Henry Osborn.\nTeleology in morals.\nTender emotion.\nTennyson.\nTheology.\nTheory, inadequacy of in morals.\nThilly.\nThinking, common sense _vs._ scientific; influence of habit on; analyzes\n  experience; begins with a problem. _See also_ Reflection, and Scientific\n  method.\nThompson, Sylvanus P..\nThomson.\nThorndike, Edward L.\nThought, and language; originality in.\nTolstoy.\nTools, man only maker and user of.\nTradition. _See_ Custom.\nTrial-and-error, learning; reflection as mental.\nTrotter.\nTufts.\nTylor, Edward B.\nTyndall.\nTypes of self; of intelligence.\n\nUtilitarianism.\n\n  Values, aesthetic; ideal; moral.\nVeblen.\nVerification in scientific procedure.\n\n  Wallas, Graham.\nWar, and acquisitive instinct; and hate; and pugnacity.\nWard, Lester.\nWatson.\nWharton, Edith.\nWilde, Oscar.\nWill.\nWilson, Woodrow.\nWolff, Christian.\nWoodbridge.\nWoodworth.\nWordsworth.\nWork determines form of recreation.","title":"Human Traits and their Social Significance","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":163044}