{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_41386/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_41386","id":"gutenberg_41386","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41386","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Habit","Social psychology"],"text":"TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:\n\n\nItalic text has been marked with _underscores _. Inconsistencies in\nhyphenation have not been corrected; inconsistencies in spelling have\nbeen corrected (both phantasy and fantasy were used in the original\ntext, phantasy has been changed to fantasy for consistency). A list of\nall corrections to the text can be found at the end of the document.\n\n\n\n\n HUMAN NATURE\n AND CONDUCT\n\n An Introduction to Social Psychology\n\n\n BY\n\n JOHN DEWEY\n\n\n NEW YORK\n\n HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n\n 1922\n\n\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1922,\n\n BY\n HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n\n\n First Printing, Jan., 1922\n Second Printing, Mar., 1922\n Third Printing, June, 1922\n Fourth Printing, Aug., 1922\n Fifth Printing, Nov., 1922\n Sixth Printing, April, 1923\n\n\n PRINTED IN THE U.\u00a0S.\u00a0A. BY\n The Quinn & Boden Company\n BOOK MANUFACTURERS\n RAHWAY NEW JERSEY\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIn the spring of 1918 I was invited by Leland Stanford Junior University\nto give a series of three lectures upon the West Memorial Foundation.\nOne of the topics included within the scope of the Foundation is Human\nConduct and Destiny. This volume is the result, as, according to the\nterms of the Foundation, the lectures are to be published. The lectures\nas given have, however, been rewritten and considerably expanded. An\nIntroduction and Conclusion have been added. The lectures should have\nbeen published within two years from delivery. Absence from the country\nrendered strict compliance difficult; and I am indebted to the\nauthorities of the University for their indulgence in allowing an\nextension of time, as well as for so many courtesies received during the\ntime when the lectures were given.\n\nPerhaps the sub-title requires a word of explanation. The book does not\npurport to be a treatment of social psychology. But it seriously sets\nforth a belief that an understanding of habit and of different types of\nhabit is the key to social psychology, while the operation of impulse\nand intelligence gives the key to individualized mental activity. But\nthey are secondary to habit so that mind can be understood in the\nconcrete only as a system of beliefs, desires and purposes which are\nformed in the interaction of biological aptitudes with a social\nenvironment.\n J.\u00a0D.\n February, 1921\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n PAGE\n INTRODUCTION 1\n Contempt for human nature; pathology of goodness; freedom;\n value of science.\n\n _PART ONE_\n THE PLACE OF HABIT IN CONDUCT\n\n SECTION I: HABITS AS SOCIAL FUNCTIONS 14\n Habits as functions and arts; social complicity; subjective\n factor.\n SECTION II: HABITS AND WILL 24\n Active means; ideas of ends; means and ends; nature of\n character.\n SECTION III: CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 43\n Good will and consequences; virtues and natural goods;\n objective and subjective morals.\n SECTION IV: CUSTOM AND HABIT 58\n Human psychology is social; habit as conservative; mind and\n body.\n SECTION V: CUSTOM AND MORALITY 75\n Customs as standards; authority of standards; class\n conflicts.\n SECTION VI: HABIT AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 84\n Isolation of individuality; newer movements.\n\n _PART TWO_\n THE PLACE OF IMPULSE IN CONDUCT\n\n SECTION I: IMPULSES AND CHANGE OF HABITS 89\n Present interest in instincts; impulses as re-organizing.\n SECTION II: PLASTICITY OF IMPULSE 95\n Impulse and education; uprush of impulse; fixed codes.\n SECTION III: CHANGING HUMAN NATURE 106\n Habits the inert factor; modification of impulses; war a\n social function; economic regimes as social products; nature\n of motives.\n SECTION IV: IMPULSE AND CONFLICT OF HABITS 125\n Possibility of social betterment; conservatism.\n SECTION V: CLASSIFICATION OF INSTINCTS 131\n False simplifications; \"self-love\"; will to power;\n acquisitive and creative.\n SECTION VI: NO SEPARATE INSTINCTS 149\n Uniqueness of acts; possibilities of operation; necessity of\n play and art; rebelliousness.\n SECTION VII: IMPULSE AND THOUGHT 169\n\n _PART THREE_\n THE PLACE OF INTELLIGENCE IN CONDUCT\n\n SECTION I: HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE 172\n Habits and intellect; mind, habit and impulse.\n SECTION II: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING 181\n The trinity of intellect; conscience and its alleged separate\n subject-matter.\n SECTION III: THE NATURE OF DELIBERATION 189\n Deliberation as imaginative rehearsal; preference and choice;\n strife of reason and passion; nature of reason.\n SECTION IV: DELIBERATION AND CALCULATION 199\n Error in utilitarian theory; place of the pleasant;\n hedonistic calculus; deliberation and prediction.\n SECTION V: THE UNIQUENESS OF GOOD 210\n Fallacy of a single good; applied to utilitarianism; profit\n and personality; means and ends.\n SECTION VI: THE NATURE OF AIMS 223\n Theory of final ends; aims as directive means; ends as\n justifying means; meaning well as an aim; wishes and aims.\n SECTION VII: THE NATURE OF PRINCIPLES 238\n Desire for certainty; morals and probabilities; importance of\n generalizations.\n SECTION VIII: DESIRE AND INTELLIGENCE 248\n Object and consequence of desire; desire and quiescence;\n self-deception in desire; desire needs intelligence; nature\n of idealism; living in the ideal.\n SECTION IX: THE PRESENT AND FUTURE 265\n Subordination of activity to result; control of future;\n production and consummation; idealism and distant goals.\n\n _PART FOUR_\n CONCLUSION\n\n SECTION I: THE GOOD OF ACTIVITY 278\n Better and worse; morality a process; evolution and progress;\n optimism; Epicureanism; making others happy.\n SECTION II: MORALS ARE HUMAN 295\n Humane morals; natural law and morals; place of science.\n SECTION III: WHAT IS FREEDOM? 303\n Elements in freedom; capacity in action; novel possibilities;\n force of desire.\n SECTION IV: MORALITY IS SOCIAL 314\n Conscience and responsibility; social pressure and\n opportunity; exaggeration of blame; importance of social\n psychology; category of right; the community as religious\n symbol.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\n\"Give a dog a bad name and hang him.\" Human nature has been the dog of\nprofessional moralists, and consequences accord with the proverb. Man's\nnature has been regarded with suspicion, with fear, with sour looks,\nsometimes with enthusiasm for its possibilities but only when these were\nplaced in contrast with its actualities. It has appeared to be so evilly\ndisposed that the business of morality was to prune and curb it; it\nwould be thought better of if it could be replaced by something else. It\nhas been supposed that morality would be quite superfluous were it not\nfor the inherent weakness, bordering on depravity, of human nature. Some\nwriters with a more genial conception have attributed the current\nblackening to theologians who have thought to honor the divine by\ndisparaging the human. Theologians have doubtless taken a gloomier view\nof man than have pagans and secularists. But this explanation doesn't\ntake us far. For after all these theologians are themselves human, and\nthey would have been without influence if the human audience had not\nsomehow responded to them.\n\nMorality is largely concerned with controlling human nature. When we are\nattempting to control anything we are acutely aware of what resists us.\nSo moralists were led, perhaps, to think of human nature as evil because\nof its reluctance to yield to control, its rebelliousness under the\nyoke. But this explanation only raises another question. Why did\nmorality set up rules so foreign to human nature? The ends it insisted\nupon, the regulations it imposed, were after all outgrowths of human\nnature. Why then was human nature so averse to them? Moreover rules can\nbe obeyed and ideals realized only as they appeal to something in human\nnature and awaken in it an active response. Moral principles that exalt\nthemselves by degrading human nature are in effect committing suicide.\nOr else they involve human nature in unending civil war, and treat it as\na hopeless mess of contradictory forces.\n\nWe are forced therefore to consider the nature and origin of that\ncontrol of human nature with which morals has been occupied. And the\nfact which is forced upon us when we raise this question is the\nexistence of classes. Control has been vested in an oligarchy.\nIndifference to regulation has grown in the gap which separates the\nruled from the rulers. Parents, priests, chiefs, social censors have\nsupplied aims, aims which were foreign to those upon whom they were\nimposed, to the young, laymen, ordinary folk; a few have given and\nadministered rule, and the mass have in a passable fashion and with\nreluctance obeyed. Everybody knows that good children are those who make\nas little trouble as possible for their elders, and since most of them\ncause a good deal of annoyance they must be naughty by nature. Generally\nspeaking, good people have been those who did what they were told to do,\nand lack of eager compliance is a sign of something wrong in their\nnature.\n\nBut no matter how much men in authority have turned moral rules into an\nagency of class supremacy, any theory which attributes the origin of\nrule to deliberate design is false. To take advantage of conditions\nafter they have come into existence is one thing; to create them for the\nsake of an advantage to accrue is quite another thing. We must go back\nto the bare fact of social division into superior and inferior. To say\nthat accident produced social conditions is to perceive they were not\nproduced by intelligence. Lack of understanding of human nature is the\nprimary cause of disregard for it. Lack of insight always ends in\ndespising or else unreasoned admiration. When men had no scientific\nknowledge of physical nature they either passively submitted to it or\nsought to control it magically. What cannot be understood cannot be\nmanaged intelligently. It has to be forced into subjection from without.\nThe opaqueness of human nature to reason is equivalent to a belief in\nits intrinsic irregularity. Hence a decline in the authority of social\noligarchy was accompanied by a rise of scientific interest in human\nnature. This means that the make-up and working of human forces afford a\nbasis for moral ideas and ideals. Our science of human nature in\ncomparison with physical sciences is rudimentary, and morals which are\nconcerned with the health, efficiency and happiness of a development of\nhuman nature are correspondingly elementary. These pages are a\ndiscussion of some phases of the ethical change involved in positive\nrespect for human nature when the latter is associated with scientific\nknowledge. We may anticipate the general nature of this change through\nconsidering the evils which have resulted from severing morals from the\nactualities of human physiology and psychology. There is a pathology of\ngoodness as well as of evil; that is, of that sort of goodness which is\nnurtured by this separation. The badness of good people, for the most\npart recorded only in fiction, is the revenge taken by human nature for\nthe injuries heaped upon it in the name of morality. In the first place,\nmorals cut off from positive roots in man's nature is bound to be mainly\nnegative. Practical emphasis falls upon avoidance, escape of evil, upon\nnot doing things, observing prohibitions. Negative morals assume as many\nforms as there are types of temperament subject to it. Its commonest\nform is the protective coloration of a neutral respectability, an\ninsipidity of character. For one man who thanks God that he is not as\nother men there are a thousand to offer thanks that they are as other\nmen, sufficiently as others are to escape attention. Absence of social\nblame is the usual mark of goodness for it shows that evil has been\navoided. Blame is most readily averted by being so much like everybody\nelse that one passes unnoticed. Conventional morality is a drab\nmorality, in which the only fatal thing is to be conspicuous. If there\nbe flavor left in it, then some natural traits have somehow escaped\nbeing subdued. To be so good as to attract notice is to be priggish, too\ngood for this world. The same psychology that brands the convicted\ncriminal as forever a social outcast makes it the part of a gentleman\nnot to obtrude virtues noticeably upon others.\n\nThe Puritan is never popular, not even in a society of Puritans. In case\nof a pinch, the mass prefer to be good fellows rather than to be good\nmen. Polite vice is preferable to eccentricity and ceases to be vice.\nMorals that professedly neglect human nature end by emphasizing those\nqualities of human nature that are most commonplace and average; they\nexaggerate the herd instinct to conformity. Professional guardians of\nmorality who have been exacting with respect to themselves have accepted\navoidance of conspicuous evil as enough for the masses. One of the most\ninstructive things in all human history is the system of concessions,\ntolerances, mitigations and reprieves which the Catholic Church with its\nofficial supernatural morality has devised for the multitude. Elevation\nof the spirit above everything natural is tempered by organized leniency\nfor the frailties of flesh. To uphold an aloof realm of strictly ideal\nrealities is admitted to be possible only for a few. Protestantism,\nexcept in its most zealous forms, has accomplished the same result by a\nsharp separation between religion and morality in which a higher\njustification by faith disposes at one stroke of daily lapses into the\ngregarious morals of average conduct.\n\nThere are always ruder forceful natures who cannot tame themselves to\nthe required level of colorless conformity. To them conventional\nmorality appears as an organized futility; though they are usually\nunconscious of their own attitude since they are heartily in favor of\nmorality for the mass as making it easier to manage them. Their only\nstandard is success, putting things over, getting things done. Being\ngood is to them practically synonymous with ineffectuality; and\naccomplishment, achievement is its own justification. They know by\nexperience that much is forgiven to those who succeed, and they leave\ngoodness to the stupid, to those whom they qualify as boobs. Their\ngregarious nature finds sufficient outlet in the conspicuous tribute\nthey pay to all established institutions as guardians of ideal\ninterests, and in their denunciations of all who openly defy\nconventionalized ideals. Or they discover that they are the chosen\nagents of a higher morality and walk subject to specially ordained laws.\nHypocrisy in the sense of a deliberate covering up of a will to evil by\nloud-voiced protestations of virtue is one of the rarest of occurrences.\nBut the combination in the same person of an intensely executive nature\nwith a love of popular approval is bound, in the face of conventional\nmorality, to produce what the critical term hypocrisy.\n\nAnother reaction to the separation of morals from human nature is a\nromantic glorification of natural impulse as something superior to all\nmoral claims. There are those who lack the persistent force of the\nexecutive will to break through conventions and to use them for their\nown purposes, but who unite sensitiveness with intensity of desire.\nFastening upon the conventional element in morality, they hold that all\nmorality is a conventionality hampering to the development of\nindividuality. Although appetites are the commonest things in human\nnature, the least distinctive or individualized, they identify\nunrestraint in satisfaction of appetite with free realization of\nindividuality. They treat subjection to passion as a manifestation of\nfreedom in the degree in which it shocks the bourgeois. The urgent need\nfor a transvaluation of morals is caricatured by the notion that an\navoidance of the avoidances of conventional morals constitutes positive\nachievement. While the executive type keeps its eyes on actual\nconditions so as to manipulate them, this school abrogates objective\nintelligence in behalf of sentiment, and withdraws into little coteries\nof emancipated souls.\n\nThere are others who take seriously the idea of morals separated from\nthe ordinary actualities of humanity and who attempt to live up to it.\nSome become engrossed in spiritual egotism. They are preoccupied with\nthe state of their character, concerned for the purity of their motives\nand the goodness of their souls. The exaltation of conceit which\nsometimes accompanies this absorption can produce a corrosive inhumanity\nwhich exceeds the possibilities of any other known form of selfishness.\nIn other cases, persistent preoccupation with the thought of an ideal\nrealm breeds morbid discontent with surroundings, or induces a futile\nwithdrawal into an inner world where all facts are fair to the eye. The\nneeds of actual conditions are neglected, or dealt with in a\nhalf-hearted way, because in the light of the ideal they are so mean and\nsordid. To speak of evils, to strive seriously for change, shows a low\nmind. Or, again, the ideal becomes a refuge, an asylum, a way of escape\nfrom tiresome responsibilities. In varied ways men come to live in two\nworlds, one the actual, the other the ideal. Some are tortured by the\nsense of their irreconcilability. Others alternate between the two,\ncompensating for the strains of renunciation involved in membership in\nthe ideal realm by pleasurable excursions into the delights of the\nactual.\n\nIf we turn from concrete effects upon character to theoretical issues,\nwe single out the discussion regarding freedom of will as typical of the\nconsequences that come from separating morals from human nature. Men are\nwearied with bootless discussion, and anxious to dismiss it as a\nmetaphysical subtlety. But nevertheless it contains within itself the\nmost practical of all moral questions, the nature of freedom and the\nmeans of its achieving. The separation of morals from human nature leads\nto a separation of human nature in its moral aspects from the rest of\nnature, and from ordinary social habits and endeavors which are found in\nbusiness, civic life, the run of companionships and recreations. These\nthings are thought of at most as places where moral notions need to be\napplied, not as places where moral ideas are to be studied and moral\nenergies generated. In short, the severance of morals from human nature\nends by driving morals inwards from the public open out-of-doors air and\nlight of day into the obscurities and privacies of an inner life. The\nsignificance of the traditional discussion of free will is that it\nreflects precisely a separation of moral activity from nature and the\npublic life of men.\n\nOne has to turn from moral theories to the general human struggle for\npolitical, economic and religious liberty, for freedom of thought,\nspeech, assemblage and creed, to find significant reality in the\nconception of freedom of will. Then one finds himself out of the\nstiflingly close atmosphere of an inner consciousness and in the\nopen-air world. The cost of confining moral freedom to an inner region\nis the almost complete severance of ethics from politics and economics.\nThe former is regarded as summed up in edifying exhortations, and the\nlatter as connected with arts of expediency separated from larger issues\nof good.\n\nIn short, there are two schools of social reform. One bases itself upon\nthe notion of a morality which springs from an inner freedom, something\nmysteriously cooped up within personality. It asserts that the only way\nto change institutions is for men to purify their own hearts, and that\nwhen this has been accomplished, change of institutions will follow of\nitself. The other school denies the existence of any such inner power,\nand in so doing conceives that it has denied all moral freedom. It says\nthat men are made what they are by the forces of the environment, that\nhuman nature is purely malleable, and that till institutions are\nchanged, nothing can be done. Clearly this leaves the outcome as\nhopeless as does an appeal to an inner rectitude and benevolence. For it\nprovides no leverage for change of environment. It throws us back upon\naccident, usually disguised as a necessary law of history or evolution,\nand trusts to some violent change, symbolized by civil war, to usher in\nan abrupt millennium. There is an alternative to being penned in between\nthese two theories. We can recognize that all conduct is _interaction_\nbetween elements of human nature and the environment, natural and\nsocial. Then we shall see that progress proceeds in two ways, and that\nfreedom is found in that kind of interaction which maintains an\nenvironment in which human desire and choice count for something. There\nare in truth forces in man as well as without him. While they are\ninfinitely frail in comparison with exterior forces, yet they may have\nthe support of a foreseeing and contriving intelligence. When we look at\nthe problem as one of an adjustment to be intelligently attained, the\nissue shifts from within personality to an engineering issue, the\nestablishment of arts of education and social guidance.\n\nThe idea persists that there is something materialistic about natural\nscience and that morals are degraded by having anything seriously to do\nwith material things. If a sect should arise proclaiming that men ought\nto purify their lungs completely before they ever drew a breath it ought\nto win many adherents from professed moralists. For the neglect of\nsciences that deal specifically with facts of the natural and social\nenvironment leads to a side-tracking of moral forces into an unreal\nprivacy of an unreal self. It is impossible to say how much of the\nremediable suffering of the world is due to the fact that physical\nscience is looked upon as merely physical. It is impossible to say how\nmuch of the unnecessary slavery of the world is due to the conception\nthat moral issues can be settled within conscience or human sentiment\napart from consistent study of facts and application of specific\nknowledge in industry, law and politics. Outside of manufacturing and\ntransportation, science gets its chance in war. These facts perpetuate\nwar and the hardest, most brutal side of modern industry. Each sign of\ndisregard for the moral potentialities of physical science drafts the\nconscience of mankind away from concern with the interactions of man and\nnature which must be mastered if freedom is to be a reality. It diverts\nintelligence to anxious preoccupation with the unrealities of a purely\ninner life, or strengthens reliance upon outbursts of sentimental\naffection. The masses swarm to the occult for assistance. The cultivated\nsmile contemptuously. They might smile, as the saying goes, out of the\nother side of their mouths if they realized how recourse to the occult\nexhibits the practical logic of their own beliefs. For both rest upon a\nseparation of moral ideas and feelings from knowable facts of life, man\nand the world.\n\nIt is not pretended that a moral theory based upon realities of human\nnature and a study of the specific connections of these realities with\nthose of physical science would do away with moral struggle and defeat.\nIt would not make the moral life as simple a matter as wending one's way\nalong a well-lighted boulevard. All action is an invasion of the future,\nof the unknown. Conflict and uncertainty are ultimate traits. But morals\nbased upon concern with facts and deriving guidance from knowledge of\nthem would at least locate the points of effective endeavor and would\nfocus available resources upon them. It would put an end to the\nimpossible attempt to live in two unrelated worlds. It would destroy\nfixed distinction between the human and the physical, as well as that\nbetween the moral and the industrial and political. A morals based on\nstudy of human nature instead of upon disregard for it would find the\nfacts of man continuous with those of the rest of nature and would\nthereby ally ethics with physics and biology. It would find the nature\nand activities of one person coterminous with those of other human\nbeings, and therefore link ethics with the study of history, sociology,\nlaw and economics.\n\nSuch a morals would not automatically solve moral problems, nor resolve\nperplexities. But it would enable us to state problems in such forms\nthat action could be courageously and intelligently directed to their\nsolution. It would not assure us against failure, but it would render\nfailure a source of instruction. It would not protect us against the\nfuture emergence of equally serious moral difficulties, but it would\nenable us to approach the always recurring troubles with a fund of\ngrowing knowledge which would add significant values to our conduct even\nwhen we overtly failed--as we should continue to do. Until the integrity\nof morals with human nature and of both with the environment is\nrecognized, we shall be deprived of the aid of past experience to cope\nwith the most acute and deep problems of life. Accurate and extensive\nknowledge will continue to operate only in dealing with purely technical\nproblems. The intelligent acknowledgment of the continuity of nature,\nman and society will alone secure a growth of morals which will be\nserious without being fanatical, aspiring without sentimentality,\nadapted to reality without conventionality, sensible without taking the\nform of calculation of profits, idealistic without being romantic.\n\n\n\n\nPART ONE\n\nTHE PLACE OF HABIT IN CONDUCT\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nHabits may be profitably compared to physiological functions, like\nbreathing, digesting. The latter are, to be sure, involuntary, while\nhabits are acquired. But important as is this difference for many\npurposes it should not conceal the fact that habits are like functions\nin many respects, and especially in requiring the cooperation of\norganism and environment. Breathing is an affair of the air as truly as\nof the lungs; digesting an affair of food as truly as of tissues of\nstomach. Seeing involves light just as certainly as it does the eye and\noptic nerve. Walking implicates the ground as well as the legs; speech\ndemands physical air and human companionship and audience as well as\nvocal organs. We may shift from the biological to the mathematical use\nof the word function, and say that natural operations like breathing\nand digesting, acquired ones like speech and honesty, are functions of\nthe surroundings as truly as of a person. They are things done _by_ the\nenvironment by means of organic structures or acquired dispositions. The\nsame air that under certain conditions ruffles the pool or wrecks\nbuildings, under other conditions purifies the blood and conveys\nthought. The outcome depends upon what air acts upon. The social\nenvironment acts through native impulses and speech and moral habitudes\nmanifest themselves. There are specific good reasons for the usual\nattribution of acts to the person from whom they immediately proceed.\nBut to convert this special reference into a belief of exclusive\nownership is as misleading as to suppose that breathing and digesting\nare complete within the human body. To get a rational basis for moral\ndiscussion we must begin with recognizing that functions and habits are\nways of using and incorporating the environment in which the latter has\nits say as surely as the former.\n\nWe may borrow words from a context less technical than that of biology,\nand convey the same idea by saying that habits are arts. They involve\nskill of sensory and motor organs, cunning or craft, and objective\nmaterials. They assimilate objective energies, and eventuate in command\nof environment. They require order, discipline, and manifest technique.\nThey have a beginning, middle and end. Each stage marks progress in\ndealing with materials and tools, advance in converting material to\nactive use. We should laugh at any one who said that he was master of\nstone working, but that the art was cooped up within himself and in no\nwise dependent upon support from objects and assistance from tools.\n\nIn morals we are however quite accustomed to such a fatuity. Moral\ndispositions are thought of as belonging exclusively to a self. The self\nis thereby isolated from natural and social surroundings. A whole school\nof morals flourishes upon capital drawn from restricting morals to\ncharacter and then separating character from conduct, motives from\nactual deeds. Recognition of the analogy of moral action with functions\nand arts uproots the causes which have made morals subjective and\n\"individualistic.\" It brings morals to earth, and if they still aspire\nto heaven it is to the heavens of the earth, and not to another world.\nHonesty, chastity, malice, peevishness, courage, triviality, industry,\nirresponsibility are not private possessions of a person. They are\nworking adaptations of personal capacities with environing forces. All\nvirtues and vices are habits which incorporate objective forces. They\nare interactions of elements contributed by the make-up of an individual\nwith elements supplied by the out-door world. They can be studied as\nobjectively as physiological functions, and they can be modified by\nchange of either personal or social elements.\n\nIf an individual were alone in the world, he would form his habits\n(assuming the impossible, namely, that he would be able to form them) in\na moral vacuum. They would belong to him alone, or to him only in\nreference to physical forces. Responsibility and virtue would be his\nalone. But since habits involve the support of environing conditions, a\nsociety or some specific group of fellow-men, is always accessory before\nand after the fact. Some activity proceeds from a man; then it sets up\nreactions in the surroundings. Others approve, disapprove, protest,\nencourage, share and resist. Even letting a man alone is a definite\nresponse. Envy, admiration and imitation are complicities. Neutrality is\nnon-existent. Conduct is always shared; this is the difference between\nit and a physiological process. It is not an ethical \"ought\" that\nconduct _should_ be social. It _is_ social, whether bad or good.\n\nWashing one's hands of the guilt of others is a way of sharing guilt so\nfar as it encourages in others a vicious way of action. Non-resistance\nto evil which takes the form of paying no attention to it is a way of\npromoting it. The desire of an individual to keep his own conscience\nstainless by standing aloof from badness may be a sure means of causing\nevil and thus of creating personal responsibility for it. Yet there are\ncircumstances in which passive resistance may be the most effective form\nof nullification of wrong action, or in which heaping coals of fire on\nthe evil-doer may be the most effective way of transforming conduct. To\nsentimentalize over a criminal--to \"forgive\" because of a glow of\nfeeling--is to incur liability for production of criminals. But to\nsuppose that infliction of retributive suffering suffices, without\nreference to concrete consequences, is to leave untouched old causes of\ncriminality and to create new ones by fostering revenge and brutality.\nThe abstract theory of justice which demands the \"vindication\" of law\nirrespective of instruction and reform of the wrong-doer is as much a\nrefusal to recognize responsibility as is the sentimental gush which\nmakes a suffering victim out of a criminal.\n\nCourses of action which put the blame exclusively on a person as if his\nevil will were the sole cause of wrong-doing and those which condone\noffense on account of the share of social conditions in producing bad\ndisposition, are equally ways of making an unreal separation of man from\nhis surroundings, mind from the world. Causes for an act always exist,\nbut causes are not excuses. Questions of causation are physical, not\nmoral except when they concern future consequences. It is as causes of\nfuture actions that excuses and accusations alike must be considered. At\npresent we give way to resentful passion, and then \"rationalize\" our\nsurrender by calling it a vindication of justice. Our entire tradition\nregarding punitive justice tends to prevent recognition of social\npartnership in producing crime; it falls in with a belief in\nmetaphysical free-will. By killing an evil-doer or shutting him up\nbehind stone walls, we are enabled to forget both him and our part in\ncreating him. Society excuses itself by laying the blame on the\ncriminal; he retorts by putting the blame on bad early surroundings, the\ntemptations of others, lack of opportunities, and the persecutions of\nofficers of the law. Both are right, except in the wholesale character\nof their recriminations. But the effect on both sides is to throw the\nwhole matter back into antecedent causation, a method which refuses to\nbring the matter to truly moral judgment. For morals has to do with acts\nstill within our control, acts still to be performed. No amount of guilt\non the part of the evil-doer absolves us from responsibility for the\nconsequences upon him and others of our way of treating him, or from our\ncontinuing responsibility for the conditions under which persons develop\nperverse habits.\n\nWe need to discriminate between the physical and the moral question. The\nformer concerns what _has_ happened, and how it happened. To consider\nthis question is indispensable to morals. Without an answer to it we\ncannot tell what forces are at work nor how to direct our actions so as\nto improve conditions. Until we know the conditions which have helped\nform the characters we approve and disapprove, our efforts to create the\none and do away with the other will be blind and halting. But the moral\nissue concerns the future. It is prospective. To content ourselves with\npronouncing judgments of merit and demerit without reference to the fact\nthat our judgments are themselves facts which have consequences and that\ntheir value depends upon _their_ consequences, is complacently to dodge\nthe moral issue, perhaps even to indulge ourselves in pleasurable\npassion just as the person we condemn once indulged himself. The moral\nproblem is that of modifying the factors which now influence future\nresults. To change the working character or will of another we have to\nalter objective conditions which enter into his habits. Our own schemes\nof judgment, of assigning blame and praise, of awarding punishment and\nhonor, are part of these conditions.\n\nIn practical life, there are many recognitions of the part played by\nsocial factors in generating personal traits. One of them is our\nhabit of making social classifications. We attribute distinctive\ncharacteristics to rich and poor, slum-dweller and captain of\nindustry, rustic and suburbanite, officials, politicians, professors,\nto members of races, sets and parties. These judgments are usually too\ncoarse to be of much use. But they show our practical awareness that\npersonal traits are functions of social situations. When we generalize\nthis perception and act upon it intelligently we are committed by it\nto recognize that we change character from worse to better only by\nchanging conditions--among which, once more, are our own ways of\ndealing with the one we judge. We cannot change habit directly: that\nnotion is magic. But we can change it indirectly by modifying\nconditions, by an intelligent selecting and weighting of the objects\nwhich engage attention and which influence the fulfilment of desires.\n\nA savage can travel after a fashion in a jungle. Civilized activity is\ntoo complex to be carried on without smoothed roads. It requires signals\nand junction points; traffic authorities and means of easy and rapid\ntransportation. It demands a congenial, antecedently prepared\nenvironment. Without it, civilization would relapse into barbarism in\nspite of the best of subjective intention and internal good disposition.\nThe eternal dignity of labor and art lies in their effecting that\npermanent reshaping of environment which is the substantial foundation\nof future security and progress. Individuals flourish and wither away\nlike the grass of the fields. But the fruits of their work endure and\nmake possible the development of further activities having fuller\nsignificance. It is of grace not of ourselves that we lead civilized\nlives. There is sound sense in the old pagan notion that gratitude is\nthe root of all virtue. Loyalty to whatever in the established\nenvironment makes a life of excellence possible is the beginning of all\nprogress. The best we can accomplish for posterity is to transmit\nunimpaired and with some increment of meaning the environment that makes\nit possible to maintain the habits of decent and refined life. Our\nindividual habits are links in forming the endless chain of humanity.\nTheir significance depends upon the environment inherited from our\nforerunners, and it is enhanced as we foresee the fruits of our labors\nin the world in which our successors live.\n\nFor however much has been done, there always remains more to do. We can\nretain and transmit our own heritage only by constant remaking of our\nown environment. Piety to the past is not for its own sake nor for the\nsake of the past, but for the sake of a present so secure and enriched\nthat it will create a yet better future. Individuals with their\nexhortations, their preachings and scoldings, their inner aspirations\nand sentiments have disappeared, but their habits endure, because these\nhabits incorporate objective conditions in themselves. So will it be\nwith _our_ activities. We may desire abolition of war, industrial\njustice, greater equality of opportunity for all. But no amount of\npreaching good will or the golden rule or cultivation of sentiments of\nlove and equity will accomplish the results. There must be change in\nobjective arrangements and institutions. We must work on the environment\nnot merely on the hearts of men. To think otherwise is to suppose that\nflowers can be raised in a desert or motor cars run in a jungle. Both\nthings can happen and without a miracle. But only by first changing the\njungle and desert.\n\nYet the distinctively personal or subjective factors in habit count.\nTaste for flowers may be the initial step in building reservoirs and\nirrigation canals. The stimulation of desire and effort is one\npreliminary in the change of surroundings. While personal exhortation,\nadvice and instruction is a feeble stimulus compared with that which\nsteadily proceeds from the impersonal forces and depersonalized\nhabitudes of the environment, yet they may start the latter going.\nTaste, appreciation and effort always spring from some accomplished\nobjective situation. They have objective support; they represent the\nliberation of something formerly accomplished so that it is useful in\nfurther operation. A genuine appreciation of the beauty of flowers is\nnot generated within a self-enclosed consciousness. It reflects a world\nin which beautiful flowers have already grown and been enjoyed. Taste\nand desire represent a prior objective fact recurring in action to\nsecure perpetuation and extension. Desire for flowers comes after actual\nenjoyment of flowers. But it comes before the work that makes the desert\nblossom, it comes before _cultivation_ of plants. Every ideal is\npreceded by an actuality; but the ideal is more than a repetition in\ninner image of the actual. It projects in securer and wider and fuller\nform some good which has been previously experienced in a precarious,\naccidental, fleeting way.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nIt is a significant fact that in order to appreciate the peculiar place\nof habit in activity we have to betake ourselves to bad habits, foolish\nidling, gambling, addiction to liquor and drugs. When we think of such\nhabits, the union of habit with desire and with propulsive power is\nforced upon us. When we think of habits in terms of walking, playing a\nmusical instrument, typewriting, we are much given to thinking of habits\nas technical abilities existing apart from our likings and as lacking in\nurgent impulsion. We think of them as passive tools waiting to be called\ninto action from without. A bad habit suggests an inherent tendency to\naction and also a hold, command over us. It makes us do things we are\nashamed of, things which we tell ourselves we prefer not to do. It\noverrides our formal resolutions, our conscious decisions. When we are\nhonest with ourselves we acknowledge that a habit has this power because\nit is so intimately a part of ourselves. It has a hold upon us because\nwe are the habit.\n\nOur self-love, our refusal to face facts, combined perhaps with a sense\nof a possible better although unrealized self, leads us to eject the\nhabit from the thought of ourselves and conceive it as an evil power\nwhich has somehow overcome us. We feed our conceit by recalling that the\nhabit was not deliberately formed; we never intended to become idlers or\ngamblers or rou\u00e8s. And how can anything be deeply ourselves which\ndeveloped accidentally, without set intention? These traits of a bad\nhabit are precisely the things which are most instructive about all\nhabits and about ourselves. They teach us that all habits are\naffections, that all have projectile power, and that a predisposition\nformed by a number of specific acts is an immensely more intimate and\nfundamental part of ourselves than are vague, general, conscious\nchoices. All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they\nconstitute the self. In any intelligible sense of the word will, they\n_are_ will. They form our effective desires and they furnish us with our\nworking capacities. They rule our thoughts, determining which shall\nappear and be strong and which shall pass from light into obscurity.\n\nWe may think of habits as means, waiting, like tools in a box, to be\nused by conscious resolve. But they are something more than that. They\nare active means, means that project themselves, energetic and\ndominating ways of acting. We need to distinguish between materials,\ntools and means proper. Nails and boards are not strictly speaking means\nof a box. They are only materials for making it. Even the saw and hammer\nare means only when they are employed in some actual making. Otherwise\nthey are tools, or potential means. They are actual means only when\nbrought in conjunction with eye, arm and hand in some specific\noperation. And eye, arm and hand are, correspondingly, means proper only\nwhen they are in active operation. And whenever they are in action they\nare cooperating with external materials and energies. Without support\nfrom beyond themselves the eye stares blankly and the hand moves\nfumblingly. They are means only when they enter into organization with\nthings which independently accomplish definite results. These\norganizations are habits.\n\nThis fact cuts two ways. Except in a contingent sense, with an \"if,\"\nneither external materials nor bodily and mental organs are in\nthemselves means. They have to be employed in coordinated conjunction\nwith one another to be actual means, or habits. This statement may seem\nlike the formulation in technical language of a common-place. But belief\nin magic has played a large part in human history. And the essence of\nall hocus-pocus is the supposition that results can be accomplished\nwithout the joint adaptation to each other of human powers and physical\nconditions. A desire for rain may induce men to wave willow branches and\nto sprinkle water. The reaction is natural and innocent. But men then go\non to believe that their act has immediate power to bring rain without\nthe cooperation of intermediate conditions of nature. This is magic;\nwhile it may be natural or spontaneous, it is not innocent. It obstructs\nintelligent study of operative conditions and wastes human desire and\neffort in futilities.\n\nBelief in magic did not cease when the coarser forms of superstitious\npractice ceased. The principle of magic is found whenever it is hoped to\nget results without intelligent control of means; and also when it is\nsupposed that means can exist and yet remain inert and inoperative. In\nmorals and politics such expectations still prevail, and in so far the\nmost important phases of human action are still affected by magic. We\nthink that by feeling strongly enough about something, by wishing hard\nenough, we can get a desirable result, such as virtuous execution of a\ngood resolve, or peace among nations, or good will in industry. We slur\nover the necessity of the cooperative action of objective conditions,\nand the fact that this cooperation is assured only by persistent and\nclose study. Or, on the other hand, we fancy we can get these results by\nexternal machinery, by tools or potential means, without a corresponding\nfunctioning of human desires and capacities. Often times these two false\nand contradictory beliefs are combined in the same person. The man who\nfeels that _his_ virtues are his own personal accomplishments is likely\nto be also the one who thinks that by passing laws he can throw the fear\nof God into others and make them virtuous by edict and prohibitory\nmandate.\n\nRecently a friend remarked to me that there was one superstition current\namong even cultivated persons. They suppose that if one is told what to\ndo, if the right _end_ is pointed to them, all that is required in order\nto bring about the right act is will or wish on the part of the one who\nis to act. He used as an illustration the matter of physical posture;\nthe assumption is that if a man is told to stand up straight, all that\nis further needed is wish and effort on his part, and the deed is done.\nHe pointed out that this belief is on a par with primitive magic in its\nneglect of attention to the means which are involved in reaching an end.\nAnd he went on to say that the prevalence of this belief, starting with\nfalse notions about the control of the body and extending to control of\nmind and character, is the greatest bar to intelligent social progress.\nIt bars the way because it makes us neglect intelligent inquiry to\ndiscover the means which will produce a desired result, and intelligent\ninvention to procure the means. In short, it leaves out the importance\nof intelligently controlled habit.\n\nWe may cite his illustration of the real nature of a physical aim or\norder and its execution in its contrast with the current false\nnotion.[1] A man who has a bad habitual posture tells himself, or is\ntold, to stand up straight. If he is interested and responds, he braces\nhimself, goes through certain movements, and it is assumed that the\ndesired result is substantially attained; and that the position is\nretained at least as long as the man keeps the idea or order in his\nmind. Consider the assumptions which are here made. It is implied that\nthe means or effective conditions of the realization of a purpose exist\nindependently of established habit and even that they may be set in\nmotion in opposition to habit. It is assumed that means are there, so\nthat the failure to stand erect is wholly a matter of failure of purpose\nand desire. It needs paralysis or a broken leg or some other equally\ngross phenomenon to make us appreciate the importance of objective\nconditions.\n\n [1] I refer to Alexander, \"Man's Supreme Inheritance.\"\n\nNow in fact a man who _can_ stand properly does so, and only a man who\ncan, does. In the former case, fiats of will are unnecessary, and in the\nlatter useless. A man who does not stand properly forms a habit of\nstanding improperly, a positive, forceful habit. The common implication\nthat his mistake is merely negative, that he is simply failing to do the\nright thing, and that the failure can be made good by an order of will\nis absurd. One might as well suppose that the man who is a slave of\nwhiskey-drinking is merely one who fails to drink water. Conditions have\nbeen formed for producing a bad result, and the bad result will occur as\nlong as those conditions exist. They can no more be dismissed by a\ndirect effort of will than the conditions which create drought can be\ndispelled by whistling for wind. It is as reasonable to expect a fire to\ngo out when it is ordered to stop burning as to suppose that a man can\nstand straight in consequence of a direct action of thought and desire.\nThe fire can be put out only by changing objective conditions; it is the\nsame with rectification of bad posture.\n\nOf course something happens when a man acts upon his idea of standing\nstraight. For a little while, he stands differently, but only a\ndifferent kind of badly. He then takes the unaccustomed feeling which\naccompanies his unusual stand as evidence that he is now standing right.\nBut there are many ways of standing badly, and he has simply shifted his\nusual way to a compensatory bad way at some opposite extreme. When we\nrealize this fact, we are likely to suppose that it exists because\ncontrol of the _body_ is physical and hence is external to mind and\nwill. Transfer the command inside character and mind, and it is fancied\nthat an idea of an end and the desire to realize it will take immediate\neffect. After we get to the point of recognizing that habits must\nintervene between wish and execution in the case of bodily acts, we\nstill cherish the illusions that they can be dispensed with in the case\nof mental and moral acts. Thus the net result is to make us sharpen the\ndistinction between non-moral and moral activities, and to lead us to\nconfine the latter strictly within a private, immaterial realm. But in\nfact, formation of ideas as well as their execution depends upon habit.\n_If_ we could form a correct idea without a correct habit, then possibly\nwe could carry it out irrespective of habit. But a wish gets definite\nform only in connection with an idea, and an idea gets shape and\nconsistency only when it has a habit back of it. Only when a man can\nalready perform an act of standing straight does he know what it is like\nto have a right posture and only then can he summon the idea required\nfor proper execution. The act must come before the thought, and a habit\nbefore an ability to evoke the thought at will. Ordinary psychology\nreverses the actual state of affairs.\n\nIdeas, thoughts of ends, are not spontaneously generated. There is no\nimmaculate conception of meanings or purposes. Reason pure of all\ninfluence from prior habit is a fiction. But pure sensations out of\nwhich ideas can be framed apart from habit are equally fictitious. The\nsensations and ideas which are the \"stuff\" of thought and purpose are\nalike affected by habits manifested in the acts which give rise to\nsensations and meanings. The dependence of thought, or the more\nintellectual factor in our conceptions, upon prior experience is usually\nadmitted. But those who attack the notion of thought pure from the\ninfluence of experience, usually identify experience with sensations\nimpressed upon an empty mind. They therefore replace the theory of\nunmixed thoughts with that of pure unmixed sensations as the stuff of\nall conceptions, purposes and beliefs. But distinct and independent\nsensory qualities, far from being original elements, are the products of\na highly skilled analysis which disposes of immense technical scientific\nresources. To be able to single out a definitive sensory element in any\nfield is evidence of a high degree of previous training, that is, of\nwell-formed habits. A moderate amount of observation of a child will\nsuffice to reveal that even such gross discriminations as black, white,\nred, green, are the result of some years of active dealings with things\nin the course of which habits have been set up. It is not such a simple\nmatter to have a clear-cut sensation. The latter is a sign of training,\nskill, habit.\n\nAdmission that the idea of, say, standing erect is dependent upon\nsensory materials is, therefore equivalent to recognition that it is\ndependent upon the habitual attitudes which govern concrete sensory\nmaterials. The medium of habit filters all the material that reaches our\nperception and thought. The filter is not, however, chemically pure. It\nis a reagent which adds new qualities and rearranges what is received.\nOur ideas truly depend upon experience, but so do our sensations. And\nthe experience upon which they both depend is the operation of\nhabits--originally of instincts. Thus our purposes and commands\nregarding action (whether physical or moral) come to us through the\nrefracting medium of bodily and moral habits. Inability to think aright\nis sufficiently striking to have caught the attention of moralists. But\na false psychology has led them to interpret it as due to a necessary\nconflict of flesh and spirit, not as an indication that our ideas are as\ndependent, to say the least, upon our habits as are our acts upon our\nconscious thoughts and purposes.\n\nOnly the man who can maintain a correct posture has the stuff out of\nwhich to form that idea of standing erect which can be the starting\npoint of a right act. Only the man whose habits are already good can\nknow what the good is. Immediate, seemingly instinctive, feeling of the\ndirection and end of various lines of behavior is in reality the feeling\nof habits working below direct consciousness. The psychology of\nillusions of perception is full of illustrations of the distortion\nintroduced by habit into observation of objects. The same fact accounts\nfor the intuitive element in judgments of action, an element which is\nvaluable or the reverse in accord with the quality of dominant habits.\nFor, as Aristotle remarked, the untutored moral perceptions of a good\nman are usually trustworthy, those of a bad character, not. (But he\nshould have added that the influence of social custom as well as\npersonal habit has to be taken into account in estimating who is the\ngood man and the good judge.)\n\nWhat is true of the dependence of execution of an idea upon habit is\ntrue, then, of the formation and quality of the idea. Suppose that by a\nhappy chance a right concrete idea or purpose--concrete, not simply\ncorrect in words--has been hit upon: What happens when one with an\nincorrect habit tries to act in accord with it? Clearly the idea can be\ncarried into execution only with a mechanism already there. If this is\ndefective or perverted, the best intention in the world will yield bad\nresults. In the case of no other engine does one suppose that a\ndefective machine will turn out good goods simply because it is invited\nto. Everywhere else we recognize that the design and structure of the\nagency employed tell directly upon the work done. Given a bad habit and\nthe \"will\" or mental direction to get a good result, and the actual\nhappening is a reverse or looking-glass manifestation of the usual\nfault--a compensatory twist in the opposite direction. Refusal to\nrecognize this fact only leads to a separation of mind from body, and to\nsupposing that mental or \"psychical\" mechanisms are different in kind\nfrom those of bodily operations and independent of them. So deep seated\nis this notion that even so \"scientific\" a theory as modern\npsycho-analysis thinks that mental habits can be straightened out by\nsome kind of purely psychical manipulation without reference to the\ndistortions of sensation and perception which are due to bad bodily\nsets. The other side of the error is found in the notion of \"scientific\"\nnerve physiologists that it is only necessary to locate a particular\ndiseased cell or local lesion, independent of the whole complex of\norganic habits, in order to rectify conduct.\n\nMeans are means; they are intermediates, middle terms. To grasp this\nfact is to have done with the ordinary dualism of means and ends. The\n\"end\" is merely a series of acts viewed at a remote stage; and a means\nis merely the series viewed at an earlier one. The distinction of means\nand end arises in surveying the _course_ of a proposed _line_ of action,\na connected series in time. The \"end\" is the last act thought of; the\nmeans are the acts to be performed prior to it in time. To _reach_ an\nend we must take our mind off from it and attend to the act which is\nnext to be performed. We must make that the end. The only exception to\nthis statement is in cases where customary habit determines the course\nof the series. Then all that is wanted is a cue to set it off. But when\nthe proposed end involves any deviation from usual action, or any\nrectification of it--as in the case of standing straight--then the main\nthing is to find some act which is different from the usual one. The\ndiscovery and performance of this unaccustomed act is the \"end\" to which\nwe must devote all attention. Otherwise we shall simply do the old thing\nover again, no matter what is our conscious command. The only way of\naccomplishing this discovery is through a flank movement. We must stop\neven thinking of standing up straight. To think of it is fatal, for it\ncommits us to the operation of an established habit of standing wrong.\nWe must find an act within our power which is disconnected from any\nthought about standing. We must start to do another thing which on one\nside inhibits our falling into the customary bad position and on the\nother side is the beginning of a series of acts which may lead into the\ncorrect posture.[2] The hard-drinker who keeps thinking of not drinking\nis doing what he can to initiate the acts which lead to drinking. He is\nstarting with the stimulus to his habit. To succeed he must find some\npositive interest or line of action which will inhibit the drinking\nseries and which by instituting another course of action will bring him\nto his desired end. In short, the man's true aim is to discover some\ncourse of action, having nothing to do with the habit of drink or\nstanding erect, which will take him where he wants to go. The discovery\nof this other series is at once his means and his end. Until one takes\nintermediate acts seriously enough to treat them as ends, one wastes\none's time in any effort at change of habits. Of the intermediate acts,\nthe most important is the _next_ one. The first or earliest means is the\nmost important _end_ to discover.\n\n [2]The technique of this process is stated in the book of Mr.\n Alexander already referred to, and the theoretical statement\n given is borrowed from Mr. Alexander's analysis.\n\nMeans and ends are two names for the same reality. The terms denote not\na division in reality but a distinction in judgment. Without\nunderstanding this fact we cannot understand the nature of habits nor\ncan we pass beyond the usual separation of the moral and non-moral in\nconduct. \"End\" is a name for a series of acts taken collectively--like\nthe term army. \"Means\" is a name for the same series taken\ndistributively--like this soldier, that officer. To think of the end\nsignifies to extend and enlarge our view of the act to be performed. It\nmeans to look at the next act in perspective, not permitting it to\noccupy the entire field of vision. To bear the end in mind signifies\nthat we should not stop thinking about our _next_ act until we form some\nreasonably clear idea of the _course_ of action to which it commits us.\nTo attain a remote end means on the other hand to treat the end as a\nseries of means. To say that an end is remote or distant, to say in fact\nthat it is an end at all, is equivalent to saying that obstacles\nintervene between us and it. If, however, it remains a distant end, it\nbecomes a _mere_ end, that is a dream. As soon as we have projected it,\nwe must begin to work backward in thought. We must change _what_ is to\nbe done into a _how_, the means whereby. The end thus re-appears as a\nseries of \"what nexts,\" and the what next of chief importance is the one\nnearest the present state of the one acting. Only as the end is\nconverted into means is it definitely conceived, or intellectually\ndefined, to say nothing of being executable. Just as end, it is vague,\ncloudy, impressionistic. We do not _know_ what we are really after until\na _course_ of action is mentally worked out. Aladdin with his lamp could\ndispense with translating ends into means, but no one else can do so.\n\nNow the thing which is closest to us, the means within our power, is a\nhabit. Some habit impeded by circumstances is the source of the\nprojection of the end. It is also the primary means in its realization.\nThe habit is propulsive and moves anyway toward some end, or result,\nwhether it is projected as an end-in-view or not. The man who can walk\ndoes walk; the man who can talk does converse--if only with himself. How\nis this statement to be reconciled with the fact that we are not always\nwalking and talking; that our habits seem so often to be latent,\ninoperative? Such inactivity holds only of _overt_, visibly obvious\noperation. In actuality each habit operates all the time of waking life;\nthough like a member of a crew taking his turn at the wheel, its\noperation becomes the dominantly characteristic trait of an act only\noccasionally or rarely.\n\nThe habit of walking is expressed in what a man sees when he keeps\nstill, even in dreams. The recognition of distances and directions of\nthings from his place at rest is the obvious proof of this statement.\nThe habit of locomotion is latent in the sense that it is covered up,\ncounteracted, by a habit of seeing which is definitely at the fore. But\ncounteraction is not suppression. Locomotion is a potential energy, not\nin any metaphysical sense, but in the physical sense in which potential\nenergy as well as kinetic has to be taken account of in any scientific\ndescription. Everything that a man who has the habit of locomotion does\nand thinks he does and thinks differently on that account. This fact is\nrecognized in current psychology, but is falsified into an association\nof sensations. Were it not for the continued operation of all habits in\nevery act, no such thing as character could exist. There would be simply\na bundle, an untied bundle at that, of isolated acts. Character is the\ninterpenetration of habits. If each habit existed in an insulated\ncompartment and operated without affecting or being affected by others,\ncharacter would not exist. That is, conduct would lack unity being only\na juxtaposition of disconnected reactions to separated situations. But\nsince environments overlap, since situations are continuous and those\nremote from one another contain like elements, a continuous modification\nof habits by one another is constantly going on. A man may give himself\naway in a look or a gesture. Character can be read through the medium of\nindividual acts.\n\nOf course interpenetration is never total. It is most marked in what we\ncall strong characters. Integration is an achievement rather than a\ndatum. A weak, unstable, vacillating character is one in which different\nhabits alternate with one another rather than embody one another. The\nstrength, solidity of a habit is not its own possession but is due to\nreinforcement by the force of other habits which it absorbs into itself.\nRoutine specialization always works against interpenetration. Men with\n\"pigeon-hole\" minds are not infrequent. Their diverse standards and\nmethods of judgment for scientific, religious, political matters testify\nto isolated compartmental habits of action. Character that is unable to\nundergo successfully the strain of thought and effort required to bring\ncompeting tendencies into a unity, builds up barriers between different\nsystems of likes and dislikes. The emotional stress incident to conflict\nis avoided not by readjustment but by effort at confinement. Yet the\nexception proves the rule. Such persons are successful in keeping\ndifferent ways of reacting apart from one another in consciousness\nrather than in action. Their character is marked by stigmata resulting\nfrom this division.\n\nThe mutual modification of habits by one another enables us to define\nthe nature of the moral situation. It is not necessary nor advisable to\nbe always considering the interaction of habits with one another, that\nis to say the effect of a particular habit upon character--which is a\nname for the total interaction. Such consideration distracts attention\nfrom the problem of building up an effective habit. A man who is\nlearning French, or chess-playing or engineering has his hands full with\nhis particular occupation. He would be confused and hampered by constant\ninquiry into its effect upon character. He would resemble the centipede\nwho by trying to think of the movement of each leg in relation to all\nthe others was rendered unable to travel. At any given time, certain\nhabits must be taken for granted as a matter of course. Their operation\nis not a matter of moral judgment. They are treated as technical,\nrecreational, professional, hygienic or economic or esthetic rather than\nmoral. To lug in morals, or ulterior effect on character at every point,\nis to cultivate moral valetudinarianism or priggish posing. Nevertheless\nany act, even that one which passes ordinarily as trivial, may entail\nsuch consequences for habit and character as upon occasion to require\njudgment from the standpoint of the whole body of conduct. It then comes\nunder moral scrutiny. To know when to leave acts without distinctive\nmoral judgment and when to subject them to it is itself a large factor\nin morality. The serious matter is that this relative pragmatic, or\nintellectual, distinction between the moral and non-moral, has been\nsolidified into a fixed and absolute distinction, so that some acts are\npopularly regarded as forever within and others forever without the\nmoral domain. From this fatal error recognition of the relations of one\nhabit to others preserves us. For it makes us see that character is the\nname given to the working interaction of habits, and that the cumulative\neffect of insensible modifications worked by a particular habit in the\nbody of preferences may at any moment require attention.\n\nThe word habit may seem twisted somewhat from its customary use when\nemployed as we have been using it. But we need a word to express that\nkind of human activity which is influenced by prior activity and in that\nsense acquired; which contains within itself a certain ordering or\nsystematization of minor elements of action; which is projective,\ndynamic in quality, ready for overt manifestation; and which is\noperative in some subdued subordinate form even when not obviously\ndominating activity. Habit even in its ordinary usage comes nearer to\ndenoting these facts than any other word. If the facts are recognized we\nmay also use the words attitude and disposition. But unless we have\nfirst made clear to ourselves the facts which have been set forth under\nthe name of habit, these words are more likely to be misleading than is\nthe word habit. For the latter conveys explicitly the sense of\noperativeness, actuality. Attitude and, as ordinarily used, disposition\nsuggest something latent, potential, something which requires a positive\nstimulus outside themselves to become active. If we perceive that they\ndenote positive forms of action which are released merely through\nremoval of some counteracting \"inhibitory\" tendency, and then become\novert, we may employ them instead of the word habit to denote subdued,\nnon-patent forms of the latter.\n\nIn this case, we must bear in mind that the word disposition means\npredisposition, readiness to act overtly in a specific fashion whenever\nopportunity is presented, this opportunity consisting in removal of the\npressure due to the dominance of some overt habit; and that attitude\nmeans some special case of a predisposition, the disposition waiting as\nit were to spring through an opened door. While it is admitted that the\nword habit has been used in a somewhat broader sense than is usual, we\nmust protest against the tendency in psychological literature to limit\nits meaning to repetition. This usage is much less in accord with\npopular usage than is the wider way in which we have used the word. It\nassumes from the start the identity of habit with routine. Repetition is\nin no sense the essence of habit. Tendency to repeat acts is an incident\nof many habits but not of all. A man with the habit of giving way to\nanger may show his habit by a murderous attack upon some one who has\noffended. His act is nonetheless due to habit because it occurs only\nonce in his life. The essence of habit is an acquired predisposition to\n_ways_ or modes of response, not to particular acts except as, under\nspecial conditions, these express a way of behaving. Habit means special\nsensitiveness or accessibility to certain classes of stimuli, standing\npredilections and aversions, rather than bare recurrence of specific\nacts. It means will.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe dynamic force of habit taken in connection with the continuity of\nhabits with one another explains the unity of character and conduct, or\nspeaking more concretely of motive and act, will and deed. Moral\ntheories have frequently separated these things from each other. One\ntype of theory, for example, has asserted that only will, disposition,\nmotive counts morally; that acts are external, physical, accidental;\nthat moral good is different from goodness in act since the latter is\nmeasured by consequences, while moral good or virtue is intrinsic,\ncomplete in itself, a jewel shining by its own light--a somewhat\ndangerous metaphor however. The other type of theory has asserted that\nsuch a view is equivalent to saying that all that is necessary to be\nvirtuous is to cultivate states of feeling; that a premium is put on\ndisregard of the actual consequences of conduct, and agents are deprived\nof any objective criterion for the rightness and wrongness of acts,\nbeing thrown back on their own whims, prejudices and private\npeculiarities. Like most opposite extremes in philosophic theories, the\ntwo theories suffer from a common mistake. Both of them ignore the\nprojective force of habit and the implication of habits in one another.\nHence they separate a unified deed into two disjoined parts, an inner\ncalled motive and an outer called act.\n\nThe doctrine that the chief good of man is good will easily wins\nacceptance from honest men. For common-sense employs a juster psychology\nthan either of the theories just mentioned. By will, common-sense\nunderstands something practical and moving. It understands the body of\nhabits, of active dispositions which makes a man do what he does. Will\nis thus not something opposed to consequences or severed from them. It\nis a _cause_ of consequences; it is causation in its personal aspect,\nthe aspect immediately preceding action. It hardly seems conceivable to\npractical sense that by will is meant something which can be complete\nwithout reference to deeds prompted and results occasioned. Even the\nsophisticated specialist cannot prevent relapses from such an absurdity\nback into common-sense. Kant, who went the limit in excluding\nconsequences from moral value, was sane enough to maintain that a\nsociety of men of good will would be a society which in fact would\nmaintain social peace, freedom and cooperation. We take the will for the\ndeed not as a substitute for doing, or a form of doing nothing, but in\nthe sense that, other things being equal, the right disposition will\nproduce the right deed. For a disposition means a tendency to act, a\npotential energy needing only opportunity to become kinetic and overt.\nApart from such tendency a \"virtuous\" disposition is either hypocrisy or\nself-deceit.\n\nCommon-sense in short never loses sight wholly of the two facts which\nlimit and define a moral situation. One is that consequences fix the\nmoral quality of an act. The other is that upon the whole, or in the\nlong run but not unqualifiedly, consequences are what they are because\nof the nature of desire and disposition. Hence there is a natural\ncontempt for the morality of the \"good\" man who does not show his\ngoodness in the results of his habitual acts. But there is also an\naversion to attributing omnipotence to even the best of good\ndispositions, and hence an aversion to applying the criterion of\nconsequences unreservedly. A holiness of character which is celebrated\nonly on holy-days is unreal. A virtue of honesty, or chastity or\nbenevolence which lives upon itself apart from definite results consumes\nitself and goes up in smoke. The separation of motive from motive-force\nin action accounts both for the morbidities and futilities of the\nprofessionally good, and for the more or less subconscious contempt for\nmorality entertained by men of a strong executive habit with their\npreference for \"getting things done.\"\n\nYet there is justification for the common assumption that deeds cannot\nbe judged properly without taking their animating disposition as well as\ntheir concrete consequences into account. The reason, however, lies not\nin isolation of disposition from consequences, but in the need for\nviewing consequences broadly. _This_ act is only one of a multitude of\nacts. If we confine ourselves to the consequences of this one act we\nshall come out with a poor reckoning. Disposition is habitual,\npersistent. It shows itself therefore in many acts and in many\nconsequences. Only as we keep a running account, can we judge\ndisposition, disentangling its tendency from accidental accompaniments.\nWhen once we have got a fair idea of its tendency, we are able to place\nthe particular consequences of a single act in a wider context of\ncontinuing consequences. Thus we protect ourselves from taking as\ntrivial a habit which is serious, and from exaggerating into\nmomentousness an act which, viewed in the light of aggregate\nconsequences, is innocent. There is no need to abandon common-sense\nwhich tells us in judging acts first to inquire into disposition; but\nthere is great need that the estimate of disposition be enlightened by a\nscientific psychology. Our legal procedure, for example, wobbles between\na too tender treatment of criminality and a viciously drastic treatment\nof it. The vacillation can be remedied only as we can analyze an act in\nthe light of habits, and analyze habits in the light of education,\nenvironment and prior acts. The dawn of truly scientific criminal law\nwill come when each individual case is approached with something\ncorresponding to the complete clinical record which every competent\nphysician attempts to procure as a matter of course in dealing with his\nsubjects.\n\nConsequences include effects upon character, upon confirming and\nweakening habits, as well as tangibly obvious results. To keep an eye\nopen to these effects upon character may signify the most reasonable of\nprecautions or one of the most nauseating of practices. It may mean\nconcentration of attention upon personal rectitude in neglect of\nobjective consequences, a practice which creates a wholly unreal\nrectitude. But it may mean that the survey of objective consequences is\nduly extended in time. An act of gambling may be judged, for example, by\nits immediate overt effects, consumption of time, energy, disturbance of\nordinary monetary considerations, etc. It may also be judged by its\nconsequences upon character, setting up an enduring love of excitement,\na persistent temper of speculation, and a persistent disregard of sober,\nsteady work. To take the latter effects into account is equivalent to\ntaking a broad view of future consequences; for these dispositions\naffect future companionships, vocation and avocations, the whole tenor\nof domestic and public life.\n\nFor similar reasons, while common-sense does not run into that sharp\nopposition of virtues or moral goods and natural goods which has played\nsuch a large part in professed moralities, it does not insist upon an\nexact identity of the two. Virtues are ends because they are such\nimportant means. To be honest, courageous, kindly is to be in the way of\nproducing specific natural goods or satisfactory fulfilments. Error\ncomes into theories when the moral goods are separated from their\nconsequences and also when the attempt is made to secure an exhaustive\nand unerring identification of the two. There is a reason, valid as far\nas it goes, for distinguishing virtue as a moral good resident in\ncharacter alone, from objective consequences. As matter of fact, a\ndesirable trait of character does not always produce desirable results\nwhile good things often happen with no assistance from good will. Luck,\naccident, contingency, plays its part. The act of a good character is\ndeflected in operation, while a monomaniacal egotism may employ a desire\nfor glory and power to perform acts which satisfy crying social needs.\nReflection shows that we must supplement the conviction of the moral\nconnection between character or habit and consequences by two\nconsiderations.\n\nOne is the fact that we are inclined to take the notions of goodness in\ncharacter and goodness in results in too fixed a way. Persistent\ndisparity between virtuous disposition and actual outcome shows that we\nhave misjudged either the nature of virtue or of success. Judgments of\nboth motive and consequences are still, in the absence of methods of\nscientific analysis and continuous registration and reporting,\nrudimentary and conventional. We are inclined to wholesale judgments of\ncharacter, dividing men into goats and sheep, instead of recognizing\nthat all character is speckled, and that the problem of moral judgment\nis one of discriminating the complex of acts and habits into tendencies\nwhich are to be _specifically_ cultivated and condemned. We need to\nstudy consequences more thoroughly and keep track of them more\ncontinuously before we shall be in a position where we can pass with\nreasonable assurance upon the good and evil in either disposition or\nresults. But even when proper allowances are made, we are forcing the\npace when we assume that there is or ever can be an exact equation of\ndisposition and outcome. We have to admit the r\u00f4le of accident.\n\nWe cannot get beyond tendencies, and must perforce content ourselves\nwith judgments of tendency. The honest man, we are told, acts upon\n\"principle\" and not from considerations of expediency, that is, of\nparticular consequences. The truth in this saying is that it is not safe\nto judge the worth of a proposed act by its probable consequences in an\nisolated case. The word \"principle\" is a eulogistic cover for the fact\nof _tendency_. The word \"tendency\" is an attempt to combine two facts,\none that habits have a certain causal efficacy, the other that their\noutworking in any particular case is subject to contingencies, to\ncircumstances which are unforeseeable and which carry an act one side of\nits usual effect. In cases of doubt, there is no recourse save to stick\nto \"tendency,\" that is, to the probable effect of a habit in the long\nrun, or as we say upon the whole. Otherwise we are on the lookout for\nexceptions which favor our immediate desire. The trouble is that we are\nnot content with modest probabilities. So when we find that a good\ndisposition may work out badly, we say, as Kant did, that the\nworking-out, the consequence, has nothing to do with the moral quality\nof an act, or we strain for the impossible, and aim at some infallible\ncalculus of consequences by which to measure moral worth in each\nspecific case.\n\nHuman conceit has played a great part. It has demanded that the whole\nuniverse be judged from the standpoint of desire and disposition, or at\nleast from that of the desire and disposition of the good man. The\neffect of religion has been to cherish this conceit by making men think\nthat the universe invariably conspires to support the good and bring the\nevil to naught. By a subtle logic, the effect has been to render morals\nunreal and transcendental. For since the world of actual experience does\nnot guarantee this identity of character and outcome, it is inferred\nthat there must be some ulterior truer reality which enforces an\nequation that is violated in this life. Hence the common notion of\nanother world in which vice and virtue of character produce their exact\nmoral meed. The idea is equally found as an actuating force in Plato.\nMoral realities must be supreme. Yet they are flagrantly contradicted in\na world where a Socrates drinks the hemlock of the criminal, and where\nthe vicious occupy the seats of the mighty. Hence there must be a truer\nultimate reality in which justice is only and absolutely justice.\nSomething of the same idea lurks behind every aspiration for realization\nof abstract justice or equality or liberty. It is the source of all\n\"idealistic\" utopias and also of all wholesale pessimism and distrust of\nlife.\n\nUtilitarianism illustrates another way of mistreating the situation.\nTendency is not good enough for the utilitarians. They want a\nmathematical equation of act and consequence. Hence they make light of\nthe steady and controllable factor, the factor of disposition, and\nfasten upon just the things which are most subject to incalculable\naccident--pleasures and pains--and embark upon the hopeless enterprise\nof judging an act apart from character on the basis of definite results.\nAn honestly modest theory will stick to the probabilities of tendency,\nand not import mathematics into morals. It will be alive and sensitive\nto consequences as they actually present themselves, because it knows\nthat they give the only instruction we can procure as to the meaning of\nhabits and dispositions. But it will never assume that a moral judgment\nwhich reaches certainty is possible. We have just to do the best we can\nwith habits, the forces most under our control; and we shall have our\nhands more than full in spelling out their general tendencies without\nattempting an exact judgment upon each deed. For every habit\nincorporates within itself some part of the objective environment, and\nno habit and no amount of habits can incorporate the entire environment\nwithin itself or themselves. There will always be disparity between them\nand the results actually attained. Hence the work of intelligence in\nobserving consequences and in revising and readjusting habits, even the\nbest of good habits, can never be foregone. Consequences reveal\nunexpected potentialities in our habits whenever these habits are\nexercised in a different environment from that in which they were\nformed. The assumption of a stably uniform environment (even the\nhankering for one) expresses a fiction due to attachment to old habits.\nThe utilitarian theory of equation of acts with consequences is as much\na fiction of self-conceit as is the assumption of a fixed transcendental\nworld wherein moral ideals are eternally and immutably real. Both of\nthem deny in effect the relevancy of time, of change, to morals, while\ntime is of the essence of the moral struggle.\n\nWe thus come, by an unexpected path, upon the old question of the\nobjectivity or subjectivity of morals. Primarily they are objective. For\nwill, as we have seen, means, in the concrete, habits; and habits\nincorporate an environment within themselves. They are adjustments _of_\nthe environment, not merely _to_ it. At the same time, the environment\nis many, not one; hence will, disposition, is plural. Diversity does not\nof itself imply conflict, but it implies the possibility of conflict,\nand this possibility is realized in fact. Life, for example, involves\nthe habit of eating, which in turn involves a unification of organism\nand nature. But nevertheless this habit comes into conflict with other\nhabits which are also \"objective,\" or in equilibrium with _their_\nenvironments. Because the environment is not all of one piece, man's\nhouse is divided within itself, against itself. Honor or consideration\nfor others or courtesy conflict with hunger. Then the notion of the\ncomplete objectivity of morals gets a shock. Those who wish to maintain\nthe idea unimpaired take the road which leads to transcendentalism. The\nempirical world, they say, is indeed divided, and hence any natural\nmorality must be in conflict with itself. This self-contradiction\nhowever only points to a higher fixed reality with which a true and\nsuperior morality is alone concerned. Objectivity is saved but at the\nexpense of connection with human affairs. Our problem is to see what\nobjectivity signifies upon a naturalistic basis; how morals are\nobjective and yet secular and social. Then we may be able to decide in\nwhat crisis of experience morals become legitimately dependent upon\ncharacter or self--that is, \"subjective.\"\n\nPrior discussion points the way to the answer. A hungry man could not\nconceive food as a good unless he had actually experienced, with the\nsupport of environing conditions, food as good. The objective\nsatisfaction comes first. But he finds himself in a situation where the\ngood is denied in fact. It then lives in imagination. The habit denied\novert expression asserts itself in idea. It sets up the thought, the\nideal, of food. This thought is not what is sometimes called thought, a\npale bloodless abstraction, but is charged with the motor urgent force\nof habit. Food as a good is now subjective, personal. But it has its\nsource in objective conditions and it moves forward to new objective\nconditions. For it works to secure a change of environment so that food\nwill again be present in fact. Food is a \"subjective\" good during a\ntemporary transitional stage from one object to another.\n\nThe analogy with morals lies upon the surface. A habit impeded in overt\noperation continues nonetheless to operate. It manifests itself in\ndesireful thought, that is in an ideal or imagined object which embodies\nwithin itself the force of a frustrated habit. There is therefore demand\nfor a changed environment, a demand which can be achieved only by some\nmodification and rearrangement of old habits. Even Plato preserves an\nintimation of the natural function of ideal objects when he insists upon\ntheir value as patterns for use in reorganization of the actual scene.\nThe pity is that he could not see that patterns exist only within and\nfor the sake of reorganization, so that they, rather than empirical or\nnatural objects, are the instrumental affairs. Not seeing this, he\nconverted a function of reorganization into a metaphysical reality. If\nwe essay a technical formulation we shall say that morality becomes\nlegitimately subjective or personal when activities which once included\nobjective factors in their operation temporarily lose support from\nobjects, and yet strive to change existing conditions until they regain\na support which has been lost. It is all of a kind with the doings of a\nman, who remembering a prior satisfaction of thirst and the conditions\nunder which it occurred, digs a well. For the time being water in\nreference to his activity exists in imagination not in fact. But this\nimagination is not a self-generated, self-enclosed, psychical existence.\nIt is the persistent operation of a prior object which has been\nincorporated in effective habit. There is no miracle in the fact that an\nobject in a new context operates in a new way.\n\nOf transcendental morals, it may at least be said that they retain the\nintimation of the objective character of purposes and goods. Purely\nsubjective morals arise when the incidents of the temporary (though\nrecurrent) crisis of reorganization are taken as complete and final in\nthemselves. A self having habits and attitudes formed with the\ncooperation of objects runs ahead of immediately surrounding objects to\neffect a new equilibration. Subjective morals substitutes a self always\nset over against objects and generating its ideals independently of\nobjects, and in permanent, not transitory, opposition to them.\nAchievement, any achievement, is to it a negligible second best, a cheap\nand poor substitute for ideals that live only in the mind, a compromise\nwith actuality made from physical necessity not from moral reasons. In\ntruth, there is but a temporal episode. For a time, a self, a person,\ncarries in his own habits against the forces of the immediate\nenvironment, a good which the existing environment denies. For this self\nmoving temporarily, in isolation from objective conditions, between a\ngood, a completeness, that has been and one that it is hoped to restore\nin some new form, subjective theories have substituted an erring soul\nwandering hopelessly between a Paradise Lost in the dim past and a\nParadise to be Regained in a dim future. In reality, even when a person\nis in some respects at odds with his environment and so has to act for\nthe time being as the sole agent of a good, he in many respects is still\nsupported by objective conditions and is in possession of undisturbed\ngoods and virtues. Men do die from thirst at times, but upon the whole\nin their search for water they are sustained by other fulfilled powers.\nBut subjective morals taken wholesale sets up a solitary self without\nobjective ties and sustenance. In fact, there exists a shifting mixture\nof vice and virtue. Theories paint a world with a God in heaven and a\nDevil in hell. Moralists in short have failed to recall that a severance\nof moral desire and purpose from immediate actualities is an inevitable\nphase of activity when habits persist while the world which they have\nincorporated alters. Back of this failure lies the failure to recognize\nthat in a changing world, old habits must perforce need modification, no\nmatter how good they have been.\n\nObviously any such change can be only experimental. The lost objective\ngood persists in habit, but it can recur in objective form only through\nsome condition of affairs which has not been yet experienced, and which\ntherefore can be anticipated only uncertainly and inexactly. The\nessential point is that anticipation should at least guide as well as\nstimulate effort, that it should be a working hypothesis corrected and\ndeveloped by events as action proceeds. There was a time when men\nbelieved that each object in the external world carried its nature\nstamped upon it as a form, and that intelligence consisted in simply\ninspecting and reading off an intrinsic self-enclosed complete nature.\nThe scientific revolution which began in the seventeenth century came\nthrough a surrender of this point of view. It began with recognition\nthat every natural object is in truth an event continuous in space and\ntime with other events; and is to be _known_ only by experimental\ninquiries which will exhibit a multitude of complicated, obscure and\nminute relationships. Any observed form or object is but a challenge.\nThe case is not otherwise with ideals of justice or peace or human\nbrotherhood, or equality, or order. They too are not things\nself-enclosed to be known by introspection, as objects were once\nsupposed to be known by rational insight. Like thunderbolts and\ntubercular disease and the rainbow they can be known only by extensive\nand minute observation of consequences incurred in action. A false\npsychology of an isolated self and a subjective morality shuts out from\nmorals the things important to it, acts and habits in their objective\nconsequences. At the same time it misses the point characteristic of the\npersonal subjective aspect of morality: the significance of desire and\nthought in breaking down old rigidities of habit and preparing the way\nfor acts that re-create an environment.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nWe often fancy that institutions, social custom, collective habit, have\nbeen formed by the consolidation of individual habits. In the main this\nsupposition is false to fact. To a considerable extent customs, or\nwide-spread uniformities of habit, exist because individuals face the\nsame situation and react in like fashion. But to a larger extent customs\npersist because individuals form their personal habits under conditions\nset by prior customs. An individual usually acquires the morality as he\ninherits the speech of his social group. The activities of the group are\nalready there, and some assimilation of his own acts to their pattern is\na prerequisite of a share therein, and hence of having any part in what\nis going on. Each person is born an infant, and every infant is subject\nfrom the first breath he draws and the first cry he utters to the\nattentions and demands of others. These others are not just persons in\ngeneral with minds in general. They are beings with habits, and beings\nwho upon the whole esteem the habits they have, if for no other reason\nthan that, having them, their imagination is thereby limited. The nature\nof habit is to be assertive, insistent, self-perpetuating. There is no\nmiracle in the fact that if a child learns any language he learns the\nlanguage that those about him speak and teach, especially since his\nability to speak that language is a pre-condition of his entering into\neffective connection with them, making wants known and getting them\nsatisfied. Fond parents and relatives frequently pick up a few of the\nchild's spontaneous modes of speech and for a time at least they are\nportions of the speech of the group. But the ratio which such words bear\nto the total vocabulary in use gives a fair measure of the part played\nby purely individual habit in forming custom in comparison with the part\nplayed by custom in forming individual habits. Few persons have either\nthe energy or the wealth to build private roads to travel upon. They\nfind it convenient, \"natural,\" to use the roads that are already there;\nwhile unless their private roads connect at some point with the high-way\nthey cannot build them even if they would.\n\nThese simple facts seem to me to give a simple explanation of matters\nthat are often surrounded with mystery. To talk about the priority of\n\"society\" to _the_ individual is to indulge in nonsensical metaphysics.\nBut to say that some pre-existent association of human beings is prior\nto every particular human being who is born into the world is to\nmention a commonplace. These associations are definite modes of\ninteraction of persons with one another; that is to say they form\ncustoms, institutions. There is no problem in all history so\nartificial as that of how \"individuals\" manage to form \"society.\" The\nproblem is due to the pleasure taken in manipulating concepts, and\ndiscussion goes on because concepts are kept from inconvenient contact\nwith facts. The facts of infancy and sex have only to be called to\nmind to see how manufactured are the conceptions which enter into this\nparticular problem.\n\nThe problem, however, of how those established and more or less deeply\ngrooved systems of interaction which we call social groups, big and\nsmall, modify the activities of individuals who perforce are caught-up\nwithin them, and how the activities of component individuals remake\nand redirect previously established customs is a deeply significant\none. Viewed from the standpoint of custom and its priority to the\nformation of habits in human beings who are born babies and gradually\ngrow to maturity, the facts which are now usually assembled under the\nconceptions of collective minds, group-minds, national-minds,\ncrowd-minds, etc., etc., lose the mysterious air they exhale when mind\nis thought of (as orthodox psychology teaches us to think of it) as\nsomething which precedes action. It is difficult to see that\ncollective mind means anything more than a custom brought at some\npoint to explicit, emphatic consciousness, emotional or\nintellectual.[3]\n\n [3] Mob psychology comes under the same principles, but in a\n negative aspect. The crowd and mob express a disintegration\n of habits which releases impulse and renders persons\n susceptible to immediate stimuli, rather than such a\n functioning of habits as is found in the mind of a club or\n school of thought or a political party. Leaders of an\n organization, that is of an interaction having settled\n habits, may, however, in order to put over some schemes\n deliberately resort to stimuli which will break through the\n crust of ordinary custom and release impulses on such a scale\n as to create a mob psychology. Since fear is a normal\n reaction to the unfamiliar, dread and suspicion are the\n forces most played upon to accomplish this result, together\n with vast vague contrary hopes. This is an ordinary technique\n in excited political campaigns, in starting war, etc. But an\n assimilation like that of Le Bon of the psychology of\n democracy to the psychology of a crowd in overriding\n individual judgment shows lack of psychological insight. A\n political democracy exhibits an overriding of thought like\n that seen in any convention or institution. That is, thought\n is submerged in habit. In the crowd and mob, it is submerged\n in undefined emotion. China and Japan exhibit crowd\n psychology more frequently than do western democratic\n countries. Not in my judgment because of any essentially\n Oriental psychology but because of a nearer background of\n rigid and solid customs conjoined with the phenomena of a\n period of transition. The introduction of many novel stimuli\n creates occasions where habits afford no ballast. Hence great\n waves of emotion easily sweep through masses. Sometimes they\n are waves of enthusiasm for the new; sometimes of violent\n reaction against it--both equally undiscriminating. The war\n has left behind it a somewhat similar situation in western\n countries.\n\nThe family into which one is born is a family in a village or city which\ninteracts with other more or less integrated systems of activity, and\nwhich includes a diversity of groupings within itself, say, churches,\npolitical parties, clubs, cliques, partnerships, trade-unions,\ncorporations, etc. If we start with the traditional notion of mind as\nsomething complete in itself, then we may well be perplexed by the\nproblem of how a common mind, common ways of feeling and believing and\npurposing, comes into existence and then forms these groups. The case is\nquite otherwise if we recognize that in any case we must start with\ngrouped action, that is, with some fairly settled system of interaction\namong individuals. The problem of origin and development of the various\ngroupings, or definite customs, in existence at any particular time in\nany particular place is not solved by reference to psychic causes,\nelements, forces. It is to be solved by reference to facts of action,\ndemand for food, for houses, for a mate, for some one to talk to and to\nlisten to one talk, for control of others, demands which are all\nintensified by the fact already mentioned that each person begins a\nhelpless, dependent creature. I do not mean of course that hunger, fear,\nsexual love, gregariousness, sympathy, parental love, love of bossing\nand of being ordered about, imitation, etc., play no part. But I do mean\nthat these words do not express elements or forces which are psychic or\nmental in their first intention. They denote _ways of behavior_. These\nways of behaving involve interaction, that is to say, and prior\ngroupings. And to understand the existence of organized ways or habits\nwe surely need to go to physics, chemistry and physiology rather than to\npsychology.\n\nThere is doubtless a great mystery as to why any such thing as being\nconscious should exist at all. But _if_ consciousness exists at all,\nthere is no mystery in its being connected with what it is connected\nwith. That is to say, if an activity which is an interaction of various\nfactors, or a grouped activity, comes to consciousness it seems natural\nthat it should take the form of an emotion, belief or purpose that\nreflects the interaction, that it should be an \"our\" consciousness or a\n\"my\" consciousness. And by this is meant both that it will be shared by\nthose who are implicated in the associative custom, or more or less\nalike in them all, and that it will be felt or thought to concern others\nas well as one's self. A family-custom or organized habit of action\ncomes into contact and conflict for example with that of some other\nfamily. The emotions of ruffled pride, the belief about superiority or\nbeing \"as good as other people,\" the intention to hold one's own are\nnaturally _our_ feeling and idea of _our_ treatment and position.\nSubstitute the Republican party or the American nation for the family\nand the general situation remains the same. The conditions which\ndetermine the nature and extent of the particular grouping in question\nare matters of supreme import. But they are not as such subject-matter\nof psychology, but of the history of politics, law, religion, economics,\ninvention, the technology of communication and intercourse. Psychology\ncomes in as an indispensable tool. But it enters into the matter of\nunderstanding these various special topics, not into the question of\nwhat psychic forces form a collective mind and therefore a social group.\nThat way of stating the case puts the cart a long way before the horse,\nand naturally gathers obscurities and mysteries to itself. In short, the\nprimary facts of social psychology center about collective habit,\ncustom. In addition to the general psychology of habit--which _is_\ngeneral not individual in any intelligible sense of that word--we need\nto find out just how different customs shape the desires, beliefs,\npurposes of those who are affected by them. The problem of social\npsychology is not how either individual or collective mind forms social\ngroups and customs, but how different customs, established interacting\narrangements, form and nurture different minds. From this general\nstatement we return to our special problem, which is how the rigid\ncharacter of past custom has unfavorably influenced beliefs, emotions\nand purposes having to do with morals.\n\nWe come back to the fact that individuals begin their career as infants.\nFor the plasticity of the young presents a temptation to those having\ngreater experience and hence greater power which they rarely resist. It\nseems putty to be molded according to current designs. That plasticity\nalso means power to change prevailing custom is ignored. Docility is\nlooked upon not as ability to learn whatever the world has to teach, but\nas subjection to those instructions of others which reflect _their_\ncurrent habits. To be truly docile is to be eager to learn all the\nlessons of active, inquiring, expanding experience. The inert, stupid\nquality of current customs perverts learning into a willingness to\nfollow where others point the way, into conformity, constriction,\nsurrender of scepticism and experiment. When we think of the docility of\nthe young we first think of the stocks of information adults wish to\nimpose and the ways of acting they want to reproduce. Then we think of\nthe insolent coercions, the insinuating briberies, the pedagogic\nsolemnities by which the freshness of youth can be faded and its vivid\ncuriosities dulled. Education becomes the art of taking advantage of the\nhelplessness of the young; the forming of habits becomes a guarantee for\nthe maintenance of hedges of custom.\n\nOf course it is not wholly forgotten that habits are abilities, arts.\nAny striking exhibition of acquired skill in physical matters, like that\nof an acrobat or billiard-player, arouses universal admiration. But we\nlike to have innovating power limited to technical matters and reserve\nour admiration for those manifestations that display virtuosity rather\nthan virtue. In moral matters it is assumed that it is enough if some\nideal has been exemplified in the life of a leader, so that it is now\nthe part of others to follow and reproduce. For every branch of conduct,\nthere is a Jesus or Buddha, a Napoleon or Marx, a Froebel or Tolstoi,\nwhose pattern of action, exceeding our own grasp, is reduced to a\npracticable copy-size by passage through rows and rows of lesser\nleaders.\n\nThe notion that it suffices if the idea, the end, is present in the mind\nof some authority dominates formal schooling. It permeates the\nunconscious education derived from ordinary contact and intercourse.\nWhere following is taken to be normal, moral originality is pretty sure\nto be eccentric. But if independence were the rule, originality would be\nsubjected to severe, experimental tests and be saved from cranky\neccentricity, as it now is in say higher mathematics. The regime of\ncustom assumes that the outcome is the same whether an individual\nunderstands what he is about or whether he goes through certain motions\nwhile mouthing the words of others--repetition of formul\u00e6 being esteemed\nof greater importance, upon the whole, than repetition of deeds. To say\nwhat the sect or clique or class says is the way of proving that one\nalso understands and approves what the clique clings to. In theory,\ndemocracy should be a means of stimulating original thought, and of\nevoking action deliberately adjusted in advance to cope with new forces.\nIn fact it is still so immature that its main effect is to multiply\noccasions for imitation. If progress in spite of this fact is more rapid\nthan in other social forms, it is by accident, since the diversity of\nmodels conflict with one another and thus give individuality a chance in\nthe resulting chaos of opinions. Current democracy acclaims success more\nboisterously than do other social forms, and surrounds failure with a\nmore reverberating train of echoes. But the prestige thus given\nexcellence is largely adventitious. The achievement of thought attracts\nothers not so much intrinsically as because of an eminence due to\nmultitudinous advertising and a swarm of imitators.\n\nEven liberal thinkers have treated habit as essentially, not because of\nthe character of existing customs, conservative. In fact only in a\nsociety dominated by modes of belief and admiration fixed by past custom\nis habit any more conservative than it is progressive. It all depends\nupon its quality. Habit is an ability, an art, formed through past\nexperience. But whether an ability is limited to repetition of past acts\nadopted to past conditions or is available for new emergencies depends\nwholly upon what kind of habit exists. The tendency to think that only\n\"bad\" habits are disserviceable and that bad habits are conventionally\nenumerable, conduces to make all habits more or less bad. For what makes\na habit bad is enslavement to old ruts. The common notion that\nenslavement to good ends converts mechanical routine into good is a\nnegation of the principle of moral goodness. It identifies morality with\nwhat _was_ sometime rational, possibly in some prior experience of one's\nown, but more probably in the experience of some one else who is now\nblindly set up as a final authority. The genuine heart of reasonableness\n(and of goodness in conduct) lies in effective mastery of the conditions\nwhich _now_ enter into action. To be satisfied with repeating, with\ntraversing the ruts which in other conditions led to good, is the surest\nway of creating carelessness about present and actual good.\n\nConsider what happens to thought when habit is merely power to repeat\nacts without thought. Where does thought exist and operate when it is\nexcluded from habitual activities? Is not such thought of necessity shut\nout from effective power, from ability to control objects and command\nevents? Habits deprived of thought and thought which is futile are two\nsides of the same fact. To laud habit as conservative while praising\nthought as the main spring of progress is to take the surest course to\nmaking thought abstruse and irrelevant and progress a matter of accident\nand catastrophe. The concrete fact behind the current separation of body\nand mind, practice and theory, actualities and ideals, is precisely this\nseparation of habit and thought. Thought which does not exist within\nordinary habits of action lacks means of execution. In lacking\napplication, it also lacks test, criterion. Hence it is condemned to a\nseparate realm. If we try to act upon it, our actions are clumsy,\nforced. In fact, contrary habits (as we have already seen) come into\noperation and betray our purpose. After a few such experiences, it is\nsubconsciously decided that thought is too precious and high to be\nexposed to the contingencies of action. It is reserved for separate\nuses; thought feeds only thought not action. Ideals must not run the\nrisk of contamination and perversion by contact with actual conditions.\nThought then either resorts to specialized and technical matters\ninfluencing action in the library or laboratory alone, or else it\nbecomes sentimentalized.\n\nMeantime there are certain \"practical\" men who combine thought and habit\nand who are effectual. Their thought is about their own advantage; and\ntheir habits correspond. They dominate the actual situation. They\nencourage routine in others, and they also subsidize such thought and\nlearning as are kept remote from affairs. This they call sustaining the\nstandard of the ideal. Subjection they praise as team-spirit, loyalty,\ndevotion, obedience, industry, law-and-order. But they temper respect\nfor law--by which they mean the order of the existing status--on the\npart of others with most skilful and thoughtful manipulation of it in\nbehalf of their own ends. While they denounce as subversive anarchy\nsigns of independent thought, of thinking for themselves, on the part of\nothers lest such thought disturb the conditions by which they profit,\nthey think quite literally _for_ themselves, that is, _of_ themselves.\nThis is the eternal game of the practical men. Hence it is only by\naccident that the separate and endowed \"thought\" of professional\nthinkers leaks out into action and affects custom.\n\nFor thinking cannot itself escape the influence of habit, any more than\nanything else human. If it is not a part of ordinary habits, then it is\na separate habit, habit alongside other habits, apart from them, as\nisolated and indurated as human structure permits. Theory is a\npossession of the theorist, intellect of the intellectualist. The\nso-called separation of theory and practice means in fact the separation\nof two kinds of practice, one taking place in the outdoor world, the\nother in the study. The habit of thought commands some materials (as\nevery habit must do) but the materials are technical, books, words.\nIdeas are objectified in action but speech and writing monopolize their\nfield of action. Even then subconscious pains are taken to see that the\nwords used are not too widely understood. Intellectual habits like other\nhabits demand an environment, but the environment is the study, library,\nlaboratory and academy. Like other habits they produce external results,\npossessions. Some men acquire ideas and knowledge as other men acquire\nmonetary wealth. While practising thought for their own special ends\nthey deprecate it for the untrained and unstable masses for whom\n\"habits,\" that is unthinking routines, are necessities. They favor\npopular education--up to the point of disseminating as matter of\nauthoritative information for the many what the few have established by\nthought, and up to the point of converting an original docility to the\nnew into a docility to repeat and to conform.\n\nYet all habit involves mechanization. Habit is impossible without\nsetting up a mechanism of action, physiologically engrained, which\noperates \"spontaneously,\" automatically, whenever the cue is given. But\nmechanization is not of necessity _all_ there is to habit. Consider the\nconditions under which the first serviceable abilities of life are\nformed. When a child begins to walk he acutely observes, he intently and\nintensely experiments. He looks to see what is going to happen and he\nkeeps curious watch on every incident. What others do, the assistance\nthey give, the models they set, operate not as limitations but as\nencouragements to his own acts, reinforcements of personal perception\nand endeavor. The first toddling is a romantic adventuring into the\nunknown; and every gained power is a delightful discovery of one's own\npowers and of the wonders of the world. We may not be able to retain in\nadult habits this zest of intelligence and this freshness of\nsatisfaction in newly discovered powers. But there is surely a middle\nterm between a normal exercise of power which includes some excursion\ninto the unknown, and a mechanical activity hedged within a drab world.\nEven in dealing with inanimate machines we rank that invention higher\nwhich adapts its movements to varying conditions.\n\nAll life operates through a mechanism, and the higher the form of life\nthe more complex, sure and flexible the mechanism. This fact alone\nshould save us from opposing life and mechanism, thereby reducing the\nlatter to unintelligent automatism and the former to an aimless splurge.\nHow delicate, prompt, sure and varied are the movements of a violin\nplayer or an engraver! How unerringly they phrase every shade of emotion\nand every turn of idea! Mechanism is indispensable. If each act has to\nbe consciously searched for at the moment and intentionally performed,\nexecution is painful and the product is clumsy and halting. Nevertheless\nthe difference between the artist and the mere technician is\nunmistakeable. The artist is a masterful technician. The technique or\nmechanism is fused with thought and feeling. The \"mechanical\" performer\npermits the mechanism to dictate the performance. It is absurd to say\nthat the latter exhibits habit and the former not. We are confronted\nwith two kinds of habit, intelligent and routine. All life has its \u00e9lan,\nbut only the prevalence of dead habits deflects life into mere \u00e9lan.\n\nYet the current dualism of mind and body, thought and action, is so\nrooted that we are taught (and science is said to support the teaching)\nthat the art, the habit, of the artist is acquired by previous\nmechanical exercises of repetition in which skill apart from thought is\nthe aim, until suddenly, magically, this soulless mechanism is taken\npossession of by sentiment and imagination and it becomes a flexible\ninstrument of mind. The fact, the scientific fact, is that even in his\nexercises, his practice _for_ skill, an artist uses an art he already\nhas. He acquires greater skill because practice _of_ skill is more\nimportant to him than practice _for_ skill. Otherwise natural endowment\nwould count for nothing, and sufficient mechanical exercise would make\nany one an expert in any field. A flexible, sensitive habit grows more\nvaried, more adaptable by practice and use. We do not as yet fully\nunderstand the physiological factors concerned in mechanical routine on\none hand and artistic skill on the other, but we do know that the latter\nis just as much habit as is the former. Whether it concerns the cook,\nmusician, carpenter, citizen, or statesman, the intelligent or artistic\nhabit is the desirable thing, and the routine the undesirable\nthing:--or, at least, desirable and undesirable from every point of view\nexcept one.\n\nThose who wish a monopoly of social power find desirable the separation\nof habit and thought, action and soul, so characteristic of history. For\nthe dualism enables them to do the thinking and planning, while others\nremain the docile, even if awkward, instruments of execution. Until this\nscheme is changed, democracy is bound to be perverted in realization.\nWith our present system of education--by which something much more\nextensive than schooling is meant--democracy multiplies occasions for\nimitation not occasions for thought in action. If the visible result is\nrather a messy confusion than an ordered discipline of habits, it is\nbecause there are so many models of imitation set up that they tend to\ncancel one another, so that individuals have the advantage neither of\nuniform training nor of intelligent adaptation. Whence an\nintellectualist; the one with whom thinking is itself a segregated\nhabit, infers that the choice is between muss-and-muddling and a\nbureaucracy. He prefers the latter, though under some other name,\nusually an aristocracy of talent and intellect, possibly a dictatorship\nof the proletariat.\n\nIt has been repeatedly stated that the current philosophical dualism of\nmind and body, of spirit and mere outward doing, is ultimately but an\nintellectual reflex of the social divorce of routine habit from thought,\nof means from ends, practice from theory. One hardly knows whether most\nto admire the acumen with which Bergson has penetrated through the\naccumulation of historic technicalities to this essential fact, or to\ndeplore the artistic skill with which he has recommended the division\nand the metaphysical subtlety with which he has striven to establish its\nnecessary and unchangeable nature. For the latter tends to confirm and\nsanction the dualism in all its obnoxiousness. In the end, however,\ndetection, discovery, is the main thing. To envisage the relation of\nspirit, life, to matter, body, as in effect an affair of a force which\noutruns habit while it leaves a trail of routine habits behind it, will\nsurely turn out in the end to imply the acknowledgment of the need of a\ncontinuous unification of spirit and habit, rather than to be a sanction\nof their divorce. And when Bergson carries the implicit logic to the\npoint of a clear recognition that upon this basis concrete intelligence\nis concerned with the habits which incorporate and deal with objects,\nand that nothing remains to spirit, pure thought, except a blind onward\npush or impetus, the net conclusion is surely the need of revision of\nthe fundamental premiss of separation of soul and habit. A blind\ncreative force is as likely to turn out to be destructive as creative;\nthe vital _\u00e9lan_ may delight in war rather than in the laborious arts of\ncivilization, and a mystic intuition of an ongoing splurge be a poor\nsubstitute for the detailed work of an intelligence embodied in custom\nand institution, one which creates by means of flexible continuous\ncontrivances of reorganization. For the eulogistic qualities which\nBergson attributes to the _\u00e9lan vital_ flow not from its nature but from\na reminiscence of the optimism of romanticism, an optimism which is only\nthe reverse side of pessimism about actualities. A spiritual life which\nis nothing but a blind urge separated from thought (which is said to be\nconfined to mechanical manipulation of material objects for personal\nuses) is likely to have the attributes of the Devil in spite of its\nbeing ennobled with the name of God.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nFor practical purposes morals mean customs, folkways, established\ncollective habits. This is a commonplace of the anthropologist, though\nthe moral theorist generally suffers from an illusion that his own place\nand day is, or ought to be, an exception. But always and everywhere\ncustoms supply the standards for personal activities. They are the\npattern into which individual activity must weave itself. This is as\ntrue today as it ever was. But because of present mobility and\ninterminglings of customs, an individual is now offered an enormous\nrange of custom-patterns, and can exercise personal ingenuity in\nselecting and rearranging their elements. In short he can, if he will,\nintelligently adapt customs to conditions, and thereby remake them.\nCustoms in any case constitute moral standards. For they are active\ndemands for certain ways of acting. Every habit creates an unconscious\nexpectation. It forms a certain outlook. What psychologists have\nlaboriously treated under the caption of association of ideas has little\nto do with ideas and everything to do with the influence of habit upon\nrecollection and perception. A habit, a routine habit, when interfered\nwith generates uneasiness, sets up a protest in favor of restoration and\na sense of need of some expiatory act, or else it goes off in casual\nreminiscence. It is the essence of routine to insist upon its own\ncontinuation. Breach of it is violation of right. Deviation from it is\ntransgression.\n\nAll that metaphysics has said about the nisus of Being to conserve its\nessence and all that a mythological psychology has said about a special\ninstinct of self-preservation is a cover for the persistent\nself-assertion of habit. Habit is energy organized in certain channels.\nWhen interfered with, it swells as resentment and as an avenging force.\nTo say that it will be obeyed, that custom makes law, that _nomos_ is\nlord of all, is after all only to say that habit is habit. Emotion is a\nperturbation from clash or failure of habit, and reflection, roughly\nspeaking, is the painful effort of disturbed habits to readjust\nthemselves. It is a pity that Westermarck in his monumental collection\nof facts which show the connection of custom with morals[4] is still so\nmuch under the influence of current subjective psychology that he\nmisstates the point of his data. For although he recognizes the\nobjectivity of custom, he treats sympathetic resentment and approbation\nas distinctive inner feelings or conscious states which give rise to\nacts. In his anxiety to displace an unreal rational source of morals he\nsets up an equally unreal emotional basis. In truth, feelings as well as\nreason spring up within action. Breach of custom or habit is the source\nof sympathetic resentment, while overt approbation goes out to fidelity\nto custom maintained under exceptional circumstances.\n\n [4] \"The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas.\"\n\nThose who recognize the place of custom in lower social forms generally\nregard its presence in civilized society as a mere survival. Or, like\nSumner, they fancy that to recognize its abiding place is equivalent to\nthe denial of all rationality and principle to morality; equivalent to\nthe assertion of blind, arbitrary forces in life. In effect, this point\nof view has already been dealt with. It overlooks the fact that the real\nopposition is not between reason and habit but between routine,\nunintelligent habit, and intelligent habit or art. Even a savage custom\nmay be reasonable in that it is adapted to social needs and uses.\nExperience may add to such adaptation a conscious recognition of it, and\nthen the custom of rationality is added to a prior custom.\n\nExternal reasonableness or adaptation to ends precedes reasonableness of\nmind. This is only to say that in morals as well as in physics things\nhave to be there before we perceive them, and that rationality of mind\nis not an original endowment but is the offspring of intercourse with\nobjective adaptations and relations--a view which under the influence of\na conception of knowing the like by the like has been distorted into\nPlatonic and other objective idealisms. Reason as observation of an\nadaptation of acts to valuable results is not however a mere idle\nmirroring of pre-existent facts. It is an additional event having its\nown career. It sets up a heightened emotional appreciation and provides\na new motive for fidelities previously blind. It sets up an attitude of\ncriticism, of inquiry, and makes men sensitive to the brutalities and\nextravagancies of customs. In short, it becomes a custom of expectation\nand outlook, an active demand for reasonableness in other customs. The\nreflective disposition is not self-made nor a gift of the gods. It\narises in some exceptional circumstance out of social customs, as we see\nin the case of the Greeks. But when it has been generated it establishes\na new custom, which is capable of exercising the most revolutionary\ninfluence upon other customs.\n\nHence the growing importance of personal rationality or intelligence, in\nmoral theory if not in practice. That current customs contradict one\nanother, that many of them are unjust, and that without criticism none\nof them is fit to be the guide of life was the discovery with which the\nAthenian Socrates initiated conscious moral theorizing. Yet a dilemma\nsoon presented itself, one which forms the burden of Plato's ethical\nwritings. How shall thought which is personal arrive at standards which\nhold good for all, which, in modern phrase, are objective? The solution\nfound by Plato was that reason is itself objective, universal, cosmic\nand makes the individual soul its vehicle. The result, however, was\nmerely to substitute a metaphysical or transcendental ethics for the\nethics of custom. If Plato had been able to see that reflection and\ncriticism express a conflict of customs, and that their purport and\noffice is to re-organize, re-adjust customs, the subsequent course of\nmoral theory would have been very different. Custom would have provided\nneeded objective and substantial ballast, and personal rationality or\nreflective intelligence been treated as the necessary organ of\nexperimental initiative and creative invention in remaking custom.\n\nWe have another difficulty to face: a greater wave rises to overwhelm\nus. It is said that to derive moral standards from social customs is to\nevacuate the latter of all authority. Morals, it is said, imply the\nsubordination of fact to ideal consideration, while the view presented\nmakes morals secondary to bare fact, which is equal to depriving them of\ndignity and jurisdiction. The objection has the force of the custom of\nmoral theorists behind it; and therefore in its denial of custom avails\nitself of the assistance of the notion it attacks. The criticism rests\nupon a false separation. It argues in effect that either ideal standards\nantecede customs and confer their moral quality upon them, or that in\nbeing subsequent to custom and evolved from them, they are mere\naccidental by-products. But how does the case stand with language? Men\ndid not intend language; they did not have social objects consciously in\nview when they began to talk, nor did they have grammatical and phonetic\nprinciples before them by which to regulate their efforts at\ncommunication. These things come after the fact and because of it.\nLanguage grew out of unintelligent babblings, instinctive motions called\ngestures, and the pressure of circumstance. But nevertheless language\nonce called into existence is language and operates as language. It\noperates not to perpetuate the forces which produced it but to modify\nand redirect them. It has such transcendent importance that pains are\ntaken with its use. Literatures are produced, and then a vast apparatus\nof grammar, rhetoric, dictionaries, literary criticism, reviews, essays,\na derived literature _ad lib_. Education, schooling, becomes a\nnecessity; literacy an end. In short language when it is produced meets\nold needs and opens new possibilities. It creates demands which take\neffect, and the effect is not confined to speech and literature, but\nextends to the common life in communication, counsel and instruction.\n\nWhat is said of the institution of language holds good of every\ninstitution. Family life, property, legal forms, churches and schools,\nacademies of art and science did not originate to serve conscious ends\nnor was their generation regulated by consciousness of principles of\nreason and right. Yet each institution has brought with its development\ndemands, expectations, rules, standards. These are not mere\nembellishments of the forces which produced them, idle decorations of\nthe scene. They are additional forces. They reconstruct. They open new\navenues of endeavor and impose new labors. In short they are\ncivilization, culture, morality.\n\nStill the question recurs: What authority have standards and ideas which\nhave originated in this way? What claim have they upon us? In one sense\nthe question is unanswerable. In the same sense, however, the question\nis unanswerable whatever origin and sanction is ascribed to moral\nobligations and loyalties. Why attend to metaphysical and transcendental\nideal realities even if we concede they are the authors of moral\nstandards? Why do this act if I feel like doing something else? Any\nmoral question may reduce itself to this question if we so choose. But\nin an empirical sense the answer is simple. The authority is that of\nlife. Why employ language, cultivate literature, acquire and develop\nscience, sustain industry, and submit to the refinements of art? To ask\nthese questions is equivalent to asking: Why live? And the only answer\nis that if one is going to live one must live a life of which these\nthings form the substance. The only question having sense which can be\nasked is _how_ we are going to use and be used by these things, not\nwhether we are going to use them. Reason, moral principles, cannot in\nany case be shoved behind these affairs, for reason and morality grow\nout of them. But they have grown into them as well as out of them. They\nare there as part of them. No one can escape them if he wants to. He\ncannot escape the problem of _how_ to engage in life, since in any case\nhe must engage in it in some way or other--or else quit and get out. In\nshort, the choice is not between a moral authority outside custom and\none within it. It is between adopting more or less intelligent and\nsignificant customs.\n\nCuriously enough, the chief practical effect of refusing to recognize\nthe connection of custom with moral standards is to deify some special\ncustom and treat it as eternal, immutable, outside of criticism and\nrevision. This consequence is especially harmful in times of rapid\nsocial flux. For it leads to disparity between nominal standards, which\nbecome ineffectual and hypocritical in exact ratio to their theoretical\nexaltation, and actual habits which have to take note of existing\nconditions. The disparity breeds disorder. Irregularity and confusion\nare however practically intolerable, and effect the generation of a new\nrule of some sort or other. Only such complete disturbance of the\nphysical bases of life and security as comes from plague and starvation\ncan throw society into utter disorder. No amount of intellectual\ntransition can seriously disturb the main tenor of custom, or morals.\nHence the greater danger which attends the attempt in period of social\nchange to maintain the immutability of old standards is not general\nmoral relaxation. It is rather social clash, an irreconciled conflict of\nmoral standards and purposes, the most serious form of class warfare.\n\nFor segregated classes develop their own customs, which is to say their\nown working morals. As long as society is mainly immobile these diverse\nprinciples and ruling aims do not clash. They exist side by side in\ndifferent strata. Power, glory, honor, magnificence, mutual faith here;\nindustry, obedience, abstinence, humility, and reverence there: noble\nand plebeian virtues. Vigor, courage, energy, enterprise here;\nsubmission, patience, charm, personal fidelity there: the masculine and\nfeminine virtues. But mobility invades society. War, commerce, travel,\ncommunication, contact with the thoughts and desires of other classes,\nnew inventions in productive industry, disturb the settled distribution\nof customs. Congealed habits thaw out, and a flood mixes things once\nseparated.\n\nEach class is rigidly sure of the rightness of its own ends and hence\nnot overscrupulous about the means of attaining them. One side proclaims\nthe ultimacy of order--that of some old order which conduces to its own\ninterest. The other side proclaims its rights to freedom, and identifies\njustice with its submerged claims. There is no common ground, no moral\nunderstanding, no agreed upon standard of appeal. Today such a conflict\noccurs between propertied classes and those who depend upon daily wage;\nbetween men and women; between old and young. Each appeals to its own\nstandard of right, and each thinks the other the creature of personal\ndesire, whim or obstinacy. Mobility has affected peoples as well.\nNations and races face one another, each with its own immutable\nstandards. Never before in history have there existed such numerous\ncontacts and minglings. Never before have there been such occasions for\nconflict which are the more significant because each side feels that it\nis supported by moral principles. Customs relating to what has been and\nemotions referring to what may come to be go their independent ways. The\ndemand of each side treats its opponent as a wilful violator of moral\nprinciples, an expression of self-interest or superior might.\nIntelligence which is the only possible messenger of reconciliation\ndwells in a far land of abstractions or comes after the event to record\naccomplished facts.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nThe prior discussion has tried to show why the psychology of habit is an\nobjective and social psychology. Settled and regular action must contain\nan adjustment of environing conditions; it must incorporate them in\nitself. For human beings, the environing affairs directly important are\nthose formed by the activities of other human beings. This fact is\naccentuated and made fundamental by the fact of infancy--the fact that\neach human being begins life completely dependent upon others. The net\noutcome accordingly is that what can be called distinctively individual\nin behavior and mind is not, contrary to traditional theory, an original\ndatum. Doubtless physical or physiological individuality always colors\nresponsive activity and hence modifies the form which custom assumes in\nits personal reproductions. In forceful energetic characters this\nquality is marked. But it is important to note that it is a quality of\nhabit, not an element or force existing apart from adjustment of the\nenvironment and capable of being termed a separate individual mind.\nOrthodox psychology starts however from the assumption of precisely such\nindependent minds. However much different schools may vary in their\ndefinitions of mind, they agree in this premiss of separateness and\npriority. Hence social psychology is confused by the effort to render\nits facts in the terms characteristic of old psychology, when the\ndistinctive thing about it is that it implies an abandonment of that\npsychology.\n\nThe traditional psychology of the original separate soul, mind or\nconsciousness is in truth a reflex of conditions which cut human nature\noff from its natural objective relations. It implies first the severance\nof man from nature and then of each man from his fellows. The isolation\nof man from nature is duly manifested in the split between mind and\nbody--since body is clearly a connected part of nature. Thus the\ninstrument of action and the means of the continuous modification of\naction, of the cumulative carrying forward of old activity into new,\nis regarded as a mysterious intruder or as a mysterious parallel\naccompaniment. It is fair to say that the psychology of a separate and\nindependent consciousness began as an intellectual formulation of those\nfacts of morality which treated the most important kind of action as a\nprivate concern, something to be enacted and concluded within character\nas a purely personal possession. The religious and metaphysical\ninterests which wanted the ideal to be a separate realm finally\ncoincided with a practical revolt against current customs and\ninstitutions to enforce current psychological individualism. But this\nformulation (put forth in the name of science) reacted to confirm the\nconditions out of which it arose, and to convert it from a historic\nepisode into an essential truth. Its exaggeration of individuality is\nlargely a compensatory reaction against the pressure of institutional\nrigidities.\n\nAny moral theory which is seriously influenced by current psychological\ntheory is bound to emphasize states of consciousness, an inner private\nlife, at the expense of acts which have public meaning and which\nincorporate and exact social relationships. A psychology based upon\nhabits (and instincts which become elements in habits as soon as they\nare acted upon) will on the contrary fix its attention upon the\nobjective conditions in which habits are formed and operate. The rise at\nthe present time of a clinical psychology which revolts at traditional\nand orthodox psychology is a symptom of ethical import. It is a protest\nagainst the futility, as a tool of understanding and dealing with human\nnature in the concrete, of the psychology of conscious sensations,\nimages and ideas. It exhibits a sense for reality in its insistence upon\nthe profound importance of unconscious forces in determining not only\novert conduct but desire, judgment, belief, idealization.\n\nEvery moment of reaction and protest, however, usually accepts some of\nthe basic ideas of the position against which it rebels. So the most\npopular forms of the clinical psychology, those associated with the\nfounders of psycho-analysis, retain the notion of a separate psychic\nrealm or force. They add a statement pointing to facts of the utmost\nvalue, and which is equivalent to practical recognition of the\ndependence of mind upon habit and of habit upon social conditions. This\nis the statement of the existence and operation of the \"unconscious,\" of\ncomplexes due to contacts and conflicts with others, of the social\ncensor. But they still cling to the idea of the separate psychic realm\nand so in effect talk about unconscious consciousness. They get their\ntruths mixed up in theory with the false psychology of original\nindividual consciousness, just as the school of social psychologists\ndoes upon its side. Their elaborate artificial explanations, like the\nmystic collective mind, consciousness, over-soul, of social psychology,\nare due to failure to begin with the facts of habit and custom.\n\nWhat then is meant by individual mind, by mind as individual? In effect\nthe reply has already been given. Conflict of habits releases impulsive\nactivities which in their manifestation require a modification of habit,\nof custom and convention. That which was at first the individualized\ncolor or quality of habitual activity is abstracted, and becomes a\ncenter of activity aiming to reconstruct customs in accord with some\ndesire which is rejected by the immediate situation and which therefore\nis felt to belong to one's self, to be the mark and possession of an\nindividual in partial and temporary opposition to his environment. These\ngeneral and necessarily vague statements will be made more definite in\nthe further discussion of impulse and intelligence. For impulse when it\nasserts itself deliberately against an existing custom is the beginning\nof individuality in mind. This beginning is developed and consolidated\nin the observations, judgments, inventions which try to transform the\nenvironment so that a variant, deviating impulse may itself in turn\nbecome incarnated in objective habit.\n\n\n\n\nPART TWO\n\nTHE PLACE OF IMPULSE IN CONDUCT\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nHabits as organized activities are secondary and acquired, not native\nand original. They are outgrowths of unlearned activities which are part\nof man's endowment at birth. The order of topics followed in our\ndiscussion may accordingly be questioned. Why should what is derived and\ntherefore in some sense artificial in conduct be discussed before what\nis primitive, natural and inevitable? Why did we not set out with an\nexamination of those instinctive activities upon which the acquisition\nof habits is conditioned?\n\nThe query is a natural one, yet it tempts to flinging forth a paradox.\nIn conduct the acquired is the primitive. Impulses although first in\ntime are never primary in fact; they are secondary and dependent. The\nseeming paradox in statement covers a familiar fact. In the life of the\nindividual, instinctive activity comes first. But an individual begins\nlife as a baby, and babies are dependent beings. Their activities could\ncontinue at most for only a few hours were it not for the presence and\naid of adults with their formed habits. And babies owe to adults more\nthan procreation, more than the continued food and protection which\npreserve life. They owe to adults the opportunity to express their\nnative activities in ways which have meaning. Even if by some miracle\noriginal activity could continue without assistance from the organized\nskill and art of adults, it would not amount to anything. It would be\nmere sound and fury.\n\nIn short, the _meaning_ of native activities is not native; it is\nacquired. It depends upon interaction with a matured social medium. In\nthe case of a tiger or eagle, anger may be identified with a serviceable\nlife-activity, with attack and defense. With a human being it is as\nmeaningless as a gust of wind on a mud puddle apart from a direction\ngiven it by the presence of other persons, apart from the responses they\nmake to it. It is a physical spasm, a blind dispersive burst of wasteful\nenergy. It gets quality, significance, when it becomes a smouldering\nsullenness, an annoying interruption, a peevish irritation, a murderous\nrevenge, a blazing indignation. And although these phenomena which have\na meaning spring from original native reactions to stimuli, yet they\ndepend also upon the responsive behavior of others. They and all similar\nhuman displays of anger are not pure impulses; they are habits formed\nunder the influence of association with others who have habits already\nand who show their habits in the treatment which converts a blind\nphysical discharge into a significant anger.\n\nAfter ignoring impulses for a long time in behalf of sensations, modern\npsychology now tends to start out with an inventory and description of\ninstinctive activities. This is an undoubted improvement. But when it\ntries to explain complicated events in personal and social life by\ndirect reference to these native powers, the explanation becomes hazy\nand forced. It is like saying the flea and the elephant, the lichen and\nthe redwood, the timid hare and the ravening wolf, the plant with the\nmost inconspicuous blossom and the plant with the most glaring color are\nalike products of natural selection. There may be a sense in which the\nstatement is true; but till we know the specific environing conditions\nunder which selection took place we really know nothing. And so we need\nto know about the social conditions which have educated original\nactivities into definite and significant dispositions before we can\ndiscuss the psychological element in society. This is the true meaning\nof social psychology.\n\nAt some place on the globe, at some time, every kind of practice seems\nto have been tolerated or even praised. How is the tremendous diversity\nof institutions (including moral codes) to be accounted for? The native\nstock of instincts is practically the same everywhere. Exaggerate as\nmuch as we like the native differences of Patagonians and Greeks, Sioux\nIndians and Hindoos, Bushmen and Chinese, their original differences\nwill bear no comparison to the amount of difference found in custom and\nculture. Since such a diversity cannot be attributed to an original\nidentity, the development of native impulse must be stated in terms of\nacquired habits, not the growth of customs in terms of instincts. The\nwholesale human sacrifices of Peru and the tenderness of St. Francis,\nthe cruelties of pirates and the philanthropies of Howard, the practice\nof Suttee and the cult of the Virgin, the war and peace dances of the\nComanches and the parliamentary institutions of the British, the\ncommunism of the Southsea islander and the proprietary thrift of the\nYankee, the magic of the medicine man and the experiments of the chemist\nin his laboratory, the non-resistance of Chinese and the aggressive\nmilitarism of an imperial Prussia, monarchy by divine right and\ngovernment by the people; the countless diversity of habits suggested by\nsuch a random list springs from practically the same capital-stock of\nnative instincts.\n\nIt would be pleasant if we could pick and choose those institutions\nwhich we like and impute them to human nature, and the rest to some\ndevil; or those we like to our kind of human nature, and those we\ndislike to the nature of despised foreigners on the ground they are not\nreally \"native\" at all. It would appear to be simpler if we could point\nto certain customs, saying that they are the unalloyed products of\ncertain instincts, while those other social arrangements are to be\nattributed wholly to other impulses. But such methods are not feasible.\nThe same original fears, angers, loves and hates are hopelessly\nentangled in the most opposite institutions. The thing we need to know\nis how a native stock has been modified by interaction with different\nenvironments.\n\nYet it goes without saying that original, unlearned activity has its\ndistinctive place and that an important one in conduct. Impulses are the\npivots upon which the re-organization of activities turn, they are\nagencies of deviation, for giving new directions to old habits and\nchanging their quality. Consequently whenever we are concerned with\nunderstanding social transition and flux or with projects for reform,\npersonal and collective, our study must go to analysis of native\ntendencies. Interest in progress and reform is, indeed, the reason for\nthe present great development of scientific interest in primitive human\nnature. If we inquire why men were so long blind to the existence of\npowerful and varied instincts in human beings, the answer seems to be\nfound in the lack of a conception of orderly progress. It is fast\nbecoming incredible that psychologists disputed as to whether they\nshould choose between innate ideas and an empty, passive, wax-like mind.\nFor it seems as if a glance at a child would have revealed that the\ntruth lay in neither doctrine, so obvious is the surging of specific\nnative activities. But this obtuseness to facts was evidence of lack of\ninterest in what could be done with impulses, due, in turn, to lack of\ninterest in modifying existing institutions. It is no accident that men\nbecame interested in the psychology of savages and babies when they\nbecame interested in doing away with old institutions.\n\nA combination of traditional individualism with the recent interest in\nprogress explains why the discovery of the scope and force of instincts\nhas led many psychologists to think of them as the fountain head of all\nconduct, as occupying a place before instead of after that of habits.\nThe orthodox tradition in psychology is built upon isolation of\nindividuals from their surroundings. The soul or mind or consciousness\nwas thought of as self-contained and self-enclosed. Now in the career of\nan individual if it is regarded as complete in itself instincts clearly\ncome before habits. Generalize this individualistic view, and we have an\nassumption that all customs, all significant episodes in the life of\nindividuals can be carried directly back to the operation of instincts.\n\nBut, as we have already noted, if an individual be isolated in this\nfashion, along with the fact of primacy of instinct we find also the\nfact of death. The inchoate and scattered impulses of an infant do not\ncoordinate into serviceable powers except through social dependencies\nand companionships. His impulses are merely starting points for\nassimilation of the knowledge and skill of the more matured beings upon\nwhom he depends. They are tentacles sent out to gather that nutrition\nfrom customs which will in time render the infant capable of independent\naction. They are agencies for transfer of existing social power into\npersonal ability; they are means of reconstructive growth. Abandon an\nimpossible individualistic psychology, and we arrive at the fact that\nnative activities are organs of re-organization and re-adjustment. The\nhen precedes the egg. But nevertheless this particular egg may be so\ntreated as to modify the future type of hen.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nIn the case of the young it is patent that impulses are highly flexible\nstarting points for activities which are diversified according to the\nways in which they are used. Any impulse may become organized into\nalmost any disposition according to the way it interacts with\nsurroundings. Fear may become abject cowardice, prudent caution,\nreverence for superiors or respect for equals; an agency for credulous\nswallowing of absurd superstitions or for wary scepticism. A man may be\nchiefly afraid of the spirits of his ancestors, of officials, of\narousing the disapproval of his associates, of being deceived, of fresh\nair, or of Bolshevism. The actual outcome depends upon how the impulse\nof fear is interwoven with other impulses. This depends in turn upon the\noutlets and inhibitions supplied by the social environment.\n\nIn a definite sense, then, a human society is always starting afresh. It\nis always in process of renewing, and it endures only because of\nrenewal. We speak of the peoples of southern Europe as Latin peoples.\nTheir existing languages depart widely from one another and from the\nLatin mother tongue. Yet there never was a day when this alteration of\nspeech was intentional or explicit. Persons always meant to reproduce\nthe speech they heard from their elders and supposed they were\nsucceeding. This fact may stand as a kind of symbol of the\nreconstruction wrought in habits because of the fact that they can be\ntransmitted and be made to endure only through the medium of the crude\nactivities of the young or through contact with persons having different\nhabits.\n\nFor the most part, this continuous alteration has been unconscious and\nunintended. Immature, undeveloped activity has succeeded in modifying\nadult organized activity accidentally and surreptitiously. But with the\ndawn of the idea of progressive betterment and an interest in new uses\nof impulses, there has grown up some consciousness of the extent to\nwhich a future new society of changed purposes and desires may be\ncreated by a deliberate humane treatment of the impulses of youth. This\nis the meaning of education; for a truly humane education consists in an\nintelligent direction of native activities in the light of the\npossibilities and necessities of the social situation. But for the most\npart, adults have given training rather than education. An impatient,\npremature mechanization of impulsive activity after the fixed pattern of\nadult habits of thought and affection has been desired. The combined\neffect of love of power, timidity in the face of the novel and a\nself-admiring complacency has been too strong to permit immature impulse\nto exercise its re-organizing potentialities. The younger generation has\nhardly even knocked frankly at the door of adult customs, much less been\ninvited in to rectify through better education the brutalities and\ninequities established in adult habits. Each new generation has crept\nblindly and furtively through such chance gaps as have happened to be\nleft open. Otherwise it has been modeled after the old.\n\nWe have already noted how original plasticity is warped and docility is\ntaken mean advantage of. It has been used to signify not capacity to\nlearn liberally and generously, but willingness to learn the customs of\nadult associates, ability to learn just those special things which those\nhaving power and authority wish to teach. Original modifiability has not\nbeen given a fair chance to act as a trustee for a better human life. It\nhas been loaded with convention, biased by adult convenience. It has\nbeen practically rendered into an equivalent of non-assertion of\noriginality, a pliant accommodation to the embodied opinions of others.\n\nConsequently docility has been identified with imitativeness, instead of\nwith power to re-make old habits, to re-create. Plasticity and\noriginality have been opposed to each other. That the most precious part\nof plasticity consists in ability to form habits of independent judgment\nand of inventive initiation has been ignored. For it demands a more\ncomplete and intense docility to form flexible easily re-adjusted habits\nthan it does to acquire those which rigidly copy the ways of others. In\nshort, among the native activities of the young are some that work\ntowards accommodation, assimilation, reproduction, and others that work\ntoward exploration, discovery and creation. But the weight of adult\ncustom has been thrown upon retaining and strengthening tendencies\ntoward conformity, and against those which make for variation and\nindependence. The habits of the growing person are jealously kept within\nthe limit of adult customs. The delightful originality of the child is\ntamed. Worship of institutions and personages themselves lacking in\nimaginative foresight, versatile observation and liberal thought, is\nenforced.\n\nVery early in life sets of mind are formed without attentive thought,\nand these sets persist and control the mature mind. The child learns to\navoid the shock of unpleasant disagreement, to find the easy way out, to\nappear to conform to customs which are wholly mysterious to him in order\nto get his own way--that is to display some natural impulse without\nexciting the unfavorable notice of those in authority. Adults distrust\nthe intelligence which a child has while making upon him demands for a\nkind of conduct that requires a high order of intelligence, if it is to\nbe intelligent at all. The inconsistency is reconciled by instilling in\nhim \"moral\" habits which have a maximum of emotional empressment and\nadamantine hold with a minimum of understanding. These habitudes, deeply\nengrained before thought is awake and even before the day of experiences\nwhich can later be recalled, govern conscious later thought. They are\nusually deepest and most unget-at-able just where critical thought is\nmost needed--in morals, religion and politics. These \"infantalisms\"\naccount for the mass of irrationalities that prevail among men of\notherwise rational tastes. These personal \"hang-overs\" are the cause of\nwhat the student of culture calls survivals. But unfortunately these\nsurvivals are much more numerous and pervasive than the anthropologist\nand historian are wont to admit. To list them would perhaps oust one\nfrom \"respectable\" society.\n\nAnd yet the intimation never wholly deserts us that there is in the\nunformed activities of childhood and youth the possibilities of a better\nlife for the community as well as for individuals here and there. This\ndim sense is the ground of our abiding idealization of childhood. For\nwith all its extravagancies and uncertainties, its effusions and\nreticences, it remains a standing proof of a life wherein growth is\nnormal not an anomaly, activity a delight not a task, and where\nhabit-forming is an expansion of power not its shrinkage. Habit and\nimpulse may war with each other, but it is a combat between the habits\nof adults and the impulses of the young, and not, as with the adult, a\ncivil warfare whereby personality is rent asunder. Our usual measure for\nthe \"goodness\" of children is the amount of trouble they make for\ngrownups, which means of course the amount they deviate from adult\nhabits and expectations. Yet by way of expiation we envy children their\nlove of new experiences, their intentness in extracting the last drop of\nsignificance from each situation, their vital seriousness in things that\nto us are outworn.\n\nWe compensate for the harshness and monotony of our present insistence\nupon formed habits by imagining a future heaven in which we too shall\nrespond freshly and generously to each incident of life. In consequence\nof our divided attitude, our ideals are self-contradictory. On the one\nhand, we dream of an attained perfection, an ultimate static goal, in\nwhich effort shall cease, and desire and execution be once and for all\nin complete equilibrium. We wish for a character which shall be\nsteadfast, and we then conceive this desired faithfulness as something\nimmutable, a character exactly the same yesterday, today and forever.\nBut we also have a sneaking sympathy for the courage of an Emerson in\ndeclaring that consistency should be thrown to the winds when it stands\nbetween us and the opportunities of present life. We reach out to the\nopposite extreme of our ideal of fixity, and under the guise of a return\nto nature dream of a romantic freedom, in which _all_ life is plastic to\nimpulse, a continual source of improvised spontaneities and novel\ninspirations. We rebel against all organization and all stability. If\nmodern thought and sentiment is to escape from this division in its\nideals, it must be through utilizing released impulse as an agent of\nsteady reorganization of custom and institutions.\n\nWhile childhood is the conspicuous proof of the renewing of habit\nrendered possible by impulse, the latter never wholly ceases to play its\nrefreshing r\u00f4le in adult life. If it did, life would petrify, society\nstagnate. Instinctive reactions are sometimes too intense to be woven\ninto a smooth pattern of habits. Under ordinary circumstances they\nappear to be tamed to obey their master, custom. But extraordinary\ncrises release them and they show by wild violent energy how superficial\nis the control of routine. The saying that civilization is only skin\ndeep, that a savage persists beneath the clothes of a civilized man, is\nthe common acknowledgment of this fact. At critical moments of unusual\nstimuli the emotional outbreak and rush of instincts dominating all\nactivity show how superficial is the modification which a rigid habit\nhas been able to effect.\n\nWhen we face this fact in its general significance, we confront one of\nthe ominous aspects of the history of man. We realize how little the\nprogress of man has been the product of intelligent guidance, how\nlargely it has been a by-product of accidental upheavals, even though by\nan apologetic interest in behalf of some privileged institution we later\ntransmute chance into providence. We have depended upon the clash of\nwar, the stress of revolution, the emergence of heroic individuals, the\nimpact of migrations generated by war and famine, the incoming of\nbarbarians, to change established institutions. Instead of constantly\nutilizing unused impulse to effect continuous reconstruction, we have\nwaited till an accumulation of stresses suddenly breaks through the\ndikes of custom.\n\nIt is often supposed that as old persons die, so must old peoples. There\nare many facts in history to support the belief. Decadence and\ndegeneration seems to be the rule as age increases. An irruption of some\nuncivilized horde has then provided new blood and fresh life--so much so\nthat history has been defined as a process of rebarbarization. In truth\nthe analogy between a person and a nation with respect to senescence and\ndeath is defective. A nation is always renewed by the death of its old\nconstituents and the birth of those who are as young and fresh as ever\nwere any individuals in the hey-day of the nation's glory. Not the\nnation but its customs get old. Its institutions petrify into rigidity;\nthere is social arterial sclerosis. Then some people not overburdened\nwith elaborate and stiff habits take up and carry on the moving process\nof life. The stock of fresh peoples is, however, approaching exhaustion.\nIt is not safe to rely upon this expensive method of renewing\ncivilization. We need to discover how to rejuvenate it from within. A\nnormal perpetuation becomes a fact in the degree in which impulse is\nreleased and habit is plastic to the transforming touch of impulse. When\ncustoms are flexible and youth is educated as youth and not as premature\nadulthood, no nation grows old.\n\nThere always exists a goodly store of non-functioning impulses which may\nbe drawn upon. Their manifestation and utilization is called conversion\nor regeneration when it comes suddenly. But they may be drawn upon\ncontinuously and moderately. Then we call it learning or educative\ngrowth. Rigid custom signifies not that there are no such impulses but\nthat they are not organically taken advantage of. As matter of fact, the\nstiffer and the more encrusted the customs, the larger is the number of\ninstinctive activities that find no regular outlet and that accordingly\nmerely await a chance to get an irregular, uncoordinated manifestation.\nRoutine habits never take up all the slack. They apply only where\nconditions remain the same or recur in uniform ways. They do not fit the\nunusual and novel.\n\nConsequently rigid moral codes that attempt to lay down definite\ninjunctions and prohibitions for every occasion in life turn out in fact\nloose and slack. Stretch ten commandments or any other number as far as\nyou will by ingenious exegesis, yet acts unprovided for by them will\noccur. No elaboration of statute law can forestall variant cases and the\nneed of interpretation _ad hoc_. Moral and legal schemes that attempt\nthe impossible in the way of definite formulation compensate for\nexplicit strictness in some lines by implicit looseness in others. The\nonly truly severe code is the one which foregoes codification, throwing\nresponsibility for judging each case upon the agents concerned, imposing\nupon them the burden of discovery and adaptation.\n\nThe relation which actually exists between undirected instinct and\nover-organized custom is illustrated in the two views that are current\nabout savage life. The popular view looks at the savage as a wild man;\nas one who knows no controlling principles or rules of action, who\nfreely follows his own impulse, whim or desire whenever it seizes him\nand wherever it takes him. Anthropologists are given to the opposed\nnotion. They view savages as bondsmen to custom. They note the network\nof regulations that order his risings-up and his sittings-down, his\ngoings-out and his comings-in. They conclude that in comparison with\ncivilized man the savage is a slave, governed by many inflexible tribal\nhabitudes in conduct and ideas.\n\nThe truth about savage life lies in a combination of these two\nconceptions. Where customs exist they are of one pattern and binding on\npersonal sentiment and thought to a degree unknown in civilized life.\nBut since they cannot possibly exist with respect to all the changing\ndetail of daily life, whatever is left uncovered by custom is free from\nregulation. It is therefore left to appetite and momentary circumstance.\nThus enslavement to custom and license of impulse exist side by side.\nStrict conformity and unrestrained wildness intensify each other. This\npicture of life shows us in an exaggerated form the psychology current\nin civilized life whenever customs harden and hold individuals enmeshed.\nWithin civilization, the savage still exists. He is known in his degree\nby oscillation between loose indulgence and stiff habit.\n\nImpulse in short brings with itself the possibility but not the\nassurance of a steady reorganization of habits to meet new elements in\nnew situations. The moral problem in child and adult alike as regards\nimpulse and instinct is to utilize them for formation of new habits, or\nwhat is the same thing, the modification of an old habit so that it may\nbe adequately serviceable under novel conditions. The place of impulse\nin conduct as a pivot of re-adjustment, re-organization, in habits may\nbe defined as follows: On one side, it is marked off from the territory\nof arrested and encrusted habits. On the other side, it is demarcated\nfrom the region in which impulse is a law unto itself.[5] Generalizing\nthese distinctions, a valid moral theory contrasts with all those\ntheories which set up static goals (even when they are called\nperfection), and with those theories which idealize raw impulse and find\nin its spontaneities an adequate mode of human freedom. Impulse is a\nsource, an indispensable source, of liberation; but only as it is\nemployed in giving habits pertinence and freshness does it liberate\npower.\n\n [5] The use of the words instinct and impulse as practical\n equivalents is intentional, even though it may grieve\n critical readers. The word instinct taken alone is still too\n laden with the older notion that an instinct is always\n definitely organized and adapted--which for the most part is\n just what it is not in human beings. The word impulse\n suggests something primitive, yet loose, undirected, initial.\n Man can progress as beasts cannot, precisely because he has\n so many 'instincts' that they cut across one another, so that\n most serviceable actions must be _learned_. In learning\n habits it is possible for man to learn the habit of learning.\n Then betterment becomes a conscious principle of life.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nIncidentally we have touched upon a most far-reaching problem: The\nalterability of human nature. Early reformers, following John Locke,\nwere inclined to minimize the significance of native activities, and to\nemphasize the possibilities inherent in practice and habit-acquisition.\nThere was a political slant to this denial of the native and a priori,\nthis magnifying of the accomplishments of acquired experience. It held\nout a prospect of continuous development, of improvement without end.\nThus writers like Helvetius made the idea of the complete malleability\nof a human nature which originally is wholly empty and passive, the\nbasis for asserting the omnipotence of education to shape human society,\nand the ground of proclaiming the infinite perfectibility of mankind.\n\nWary, experienced men of the world have always been sceptical of schemes\nof unlimited improvement. They tend to regard plans for social change\nwith an eye of suspicion. They find in them evidences of the proneness\nof youth to illusion, or of incapacity on the part of those who have\ngrown old to learn anything from experience. This type of conservative\nhas thought to find in the doctrine of native instincts a scientific\nsupport for asserting the practical unalterability of human nature.\nCircumstances may change, but human nature remains from age to age the\nsame. Heredity is more potent than environment, and human heredity is\nuntouched by human intent. Effort for a serious alteration of human\ninstitutions is utopian. As things have been so they will be. The more\nthey change the more they remain the same.\n\nCuriously enough both parties rest their case upon just the factor which\nwhen it is analyzed weakens their respective conclusions. That is to\nsay, the radical reformer rests his contention in behalf of easy and\nrapid change upon the psychology of habits, of institutions in shaping\nraw nature, and the conservative grounds his counter-assertion upon the\npsychology of instincts. As matter of fact, it is precisely custom which\nhas greatest inertia, which is least susceptible of alteration; while\ninstincts are most readily modifiable through use, most subject to\neducative direction. The conservative who begs scientific support from\nthe psychology of instincts is the victim of an outgrown psychology\nwhich derived its notion of instinct from an exaggeration of the fixity\nand certainty of the operation of instincts among the lower animals. He\nis a victim of a popular zoology of the bird, bee and beaver, which was\nlargely framed to the greater glory of God. He is ignorant that\ninstincts in the animals are less infallible and definite than is\nsupposed, and also that the human being differs from the lower animals\nin precisely the fact that his native activities lack the complex\nready-made organization of the animals' original abilities.\n\nBut the short-cut revolutionist fails to realize the full force of the\nthings about which he talks most, namely institutions as embodied\nhabits. Any one with knowledge of the stability and force of habit will\nhesitate to propose or prophesy rapid and sweeping social changes. A\nsocial revolution may effect abrupt and deep alterations in external\ncustoms, in legal and political institutions. But the habits that are\nbehind these institutions and that have, willy-nilly, been shaped by\nobjective conditions, the habits of thought and feeling, are not so\neasily modified. They persist and insensibly assimilate to themselves\nthe outer innovations--much as American judges nullify the intended\nchanges of statute law by interpreting legislation in the light of\ncommon law. The force of lag in human life is enormous.\n\nActual social change is never so great as is apparent change. Ways of\nbelief, of expectation, of judgment and attendant emotional dispositions\nof like and dislike, are not easily modified after they have once taken\nshape. Political and legal institutions may be altered, even abolished;\nbut the bulk of popular thought which has been shaped to their pattern\npersists. This is why glowing predictions of the immediate coming of a\nsocial millennium terminate so uniformly in disappointment, which gives\npoint to the standing suspicion of the cynical conservative about\nradical changes. Habits of thought outlive modifications in habits of\novert action. The former are vital, the latter, without the sustaining\nlife of the former, are muscular tricks. Consequently as a rule the\nmoral effects of even great political revolutions, after a few years of\noutwardly conspicuous alterations, do not show themselves till after the\nlapse of years. A new generation must come upon the scene whose habits\nof mind have been formed under the new conditions. There is pith in the\nsaying that important reforms cannot take real effect until after a\nnumber of influential persons have died. Where general and enduring\nmoral changes do accompany an external revolution it is because\nappropriate habits of thought have previously been insensibly matured.\nThe external change merely registers the removal of an external\nsuperficial barrier to the operation of existing intellectual\ntendencies.\n\nThose who argue that social and moral reform is impossible on the ground\nthat the Old Adam of human nature remains forever the same, attribute\nhowever to native activities the permanence and inertia that in truth\nbelong only to acquired customs. To Aristotle slavery was rooted in\naboriginal human nature. Native distinctions of quality exist such that\nsome persons are by nature gifted with power to plan, command and\nsupervise, and others possess merely capacity to obey and execute. Hence\nslavery is natural and inevitable. There is error in supposing that\nbecause domestic and chattel slavery has been legally abolished,\ntherefore slavery as conceived by Aristotle has disappeared. But matters\nhave at least progressed to a point where it is clear that slavery is a\nsocial state not a psychological necessity. Nevertheless the worldlywise\nAristotles of today assert that the institutions of war and the present\nwage-system are so grounded in immutable human nature that effort to\nchange them is foolish.\n\nLike Greek slavery or feudal serfdom, war and the existing economic\nregime are social patterns woven out of the stuff of instinctive\nactivities. Native human nature supplies the raw materials, but custom\nfurnishes the machinery and the designs. War would not be possible\nwithout anger, pugnacity, rivalry, self-display, and such like native\ntendencies. Activity inheres in them and will persist under every\ncondition of life. To imagine they can be eradicated is like supposing\nthat society can go on without eating and without union of the sexes.\nBut to fancy that they must eventuate in war is as if a savage were to\nbelieve that because he uses fibers having fixed natural properties in\norder to weave baskets, therefore his immemorial tribal patterns are\nalso natural necessities and immutable forms.\n\nFrom a humane standpoint our study of history is still all too\nprimitive. It is possible to study a multitude of histories, and yet\npermit history, the record of the transitions and transformations of\nhuman activities, to escape us. Taking history in separate doses of this\ncountry and that, we take it as a succession of isolated finalities,\neach one in due season giving way to another, as supernumeraries succeed\none another in a march across the stage. We thus miss the fact of\nhistory and also its lesson; the diversity of institutional forms and\ncustoms which the same human nature may produce and employ. An infantile\nlogic, now happily expelled from physical science, taught that opium put\nmen to sleep because of its dormitive potency. We follow the same logic\nin social matters when we believe that war exists because of bellicose\ninstincts; or that a particular economic regime is necessary because of\nacquisitive and competitive impulses which must find expression.\n\nPugnacity and fear are no more native than are pity and sympathy. The\nimportant thing morally is the way these native tendencies interact, for\ntheir interaction may give a chemical transformation not a mechanical\ncombination. Similarly, no social institution stands alone as a product\nof one dominant force. It is a phenomenon or function of a multitude of\nsocial factors in their mutual inhibitions and reinforcements. If we\nfollow an infantile logic we shall reduplicate the unity of result in an\nassumption of unity of force behind it--as men once did with natural\nevents employing teleology as an exhibition of causal efficiency. We\nthus take the same social custom twice over: once as an existing fact\nand then as an original force which produced the fact, and utter sage\nplatitudes about the unalterable workings of human nature or of race. As\nwe account for war by pugnacity, for the capitalistic system by the\nnecessity of an incentive of gain to stir ambition and effort, so we\naccount for Greece by power of esthetic observation, Rome by\nadministrative ability, the middle ages by interest in religion and so\non. We have constructed an elaborate political zoology as mythological\nand not nearly as poetic as the other zoology of phoenixes,\ngriffins and unicorns. Native racial spirit, the spirit of the people or\nof the time, national destiny are familiar figures in this social zoo.\nAs names for effects, for existing customs, they are sometimes useful.\nAs names for explanatory forces they work havoc with intelligence.\n\nAn immense debt is due William James for the mere title of his essay:\nThe Moral Equivalents of War. It reveals with a flash of light the true\npsychology. Clans, tribes, races, cities, empires, nations, states have\nmade war. The argument that this fact proves an ineradicable belligerent\ninstinct which makes war forever inevitable is much more respectable\nthan many arguments about the immutability of this and that social\ntradition. For it has the weight of a certain empirical generality back\nof it. Yet the suggestion of an _equivalent_ for war calls attention to\nthe medley of impulses which are casually bunched together under the\ncaption of belligerent impulse; and it calls attention to the fact that\nthe elements of this medley may be woven together into many differing\ntypes of activity, some of which may function the native impulses in\nmuch better ways than war has ever done.\n\nPugnacity, rivalry, vainglory, love of booty, fear, suspicion, anger,\ndesire for freedom from the conventions and restrictions of peace, love\nof power and hatred of oppression, opportunity for novel displays, love\nof home and soil, attachment to one's people and to the altar and the\nhearth, courage, loyalty, opportunity to make a name, money or a career,\naffection, piety to ancestors and ancestral gods--all of these things\nand many more make up the war-like force. To suppose there is some one\nunchanging native force which generates war is as naive as the usual\nassumption that our enemy is actuated solely by the meaner of the\ntendencies named and we only by the nobler. In earlier days there was\nsomething more than a verbal connection between pugnacity and fighting;\nanger and fear moved promptly through the fists. But between a loosely\norganized pugilism and the highly organized warfare of today there\nintervenes a long economic, scientific and political history. Social\nconditions rather than an old and unchangeable Adam have generated wars;\nthe ineradicable impulses that are utilized in them are capable of being\ndrafted into many other channels. The century that has witnessed the\ntriumph of the scientific doctrine of the convertibility of natural\nenergies ought not to balk at the lesser miracle of social equivalences\nand substitutes.\n\nIt is likely that if Mr. James had witnessed the world war, he would\nhave modified his mode of treatment. So many new transformations entered\ninto the war, that the war seems to prove that though an equivalent has\nnot been found for war, the psychological forces traditionally\nassociated with it have already undergone profound changes. We may take\nthe Iliad as a classic expression of war's traditional psychology as\nwell as the source of the literary tradition regarding its motives and\nglories. But where are Helen, Hector and Achilles in modern warfare? The\nactivities that evoke and incorporate a war are no longer personal love,\nlove of glory, or the soldier's love of his own privately amassed booty,\nbut are of a collective, prosaic political and economic nature.\n\nUniversal conscription, the general mobilization of all agricultural and\nindustrial forces of the folk not engaged in the trenches, the\napplication of every conceivable scientific and mechanical device, the\nmass movements of soldiery regulated from a common center by a\ndepersonalized general staff: these factors relegate the traditional\npsychological apparatus of war to a now remote antiquity. The motives\nonce appealed to are out of date; they do not now induce war. They\nsimply are played upon after war has been brought into existence in\norder to keep the common soldiers keyed up to their task. The more\nhorrible a depersonalized scientific mass war becomes, the more\nnecessary it is to find universal ideal motives to justify it. Love of\nHelen of Troy has become a burning love for all humanity, and hatred of\nthe foe symbolizes a hatred of all the unrighteousness and injustice and\noppression which he embodies. The more prosaic the actual causes, the\nmore necessary is it to find glowingly sublime motives.\n\nSuch considerations hardly prove that war is to be abolished at some\nfuture date. But they destroy that argument for its necessary\ncontinuance which is based on the immutability of specified forces in\noriginal human nature. Already the forces that once caused wars have\nfound other outlets for themselves; while new provocations, based on new\neconomic and political conditions, have come into being. War is thus\nseen to be a function of social institutions, not of what is natively\nfixed in human constitution. The last great war has not, it must be\nconfessed, made the problem of finding social equivalents simpler and\neasier. It is now naive to attribute war to specific isolable human\nimpulses for which separate channels of expression may be found, while\nthe rest of life is left to go on about the same. A general social\nre-organization is needed which will redistribute forces, immunize,\ndivert and nullify. Hinton was doubtless right when he wrote that the\nonly way to abolish war was to make peace heroic. It now appears that\nthe heroic emotions are not anything which may be specialized in a\nside-line, so that the war-impulses may find a sublimation in special\npractices and occupations. They have to get an outlet in all the tasks\nof peace.\n\nThe argument for the abiding necessity of war turns out, accordingly, to\nhave this much value. It makes us wisely suspicious of all cheap and\neasy equivalencies. It convinces us of the folly of striving to\neliminate war by agencies which leave other institutions of society\npretty much unchanged. History does not prove the inevitability of war,\nbut it does prove that customs and institutions which organize native\npowers into certain patterns in politics and economics will also\ngenerate the war-pattern. The problem of war is difficult because it is\nserious. It is none other than the wider problem of the effective\nmoralizing or humanizing of native impulses in times of peace.\n\nThe case of economic institutions is as suggestive as that of war. The\npresent system is indeed much more recent and more local than is the\ninstitution of war. But no system has ever as yet existed which did not\nin some form involve the exploitation of some human beings for the\nadvantage of others. And it is argued that this trait is unassailable\nbecause it flows from the inherent, immutable qualities of human nature.\nIt is argued, for example, that economic inferiorities and disabilities\nare incidents of an institution of private property which flows from an\noriginal proprietary instinct; it is contended they spring from a\ncompetitive struggle for wealth which in turn flows from the absolute\nneed of profit as an inducement to industry. The pleas are worth\nexamination for the light they throw upon the place of impulses in\norganized conduct.\n\nNo unprejudiced observer will lightly deny the existence of an original\ntendency to assimilate objects and events to the self, to make them part\nof the \"me.\" We may even admit that the \"me\" cannot exist without the\n\"mine.\" The self gets solidity and form through an appropriation of\nthings which identifies them with whatever we call myself. Even a\nworkman in a modern factory where depersonalization is extreme gets to\nhave \"his\" machine and is perturbed at a change. Possession shapes and\nconsolidates the \"I\" of philosophers. \"I own, therefore I am\" expresses\na truer psychology than the Cartesian \"I think, therefore I am.\" A man's\ndeeds are imputed to him as their owner, not merely as their creator.\nThat he cannot disown them when the moment of their occurrence passes is\nthe root of responsibility, moral as well as legal.\n\nBut these same considerations evince the versatility of possessive\nactivity. My worldly goods, my good name, my friends, my honor and shame\nall depend upon a possessive tendency. The need for appropriation has\nhad to be satisfied; but only a calloused imagination fancies that the\ninstitution of private property as it exists A.\u00a0D. 1921 is the sole or\nthe indispensable means of its realization. Every gallant life is an\nexperiment in different ways of fulfilling it. It expends itself in\npredatory aggression, in forming friendships, in seeking fame, in\nliterary creation, in scientific production. In the face of this\nelasticity, it requires an arrogant ignorance to take the existing\ncomplex system of stocks and bonds, of wills and inheritance, a system\nsupported at every point by manifold legal and political arrangements,\nand treat it as the sole legitimate and baptized child of an instinct of\nappropriation. Sometimes, even now, a man most accentuates the fact of\nownership when he gives something away; use, consumption, is the normal\nend of possession. We can conceive a state of things in which the\nproprietary impulse would get full satisfaction by holding goods as mine\nin just the degree in which they were visibly administered for a benefit\nin which a corporate community shared.\n\nDoes the case stand otherwise with the other psychological principle\nappealed to, namely, the need of an incentive of personal profit to keep\nmen engaged in useful work? We need not content ourselves with pointing\nout the elasticity of the idea of gain, and possible equivalences for\npecuniary gain, and the possibility of a state of affairs in which only\nthose things would be counted personal gains which profit a group. It\nwill advance the discussion if we instead subject to analysis the whole\nconception of incentive and motive.\n\nThere is doubtless some sense in saying that every conscious act has an\nincentive or motive. But this sense is as truistic as that of the not\ndissimilar saying that every event has a cause. Neither statement throws\nany light on any particular occurrence. It is at most a maxim which\nadvises us to search for some other fact with which the one in question\nmay be correlated. Those who attempt to defend the necessity of existing\neconomic institutions as manifestations of human nature convert this\nsuggestion of a concrete inquiry into a generalized truth and hence into\na definitive falsity. They take the saying to mean that nobody would do\nanything, or at least anything of use to others, without a prospect of\nsome tangible reward. And beneath this false proposition there is\nanother assumption still more monstrous, namely, that man exists\nnaturally in a state of rest so that he requires some external force to\nset him into action.\n\nThe idea of a thing intrinsically wholly inert in the sense of\nabsolutely passive is expelled from physics and has taken refuge in the\npsychology of current economics. In truth man acts anyway, he can't help\nacting. In every fundamental sense it is false that a man requires a\nmotive to make him do something. To a healthy man inaction is the\ngreatest of woes. Any one who observes children knows that while periods\nof rest are natural, laziness is an acquired vice--or virtue. While a\nman is awake he will do something, if only to build castles in the air.\nIf we like the form of words we may say that a man eats only because he\nis \"moved\" by hunger. The statement is nevertheless mere tautology. For\nwhat does hunger mean except that one of the things which man does\nnaturally, instinctively, is to search for food--that his activity\nnaturally turns that way? Hunger primarily names an act or active\nprocess not a motive to an act. It is an act if we take it grossly, like\na babe's blind hunt for the mother's breast; it is an activity if we\ntake it minutely as a chemico-physiological occurrence.\n\nThe whole concept of motives is in truth extra-psychological. It is an\noutcome of the attempt of men to influence human action, first that of\nothers, then of a man to influence his own behavior. No sensible person\nthinks of attributing the acts of an animal or an idiot to a motive. We\ncall a biting dog ugly, but we don't look for his motive in biting. If\nhowever we were able to direct the dog's action by inducing him to\nreflect upon his acts, we should at once become interested in the dog's\nmotives for acting as he does, and should endeavor to get him interested\nin the same subject. It is absurd to ask what induces a man to activity\ngenerally speaking. He is an active being and that is all there is to be\nsaid on that score. But when we want to get him to act in this specific\nway rather than in that, when we want to direct his activity that is to\nsay in a specified channel, then the question of motive is pertinent. A\nmotive is then that element in the total complex of a man's activity\nwhich, if it can be sufficiently stimulated, will result in an act\nhaving specified consequences. And part of the process of intensifying\n(or reducing) certain elements in the total activity and thus regulating\nactual consequence is to impute these elements to a person as his\nactuating motives.\n\nA child naturally grabs food. But he does it in our presence. His manner\nis socially displeasing and we attribute to his act, up to this time\nwholly innocent, the motive of greed or selfishness. Greediness simply\nmeans the quality of his act as socially observed and disapproved. But\nby attributing it to him as his motive for acting in the disapproved\nway, we induce him to refrain. We analyze his total act and call his\nattention to an obnoxious element in its outcome. A child with equal\nspontaneity, or thoughtlessness, gives way to others. We point out to\nhim with approval that he acted considerately, generously. And this\nquality of action when noted and encouraged becomes a reinforcing\nstimulus of that factor which will induce similar acts in the future. An\nelement in an act viewed as a tendency to produce such and such\nconsequences is a motive. A motive does not exist prior to an act and\nproduce it. It is an act _plus_ a judgment upon some element of it, the\njudgment being made in the light of the consequences of the act.\n\nAt first, as was said, others characterize an act with favorable or\ncondign qualities which they impute to an agent's character. They react\nin this fashion in order to encourage him in future acts of the same\nsort, or in order to dissuade him--in short to build or destroy a habit.\nThis characterization is part of the technique of influencing the\ndevelopment of character and conduct. It is a refinement of the ordinary\nreactions of praise and blame. After a time and to some extent, a person\nteaches himself to think of the results of acting in this way or that\nbefore he acts. He recalls that if he acts this way or that some\nobserver, real or imaginary, will attribute to him noble or mean\ndisposition, virtuous or vicious motive. Thus he learns to influence his\nown conduct. An inchoate activity taken in this forward-looking\nreference to results, especially results of approbation and\ncondemnation, constitutes a motive. Instead then of saying that a man\nrequires a motive in order to induce him to act, we should say that when\na man is going to act he needs to know _what_ he is going to do--what\nthe quality of his act is in terms of consequences to follow. In order\nto act properly he needs to view his act as others view it; namely, as a\nmanifestation of a character or will which is good or bad according as\nit is bent upon specific things which are desirable or obnoxious. There\nis no call to furnish a man with incentives to activity in general. But\nthere is every need to induce him to guide his own action by an\nintelligent perception of its results. For in the long run this is the\nmost effective way of influencing activity to take this desirable\ndirection rather than that objectionable one.\n\nA motive in short is simply an impulse viewed as a constituent in a\nhabit, a factor in a disposition. In general its meaning is simple. But\nin fact motives are as numerous as are original impulsive activities\nmultiplied by the diversified consequences they produce as they operate\nunder diverse conditions. How then does it come about that current\neconomic psychology has so tremendously oversimplified the situation?\nWhy does it recognize but one type of motive, that which concerns\npersonal gain. Of course part of the answer is to be found in the\nnatural tendency in all sciences toward a substitution of artificial\nconceptual simplifications for the tangles of concrete empirical facts.\nBut the significant part of the answer has to do with the social\nconditions under which work is done, conditions which are such as to put\nan unnatural emphasis upon the prospect of reward. It exemplifies again\nour leading proposition that social customs are not direct and necessary\nconsequences of specific impulses, but that social institutions and\nexpectations shape and crystallize impulses into dominant habits.\n\nThe social peculiarity which explains the emphasis put upon profit as an\ninducement to productive serviceable work stands out in high relief in\nthe identification of work with labor. For labor means in economic\ntheory something painful, something so onerously disagreeable or\n\"costly\" that every individual avoids it if he can, and engages in it\nonly because of the promise of an overbalancing gain. Thus the question\nwe are invited to consider is what the social condition is which makes\nproductive work uninteresting and toilsome. Why is the psychology of the\nindustrialist so different from that of inventor, explorer, artist,\nsportsman, scientific investigator, physician, teacher? For the latter\nwe do not assert that activity is such a burdensome sacrifice that it is\nengaged in only because men are bribed to act by hope of reward or are\ncoerced by fear of loss.\n\nThe social conditions under which \"labor\" is undertaken have become so\nuncongenial to human nature that it is not undertaken because of\nintrinsic meaning. It is carried on under conditions which render it\nimmediately irksome. The alleged need of an incentive to stir men out of\nquiescent inertness is the need of an incentive powerful enough to\novercome contrary stimuli which proceed from the social conditions.\nCircumstances of productive service now shear away direct satisfaction\nfrom those engaging in it. A real and important fact is thus contained\nin current economic psychology, but it is a fact about existing\nindustrial conditions and not a fact about native, original activity.\n\nIt is \"natural\" for activity to be agreeable. It tends to find\nfulfilment, and finding an outlet is itself satisfactory, for it marks\npartial accomplishment. If productive activity has become so inherently\nunsatisfactory that men have to be artificially induced to engage in it,\nthis fact is ample proof that the conditions under which work is carried\non balk the complex of activities instead of promoting them, irritate\nand frustrate natural tendencies instead of carrying them forward to\nfruition. Work then becomes labor, the consequence of some aboriginal\ncurse which forces man to do what he would not do if he could help it,\nthe outcome of some original sin which excluded man from a paradise in\nwhich desire was satisfied without industry, compelling him to pay for\nthe means of livelihood with the sweat of his brow. From which it\nfollows naturally that Paradise Regained means the accumulation of\ninvestments such that a man can live upon their return without labor.\nThere is, we repeat, too much truth in this picture. But it is not a\ntruth concerning original human nature and activity. It concerns the\nform human impulses have taken under the influence of a specific social\nenvironment. If there are difficulties in the way of social\nalteration--as there certainly are--they do not lie in an original\naversion of human nature to serviceable action, but in the historic\nconditions which have differentiated the work of the laborer for wage\nfrom that of the artist, adventurer, sportsman, soldier, administrator\nand speculator.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nWar and the existing economic regime have not been discussed primarily\non their own account. They are crucial cases of the relation existing\nbetween original impulse and acquired habit. They are so fraught with\nevil consequences that any one who is disposed can heap up criticisms\nwithout end. Nevertheless they persist. This persistence constitutes the\ncase for the conservative who argues that such institutions are rooted\nin an unalterable human nature. A truer psychology locates the\ndifficulty elsewhere. It shows that the trouble lies in the inertness of\nestablished habit. No matter how accidental and irrational the\ncircumstances of its origin, no matter how different the conditions\nwhich now exist to those under which the habit was formed, the latter\npersists until the environment obstinately rejects it. Habits once\nformed perpetuate themselves, by acting unremittingly upon the native\nstock of activities. They stimulate, inhibit, intensify, weaken, select,\nconcentrate and organize the latter into their own likeness. They create\nout of the formless void of impulses a world made in their own image.\nMan is a creature of habit, not of reason nor yet of instinct.\n\nRecognition of the correct psychology locates the problem but does not\nguarantee its solution. Indeed, at first sight it seems to indicate that\nevery attempt to solve the problem and secure fundamental\nreorganizations is caught in a vicious circle. For the direction of\nnative activity depends upon acquired habits, and yet acquired habits\ncan be modified only by redirection of impulses. Existing institutions\nimpose their stamp, their superscription, upon impulse and instinct.\nThey embody the modifications the latter have undergone. How then can we\nget leverage for changing institutions? How shall impulse exercise that\nre-adjusting office which has been claimed for it? Shall we not have to\ndepend in the future as in the past upon upheaval and accident to\ndislocate customs so as to release impulses to serve as points of\ndeparture for new habits?\n\nThe existing psychology of the industrial worker for example is slack,\nirresponsible, combining a maximum of mechanical routine with a maximum\nof explosive, unregulated impulsiveness. These things have been bred by\nthe existing economic system. But they exist, and are formidable\nobstacles to social change. We cannot breed in men the desire to get\nsomething for as nearly nothing as possible and in the end not pay the\nprice. We satisfy ourselves cheaply by preaching the charm of\nproductivity and by blaming the inherent selfishness of human nature,\nand urging some great moral and religious revival. The evils point in\nreality to the necessity of a change in economic institutions, but\nmeantime they offer serious obstacles to the change. At the same time,\nthe existing economic system has enlisted in behalf of its own\nperpetuity the managerial and the technological abilities which must\nserve the cause of the laborer if he is to be emancipated. In the face\nof these difficulties other persons seek an equally cheap satisfaction\nin the thought of universal civil war and revolution.\n\nIs there any way out of the vicious circle? In the first place, there\nare possibilities resident in the education of the young which have\nnever yet been taken advantage of. The idea of universal education is as\nyet hardly a century old, and it is still much more of an idea than a\nfact, when we take into account the early age at which it terminates for\nthe mass. Also, thus far schooling has been largely utilized as a\nconvenient tool of the existing nationalistic and economic regimes.\nHence it is easy to point out defects and perversions in every existing\nschool system. It is easy for a critic to ridicule the religious\ndevotion to education which has characterized for example the American\nrepublic. It is easy to represent it as zeal without knowledge,\nfanatical faith apart from understanding. And yet the cold fact of the\nsituation is that the chief means of continuous, graded, economical\nimprovement and social rectification lies in utilizing the opportunities\nof educating the young to modify prevailing types of thought and desire.\n\nThe young are not as yet as subject to the full impact of established\ncustoms. Their life of impulsive activity is vivid, flexible,\nexperimenting, curious. Adults have their habits formed, fixed, at least\ncomparatively. They are the subjects, not to say victims, of an\nenvironment which they can directly change only by a maximum of effort\nand disturbance. They may not be able to perceive clearly the needed\nchanges, or be willing to pay the price of effecting them. Yet they wish\na different life for the generation to come. In order to realize that\nwish they may create a special environment whose main function is\neducation. In order that education of the young be efficacious in\ninducing an improved society, it is not necessary for adults to have a\nformulated definite ideal of some better state. An educational\nenterprise conducted in this spirit would probably end merely in\nsubstituting one rigidity for another. What is necessary is that habits\nbe formed which are more intelligent, more sensitively percipient, more\ninformed with foresight, more aware of what they are about, more direct\nand sincere, more flexibly responsive than those now current. Then they\nwill meet their own problems and propose their own improvements.\n\nEducative development of the young is not the only way in which the life\nof impulse may be employed to effect social ameliorations, though it is\nthe least expensive and most orderly. No adult environment is all of one\npiece. The more complex a culture is, the more certain it is to include\nhabits formed on differing, even conflicting patterns. Each custom may\nbe rigid, unintelligent in itself, and yet this rigidity may cause it to\nwear upon others. The resulting attrition may release impulse for new\nadventures. The present time is conspicuously a time of such internal\nfrictions and liberations. Social life seems chaotic, unorganized,\nrather than too fixedly regimented. Political and legal institutions are\nnow inconsistent with the habits that dominate friendly intercourse,\nscience and art. Different institutions foster antagonistic impulses and\nform contrary dispositions.\n\nIf we had to wait upon exhortations and unembodied \"ideals\" to effect\nsocial alterations, we should indeed wait long. But the conflict of\npatterns involved in institutions which are inharmonious with one\nanother is already producing great changes. The significant point is not\nwhether modifications shall continue to occur, but whether they shall be\ncharacterized chiefly by uneasiness, discontent and blind antagonistic\nstruggles, or whether intelligent direction may modulate the harshness\nof conflict, and turn the elements of disintegration into a constructive\nsynthesis. At all events, the social situation in \"advanced\" countries\nis such as to impart an air of absurdity to our insistence upon the\nrigidity of customs. There are plenty of persons to tell us that the\nreal trouble lies in lack of fixity of habit and principle; in departure\nfrom immutable standards and structures constituted once for all. We are\ntold that we are suffering from an excess of instinct, and from laxity\nof habit due to surrender to impulse as a law of life. The remedy is\nsaid to be to return from contemporary fluidity to the stable and\nspacious patterns of a classic antiquity that observed law and\nproportion: for somehow antiquity is always classic. When instability,\nuncertainty, erratic change are diffused throughout the situation, why\ndwell upon the evils of fixed habit and the need of release of impulse\nas an initiator of reorganizations? Why not rather condemn impulse and\nexalt habits of reverencing order and fixed truth?\n\nThe question is natural, but the remedy suggested is futile. It is not\neasy to exaggerate the extent to which we now pass from one kind of\nnurture to another as we go from business to church, from science to the\nnewspaper, from business to art, from companionship to politics, from\nhome to school. An individual is now subjected to many conflicting\nschemes of education. Hence habits are divided against one another,\npersonality is disrupted, the scheme of conduct is confused and\ndisintegrated. But the remedy lies in the development of a new morale\nwhich can be attained only as released impulses are intelligently\nemployed to form harmonious habits adapted to one another in a new\nsituation. A laxity due to decadence of old habits cannot be corrected\nby exhortations to restore old habits in their former rigidity. Even\nthough it were abstractly desirable it is impossible. And it is not\ndesirable because the inflexibility of old habits is precisely the chief\ncause of their decay and disintegration. Plaintive lamentations at the\nprevalence of change and abstract appeals for restoration of senile\nauthority are signs of personal feebleness, of inability to cope with\nchange. It is a \"defense reaction.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nWe may sum up the discussion in a few generalized statements. In the\nfirst place, it is unscientific to try to restrict original activities\nto a definite number of sharply demarcated classes of instincts. And the\npractical result of this attempt is injurious. To classify is, indeed,\nas useful as it is natural. The indefinite multitude of particular and\nchanging events is met by the mind with acts of defining, inventorying\nand listing, reducing to common heads and tying up in bunches. But these\nacts like other intelligent acts are performed for a purpose, and the\naccomplishment of purpose is their only justification. Speaking\ngenerally, the purpose is to facilitate our dealings with unique\nindividuals and changing events. When we assume that our clefts and\nbunches represent fixed separations and collections _in rerum natura_,\nwe obstruct rather than aid our transactions with things. We are guilty\nof a presumption which nature promptly punishes. We are rendered\nincompetent to deal effectively with the delicacies and novelties of\nnature and life. Our thought is hard where facts are mobile; bunched and\nchunky where events are fluid, dissolving.\n\nThe tendency to forget the office of distinctions and classifications,\nand to take them as marking things in themselves, is the current fallacy\nof scientific specialism. It is one of the conspicuous traits of\nhighbrowism, the essence of false abstractionism. This attitude which\nonce flourished in physical science now governs theorizing about human\nnature. Man has been resolved into a definite collection of primary\ninstincts which may be numbered, catalogued and exhaustively described\none by one. Theorists differ only or chiefly as to their number and\nranking. Some say one, self-love; some two, egoism and altruism; some\nthree, greed, fear and glory; while today writers of a more empirical\nturn run the number up to fifty and sixty. But in fact there are as many\nspecific reactions to differing stimulating conditions as there is time\nfor, and our lists are only classifications for a purpose.\n\nOne of the great evils of this artificial simplification is its\ninfluence upon social science. Complicated provinces of life have been\nassigned to the jurisdiction of some special instinct or group of\ninstincts, which has reigned despotically with the usual consequences of\ndespotism. Politics has replaced religion as the set of phenomena based\nupon fear; or after having been the fruit of a special Aristotelian\npolitical faculty, has become the necessary condition of restraining\nman's self-seeking impulse. All sociological facts are disposed of in a\nfew fat volumes as products of imitation and invention, or of\ncooperation and conflict. Ethics rest upon sympathy, pity, benevolence.\nEconomics is the science of phenomena due to one love and one\naversion--gain and labor. It is surprising that men can engage in these\nenterprises without being reminded of their exact similarity to natural\nscience before scientific method was discovered in the seventeenth\ncentury. Just now another simplification is current. All instincts go\nback to the sexual, so that _cherchez la femme_ (under multitudinous\nsymbolic disguises) is the last word of science with respect to the\nanalysis of conduct.\n\nSome sophisticated simplifications which once had great influence are\nnow chiefly matters of historic moment. Even so they are instructive.\nThey show how social conditions put a heavy load on certain tendencies,\nso that in the end an acquired disposition is treated as if it were an\noriginal, and almost the only original activity. Consider, for example,\nthe burden of causal power placed by Hobbes upon the reaction of fear.\nTo a man living with reasonable security and comfort today, Hobbes'\npervasive consciousness of fear seems like the idiosyncrasy of an\nabnormally timid temperament. But a survey of the conditions of his own\ntime, of the disorders which bred general distrust and antagonism, which\nled to brutal swashbuckling and disintegrating intrigue, puts the matter\non a different footing. The social situation conduced to fearfulness. As\nan account of the psychology of the natural man his theory is unsound.\nAs a report of contemporary social conditions there is much to be said\nfor it.\n\nSomething of the same sort may be said regarding the emphasis of\neighteenth century moralists upon benevolence as the inclusive moral\nspring to action, an emphasis represented in the nineteenth century by\nComte's exaltation of altruism. The load was excessive. But it testifies\nto the growth of a new philanthropic spirit. With the breaking down of\nfeudal barriers and a consequent mingling of persons previously divided,\na sense of responsibility for the happiness of others, for the\nmitigation of misery, grew up. Conditions were not ripe for its\ntranslation into political action. Hence the importance attached to the\nprivate disposition of voluntary benevolence.\n\nIf we venture into more ancient history, Plato's threefold division of\nthe human soul into a rational element, a spirited active one, and an\nappetitive one, aiming at increase or gain, is immensely illuminating.\nAs is well known, Plato said that society is the human soul writ large.\nIn society he found three classes: the philosophic and scientific, the\nsoldier-citizenry, and the traders and artisans. Hence the\ngeneralization as to the three dominating forces in human nature. Read\nthe other way around, we perceive that trade in his days appealed\nespecially to concupiscence, citizenship to a generous _\u00e9lan_ of\nself-forgetting loyalty, and scientific study to a disinterested love of\nwisdom that seemed to be monopolized by a small isolated group. The\ndistinctions were not in truth projected from the breast of the natural\nindividual into society, but they were cultivated in classes of\nindividuals by force of social custom and expectation.\n\nNow the prestige that once attached to the \"instinct\" of self-love has\nnot wholly vanished. The case is still worth examination. In its\n\"scientific\" form, start was taken from an alleged instinct of\nself-preservation, characteristic of man as well as of other animals.\nFrom this seemingly innocuous assumption, a mythological psychology\nburgeoned. Animals, including man, certainly perform many acts whose\nconsequence is to protect and preserve life. If their acts did not upon\nthe whole have this tendency, neither the individual or the species\nwould long endure. The acts that spring from life also in the main\nconserve life. Such is the undoubted fact. What does the statement\namount to? Simply the truism that life is life, that life is a\ncontinuing activity as long as it is life at all. But the self-love\nschool converted the fact that life tends to maintain life into a\nseparate and special force which somehow lies back of life and accounts\nfor its various acts. An animal exhibits in its life-activity a\nmultitude of acts of breathing, digesting, secreting, excreting, attack,\ndefense, search for food, etc., a multitude of specific responses to\nspecific stimulations of the environment. But mythology comes in and\nattributes them all to a nisus for self-preservation. Thence it is but a\nstep to the idea that all conscious acts are prompted by self-love. This\npremiss is then elaborated in ingenious schemes, often amusing when\nanimated by a cynical knowledge of the \"world,\" tedious when of a\nwould-be logical nature, to prove that every act of man including his\napparent generosities is a variation played on the theme of\nself-interest.\n\nThe fallacy is obvious. Because an animal cannot live except as it is\nalive, except that is as its acts have the result of sustaining life, it\nis concluded that all its acts are instigated by an impulse to\nself-preservation. Since all acts affect the well-being of their agent\nin one way or another, and since when a person becomes reflective he\nprefers consequences in the way of weal to those of woe, therefore all\nhis acts are due to self-love. In actual substance, one statement says\nthat life is life; and the other says that a self is a self. One says\nthat special acts are acts of a living creature and the other that they\nare acts of a self. In the biological statement the concrete diversity\nbetween the acts of say a clam and of a dog are covered up by pointing\nout that the acts of each tend to self-preservation, ignoring the\nsomewhat important fact that in one case it is the life of a clam and in\nthe other the life of a dog which is continued. In morals, the concrete\ndifferences between a Jesus, a Peter, a John and a Judas are covered up\nby the wise remark that after all they are all selves and all act as\nselves. In every case, a result or \"end\" is treated as an actuating\ncause.\n\nThe fallacy consists in transforming the (truistic) fact of acting _as_\na self into the fiction of acting always _for_ self. Every act,\ntruistically again, tends to a certain fulfilment or satisfaction of\nsome habit which is an undoubted element in the structure of character.\nEach satisfaction is qualitatively what it is because of the disposition\nfulfilled in the object attained, treachery or loyalty, mercy or\ncruelty. But theory comes in and blankets the tremendous diversity in\nthe quality of the satisfactions which are experienced by pointing out\nthat they are all satisfactions. The harm done is then completed by\ntransforming this artificial unity of result into an original love of\nsatisfaction as the force that generates all acts alike. Because a Nero\nand a Peabody both get satisfaction in acting as they do it is inferred\nthat the satisfaction of each is the same in quality, and that both were\nactuated by love of the same objective. In reality the more we\nconcretely dwell upon the common fact of fulfilment, the more we realize\nthe difference in the kinds of selves fulfilled. In pointing out that\nboth the north and the south poles are poles we do not abolish the\ndifference of north from south; we accentuate it.\n\nThe explanation of the fallacy is however too easy to be convincing.\nThere must have been some material, empirical reason why intelligent men\nwere so easily entrapped by a fairly obvious fallacy. That material\nerror was a belief in the fixity and simplicity of the self, a belief\nwhich had been fostered by a school far removed from the one in\nquestion, the theologians with their dogma of the unity and ready-made\ncompleteness of the soul. We arrive at true conceptions of motivation\nand interest only by the recognition that selfhood (except as it has\nencased itself in a shell of routine) is in process of making, and that\nany self is capable of including within itself a number of inconsistent\nselves, of unharmonized dispositions. Even a Nero may be capable upon\noccasion of acts of kindness. It is even conceivable that under certain\ncircumstances he may be appalled by the consequences of cruelty, and\nturn to the fostering of kindlier impulses. A sympathetic person is not\nimmune to harsh arrogances, and he may find himself involved in so much\ntrouble as a consequence of a kindly act, that he allows his generous\nimpulses to shrivel and henceforth governs his conduct by the dictates\nof the strictest worldly prudence. Inconsistencies and shiftings in\ncharacter are the commonest things in experience. Only the hold of a\ntraditional conception of the singleness and simplicity of soul and self\nblinds us to perceiving what they mean: the relative fluidity and\ndiversity of the constituents of selfhood. There is no one ready-made\nself behind activities. There are complex, unstable, opposing attitudes,\nhabits, impulses which gradually come to terms with one another, and\nassume a certain consistency of configuration, even though only by means\nof a distribution of inconsistencies which keeps them in water-tight\ncompartments, giving them separate turns or tricks in action.\n\nMany good words get spoiled when the word self is prefixed to them:\nWords like pity, confidence, sacrifice, control, love. The reason is not\nfar to seek. The word self infects them with a fixed introversion and\nisolation. It implies that the act of love or trust or control is turned\nback upon a self which already is in full existence and in whose behalf\nthe act operates. Pity fulfils and creates a self when it is directed\noutward, opening the mind to new contacts and receptions. Pity for self\nwithdraws the mind back into itself, rendering its subject unable to\nlearn from the buffetings of fortune. Sacrifice may enlarge a self by\nbringing about surrender of acquired possessions to requirements of new\ngrowth. Self-sacrifice means a self-maiming which asks for compensatory\npay in some later possession or indulgence. Confidence as an outgoing\nact is directness and courage in meeting the facts of life, trusting\nthem to bring instruction and support to a developing self. Confidence\nwhich terminates in the self means a smug complacency that renders a\nperson obtuse to instruction by events. Control means a command of\nresources that enlarges the self; self-control denotes a self which is\ncontracting, concentrating itself upon its own achievements, hugging\nthem tight, and thereby estopping the growth that comes when the self is\ngenerously released; a self-conscious moral athleticism that ends in a\ndisproportionate enlargement of some organ.\n\nWhat makes the difference in each of these cases is the difference\nbetween a self taken as something already made and a self still making\nthrough action. In the former case, action has to contribute profit or\nsecurity or consolation _to_ a self. In the latter, impulsive action\nbecomes an adventure in discovery of a self which is possible but as yet\nunrealized, an experiment in creating a self which shall be more\ninclusive than the one which exists. The idea that only those impulses\nhave moral validity which aim at the welfare of others, or are\naltruistic, is almost as one-sided a doctrine as the dogma of self-love.\nYet altruism has one marked superiority; it at least suggests a\ngenerosity of outgoing action, a liberation of power as against the\nclose, pent in, protected atmosphere of a ready-made ego.\n\nThe reduction of all impulses to forms of self-love is worth\ninvestigation because it gives an opportunity to say something about\nself as an ongoing process. The doctrine itself is faded, its advocates\nare belated. The notion is too tame to appeal to a generation that has\nexperienced romanticism and has been intoxicated by imbibing from the\nstreams of power released by the industrial revolution. The fashionable\nunification of today goes by the name of the will to power.\n\nIn the beginning, this is hardly more than a name for a quality of all\nactivity. Every fulfilled activity terminates in added control of\nconditions, in an art of administering objects. Execution, satisfaction,\nrealization, fulfilment are all names for the fact that an activity\nimplies an accomplishment which is possible only by subduing\ncircumstance to serve as an accomplice of achievement. Each impulse or\nhabit is thus a will to its _own_ power. To say this is to clothe a\ntruism in a figure. It says that anger or fear or love or hate is\nsuccessful when it effects some change outside the organism which\nmeasures its force and registers its efficiency. The achieved outcome\nmarks the difference between action and a cooped-up sentiment which is\nexpended upon itself. The eye hungers for light, the ear for sound, the\nhand for surfaces, the arm for things to reach, throw and lift, the leg\nfor distance, anger for an enemy to destroy, curiosity for something to\nshiver and cower before, love for a mate. Each impulse is a demand for\nan object which will enable it to function. Denied an object in reality\nit tends to create one in fancy, as pathology shows.\n\nSo far we have no generalized will to power, but only the inherent\npressure of every activity for an adequate manifestation. It is not so\nmuch a demand for power as search for an opportunity to use a power\nalready existing. If opportunities corresponded to the need, a desire\n_for_ power would hardly arise: power would be used and satisfaction\nwould accrue. But impulse is balked. If conditions are right for an\neducative growth, the snubbed impulse will be \"sublimated.\" That is, it\nwill become a contributory factor in some more inclusive and complex\nactivity, in which it is reduced to a subordinate yet effectual place.\nSometimes however frustration dams activity up, and intensifies it. A\nlonging for satisfaction at any cost is engendered. And when social\nconditions are such that the path of least resistance lies through\nsubjugation of the energies of others, the will to power bursts into\nflower.\n\nThis explains why we attribute a will to power to others but not to\nourselves, except in the complimentary sense that being strong we\nnaturally wish to exercise our strength. Otherwise for ourselves we only\nwant what we want when we want it, not being overscrupulous about the\nmeans we take to get it. This psychology is naive but it is truer to\nfacts than the supposition that there exists by itself as a separate and\noriginal thing a will to power. For it indicates that the real fact is\nsome existing power which demands outlet, and which becomes\nself-conscious only when it is too weak to overcome obstacles.\nConventionally the will to power is imputed only to a comparatively\nsmall number of ambitious and ruthless men. They are probably upon the\nwhole quite unconscious of any such will, being mastered by specific\nintense impulses that find their realization most readily by bending\nothers to serve as tools of their aims. Self-conscious will to power is\nfound mainly in those who have a so-called inferiority complex, and who\nwould compensate for a sense of personal disadvantage (acquired early in\nchildhood) by making a striking impression upon others, in the reflex of\nwhich they feel their strength appreciated. The literateur who has to\ntake his action out in imagination is much more likely to evince a will\nto power than a Napoleon who sees definite objects with extraordinary\nclearness and who makes directly for them. Explosive irritations,\nnaggings, the obstinacy of weak persons, dreams of grandeur, the\nviolence of those usually submissive are the ordinary marks of a will to\npower.\n\nDiscussion of the false simplification involved in this doctrine\nsuggests another unduly fixed and limited classification. Critics of the\nexisting economic regime have divided instincts into the creative and\nthe acquisitive, and have condemned the present order because it\nembodies the latter at the expense of the former. The division is\nconvenient, yet mistaken. Convenient because it sums up certain facts of\nthe present system, mistaken because it takes social products for\npsychological originals. Speaking roughly we may say that native\nactivity is both creative and acquisitive, creative as a process,\nacquisitive in that it terminates as a rule in some tangible product\nwhich brings the process to consciousness of itself.\n\nActivity is creative in so far as it moves to its own enrichment as\nactivity, that is, bringing along with itself a release of further\nactivities. Scientific inquiry, artistic production, social\ncompanionship possess this trait to a marked degree; some amount of it\nis a normal accompaniment of all successfully coordinated action. While\nfrom the standpoint of what precedes it is a fulfilment, it is a\nliberative expansion with respect to what comes after. There is here no\nantagonism between creative expression and the production of results\nwhich endure and which give a sense of accomplishment. Architecture at\nits best, for example, would probably appear to most persons to be\n_more_ creative, not less, than dancing at its best. There is nothing in\nindustrial production which of necessity excludes creative activity. The\nfact that it terminates in tangible utilities no more lowers its status\nthan the uses of a bridge exclude creative art from a share in its\ndesign and construction. What requires explanation is why process is so\ndefinitely subservient to product in so much of modern industry:--that\nis, why later use rather than present achieving is the emphatic thing.\nThe answer seems to be twofold.\n\nAn increasingly large portion of economic work is done with machines. As\na rule, these machines are not under the personal control of those who\noperate them. The machines are operated for ends which the worker has no\nshare in forming and in which as such, or apart from his wage, he has no\ninterest. He neither understands the machines nor cares for their\npurpose. He is engaged in an activity in which means are cut off from\nends, instruments from what they achieve. Highly mechanized activity\ntends as Emerson said to turn men into spiders and needles. But if men\nunderstand what they are about, if they see the whole process of which\ntheir special work is a necessary part, and if they have concern, care,\nfor the whole, then the mechanizing effect is counteracted. But when a\nman is only the tender of a machine, he can have no insight and no\naffection; creative activity is out of the question.\n\nWhat remains to the workman is however not so much acquisitive desires\nas love of security and a wish for a good time. An excessive premium on\nsecurity springs from the precarious conditions of the workman; desire\nfor a good time, so far as it needs any explanation, from demand for\nrelief from drudgery, due to the absence of culturing factors in the\nwork done. Instead of acquisition being a primary end, the net effect of\nthe process is rather to destroy sober care for materials and products;\nto induce careless wastefulness, so far as that can be indulged in\nwithout lessening the weekly wage. From the standpoint of orthodox\neconomic theory, the most surprising thing about modern industry is the\nsmall number of persons who have any effective interest in acquisition\nof wealth. This disregard for acquisition makes it easier for a few who\ndo want to have things their own way, and who monopolize what is\namassed. If an acquisitive impulse were only more evenly developed, more\nof a real fact, than it is, it is quite possible that things would be\nbetter than they are.\n\nEven with respect to men who succeed in accumulating wealth it is a\nmistake to suppose that acquisitiveness plays with most of them a large\nr\u00f4le, beyond getting control of the tools of the game. Acquisition is\nnecessary as an outcome, but it arises not from love of accumulation but\nfrom the fact that without a large stock of possessions one cannot\nengage effectively in modern business. It is an incident of love of\npower, of desire to impress fellows, to obtain prestige, to secure\ninfluence, to manifest ability, to \"succeed\" in short under the\nconditions of the given regime. And if we are to shove a mythological\npsychology of instincts behind modern economics, we should do better to\ninvent instincts for security, a good time, power and success than to\nrely upon an acquisitive instinct. We should have also to give much\nweight to a peculiar sporting instinct. Not acquiring dollars, but\nchasing them, hunting them is the important thing. Acquisition has its\npart in the big game, for even the most devoted sportsman prefers, other\nthings being equal, to bring home the fox's brush. A tangible result is\nthe mark to one's self and to others of success in sport.\n\nInstead of dividing sharply an acquisitive impulse manifested in\nbusiness and a creative instinct displayed in science, art and social\nfellowship, we should rather first inquire why it is that so much of\ncreative activity is in our day diverted into business, and then ask why\nit is that opportunity for exercise of the creative capacity in business\nis now restricted to such a small class, those who have to do with\nbanking, finding a market, and manipulating investments; and finally ask\nwhy creative activity is perverted into an over-specialized and\nfrequently inhumane operation. For after all it is not the bare fact of\ncreation but its quality which counts.\n\nThat captains of industry are creative artists of a sort, and that\nindustry absorbs an undue share of the creative activity of the present\ntime cannot be denied. To impute to the leaders of industry and commerce\nsimply an acquisitive motive is not merely to lack insight into their\nconduct, but it is to lose the clew to bettering conditions. For a more\nproportionate distribution of creative power between business and other\noccupations, and a more humane, wider use of it in business depend upon\ngrasping aright the forces actually at work. Industrial leaders combine\ninterest in making far-reaching plans, large syntheses of conditions\nbased upon study, mastery of refined and complex technical skill,\ncontrol over natural forces and events, with love of adventure,\nexcitement and mastery of fellow-men. When these interests are\nreinforced with actual command of all the means of luxury, of display\nand procuring admiration from the less fortunate, it is not surprising\nthat creative force is drafted largely into business channels, and that\ncompetition for an opportunity to display power becomes brutal.\n\nThe strategic question, as was said, is to understand how and why\npolitical, legal, scientific and educational conditions of society for\nthe last centuries have stimulated and nourished such a one-sided\ndevelopment of creative activities. To approach the problem from this\npoint of view is much more hopeful, though infinitely more complex\nintellectually, than the approach which sets out with a fixed dualism\nbetween acquisitive and creative impulses. The latter assumes a complete\nsplit of higher and lower in the original constitution of man. Were this\nthe case, there would be no organic remedy. The sole appeal would be to\nsentimental exhortation to men to wean themselves from devotion to the\nthings which are beloved by their lower and material nature. And if the\nappeal were moderately successful the social result would be a fixed\nclass division. There would remain a lower class, superciliously looked\ndown upon by the higher, consisting of those in whom the acquisitive\ninstinct remains stronger and who do the necessary work of life, while\nthe higher \"creative\" class devotes itself to social intercourse,\nscience and art.\n\nSince the underlying psychology is wrong, the problem and its solution\nassumes in fact a radically different form. There are an indefinite\nnumber of original or instinctive activities, which are organized into\ninterests and dispositions according to the situations to which they\nrespond. To increase the creative phase and the humane quality of these\nactivities is an affair of modifying the social conditions which\nstimulate, select, intensify, weaken and coordinate native activities.\nThe first step in dealing with it is to increase our detailed scientific\nknowledge. We need to know exactly the selective and directive force of\neach social situation; exactly how each tendency is promoted and\nretarded. Command of the physical environment on a large and deliberate\nscale did not begin until belief in gross forces and entities was\nabandoned. Control of physical energies is due to inquiry which\nestablishes specific correlations between minute elements. It will not\nbe otherwise with social control and adjustment. Having the knowledge we\nmay set hopefully at work upon a course of social invention and\nexperimental engineering. A study of the educative effect, the influence\nupon habit, of each definite form of human intercourse, is prerequisite\nto effective reform.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nIn spite of what has been said, it will be asserted that there are\ndefinite, independent, original instincts which manifest themselves in\nspecific acts in a one-to-one correspondence. Fear, it will be said, is\na reality, and so is anger, and rivalry, and love of mastery of others,\nand self-abasement, maternal love, sexual desire, gregariousness and\nenvy, and each has its own appropriate deed as a result. Of course they\nare realities. So are suction, rusting of metals, thunder and lightning\nand lighter-than-air flying machines. But science and invention did not\nget on as long as men indulged in the notion of special forces to\naccount for such phenomena. Men tried that road, and it only led them\ninto learned ignorance. They spoke of nature's abhorrence of a vacuum;\nof a force of combustion; of intrinsic nisus toward this and that; of\nheaviness and levity as forces. It turned out that these \"forces\" were\nonly the phenomena over again, translated from a specific and concrete\nform (in which they were at least actual) into a generalized form in\nwhich they were verbal. They converted a problem into a solution which\nafforded a simulated satisfaction.\n\nAdvance in insight and control came only when the mind turned squarely\naround. After it had dawned upon inquirers that their alleged causal\nforces were only names which condensed into a duplicate form a variety\nof complex occurrences, they set about breaking up phenomena into minute\ndetail and searching for correlations, that is, for elements in other\ngross phenomena which also varied. Correspondence of variations of\nelements took the place of large and imposing forces. The psychology of\nbehavior is only beginning to undergo similar treatment. It is probable\nthat the vogue of sensation-psychology was due to the fact that it\nseemed to promise a similar detailed treatment of personal phenomena.\nBut as yet we tend to regard sex, hunger, fear, and even much more\ncomplex active interests as if they were lump forces, like the\ncombustion or gravity of old-fashioned physical science.\n\nIt is not hard to see how the notion of a single and separate tendency\ngrew up in the case of simpler acts like hunger and sex. The paths of\nmotor outlet or discharge are comparatively few and are fairly well\ndefined. Specific bodily organs are conspicuously involved. Hence there\nis suggested the notion of a correspondingly separate psychic force or\nimpulse. There are two fallacies in this assumption. The first consists\nin ignoring the fact that no activity (even one that is limited by\nroutine habit) is confined to the channel which is most flagrantly\ninvolved in its execution. The whole organism is concerned in every act\nto some extent and in some fashion, internal organs as well as muscular,\nthose of circulation, secretion, etc. Since the total state of the\norganism is never exactly twice alike, in so far the phenomena of hunger\nand sex are never twice the same in fact. The difference may be\nnegligible for some purposes, and yet give the key for the purposes of a\npsychological analysis which shall terminate in a correct judgment of\nvalue. Even physiologically the context of organic changes accompanying\nan act of hunger or sex makes the difference between a normal and a\nmorbid phenomenon.\n\nIn the second place, the environment in which the act takes place is\nnever twice alike. Even when the overt organic discharge is\nsubstantially the same, the acts impinge upon a different environment\nand thus have different consequences. It is impossible to regard these\ndifferences of objective result as indifferent to the quality of the\nacts. They are immediately sensed if not clearly perceived; and they are\nthe only _components of the meaning_ of the act. When feelings, dwelling\nantecedently in the soul, were supposed to be the causes of acts, it was\nnatural to suppose that each psychic element had its own inherent\nquality which might be directly read off by introspection. But when we\nsurrender this notion, it becomes evident that the only way of telling\nwhat an organic act is like is by the sensed or perceptible changes\nwhich it occasions. Some of these will be intra-organic, and (as just\nindicated) they will vary with every act. Others will be external to the\norganism, and these consequences are more important than the\nintra-organic ones for determining the quality of the act. For they are\nconsequences in which others are concerned and which evoke reactions of\nfavor and disfavor as well as cooperative and resisting activities of a\nmore indirect sort.\n\nMost so-called self-deception is due to employing immediate organic\nstates as criteria of the value of an act. To say that it feels good or\nyields direct satisfaction is to say that it gives rise to a comfortable\ninternal state. The judgment based upon this experience may be entirely\ndifferent from the judgment passed by others upon the basis of its\nobjective or social consequences. As a matter of even the most\nrudimentary precaution, therefore, every person learns to recognize to\nsome extent the quality of an act on the basis of its consequences in\nthe acts of others. But even without this judgment, the exterior changes\nproduced by an act are immediately sensed, and being associated with the\nact become a part of its quality. Even a young child sees the smash of\nthings occasionally by his anger, and the smash may compete with his\nsatisfied feeling of discharged energy as an index of value.\n\nA child gives way to what, grossly speaking, we call anger. Its felt or\nappreciated quality depends in the first place upon the condition of his\norganism at the time, and this is never twice alike. In the second\nplace, the act is at once modified by the environment upon which it\nimpinges so that different consequences are immediately reflected back\nto the doer. In one case, anger is directed say at older and stronger\nplaymates who immediately avenge themselves upon the offender, perhaps\ncruelly. In another case, it takes effect upon weaker and impotent\nchildren, and the reflected appreciated consequence is one of\nachievement, victory, power and a knowledge of the means of having one's\nown way. The notion that anger still remains a single force is a lazy\nmythology. Even in the cases of hunger and sex, where the channels of\naction are fairly demarcated by antecedent conditions (or \"nature\"), the\nactual content and feel of hunger and sex, are indefinitely varied\naccording to their social contexts. Only when a man is starving, is\nhunger an unqualified natural impulse; as it approaches this limit, it\ntends to lose, moreover, its psychological distinctiveness and to become\na raven of the entire organism.\n\nThe treatment of sex by psycho-analysts is most instructive, for it\nflagrantly exhibits both the consequences of artificial simplification\nand the transformation of social results into psychic causes. Writers,\nusually male, hold forth on the psychology of woman, as if they were\ndealing with a Platonic universal entity, although they habitually treat\nmen as individuals, varying with structure and environment. They treat\nphenomena which are peculiarly symptoms of the civilization of the West\nat the present time as if they were the necessary effects of fixed\nnative impulses of human nature. Romantic love as it exists today, with\nall the varying perturbations it occasions, is as definitely a sign of\nspecific historic conditions as are big battle ships with turbines,\ninternal-combustion engines, and electrically driven machines. It would\nbe as sensible to treat the latter as effects of a single psychic cause\nas to attribute the phenomena of disturbance and conflict which\naccompany present sexual relations as manifestations of an original\nsingle psychic force or _Libido_. Upon this point at least a Marxian\nsimplification is nearer the truth than that of Jung.\n\nAgain it is customary to suppose that there is a single instinct of\nfear, or at most a few well-defined sub-species of it. In reality, when\none is afraid the whole being reacts, and this entire responding\norganism is never twice the same. In fact, also, every reaction takes\nplace in a different environment, and its meaning is never twice alike,\nsince the difference in environment makes a difference in consequences.\nIt is only mythology which sets up a single, identical psychic force\nwhich \"causes\" all the reactions of fear, a force beginning and ending\nin itself. It is true enough that in all cases we are able to identify\ncertain more or less separable characteristic acts--muscular\ncontractions, withdrawals, evasions, concealments. But in the latter\nwords we have already brought in an environment. Such terms as\nwithdrawal and concealment have no meaning except as attitudes toward\nobjects. There is no such thing as an environment in general; there are\nspecific changing objects and events. Hence the kind of evasion or\nrunning away or shrinking up which takes place is directly correlated\nwith specific surrounding conditions. There is no one fear having\ndiverse manifestations; there are as many qualitatively different fears\nas there are objects responded to and different consequences sensed and\nobserved.\n\nFear of the dark is different from fear of publicity, fear of the\ndentist from fear of ghosts, fear of conspicuous success from fear of\nhumiliation, fear of a bat from fear of a bear. Cowardice,\nembarrassment, caution and reverence may all be regarded as forms of\nfear. They all have certain physical organic acts in common--those of\norganic shrinkage, gestures of hesitation and retreat. But each is\nqualitatively unique. Each is what it is in virtue of its total\ninteractions or correlations with other acts and with the environing\nmedium, with consequences. High explosives and the aeroplane have\nbrought into being something new in conduct. There is no error in\ncalling it fear. But there is error, even from a limited clinical\nstandpoint, in permitting the classifying name to blot from view the\ndifference between fear of bombs dropped from the sky and the fears\nwhich previously existed. The new fear is just as much and just as\nlittle original and native as a child's fear of a stranger.\n\nFor any activity is original when it first occurs. As conditions are\ncontinually changing, new and _primitive_ activities are continually\noccurring. The traditional psychology of instincts obscures recognition\nof this fact. It sets up a hard-and-fast preordained class under which\nspecific acts are subsumed, so that their own quality and originality\nare lost from view. This is why the novelist and dramatist are so much\nmore illuminating as well as more interesting commentators on conduct\nthan the schematizing psychologist. The artist makes perceptible\nindividual responses and thus displays a new phase of human nature\nevoked in new situations. In putting the case visibly and dramatically\nhe reveals vital actualities. The scientific systematizer treats each\nact as merely another sample of some old principle, or as a mechanical\ncombination of elements drawn from a ready-made inventory.\n\nWhen we recognize the diversity of native activities and the varied ways\nin which they are modified through interactions with one another in\nresponse to different conditions, we are able to understand moral\nphenomena otherwise baffling. In the career of any impulse activity\nthere are speaking generally three possibilities. It may find a surging,\nexplosive discharge--blind, unintelligent. It may be sublimated--that\nis, become a factor coordinated intelligently with others in a\ncontinuing course of action. Thus a gust of anger may, because of its\ndynamic incorporation into disposition, be converted into an abiding\nconviction of social injustice to be remedied, and furnish the dynamic\nto carry the conviction into execution. Or an excitation of sexual\nattraction may reappear in art or in tranquil domestic attachments and\nservices. Such an outcome represents the normal or desirable functioning\nof impulse; in which, to use our previous language, the impulse operates\nas a pivot, or reorganization of habit. Or again a released impulsive\nactivity may be neither immediately expressed in isolated spasmodic\naction, nor indirectly employed in an enduring interest. It may be\n\"suppressed.\"\n\nSuppression is not annihilation. \"Psychic\" energy is no more capable of\nbeing abolished than the forms we recognize as physical. If it is\nneither exploded nor converted, it is turned inwards, to lead a\nsurreptitious, subterranean life. An isolated or spasmodic manifestation\nis a sign of immaturity, crudity, savagery; a suppressed activity is the\ncause of all kinds of intellectual and moral pathology. One form of the\nresulting pathology constitutes \"reaction\" in the sense in which the\nhistorian speaks of reactions. A conventionally familiar instance is\nStuart license after Puritan restraint. A striking modern instance is\nthe orgy of extravagance following upon the enforced economies and\nhardships of war, the moral let-down after its highstrung exalted\nidealisms, the deliberate carelessness after an attention too intense\nand too narrow. Outward manifestation of many normal activities had been\nsuppressed. But activities were not suppressed. They were merely dammed\nup awaiting their chance.\n\nNow such \"reactions\" are simultaneous as well as successive. Resort to\nartificial stimulation, to alcoholic excess, sexual debauchery, opium\nand narcotics are examples. Impulses and interests that are not\nmanifested in the regular course of serviceable activity or in\nrecreation demand and secure a special manifestation. And it is\ninteresting to note that there are two opposite forms. Some phenomena\nare characteristic of persons engaged in a routine monotonous life of\ntoil attended with fatigue and hardship. And others are found in persons\nwho are intellectual and executive, men whose activities are anything\nbut monotonous, but are narrowed through over-specialization. Such men\nthink too much, that is, too much along a _particular_ line. They carry\ntoo heavy responsibilities; that is, their offices of service are not\nadequately shared with others. They seek relief by escape into a more\nsociable and easy-going world. The imperative demand for companionship\nnot satisfied in ordinary activity is met by convivial indulgence. The\nother class has recourse to excess because its members have in ordinary\noccupations next to no opportunity for imagination. They make a foray\ninto a more highly colored world as a substitute for a normal exercise\nof invention, planning and judgment. Having no regular responsibilities,\nthey seek to recover an illusion of potency and of social recognition by\nan artificial exaltation of their submerged and humiliated selves.\n\nHence the love of pleasure against which moralists issue so many\nwarnings. Not that love of pleasures is in itself in any way\ndemoralizing. Love of the pleasures of cheerfulness, of companionship is\none of the steadying influences in conduct. But pleasure has often\nbecome identified with special thrills, excitations, ticklings of sense,\nstirrings of appetite for the express purpose of enjoying the immediate\nstimulation irrespective of results. Such pleasures are signs of\ndissipation, dissoluteness, in the literal sense. An activity which is\ndeprived of regular stimulation and normal function is piqued into\nisolated activity, and the result is division, disassociation. A life of\nroutine and of over-specialization in non-routine lines seek occasions\nin which to arouse by abnormal means a _feeling_ of satisfaction without\nany accompanying objective fulfilment. Hence, as moralists have pointed\nout, the insatiable character of such appetites. Activities are not\nreally satisfied, that is fulfilled in objects. They continue to seek\nfor gratification in more intensified stimulations. Orgies of\npleasure-seeking, varying from saturnalia to mild sprees, result.\n\nIt does not follow however that the sole alternative is satisfaction by\nmeans of objectively serviceable action, that is by action which effects\nuseful changes in the environment. There is an optimistic theory of\nnature according to which wherever there is natural law there is also\nnatural harmony. Since man as well as the world is included in the scope\nof natural law, it is inferred that there is natural harmony between\nhuman activities and surroundings, a harmony which is disturbed only\nwhen man indulges in \"artificial\" departures from nature. According to\nthis view, all man has to do is to keep his occupations in balance with\nthe energies of the environment and he will be both happy and efficient.\nRest, recuperation, relief can be found in a proper alternation of forms\nof useful work. Do the things which surroundings indicate need doing,\nand success, content, restoration of powers will take care of\nthemselves.\n\nThis benevolent view of nature falls in with a Puritanic devotion to\nwork for its own sake and creates distrust of amusement, play and\nrecreation. They are felt to be unnecessary, and worse, dangerous\ndiversions from the path of useful action which is also the path of\nduty. Social conditions certainly impart to occupations as they are now\ncarried on an undue element of fatigue, strain and drudgery.\nConsequently useful occupations which are so ordered socially as to\nengage thought, feed imagination and equalize the impact of stress would\nsurely introduce a tranquillity and recreation which are now lacking.\nBut there is good reason to think that even in the best conditions there\nis enough maladjustment between the necessities of the environment and\nthe activities \"natural\" to man, so that constraint and fatigue would\nalways accompany activity, and special forms of action be needed--forms\nthat are significantly called re-creation.\n\nHence the immense moral importance of play and of fine, or make-believe,\nart--of activity, that is, which is make-believe from the standpoint of\nthe useful arts enforced by the demands of the environment. When\nmoralists have not regarded play and art with a censorious eye, they\noften have thought themselves carrying matters to the pitch of\ngenerosity by conceding that they may be morally indifferent or\ninnocent. But in truth they are moral necessities. They are required to\ntake care of the margin that exists between the total stock of impulses\nthat demand outlet and the amount expended in regular action. They keep\nthe balance which work cannot indefinitely maintain. They are required\nto introduce variety, flexibility and sensitiveness into disposition.\nYet upon the whole the humanizing capabilities of sport in its varied\nforms, drama, fiction, music, poetry, newspapers have been neglected.\nThey have been left in a kind of a moral no-man's territory. They have\naccomplished part of their function but they have not done what they are\ncapable of doing. In many cases they have operated merely as reactions\nlike those artificial and isolated stimulations already mentioned.\n\nThe suggestion that play and art have an indispensable moral function\nwhich should receive an attention now denied, calls out an immediate and\nvehement protest. We omit reference to that which proceeds from\nprofessional moralists to whom art, fun and sport are habitually under\nsuspicion. For those interested in art, professional estheticians, will\nprotest even more strenuously. They at once imagine that some kind of\norganized supervision if not censorship of play, drama and fiction is\ncontemplated which will convert them into means of moral edification. If\nthey do not think of Comstockian interference in the alleged interest of\npublic morals, they at least think that what is intended is the\nelimination by persons of a Puritanic, unartistic temperament of\neverything not found sufficiently earnest and elevating, a fostering of\nart not for its own sake but as a means of doing good by something to\nsomebody. There is a natural fear of injecting into art a spirit of\nearnest uplift, of surrendering art to the reformers.\n\nBut something quite other than this is meant. Relief from continuous\nmoral activity--in the conventional sense of moral--is itself a moral\nnecessity. The service of art and play is to engage and release impulses\nin ways quite different from those in which they are occupied and\nemployed in ordinary activities. Their function is to forestall and\nremedy the usual exaggerations and deficits of activity, even of \"moral\"\nactivity and to prevent a stereotyping of attention. To say that society\nis altogether too careless about the moral worth of art is not to say\nthat carelessness about useful occupations is not a necessity for art.\nOn the contrary, whatever deprives play and art of their own careless\nrapture thereby deprives them of their moral function. Art then becomes\npoorer as art as a matter of course, but it also becomes in the same\nmeasure less effectual in its pertinent moral office. It tries to do\nwhat other things can do better, and it fails to do what nothing but\nitself can do for human nature, softening rigidities, relaxing strains,\nallaying bitterness, dispelling moroseness, and breaking down the\nnarrowness consequent upon specialized tasks.\n\nEven if the matter be put in this negative way, the moral value of art\ncannot be depreciated. But there is a more positive function. Play and\nart add fresh and deeper meanings to the usual activities of life. In\ncontrast with a Philistine relegation of the arts to a trivial by-play\nfrom serious concerns, it is truer to say that most of the significance\nnow found in serious occupations originated in activities not\nimmediately useful, and gradually found its way from them into\nobjectively serviceable employments. For their spontaneity and\nliberation from external necessities permits to them an enhancement and\nvitality of meaning not possible in preoccupation with immediate needs.\nLater this meaning is transferred to useful activities and becomes a\npart of their ordinary working. In saying then that art and play have a\nmoral office not adequately taken advantage of it is asserted that they\nare responsible to life, to the enriching and freeing of its meanings,\nnot that they are responsible to a moral code, commandment or special\ntask.\n\nTo a coarse view--and professed moral refinement is often given to\ntaking coarse views--there is something vulgar not only in recourse to\nabnormal artificial exigents and stimulations but also in interest in\nuseless games and arts. Negatively the two things have features which\nare alike. They both spring from failure of regular occupations to\nengage the full scope of impulses and instincts in an elastically\nbalanced way. They both evince a surplusage of imagination over fact; a\ndemand in imaginative activity for an outlet which is denied in overt\nactivity. They both aim at reducing the domination of the prosaic; both\nare protests against the lowering of meanings attendant upon ordinary\nvocations. As a consequence no rule can be laid down for discriminating\nby direct inspection between unwholesome stimulations and invaluable\nexcursions into appreciative enhancements of life. Their difference lies\nin the way they work, the careers to which they commit us.\n\nArt releases energy and focuses and tranquilizes it. It releases energy\nin constructive forms. Castles in the air like art have their source in\na turning of impulse away from useful production. Both are due to the\nfailure in some part of man's constitution to secure fulfilment in\nordinary ways. But in one case the conversion of direct energy into\nimagination is the starting point of an activity which _shapes_\nmaterial; fancy is fed upon a stuff of life which assumes under its\ninfluence a rejuvenated, composed and enhanced form. In the other case,\nfancy remains an end in itself. It becomes an indulging in fantasies\nwhich bring about withdrawal from all realities, while wishes impotent\nin action build a world which yields temporary excitement. Any\nimagination is a sign that impulse is impeded and is groping for\nutterance. Sometimes the outcome is a refreshed useful habit; sometimes\nit is an articulation in creative art; and sometimes it is a futile\nromancing which for some natures does what self-pity does for others.\nThe amount of potential energy of reconstruction that is dissipated in\nunexpressed fantasy supplies us with a fair measure of the extent to\nwhich the current organization of occupation balks and twists impulse,\nand, by the same sign, with a measure of the function of art which is\nnot yet utilized.\n\nThe development of mental pathologies to the point where they need\nclinical attention has of late enforced a widespread consciousness of\nsome of the evils of suppression of impulse. The studies of\npsychiatrists have made clear that impulses driven into pockets distil\npoison and produce festering sores. An organization of impulse into a\nworking habit forms an interest. A surreptitious furtive organization\nwhich does not articulate in avowed expression forms a \"complex.\"\nCurrent clinical psychology has undoubtedly overworked the influence of\nsexual impulse in this connection, refusing at the hands of some writers\nto recognize the operation of any other modes of disturbance. There are\nexplanations of this onesidedness. The intensity of the sexual instinct\nand its organic ramifications produce many of the cases that are so\nnoticeable as to demand the attention of physicians. And social taboos\nand the tradition of secrecy have put this impulse under greater strain\nthan has been imposed upon others. If a society existed in which the\nexistence of impulse toward food were socially disavowed until it was\ncompelled to live an illicit, covert life, alienists would have plenty\nof cases of mental and moral disturbance to relate in connection with\nhunger.\n\nThe significant thing is that the pathology arising from the sex\ninstinct affords a striking case of a universal principle. Every impulse\nis, as far as it goes, force, urgency. It must either be used in some\nfunction, direct or sublimated, or be driven into a concealed, hidden\nactivity. It has long been asserted on empirical grounds that expression\nand enslavement result in corruption and perversion. We have at last\ndiscovered the reason for this fact. The wholesome and saving force of\nintellectual freedom, open confrontation, publicity, now has the stamp\nof scientific sanction. The evil of checking impulses is not that they\nare checked. Without inhibition there is no instigation of imagination,\nno redirection into more discriminated and comprehensive activities. The\nevil resides in a refusal of direct attention which forces the impulse\ninto disguise and concealment, until it enacts its own unavowed uneasy\nprivate life subject to no inspection and no control.\n\nA rebellious disposition is also a form of romanticism. At least rebels\nset out as romantics, or, in popular parlance, as idealists. There is no\nbitterness like that of conscious impotency, the sense of suffocatingly\ncomplete suppression. The world is hopeless to one without hope. The\nrage of total despair is a vain effort at blind destructiveness. Partial\nsuppression induces in some natures a picture of complete freedom, while\nit arouses a destructive protest against existing institutions as\nenemies that stand in the way of freedom. Rebellion has at least one\nadvantage over recourse to artificial stimulation and to subconscious\nnursings of festering sore spots. It engages in action and thereby comes\nin contact with realities. It contains the possibility of learning\nsomething. Yet learning by this method is immensely expensive. The costs\nare incalculable. As Napoleon said, every revolution moves in a vicious\ncircle. It begins and ends in excess.\n\nTo view institutions as enemies of freedom, and all conventions as\nslaveries, is to deny the only means by which positive freedom in action\ncan be secured. A general liberation of impulses may set things going\nwhen they have been stagnant, but if the released forces are on their\nway to anything they do not know the way nor where they are going.\nIndeed, they are bound to be mutually contradictory and hence\ndestructive--destructive not only of the habits they wish to destroy but\nof themselves, of their own efficacy. Convention and custom are\nnecessary to carrying forward impulse to any happy conclusion. A\nromantic return to nature and a freedom sought within the individual\nwithout regard to the existing environment finds its terminus in chaos.\nEvery belief to the contrary combines pessimism regarding the actual\nwith an even more optimistic faith in some natural harmony or other--a\nfaith which is a survival of some of the traditional metaphysics and\ntheologies which professedly are to be swept away. Not convention but\nstupid and rigid convention is the foe. And, as we have noted, a\nconvention can be reorganized and made mobile only by using some other\ncustom for giving leverage to an impulse.\n\nYet it is too easy to utter commonplaces about the superiority of\nconstructive action to destructive. At all events the professed\nconservative and classicist of tradition seeks too cheap a victory over\nthe rebel. For the rebel is not self-generated. In the beginning no one\nis a revolutionist simply for the fun of it, however it may be after the\nfuror of destructive power gets under way. The rebel is the product of\nextreme fixation and unintelligent immobilities. Life is perpetuated\nonly by renewal. If conditions do not permit renewal to take place\ncontinuously it will take place explosively. The cost of revolutions\nmust be charged up to those who have taken for their aim arrest of\ncustom instead of its readjustment. The only ones who have the right to\ncriticize \"radicals\"--adopting for the moment that perversion of\nlanguage which identifies the radical with the destructive rebel--are\nthose who put as much effort into reconstruction as the rebels are\nputting into destruction. The primary accusation against the\nrevolutionary must be directed against those who having power refuse to\nuse it for ameliorations. They are the ones who accumulate the wrath\nthat sweeps away customs and institutions in an undiscriminating\navalanche. Too often the man who should be criticizing institutions\nexpends his energy in criticizing those who would re-form them. What he\nreally objects to is any disturbance of his own vested securities,\ncomforts and privileged powers.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nWe return to the original proposition. The position of impulse in\nconduct is intermediary. Morality is an endeavor to find for the\nmanifestation of impulse in special situations an office of refreshment\nand renewal. The endeavor is not easy of accomplishment. It is easier to\nsurrender the main and public channels of action and belief to the\nsluggishness of custom, and idealize tradition by emotional attachment\nto its ease, comforts and privileges instead of idealizing it in\npractice by making it more equably balanced with present needs. Again,\nimpulses not used for the work of rejuvenation and vital recovery are\nsidetracked to find their own lawless barbarities or their own\nsentimental refinements. Or they are perverted to pathological\ncareers--some of which have been mentioned.\n\nIn the course of time custom becomes intolerable because of what it\nsuppresses and some accident of war or inner catastrophe releases\nimpulses for unrestrained expression. At such times we have philosophies\nwhich identify progress with motion, blind spontaneity with freedom, and\nwhich under the name of the sacredness of individuality or a return to\nthe norms of nature make impulse a law unto itself. The oscillation\nbetween impulse arrested and frozen in rigid custom and impulse isolated\nand undirected is seen most conspicuously when epochs of conservatism\nand revolutionary ardor alternate. But the same phenomenon is repeated\non a smaller scale in individuals. And in society the two tendencies and\nphilosophies exist simultaneously; they waste in controversial strife\nthe energy that is needed for specific criticism and specific\nreconstruction.\n\nThe release of some portion of the stock of impulses is an opportunity,\nnot an end. In its origin it is the product of chance; but it affords\nimagination and invention _their_ chance. The moral correlate of\nliberated impulse is not immediate activity, but reflection upon the way\nin which to use impulse to renew disposition and reorganize habit.\nEscape from the clutch of custom gives an opportunity to do old things\nin new ways, and thus to construct new ends and means. Breach in the\ncrust of the cake of custom releases impulses; but it is the work of\nintelligence to find the ways of using them. There is an alternative\nbetween anchoring a boat in the harbor till it becomes a rotting hulk\nand letting it loose to be the sport of every contrary gust. To discover\nand define this alternative is the business of mind, of observant,\nremembering, contriving disposition.\n\nHabit as a vital art depends upon the animation of habit by impulse;\nonly this inspiriting stands between habit and stagnation. But art,\nlittle as well as great, anonymous as well as that distinguished by\ntitles of dignity, cannot be improvised. It is impossible without\nspontaneity, but it is not spontaneity. Impulse is needed to arouse\nthought, incite reflection and enliven belief. But only thought notes\nobstructions, invents tools, conceives aims, directs technique, and thus\nconverts impulse into an art which lives in objects. Thought is born as\nthe twin of impulse in every moment of impeded habit. But unless it is\nnurtured, it speedily dies, and habit and instinct continue their civil\nwarfare. There is instinctive wisdom in the tendency of the young to\nignore the limitations of the environment. Only thus can they discover\ntheir own power and learn the differences in different kinds of\nenvironing limitations. But this discovery when once made marks the\nbirth of intelligence; and with its birth comes the responsibility of\nthe mature to observe, to recall, to forecast. Every moral life has its\nradicalism; but this radical factor does not find its full expression in\ndirect action but in the courage of intelligence to go deeper than\neither tradition or immediate impulse goes. To the study of intelligence\nin action we now turn our attention.\n\n\n\n\nPART THREE\n\nTHE PLACE OF INTELLIGENCE IN CONDUCT\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nIn discussing habit and impulse we have repeatedly met topics where\nreference to the work of thought was imperative. Explicit consideration\nof the place and office of intelligence in conduct can hardly begin\notherwise than by gathering together these incidental references and\nreaffirming their significance. The stimulation of reflective\nimagination by impulse, its dependence upon established habits, and its\neffect in transforming habit and regulating impulse forms, accordingly,\nour first theme.\n\nHabits are conditions of intellectual efficiency. They operate in two\nways upon intellect. Obviously, they restrict its reach, they fix its\nboundaries. They are blinders that confine the eyes of mind to the road\nahead. They prevent thought from straying away from its imminent\noccupation to a landscape more varied and picturesque but irrelevant to\npractice. Outside the scope of habits, thought works gropingly, fumbling\nin confused uncertainty; and yet habit made complete in routine shuts in\nthought so effectually that it is no longer needed or possible. The\nroutineer's road is a ditch out of which he cannot get, whose sides\nenclose him, directing his course so thoroughly that he no longer thinks\nof his path or his destination. All habit-forming involves the beginning\nof an intellectual specialization which if unchecked ends in thoughtless\naction.\n\nSignificantly enough this fullblown result is called absentmindedness.\nStimulus and response are mechanically linked together in an unbroken\nchain. Each successive act facilely evoked by its predecessor pushes us\nautomatically into the next act of a predetermined series. Only a signal\nflag of distress recalls consciousness to the task of carrying on.\nFortunately nature which beckons us to this path of least resistance\nalso puts obstacles in the way of our complete acceptance of its\ninvitation. Success in achieving a ruthless and dull efficiency of\naction is thwarted by untoward circumstance. The most skilful aptitude\nbumps at times into the unexpected, and so gets into trouble from which\nonly observation and invention extricate it. Efficiency in following a\nbeaten path has then to be converted into breaking a new road through\nstrange lands.\n\nNevertheless what in effect is love of ease has masqueraded morally as\nlove of perfection. A goal of finished accomplishment has been set up\nwhich if it were attained would mean only mindless action. It has been\ncalled complete and free activity when in truth it is only a treadmill\nactivity or marching in one place. The practical impossibility of\nreaching, in an all around way and all at once such a \"perfection\" has\nbeen recognized. But such a goal has nevertheless been conceived as the\nideal, and progress has been defined as approximation to it. Under\ndiverse intellectual skies the ideal has assumed diverse forms and\ncolors. But all of them have involved the conception of a completed\nactivity, a static perfection. Desire and need have been treated as\nsigns of deficiency, and endeavor as proof not of power but of\nincompletion.\n\nIn Aristotle this conception of an end which exhausts all realization\nand excludes all potentiality appears as a definition of the highest\nexcellence. It of necessity excludes all want and struggle and all\ndependencies. It is neither practical nor social. Nothing is left but a\nself-revolving, self-sufficing thought engaged in contemplating its own\nsufficiency. Some forms of Oriental morals have united this logic with a\nprofounder psychology, and have seen that the final terminus on this\nroad is Nirvana, an obliteration of all thought and desire. In medieval\nscience, the ideal reappeared as a definition of heavenly bliss\naccessible only to a redeemed immortal soul. Herbert Spencer is far\nenough away from Aristotle, medieval Christianity and Buddhism; but the\nidea re-emerges in his conception of a goal of evolution in which\nadaptation of organism to environment is complete and final. In popular\nthought, the conception lives in the vague thought of a remote state of\nattainment in which we shall be beyond \"temptation,\" and in which virtue\nby its own inertia will persist as a triumphant consummation. Even Kant\nwho begins with a complete scorn for happiness ends with an \"ideal\" of\nthe eternal and undisturbed union of virtue and joy, though in his case\nnothing but a symbolic approximation is admitted to be feasible.\n\nThe fallacy in these versions of the same idea is perhaps the most\npervasive of all fallacies in philosophy. So common is it that one\nquestions whether it might not be called _the_ philosophical fallacy. It\nconsists in the supposition that whatever is found true under certain\nconditions may forthwith be asserted universally or without limits and\nconditions. Because a thirsty man gets satisfaction in drinking water,\nbliss consists in being drowned. Because the success of any particular\nstruggle is measured by reaching a point of frictionless action,\ntherefore there is such a thing as an all-inclusive end of effortless\nsmooth activity endlessly maintained. It is forgotten that success is\nsuccess _of_ a specific effort, and satisfaction the fulfilment _of_ a\nspecific demand, so that success and satisfaction become meaningless\nwhen severed from the wants and struggles whose consummations they are,\nor when taken universally. The philosophy of Nirvana comes the closest\nto admission of this fact, but even it holds Nirvana to be desirable.\n\nHabit is however more than a restriction of thought. Habits become\nnegative limits because they are first positive agencies. The more\nnumerous our habits the wider the field of possible observation and\nforetelling. The more flexible they are, the more refined is perception\nin its discrimination and the more delicate the presentation evoked by\nimagination. The sailor is intellectually at home on the sea, the hunter\nin the forest, the painter in his studio, the man of science in his\nlaboratory. These commonplaces are universally recognized in the\nconcrete; but their significance is obscured and their truth denied in\nthe current general theory of mind. For they mean nothing more or less\nthan that habits formed in process of exercising biological aptitudes\nare the sole agents of observation, recollection, foresight and\njudgment: a mind or consciousness or soul in general which performs\nthese operations is a myth.\n\nThe doctrine of a single, simple and indissoluble soul was the cause and\nthe effect of failure to recognize that concrete habits are the means of\nknowledge and thought. Many who think themselves scientifically\nemancipated and who freely advertise the soul for a superstition,\nperpetuate a false notion of what knows, that is, of a separate knower.\nNowadays they usually fix upon consciousness in general, as a stream or\nprocess or entity; or else, more specifically upon sensations and images\nas the tools of intellect. Or sometimes they think they have scaled the\nlast heights of realism by adverting grandiosely to a formal knower in\ngeneral who serves as one term in the knowing relation; by dismissing\npsychology as irrelevant to knowledge and logic, they think to conceal\nthe psychological monster they have conjured up.\n\nNow it is dogmatically stated that no such conceptions of the seat,\nagent or vehicle will go psychologically at the present time. Concrete\nhabits do all the perceiving, recognizing, imagining, recalling,\njudging, conceiving and reasoning that is done. \"Consciousness,\" whether\nas a stream or as special sensations and images, expresses functions of\nhabits, phenomena of their formation, operation, their interruption and\nreorganization.\n\nYet habit does not, of itself, know, for it does not of itself stop to\nthink, observe or remember. Neither does impulse of itself engage in\nreflection or contemplation. It just lets go. Habits by themselves are\ntoo organized, too insistent and determinate to need to indulge in\ninquiry or imagination. And impulses are too chaotic, tumultuous and\nconfused to be able to know even if they wanted to. Habit as such is too\ndefinitely adapted to an environment to survey or analyze it, and\nimpulse is too indeterminately related to the environment to be capable\nof reporting anything about it. Habit incorporates, enacts or overrides\nobjects, but it doesn't know them. Impulse scatters and obliterates them\nwith its restless stir. A certain delicate combination of habit and\nimpulse is requisite for observation, memory and judgment. Knowledge\nwhich is not projected against the black unknown lives in the muscles,\nnot in consciousness.\n\nWe may, indeed, be said to _know how_ by means of our habits. And a\nsensible intimation of the practical function of knowledge has led men\nto identify all acquired practical skill, or even the instinct of\nanimals, with knowledge. We walk and read aloud, we get off and on\nstreet cars, we dress and undress, and do a thousand useful acts without\nthinking of them. We know something, namely, how to do them. Bergson's\nphilosophy of intuition is hardly more than an elaborately documented\ncommentary on the popular conception that by instinct a bird knows how\nto build a nest and a spider to weave a web. But after all, this\npractical work done by habit and instinct in securing prompt and exact\nadjustment to the environment is not knowledge, except by courtesy. Or,\nif we choose to call it knowledge--and no one has the right to issue an\nukase to the contrary--then other things also called knowledge,\nknowledge _of_ and _about_ things, knowledge _that_ things are thus and\nso, knowledge that involves reflection and conscious appreciation,\nremains of a different sort, unaccounted for and undescribed.\n\nFor it is a commonplace that the more suavely efficient a habit the more\nunconsciously it operates. Only a hitch in its workings occasions\nemotion and provokes thought. Carlyle and Rousseau, hostile in\ntemperament and outlook, yet agree in looking at consciousness as a kind\nof disease, since we have no consciousness of bodily or mental organs as\nlong as they work at ease in perfect health. The idea of disease is,\nhowever, aside from the point, unless we are pessimistic enough to\nregard every slip in total adjustment of a person to its surroundings as\nsomething abnormal--a point of view which once more would identify\nwell-being with perfect automatism. The truth is that in every waking\nmoment, the complete balance of the organism and its environment is\nconstantly interfered with and as constantly restored. Hence the \"stream\nof consciousness\" in general, and in particular that phase of it\ncelebrated by William James as alternation of flights and perchings.\nLife is interruptions and recoveries. Continuous interruption is not\npossible in the activities of an individual. Absence of perfect\nequilibrium is not equivalent to a complete crushing of organized\nactivity. When the disturbance amounts to such a pitch as that, the self\ngoes to pieces. It is like shell-shock. Normally, the environment\nremains sufficiently in harmony with the body of organized activities to\nsustain most of them in active function. But a novel factor in the\nsurroundings releases some impulse which tends to initiate a different\nand incompatible activity, to bring about a redistribution of the\nelements of organized activity between those have been respectively\ncentral and subsidiary. Thus the hand guided by the eye moves toward a\nsurface. Visual quality is the dominant element. The hand comes in\ncontact with an object. The eye does not cease to operate but some\nunexpected quality of touch, a voluptuous smoothness or annoying heat,\ncompels a readjustment in which the touching, handling activity strives\nto dominate the action. Now at these moments of a shifting in activity\nconscious feeling and thought arise and are accentuated. The disturbed\nadjustment of organism and environment is reflected in a temporary\nstrife which concludes in a coming to terms of the old habit and the new\nimpulse.\n\nIn this period of redistribution impulse determines the direction of\nmovement. It furnishes the focus about which reorganization swirls. Our\nattention in short is always directed forward to bring to notice\nsomething which is imminent but which as yet escapes us. Impulse defines\nthe peering, the search, the inquiry. It is, in logical language, the\nmovement into the unknown, not into the immense inane of the unknown at\nlarge, but into that special unknown which when it is hit upon restores\nan ordered, unified action. During this search, old habit supplies\ncontent, filling, definite, recognizable, subject-matter. It begins as\nvague presentiment of what we are going towards. As organized habits are\ndefinitely deployed and focused, the confused situation takes on form,\nit is \"cleared up\"--the essential function of intelligence. Processes\nbecome objects. Without habit there is only irritation and confused\nhesitation. With habit alone there is a machine-like repetition, a\nduplicating recurrence of old acts. With conflict of habits and release\nof impulse there is conscious search.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nWe are going far afield from any direct moral issue. But the problem of\nthe place of knowledge and judgment in conduct depends upon getting the\nfundamental psychology of thought straightened out. So the excursion\nmust be continued. We compare life to a traveler faring forth. We may\nconsider him first at a moment where his activity is confident,\nstraightforward, organized. He marches on giving no direct attention to\nhis path, nor thinking of his destination. Abruptly he is pulled up,\narrested. Something is going wrong in his activity. From the standpoint\nof an onlooker, he has met an obstacle which must be overcome before his\nbehavior can be unified into a successful ongoing. From his own\nstandpoint, there is shock, confusion, perturbation, uncertainty. For\nthe moment he doesn't know what hit him, as we say, nor where he is\ngoing. But a new impulse is stirred which becomes the starting point of\nan investigation, a looking into things, a trying to see them, to find\nout what is going on. Habits which were interfered with begin to get a\nnew direction as they cluster about the impulse to look and see. The\nblocked habits of locomotion give him a sense of where he _was_ going,\nof what he had set out to do, and of the ground already traversed. As he\nlooks, he sees definite things which are not just things at large but\nwhich are related to his course of action. The momentum of the activity\nentered upon persists as a sense of direction, of aim; it is an\nanticipatory project. In short, he recollects, observes and plans.\n\nThe trinity of these forecasts, perceptions and remembrances form a\nsubject-matter of discriminated and identified objects. These objects\nrepresent habits turned inside out. They exhibit both the onward\ntendency of habit and the objective conditions which have been\nincorporated within it. Sensations in immediate consciousness are\nelements of action dislocated through the shock of interruption. They\nnever, however, completely monopolize the scene; for there is a body of\nresidual undisturbed habits which is reflected in remembered and\nperceived objects having a meaning. Thus out of shock and puzzlement\nthere gradually emerges a figured framework of objects, past, present,\nfuture. These shade off variously into a vast penumbra of vague,\nunfigured things, a setting which is taken for granted and not at all\nexplicitly presented. The complexity of the figured scene in its scope\nand refinement of contents depends wholly upon prior habits and their\norganization. The reason a baby can know little and an experienced adult\nknow much when confronting the same things is not because the latter has\na \"mind\" which the former has not, but because one has already formed\nhabits which the other has still to acquire. The scientific man and the\nphilosopher like the carpenter, the physician and politician know with\ntheir habits not with their \"consciousness.\" The latter is eventual, not\na source. Its occurrence marks a peculiarly delicate connection between\nhighly organized habits and unorganized impulses. Its contents or\nobjects, observed, recollected, projected and generalized into\nprinciples, represent the incorporated material of habits coming to the\nsurface, because habits are disintegrating at the touch of conflicting\nimpulses. But they also gather themselves together to comprehend impulse\nand make it effective.\n\nThis account is more or less strange as psychology but certain aspects\nof it are commonplaces in a static logical formulation. It is, for\nexample, almost a truism that knowledge is both synthetic and analytic;\na set of discriminated elements connected by relations. This combination\nof opposite factors of unity and difference, elements and relations, has\nbeen a standing paradox and mystery of the theory of knowledge. It will\nremain so until we connect the theory of knowledge with an empirically\nverifiable theory of behavior. The steps of this connection have been\nsketched and we may enumerate them. We know at such times as habits are\nimpeded, when a conflict is set up in which impulse is released. So far\nas this impulse sets up a definite forward tendency it constitutes the\nforward, prospective character of knowledge. In this phase unity or\nsynthesis is found. We are striving to unify our responses, to achieve a\nconsistent environment which will restore unity of conduct. Unity,\nrelations, are prospective; they mark out lines converging to a focus.\nThey are \"ideal.\" But _what_ we know, the objects that present\nthemselves with definiteness and assurance, are retrospective; they are\nthe conditions which have been mastered, incorporated in the past. They\nare elements, discriminated, analytic just because old habits so far as\nthey are checked are also broken into objects which define the\nobstruction of ongoing activity. They are \"real,\" not ideal. Unity is\nsomething sought; split, division is something given, at hand. Were we\nto carry the same psychology into detail we should come upon the\nexplanation of perceived particulars and conceived universals, of the\nrelation of discovery and proof, induction and deduction, the discrete\nand the continuous. Anything approaching an adequate discussion is too\ntechnical to be here in place. But the main point, however technical and\nabstract it may be in statement, is of far reaching importance for\neverything concerned with moral beliefs, conscience and judgments of\nright and wrong.\n\nThe most general, if vaguest issue, concerns the nature of the organ of\nmoral knowledge. As long as knowledge in general is thought to be the\nwork of a special agent, whether soul, consciousness, intellect or a\nknower in general, there is a logical propulsion towards postulating a\nspecial agent for knowledge of moral distinctions. Consciousness and\nconscience have more than a verbal connection. If the former is\nsomething in itself, a seat or power which antecedes intellectual\nfunctions, why should not the latter be also a unique faculty with its\nown separate jurisdiction? If reason in general is independent of\nempirically verifiable realities of human nature, such as instincts and\norganized habits, why should there not also exist a moral or practical\nreason independent of natural operations? On the other hand if it is\nrecognized that knowing is carried on through the medium of natural\nfactors, the assumption of special agencies for moral knowing becomes\noutlawed and incredible. Now the matter of the existence or\nnon-existence of such special agencies is no technically remote matter.\nThe belief in a separate organ involves belief in a separate and\nindependent subject-matter. The question fundamentally at issue is\nnothing more or less than whether moral values, regulations, principles\nand objects form a separate and independent domain or whether they are\npart and parcel of a normal development of a life process.\n\nThese considerations explain why the denial of a separate organ of\nknowledge, of a separate instinct or impulse toward knowing, is not the\nwilful philistinism it is sometimes alleged to be. There is of course a\nsense in which there is a distinctive impulse, or rather habitual\ndisposition, to know. But in the same sense there is an impulse to\naviate, to run a typewriter or write stories for magazines. Some\nactivities result in knowledge, as others result in these other things.\nThe result may be so important as to induce distinctive attention to the\nactivities in order to foster them. From an incident, almost a\nby-product, attainment of truth, physical, social, moral, may become the\nleading characteristic of some activities. Under such circumstances,\nthey become transformed. Knowing is then a distinctive activity, with\nits own ends and its peculiarly adapted processes. All this is a matter\nof course. Having hit upon knowledge accidentally, as it were, and the\nproduct being liked and its importance noted, knowledge-getting becomes,\nupon occasion, a definite occupation. And education confirms the\ndisposition, as it may confirm that of a musician or carpenter or\ntennis-player. But there is no more an original separate impulse or\npower in one case than in the other. Every habit is impulsive, that is\nprojective, urgent, and the habit of knowing is no exception.\n\nThe reason for insisting on this fact is not failure to appreciate the\ndistinctive value of knowledge when once it comes into existence. This\nvalue is so immense it may be called unique. The aim of the discussion\nis not to subordinate knowing to some hard, prosaic utilitarian end. The\nreason for insistence upon the derivative position of knowing in\nactivity, roots in a sense for fact, and in a realization that the\ndoctrine of a separate original power and impulse of knowledge cuts\nknowledge off from other phases of human nature, and results in its\nnon-natural treatment. The isolation of intellectual disposition from\nconcrete empirical facts of biological impulse and habit-formation\nentails a denial of the continuity of mind with nature. Aristotle\nasserted that the faculty of pure knowing enters a man from without as\nthrough a door. Many since his day have asserted that knowing and doing\nhave no intrinsic connection with each other. Reason is asserted to have\nno responsibility to experience; conscience is said to be a sublime\noracle independent of education and social influences. All of these\nviews follow naturally from a failure to recognize that all knowing,\njudgment, belief represent an acquired result of the workings of natural\nimpulses in connection with environment.\n\nUpon the ethical side, as has been intimated, the matter at issue\nconcerns the nature of conscience. Conscience has been asserted by\northodox moralists to be unique in origin and subject-matter. The same\nview is embodied by implication in all those popular methods of moral\ntraining which attempt to fix rigid authoritative notions of right and\nwrong by disconnecting moral judgments from the aids and tests which are\nused in other forms of knowledge. Thus it has been asserted that\nconscience is an original faculty of illumination which (if it has not\nbeen dimmed by indulgence in sin) shines upon moral truths and objects\nand reveals them without effort for precisely what they are. Those who\nhold this view differ enormously among themselves as to the nature of\nthe objects of conscience. Some hold them to be general principles,\nothers individual acts, others the order of worth among motives, others\nthe sense of duty in general, others the unqualified authority of right.\nStill others carry the implied logic of authority to conclusion, and\nidentify knowledge of moral truths with a divine supernatural revelation\nof a code of commandments.\n\nBut among these diversities there is agreement about one fundamental.\nThere must be a separate non-natural faculty of moral knowledge because\nthe things to be known, the matters of right and wrong, good and evil,\nobligation and responsibility, form a separate domain, separate that is\nfrom that of ordinary action in its usual human and social significance.\nThe latter activities may be prudential, political, scientific,\neconomic. But, from the standpoint of these theories, they have no moral\nmeaning until they are brought under the purview of this separate unique\ndepartment of our nature. It thus turns out that the so-called\nintuitional theories of moral knowledge concentrate in themselves all\nthe ideas which are subject to criticism in these pages: Namely, the\nassertion that morality is distinct in origin, working and destiny from\nthe natural structure and career of human nature. This fact is the\nexcuse, if excuse be desired, for a seemingly technical excursion that\nlinks intellectual activity with the conjoint operation of habit and\nimpulse.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nSo far the discussion has ignored the fact that there is an influential\nschool of moralists (best represented in contemporary thought by the\nutilitarians) which also insists upon the natural, empirical character\nof moral judgments and beliefs. But unfortunately this school has\nfollowed a false psychology; and has tended, by calling out a reaction,\nactually to strengthen the hands of those who persist in assigning to\nmorals a separate domain of action and in demanding a separate agent of\nmoral knowledge. The essentials of this false psychology consist in two\ntraits. The first, that knowledge originates from sensations (instead of\nfrom habits and impulses); and the second, that judgment about good and\nevil in action consists in calculation of agreeable and disagreeable\nconsequences, of profit and loss. It is not surprising that this view\nseems to many to degrade morals, as well as to be false to facts. If the\nlogical outcome of an empirical view of moral knowledge is that all\nmorality is concerned with calculating what is expedient, politic,\nprudent, measured by consequences in the ways of pleasurable and painful\nsensations, then, say moralists of the orthodox school, we will have\nnaught to do with such a sordid view: It is a reduction to the absurd of\nits premisses. We will have a separate department for morals and a\nseparate organ of moral knowledge.\n\nOur first problem is then to investigate the nature of ordinary\njudgments upon what it is best or wise to do, or, in ordinary language,\nthe nature of deliberation. We begin with a summary assertion that\ndeliberation is a dramatic rehearsal (in imagination) of various\ncompeting possible lines of action. It starts from the blocking of\nefficient overt action, due to that conflict of prior habit and newly\nreleased impulse to which reference has been made. Then each habit, each\nimpulse, involved in the temporary suspense of overt action takes its\nturn in being tried out. Deliberation is an experiment in finding out\nwhat the various lines of possible action are really like. It is an\nexperiment in making various combinations of selected elements of habits\nand impulses, to see what the resultant action would be like if it were\nentered upon. But the trial is in imagination, not in overt fact. The\nexperiment is carried on by tentative rehearsals in thought which do not\naffect physical facts outside the body. Thought runs ahead and foresees\noutcomes, and thereby avoids having to await the instruction of actual\nfailure and disaster. An act overtly tried out is irrevocable, its\nconsequences cannot be blotted out. An act tried out in imagination is\nnot final or fatal. It is retrievable.\n\nEach conflicting habit and impulse takes its turn in projecting itself\nupon the screen of imagination. It unrolls a picture of its future\nhistory, of the career it would have if it were given head. Although\novert exhibition is checked by the pressure of contrary propulsive\ntendencies, this very inhibition gives habit a chance at manifestation\nin thought. Deliberation means precisely that activity is disintegrated,\nand that its various elements hold one another up. While none has force\nenough to become the center of a re-directed activity, or to dominate a\ncourse of action, each has enough power to check others from exercising\nmastery. Activity does not cease in order to give way to reflection;\nactivity is turned from execution into intra-organic channels, resulting\nin dramatic rehearsal.\n\nIf activity were directly exhibited it would result in certain\nexperiences, contacts with the environment. It would succeed by making\nenvironing objects, things and persons, co-partners in its forward\nmovement; or else it would run against obstacles and be troubled,\npossibly defeated. These experiences of contact with objects and their\nqualities give meaning, character, to an otherwise fluid, unconscious\nactivity. We find out what seeing means by the objects which are seen.\nThey constitute the significance of visual activity which would\notherwise remain a blank. \"Pure\" activity is for consciousness pure\nemptiness. It acquires a content or filling of meanings only in static\ntermini, what it comes to rest in, or in the obstacles which check its\nonward movement and deflect it. As has been remarked, the object is that\nwhich objects.\n\nThere is no difference in this respect between a visible course of\nconduct and one proposed in deliberation. We have no direct\nconsciousness of what we purpose to do. We can judge its nature, assign\nits meaning, only by following it into the situations whither it leads,\nnoting the objects against which it runs and seeing how they rebuff or\nunexpectedly encourage it. In imagination as in fact we know a road only\nby what we see as we travel on it. Moreover the objects which prick out\nthe course of a proposed act until we can see its design also serve to\ndirect eventual overt activity. Every object hit upon as the habit\ntraverses its imaginary path has a direct effect upon existing\nactivities. It reinforces, inhibits, redirects habits already working or\nstirs up others which had not previously actively entered in. In thought\nas well as in overt action, the objects experienced in following out a\ncourse of action attract, repel, satisfy, annoy, promote and retard.\nThus deliberation proceeds. To say that at last it ceases is to say that\nchoice, decision, takes place.\n\nWhat then is choice? Simply hitting in imagination upon an object which\nfurnishes an adequate stimulus to the recovery of overt action. Choice\nis made as soon as some habit, or some combination of elements of habits\nand impulse, finds a way fully open. Then energy is released. The mind\nis made up, composed, unified. As long as deliberation pictures shoals\nor rocks or troublesome gales as marking the route of a contemplated\nvoyage, deliberation goes on. But when the various factors in action fit\nharmoniously together, when imagination finds no annoying hindrance,\nwhen there is a picture of open seas, filled sails and favoring winds,\nthe voyage is definitely entered upon. This decisive direction of action\nconstitutes choice. It is a great error to suppose that we have no\npreferences until there is a choice. We are always biased beings,\ntending in one direction rather than another. The occasion of\ndeliberation is an _excess_ of preferences, not natural apathy or an\nabsence of likings. We want things that are incompatible with one\nanother; therefore we have to make a choice of what we _really_ want, of\nthe course of action, that is, which most fully releases activities.\nChoice is not the emergence of preference out of indifference. It is the\nemergence of a unified preference out of competing preferences. Biases\nthat had held one another in check now, temporarily at least, reinforce\none another, and constitute a unified attitude. The moment arrives when\nimagination pictures an objective consequence of action which supplies\nan adequate stimulus and releases definitive action. All deliberation is\na search for a _way_ to act, not for a final terminus. Its office is to\nfacilitate stimulation.\n\nHence there is reasonable and unreasonable choice. The object thought of\nmay simply stimulate some impulse or habit to a pitch of intensity where\nit is temporarily irresistible. It then overrides all competitors and\nsecures for itself the sole right of way. The object looms large in\nimagination; it swells to fill the field. It allows no room for\nalternatives; it absorbs us, enraptures us, carries us away, sweeps us\noff our feet by its own attractive force. Then choice is arbitrary,\nunreasonable. But the object thought of may be one which stimulates by\nunifying, harmonizing, different competing tendencies. It may release an\nactivity in which all are fulfilled, not indeed, in their original form,\nbut in a \"sublimated\" fashion, that is in a way which modifies the\noriginal direction of each by reducing it to a component along with\nothers in an action of transformed quality. Nothing is more\nextraordinary than the delicacy, promptness and ingenuity with which\ndeliberation is capable of making eliminations and recombinations in\nprojecting the course of a possible activity. To every shade of imagined\ncircumstance there is a vibrating response; and to every complex\nsituation a sensitiveness as to its integrity, a feeling of whether it\ndoes justice to all facts, or overrides some to the advantage of others.\nDecision is reasonable when deliberation is so conducted. There may be\nerror in the result, but it comes from lack of data not from ineptitude\nin handling them.\n\nThese facts give us the key to the old controversy as to the respective\nplaces of desire and reason in conduct. It is notorious that some\nmoralists have deplored the influence of desire; they have found the\nheart of strife between good and evil in the conflict of desire with\nreason, in which the former has force on its side and the latter\nauthority. But reasonableness is in fact a quality of an effective\nrelationship among desires rather than a thing opposed to desire. It\nsignifies the order, perspective, proportion which is achieved, during\ndeliberation, out of a diversity of earlier incompatible preferences.\nChoice is reasonable when it induces us to act reasonably; that is, with\nregard to the claims of each of the competing habits and impulses. This\nimplies, of course, the presence of a comprehensive object, one which\ncoordinates, organizes and functions each factor of the situation which\ngave rise to conflict, suspense and deliberation. This is as true when\nsome \"bad\" impulses and habits enter in as when approved ones require\nunification. We have already seen the effects of choking them off, of\nefforts at direct suppression. Bad habits can be subdued only by being\nutilized as elements in a new, more generous and comprehensive scheme of\naction, and good ones be preserved from rot only by similar use.\n\nThe nature of the strife of reason and passion is well stated by William\nJames. The cue of passion, he says in effect, is to keep imagination\ndwelling upon those objects which are congenial to it, which feed it,\nand which by feeding it intensify its force, until it crowds out all\nthought of other objects. An impulse or habit which is strongly\nemotional magnifies all objects that are congruous with it and smothers\nthose which are opposed whenever they present themselves. A passionate\nactivity learns to work itself up artificially--as Oliver Cromwell\nindulged in fits of anger when he wanted to do things that his\nconscience would not justify. A presentiment is felt that if the thought\nof contrary objects is allowed to get a lodgment in imagination, these\nobjects will work and work to chill and freeze out the ardent passion of\nthe moment.\n\nThe conclusion is not that the emotional, passionate phase of action can\nbe or should be eliminated in behalf of a bloodless reason. More\n\"passions,\" not fewer, is the answer. To check the influence of hate\nthere must be sympathy, while to rationalize sympathy there are needed\nemotions of curiosity, caution, respect for the freedom of\nothers--dispositions which evoke objects which balance those called up\nby sympathy, and prevent its degeneration into maudlin sentiment and\nmeddling interference. Rationality, once more, is not a force to evoke\nagainst impulse and habit. It is the attainment of a working harmony\namong diverse desires. \"Reason\" as a noun signifies the happy\ncooperation of a multitude of dispositions, such as sympathy, curiosity,\nexploration, experimentation, frankness, pursuit--to follow things\nthrough--circumspection, to look about at the context, etc., etc. The\nelaborate systems of science are born not of reason but of impulses at\nfirst slight and flickering; impulses to handle, move about, to hunt, to\nuncover, to mix things separated and divide things combined, to talk and\nto listen. Method is their effectual organization into continuous\ndispositions of inquiry, development and testing. It occurs after these\nacts and because of their consequences. Reason, the rational attitude,\nis the resulting disposition, not a ready-made antecedent which can be\ninvoked at will and set into movement. The man who would intelligently\ncultivate intelligence will widen, not narrow, his life of strong\nimpulses while aiming at their happy coincidence in operation.\n\nThe clew of impulse is, as we say, to start something. It is in a hurry.\nIt rushes us off our feet. It leaves no time for examination, memory and\nforesight. But the clew of reason is, as the phrase also goes, to stop\nand think. Force, however, is required to stop the ongoing of a habit or\nimpulse. This is supplied by another habit. The resulting period of\ndelay, of suspended and postponed overt action, is the period in which\nactivities that are refused direct outlet project imaginative\ncounterparts. It signifies, in technical phrase, the mediation of\nimpulse. For an isolated impulse _is_ immediate, narrowing the world\ndown to the directly present. Variety of competing tendencies enlarges\nthe world. It brings a diversity of considerations before the mind, and\nenables action to take place finally in view of an object generously\nconceived and delicately refined, composed by a long process of\nselections and combinations. In popular phrase, to be deliberate is to\nbe slow, unhurried. It takes time to put objects in order.\n\nThere are however vices of reflection as well as of impulse. We may not\nlook far enough ahead because we are hurried into action by stress of\nimpulse; but we may also become overinterested in the delights of\nreflection; we become afraid of assuming the responsibilities of\ndecisive choice and action, and in general be sicklied over by a pale\ncast of thought. We may become so curious about remote and abstract\nmatters that we give only a begrudged, impatient attention to the things\nright about us. We may fancy we are glorifying the love of truth for its\nown sake when we are only indulging a pet occupation and slighting\ndemands of the immediate situation. Men who devote themselves to\nthinking are likely to be unusually unthinking in some respects, as for\nexample in immediate personal relationships. A man to whom exact\nscholarship is an absorbing pursuit may be more than ordinarily vague in\nordinary matters. Humility and impartiality may be shown in a\nspecialized field, and pettiness and arrogance in dealing with other\npersons. \"Reason\" is not an antecedent force which serves as a panacea.\nIt is a laborious achievement of habit needing to be continually worked\nover. A balanced arrangement of propulsive activities manifested in\ndeliberation--namely, reason--depends upon a sensitive and proportionate\nemotional sensitiveness. Only a one-sided, over-specialized emotion\nleads to thinking of it as separate from emotion. The traditional\nassociation of justice and reason has good psychology back of it. Both\nimply a balanced distribution of thought and energy. Deliberation is\nirrational in the degree in which an end is so fixed, a passion or\ninterest so absorbing, that the foresight of consequences is warped to\ninclude only what furthers execution of its predetermined bias.\nDeliberation is rational in the degree in which forethought flexibly\nremakes old aims and habits, institutes perception and love of new ends\nand acts.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nWe now return to a consideration of the utilitarian theory according to\nwhich deliberation consists in calculation of courses of action on the\nbasis of the profit and loss to which they lead. The contrast of this\nnotion with fact is obvious. The office of deliberation is not to supply\nan inducement to act by figuring out where the most advantage is to be\nprocured. It is to resolve entanglements in existing activity, restore\ncontinuity, recover harmony, utilize loose impulse and redirect habit.\nTo this end observation of present conditions, recollection of previous\nsituations are devoted. Deliberation has its beginning in troubled\nactivity and its conclusion in choice of a course of action which\nstraightens it out. It no more resembles the casting-up of accounts of\nprofit and loss, pleasures and pains, than an actor engaged in drama\nresembles a clerk recording debit and credit items in his ledger.\n\nThe primary fact is that man is a being who responds in action to the\nstimuli of the environment. This fact is complicated in deliberation,\nbut it certainly is not abolished. We continue to react to an object\npresented in imagination as we react to objects presented in\nobservation. The baby does not move to the mother's breast because of\ncalculation of the advantages of warmth and food over against the pains\nof effort. Nor does the miser seek gold, nor the architect strive to\nmake plans, nor the physician to heal, because of reckonings of\ncomparative advantage and disadvantage. Habit, occupation, furnishes the\nnecessity of forward action in one case as instinct does in the other.\nWe do not act _from_ reasoning; but reasoning puts before us objects\nwhich are not directly or sensibly present, so that we then may react\ndirectly to these objects, with aversion, attraction, indifference or\nattachment, precisely as we would to the same objects if they were\nphysically present. In the end it results in a case of direct stimulus\nand response. In one case the stimulus is presented at once through\nsense; in the other case, it is indirectly reached through memory and\nconstructive imagination. But the matter of directness and indirectness\nconcerns the way the stimulus is reached, not the way in which it\noperates.\n\nJoy and suffering, pain and pleasure, the agreeable and disagreeable,\nplay their considerable r\u00f4le in deliberation. Not, however, by way of a\ncalculated estimate of future delights and miseries, but by way of\nexperiencing present ones. The reaction of joy and sorrow, elation and\ndepression, is as natural a response to objects presented in imagination\nas to those presented in sense. Complacency and annoyance follow hard at\nthe heels of any object presented in image as they do upon its sensuous\nexperience. Some objects when thought of are congruent to our existing\nstate of activity. They fit in, they are welcome. They agree, or are\nagreeable, not as matter of calculation but as matter of experienced\nfact. Other objects rasp; they cut across activity; they are tiresome,\nhateful, unwelcome. They disagree with the existing trend of activity,\nthat is, they are disagreeable, and in no other way than as a bore who\nprolongs his visit, a dun we can't pay, or a pestiferous mosquito who\ngoes on buzzing. We do not think of future losses and expansions. We\nthink, through imagination, of objects into which in the future some\ncourse of action will run, and we are _now_ delighted or depressed,\npleased or pained at what is presented. This running commentary of likes\nand dislikes, attractions and disdains, joys and sorrows, reveals to any\nman who is intelligent enough to note them and to study their occasions\nhis own character. It instructs him as to the composition and direction\nof the activities that make him what he is. To know what jars an\nactivity and what agrees with it is to know something important about\nthat activity and about ourselves.\n\nSome one may ask what practical difference it makes whether we are\ninfluenced by calculation of future joys and annoyances or by experience\nof present ones. To such a question one can hardly reply except in the\nwords \"All the difference in the world.\" In the first place, no\ndifference can be more important than that which concerns the nature of\nthe _subject-matter_ of deliberation. The calculative theory would have\nit that this subject-matter is future feelings, sensations, and that\nactions and thought are external means to get and avoid these\nsensations. If such a theory has any practical influence, it is to\nadvise a person to concentrate upon his own most subjective and private\nfeelings. It gives him no choice except between a sickly introspection\nand an intricate calculus of remote, inaccessible and indeterminate\nresults. In fact, deliberation, as a tentative trying-out of various\ncourses of action, is outlooking. It flies toward and settles upon\nobjective situations not upon feelings. No doubt we sometimes fall to\ndeliberating upon the effect of action upon our future feelings,\nthinking of a situation mainly with reference to the comforts and\ndiscomforts it will excite in us. But these moments are precisely our\nsentimental moments of self-pity or self-glorification. They conduce to\nmorbidity, sophistication, isolation from others; while facing our acts\nin terms of their objective consequences leads to enlightenment and to\nconsideration of others. The first objection therefore to deliberation\nas a calculation of future feelings is that, if it is consistently\nadhered to, it makes an abnormal case the standard one.\n\nIf however an objective estimate is attempted, thought gets speedily\nlost in a task impossible of achievement. Future pleasures and pains are\ninfluenced by two factors which are independent of present choice and\neffort. They depend upon our own state at some future moment and upon\nthe surrounding circumstances of that moment. Both of these are\nvariables which change independently of present resolve and action. They\nare much more important determinants of future sensations than is\nanything which can now be calculated. Things sweet in anticipation are\nbitter in actual taste, things we now turn from in aversion are welcome\nat another moment in our career. Independently of deep changes in\ncharacter, such as from mercifulness to callousness, from fretfulness to\ncheerfulness, there are unavoidable changes in the waxing and waning of\nactivity. A child pictures a future of unlimited toys and unrestricted\nsweetmeats. An adult pictures an object as giving pleasure while he is\nempty while the thing arrives in a moment of repletion. A sympathetic\nperson reckons upon the utilitarian basis the pains of others as a debit\nitem in his calculations. But why not harden himself so that others'\nsufferings won't count? Why not foster an arrogant cruelty so that the\nsuffering of others which will follow from one's own action will fall on\nthe credit side of the reckoning, be pleasurable, all to the good?\n\nFuture pleasures and pains, even of one's own, are among the things most\nelusive of calculation. Of all things they lend themselves least readily\nto anything approaching a mathematical calculus. And the further into\nthe future we extend our view, and the more the pleasures of others\nenter into the account, the more hopeless does the problem of estimating\nfuture consequences become. All of the elements become more and more\nindeterminate. Even if one could form a fairly accurate picture of the\nthings that give pleasure to most people at the present moment--an\nexceedingly difficult task--he cannot foresee the detailed circumstances\nwhich will give a decisive turn to enjoyment at future times and remote\nplaces. Do pleasures due to defective education or unrefined\ndisposition, to say nothing of the pleasures of sensuality and\nbrutality, rank the same as those of cultivated persons having acute\nsocial sensitiveness? The only reason the impossibility of the\nhedonistic calculus is not self-evident is that theorists in considering\nit unconsciously substitute for calculation of future pleasures an\nappreciation of present ones, a present realization in imagination of\nfuture objective situations.\n\nFor, in truth, a man's judgment of future joys and sorrows is but a\nprojection of what now satisfies and annoys him. A man of considerate\ndisposition now feels hurt at the thought of an act bringing harm to\nothers, and so he is on the lookout for consequences of that sort,\nranking them as of high importance. He may even be so abnormally\nsensitive to such consequences that he is held back from needed vigorous\naction. He fears to do the things which are for the real welfare of\nothers because he shrinks from the thought of the pain to be inflicted\nupon them by needed measures. A man of an executive type, engrossed in\ncarrying through a scheme, will react in present emotion to everything\nconcerned with its external success; the pain its execution brings to\nothers will not occur to him, or if it does, his mind will easily glide\nover it. This sort of consequence will seem to him of slight importance\nin comparison with the commercial or political changes which bulk in his\nplans. What a man foresees and fails to foresee, what he appraises\nhighly and at a low rate, what he deems important and trivial, what he\ndwells upon and what he slurs over, what he easily recalls and what he\nnaturally forgets--all of these things depend upon his character. His\nestimate of future consequences of the agreeable and annoying is\nconsequently of much greater value as an index of what he now is than as\na prediction of future results.\n\nOne has only to read between the lines to see the enormous difference\nthat marks off modern utilitarianism from epicureanism, in spite of\nsimilarities in professed psychologies. Epicureanism is too worldly-wise\nto indulge in attempts to base present action upon precarious estimates\nof future and universal pleasures and pains. On the contrary it says let\nthe future go, for life is uncertain. Who knows when it will end, or\nwhat fortune the morrow will bring? Foster, then, with jealous care\nevery gift of pleasure now allotted to you, dwell upon it with lingering\nlove, prolong it as best you may. Utilitarianism on the contrary was a\npart of a philanthropic and reform movement of the nineteenth century.\nIts commendation of an elaborate and impossible calculus was in reality\npart of a movement to develop a type of character which should have a\nwide social outlook, sympathy with the experiences of all sentient\ncreatures, one zealous about the social effects of all proposed acts,\nespecially those of collective legislation and administration. It was\nconcerned not with extracting the honey of the passing moment but with\nbreeding improved bees and constructing hives.\n\nAfter all, the object of foresight of consequences is not to predict the\nfuture. It is to ascertain the meaning of present activities and to\nsecure, so far as possible, a present activity with a unified meaning.\nWe are not the creators of heaven and earth; we have no responsibility\nfor their operations save as their motions are altered by our movements.\nOur concern is with the significance of that slight fraction of total\nactivity which starts from ourselves. The best laid plans of men as well\nof mice gang aglee; and for the same reason: inability to dominate the\nfuture. The power of man and mouse is infinitely constricted in\ncomparison with the power of events. Men always build better or worse\nthan they know, for their acts are taken up into the broad sweep of\nevents.\n\nHence the problem of deliberation is not to calculate future happenings\nbut to appraise present proposed actions. We judge present desires and\nhabits by their tendency to produce certain consequences. It is our\nbusiness to watch the course of our action so as to see what is the\nsignificance, the import of our habits and dispositions. The future\noutcome is not certain. But neither is it certain what the present fire\nwill do in the future. It may be unexpectedly fed or extinguished. But\nits _tendency_ is a knowable matter, what it will do under certain\ncircumstances. And so we know what is the tendency of malice, charity,\nconceit, patience. We know by observing their consequences, by\nrecollecting what we have observed, by using that recollection in\nconstructive imaginative forecasts of the future, by using the thought\nof future consequence to tell the quality of the act now proposed.\n\nDeliberation is not calculation of indeterminate future results. The\npresent, not the future, is ours. No shrewdness, no store of information\nwill make it ours. But by constant watchfulness concerning the tendency\nof acts, by noting disparities between former judgments and actual\noutcomes, and tracing that part of the disparity that was due to\ndeficiency and excess in disposition, we come to know the meaning of\npresent acts, and to guide them in the light of that meaning. The moral\nis to develop conscientiousness, ability to judge the significance of\nwhat we are doing and to use that judgment in directing what we do, not\nby means of direct cultivation of something called conscience, or\nreason, or a faculty of moral knowledge, but by fostering those impulses\nand habits which experience has shown to make us sensitive, generous,\nimaginative, impartial in perceiving the tendency of our inchoate\ndawning activities. Every attempt to forecast the future is subject in\nthe end to the auditing of present concrete impulse and habit. Therefore\nthe important thing is the fostering of those habits and impulses which\nlead to a broad, just, sympathetic survey of situations.\n\nThe occasion of deliberation, that is of the attempt to find a stimulus\nto complete overt action in thought of some future object, is confusion\nand uncertainty in present activities. A similar devision in activities\nand need of a like deliberative activity for the sake of recovery of\nunity is sure to recur, to recur again and again, no matter how wise the\ndecision. Even the most comprehensive deliberation leading to the most\nmomentous choice only fixes a disposition which has to be continuously\napplied in new and unforeseen conditions, re-adapted by future\ndeliberations. Always our old habits and dispositions carry us into new\nfields. We have to be always learning and relearning the meaning of our\nactive tendencies. Does not this reduce moral life to the futile toil of\na Sisyphus who is forever rolling a stone uphill only to have it roll\nback so that he has to repeat his old task? Yes, judged from progress\nmade in a control of conditions which shall stay put and which excludes\nthe necessity of future deliberations and reconsiderations. No, because\ncontinual search and experimentation to discover the meaning of changing\nactivity, keeps activity alive, growing in significance. The future\nsituation involved in deliberation is of necessity marked by\ncontingency. What it will be in fact remains dependent upon conditions\nthat escape our foresight and power of regulation. But foresight which\ndraws liberally upon the lessons of past experience reveals the\ntendency, the meaning, of present action; and, once more, it is this\npresent meaning rather than the future outcome which counts. Imaginative\nforethought of the probable consequences of a proposed act keeps that\nact from sinking below consciousness into routine habit or whimsical\nbrutality. It preserves the meaning of that act alive, and keeps it\ngrowing in depth and refinement of meaning. There is no limit to the\namount of meaning which reflective and meditative habit is capable of\nimporting into even simple acts, just as the most splendid successes of\nthe skilful executive who manipulates events may be accompanied by an\nincredibly meager and superficial consciousness.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nThe reason for dividing conduct into two distinct regions, one of\nexpediency and the other of morality, disappears when the psychology\nthat identifies ordinary deliberation with calculation is disposed of.\nThere is seen to be but one issue involved in all reflection upon\nconduct: The rectifying of present troubles, the harmonizing of present\nincompatibilities by projecting a course of action which gathers into\nitself the meaning of them all. The recognition of the true psychology\nalso reveals to us the nature of good or satisfaction. Good consists in\nthe meaning that is experienced to belong to an activity when conflict\nand entanglement of various incompatible impulses and habits terminate\nin a unified orderly release in action. This human good, being a\nfulfilment conditioned upon thought, differs from the pleasures which an\nanimal nature--of course we also remain animals so far as we do not\nthink--hits upon accidentally. Moreover there is a genuine difference\nbetween a false good, a spurious satisfaction, and a \"true\" good, and\nthere is an empirical test for discovering the difference. The\nunification which ends thought in act may be only a superficial\ncompromise, not a real decision but a postponement of the issue. Many of\nour so-called decisions are of this nature. Or it may present, as we\nhave seen, a victory of a temporarily intense impulse over its rivals, a\nunity by oppression and suppression, not by coordination. These seeming\nunifications which are not unifications of fact are revealed by the\nevent, by subsequent occurrences. It is one of the penalties of evil\nchoice, perhaps the chief penalty, that the wrong-doer becomes more and\nmore incapable of detecting these objective revelations of himself.\n\nIn quality, the good is never twice alike. It never copies itself. It is\nnew every morning, fresh every evening. It is unique in its every\npresentation. For it marks the resolution of a distinctive complication\nof competing habits and impulses which can never repeat itself. Only\nwith a habit rigid to the point of immobility could exactly the same\ngood recur twice. And with such rigid routines the same good does not\nafter all recur, for it does not even occur. There is no consciousness\nat all, either of good or bad. Rigid habits sink below the level of any\nmeaning at all. And since we live in a moving world, they plunge us\nfinally against conditions to which they are not adapted and so\nterminate in disaster.\n\nTo utilitarianism with all its defects belongs the distinction of\nenforcing in an unforgettable way the fact that moral good, like every\ngood, consists in a satisfaction of the forces of human nature, in\nwelfare, happiness. To Bentham remains, in spite of all crudities and\neccentricities, the imperishable renown of forcing home to the popular\nconsciousness that \"conscience,\" intelligence applied to in moral\nmatters, is too often not intelligence but is veiled caprice, dogmatic\n_ipse dixitism_, vested class interest. It is truly conscience only as\nit contributes to relief of misery and promotion of happiness. An\nexamination of utilitarianism brings out however the catastrophe\ninvolved in thinking of the good to which intelligence is pertinent as\nconsisting in future pleasures and pains, and moral reflection as their\nalgebraic calculus. It emphasizes the contrast between such conceptions\nof good and of intelligence, and the facts of human nature according to\nwhich good, happiness, is found in the present meaning of activity,\ndepending upon the proportion, order and freedom introduced into it by\nthought as it discovers objects which release and unify otherwise\ncontending elements.\n\nAn adequate discussion of why utilitarianism with its just insight into\nthe central place of good, and its ardent devotion to rendering morals\nmore intelligent and more equitably human took its onesided course (and\nthereby provoked an intensified reaction to transcendental and dogmatic\nmorals) would take us far afield into social conditions and the\nantecedent history of thought. We can deal with only one factor, the\ndomination of intellectual interest by economic considerations. The\nindustrial revolution was bound in any case to give a new direction to\nthought. It enforced liberation from other-worldly concerns by fixing\nattention upon the possibility of the betterment of this world through\ncontrol and utilization of natural forces; it opened up marvelous\npossibilities in industry and commerce, and new social conditions\nconducive to invention, ingenuity, enterprise, constructive energy and\nan impersonal habit of mind dealing with mechanisms rather than\nappearances. But new movements do not start in a new and clear field.\nThe context of old institutions and corresponding habits of thought\npersisted. The new movement was perverted in theory because prior\nestablished conditions deflected it in practice. Thus the new\nindustrialism was largely the old feudalism, living in a bank instead of\na castle and brandishing the check of credit instead of the sword.\n\nAn old theological doctrine of total depravity was continued and carried\nover in the idea of an inherent laziness of human nature which rendered\nit averse to useful work, unless bribed by expectations of pleasure, or\ndriven by fears of pains. This being the \"incentive\" to action, it\nfollowed that the office of reason is only to enlighten the search for\ngood or gain by instituting a more exact calculus of profit and loss.\nHappiness was thus identified with a maximum net gain of pleasures on\nthe basis of analogy with business conducted for pecuniary profit, and\ndirected by means of a science of accounting dealing with quantities of\nreceipts and expenses expressed in definite monetary units.[6] For\nbusiness was conducted as matter of fact with primary reference to\nprocuring gain and averting loss. Gain and loss were reckoned in terms\nof units of money, assumed to be fixed and equal, exactly comparable\nwhether loss or gain occurred, while business foresight reduced future\nprospects to definitely measured forms, to dollars and cents. A dollar\nis a dollar, past, present or future; and every business transaction,\nevery expenditure and consumption of time, energy, goods, is, in theory,\ncapable of exact statement in terms of dollars. Generalize this point of\nview into the notion that gain is the object of _all_ action; that gain\ntakes the form of pleasure; that there are definite, commensurable units\nof pleasure, which are exactly offset by units of pain (loss), and the\nworking psychology of the Benthamite school is at hand.\n\n [6] I owe the suggestion of this mode of interpreting the\n hedonistic calculus of utilitarianism to Dr. Wesley Mitchell.\n See his articles in _Journal of Political Economy_, vol. 18.\n Compare also his article in _Political Science Quarterly_,\n vol. 33.\n\nNow admitting that the device of money accounting makes possible more\nexact estimates of the consequences of many acts than is otherwise\npossible, and that accordingly the use of money and accounting may work\na triumph for the application of intelligence in daily affairs, yet\nthere exists a difference in kind between business calculation of profit\nand loss and deliberation upon what purposes to form. Some of these\ndifferences are inherent and insuperable. Others of them are due to the\nnature of present business conducted for pecuniary profit, and would\ndisappear if business were conducted primarily for service of needs. But\nit is important to see _how_ in the latter case the assimilation of\nbusiness accounting and normal deliberation would occur. For it would\nnot consist in making deliberation identical with calculation of loss\nand gain; it would proceed in the opposite direction. It would make\naccounting and auditing a subordinate factor in discovering the meaning\nof present activity. Calculation would be a means of stating future\nresults more exactly and objectively and thus of making action more\nhumane. Its function would be that of statistics in all social science.\n\nBut first as to the inherent difference between deliberation regarding\nbusiness profit and loss and deliberation about ordinary conduct. The\ndistinction between wide and narrow use of reason has already been\nnoted. The latter holds a fixed end in view and deliberates only upon\nmeans of reaching it. The former regards the end-in-view in deliberation\nas tentative and permits, nay encourages the coming into view of\nconsequences which will transform it and create a new purpose and plan.\nNow business calculation is obviously of the kind where the end is taken\nfor granted and does not enter into deliberation. It resembles the case\nin which a man has already made his final decision, say to take a walk,\nand deliberates only upon what walk to take. His end-in-view already\nexists; it is not questioned. The question is as to comparative\nadvantages of this tramp or that. Deliberation is not free but occurs\nwithin the limits of a decision reached by some prior deliberation or\nelse fixed by unthinking routine. Suppose, however, that a man's\nquestion is not which path to walk upon, but whether to walk or to stay\nwith a friend whom continued confinement has rendered peevish and\nuninteresting as a companion. The utilitarian theory demands that in the\nlatter case the two alternatives still be of the same kind, alike in\nquality, that their only difference be a quantitative one, of plus or\nminus in pleasure. This assumption that all desires and dispositions,\nall habits and impulses, are the same in quality is equivalent to the\nassertion that no real or significant conflict among them is possible;\nand hence there is no need of discovering an object and an activity\nwhich will bring them into unity. It asserts by implication that there\nis no genuine doubt or suspense as to the meaning of any impulse or\nhabit. Their meaning is ready-made, fixed: pleasure. The only \"problem\"\nor doubt is as to the _amount_ of pleasure (or pain) that is involved.\n\nThis assumption does violence to fact. The poignancy of situations that\nevoke reflection lies in the fact that we really do not know the meaning\nof the tendencies that are pressing for action. We have to search, to\nexperiment. Deliberation is a work of discovery. Conflict is acute; one\nimpulse carries us one way into one situation, and another impulse takes\nus another way to a radically different objective result. Deliberation\nis not an attempt to do away with this opposition of quality by reducing\nit to one of amount. It is an attempt to _uncover_ the conflict in its\nfull scope and bearing. What we want to find out is what difference each\nimpulse and habit imports, to reveal qualitative incompatibilities by\ndetecting the different courses to which they commit us, the different\ndispositions they form and foster, the different situations into which\nthey plunge us.\n\nIn short, the thing actually at stake in any serious deliberation is not\na difference of quantity, but what kind of person one is to become, what\nsort of self is in the making, what kind of a world is making. This is\nplain enough in those crucial decisions where the course of life is\nthrown into widely different channels, where the pattern of life is\nrendered different and diversely dyed according as this alternative or\nthat is chosen. Deliberation as to whether to be a merchant or a school\nteacher, a physician or a politician is not a choice of quantities. It\nis just what it appears to be, a choice of careers which are\nincompatible with one another, within each of which definitive\ninclusions and rejections are involved. With the difference in career\nbelongs a difference in the constitution of the self, of habits of\nthought and feeling as well as of outward action. With it comes profound\ndifferences in all future objective relationships. Our minor decisions\ndiffer in acuteness and range, but not in principle. Our world does not\nso obviously hang upon any one of them; but put together they make the\nworld what it is in meaning for each one of us. Crucial decisions can\nhardly be more than a disclosure of the cumulative force of trivial\nchoices.\n\nA radical distinction thus exists between deliberation where the only\nquestion is whether to invest money in this bond or that stock, and\ndeliberation where the primary decision is as to the _kind_ of activity\nwhich is to be engaged in. Definite quantitative calculation is possible\nin the former case because a decision as to kind or direction of action\ndoes not have to be made. It has been decided already, whether by\npersistence of habit, or prior deliberation, that the man is to be an\ninvestor. The significant thing in decisions proper, the course of\naction, the kind of a self simply, doesn't enter in; it isn't in\nquestion. To reduce all cases of judgment of action to this simplified\nand comparatively unimportant case of calculation of quantities, is to\nmiss the whole point of deliberation.[7]\n\n [7] So far as I am aware Dr. H.\u00a0W. Stuart was the first to\n point out this difference between economic and moral\n valuations in his essay in _Studies in Logical Theory_.\n\nIt is another way of saying the same thing to note that business\ncalculations about pecuniary gain never concern direct use in\nexperience. They are, as such, not deliberations about good or\nsatisfaction at all. The man who decides to put business activity before\nall other claims whatsoever, before that of family or country or art or\nscience, does make a choice about satisfaction or good. But he makes it\nas a man, not as a business man. On the other hand, what is to be _done_\nwith business profit when it accrues (except to invest it in similar\nundertakings) does not enter at all into a strictly business\ndeliberation. Its use, in which alone good or satisfaction is found, is\nleft indeterminate, contingent upon further deliberation, or else is\nleft matter of routine habit. We do not eat money, or wear it, or marry\nit, or listen for musical strains to issue from it. If by any chance a\nman prefers a less amount of money to a greater amount, it is not for\neconomic reasons. Pecuniary profit in itself, in other words, is always\nstrictly instrumental, and it is of the nature of this instrument to be\neffective in proportion to size. In choosing with respect to it, we are\nnot making a significant choice, a choice of ends.\n\nWe have already seen, however, there is something abnormal and in the\nstrict sense impossible in mere means, in, that is, instruments totally\ndissevered from ends. We may view economic activity in abstraction, but\nit does not _exist_ by itself. Business takes for granted non-business\nuses to which its results are to be put. The stimuli for economic\nactivity (in the sense in which business means activity subject to\nmonetary reckoning) are found in non-pecuniary, non-economic activities.\nTaken by itself then economic action throws no light upon the nature of\nsatisfaction and the relation of intelligence to it, because the whole\nquestion of satisfaction is either taken for granted or else is ignored\nby it. Only when money-making is itself taken as a good does it exhibit\nanything pertinent to the question. And when it is so taken, then the\nquestion is not one of future gain but of present activity and its\nmeaning. Business then becomes an activity carried on for its own sake.\nIt is then a career, a continuous occupation in which are developed\ndaring, adventure, power, rivalry, overcoming of competitors,\nconspicuous achievement which attracts admiration, play of imagination,\ntechnical knowledge, skill in foresight and making combinations,\nmanagement of men and goods and so on. In this case, it exemplifies what\nhas been said about good or happiness as incorporating in itself at\n_present_ the foreseen future consequences that result from intelligent\naction. The problem concerns the quality of such a good.\n\nIn short the attempt to assimilate other activities to the model of\neconomic activity (defined as a calculated pursuit of gain) reverses the\nstate of the facts. The \"economic man\" defined as a creature devoted to\nan enlightened or calculating pursuit of gain is morally objectionable\nbecause the conception of such a being empirically falsifies empirical\nfacts. Love of pecuniary gain is an undoubted and powerful fact. But it\nand its importance are affairs of social not of psychological nature. It\nis not a primary fact which can be used to account for other phenomena.\nIt depends upon other impulses and habits. It expresses and organizes\nthe use to which they are put. It cannot be used to define the nature of\ndesire, effort and satisfaction, because it embodies a socially selected\ntype of desire and satisfaction. It affords, like steeple-chasing, or\ncollecting postage stamps, seeking political office, astronomical\nobservation of the heavens, a special case of desire, effort, and\nhappiness. And like them it is subject to examination, criticism and\nvaluation in the light of the place it occupies in the system of\ndeveloping activities.\n\nThe reason that it is so easy and for specific purposes so useful to\nselect economic activities and subject them to separate scientific\ntreatment is because the men who engage in it are men who are also more\nthan business men, whose usual habits may be more or less safely guessed\nat. As human beings they have desires and occupations which are affected\nby social custom, expectation and admiration. The uses to which gains\nwill be put, that is the current scheme of activities into which they\nenter as factors, are passed over only because they are so inevitably\npresent. Support of family, of church, philanthropic benefactions,\npolitical influence, automobiling, command of luxuries, freedom of\nmovement, respect from others, are in general terms some of the obvious\nactivities into which economic activity fits. This context of activities\nenters into the real make-up and meaning of economic activity.\nCalculated pursuit of gain is in fact never what it is made out to be\nwhen economic action is separated from the rest of life, for in fact it\nis what it is because of a complex social environment involving\nscientific, legal, political and domestic conditions.\n\nA certain tragic fate seems to attend all intellectual movements. That\nof utilitarianism is suggested in the not infrequent criticism that it\nexaggerated the r\u00f4le of rational thought in human conduct, that it\nassumed that everybody is moved by conscious considerations and that all\nthat is really necessary is to make the process of consideration\nsufficiently enlightened. Then it is objected that a better psychology\nreveals that men are not moved by thought but rather by instinct and\nhabit. Thus a partially sound criticism is employed to conceal the one\nfactor in utilitarianism from which we ought to learn something; is used\nto foster an obscurantist doctrine of trusting to impulse, instinct or\nintuition. Neither the utilitarians nor any one else can exaggerate the\nproper office of reflection, of intelligence, in conduct. The mistake\nlay not here but in a false conception of what constitutes reflection,\ndeliberation. The truth that men are not moved by consideration of\nself-interest, that men are not good judges of where their interests lie\nand are not moved to act by these judgments, cannot properly be\nconverted into the belief that consideration of consequences is a\nnegligible factor in conduct. So far as it is negligible in fact it\nevinces the rudimentary character of civilization. We may indeed safely\nstart from the assumption that impulse and habit, not thought, are the\nprimary determinants of conduct. But the conclusion to be drawn from\nthese facts is that the need is therefore the greater for cultivation of\nthought. The error of utilitarianism is not at this point. It is found\nin its wrong conception of what thought, deliberation, is and does.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nOur problem now concerns the nature of ends, that is ends-in-view or\naims. The essential elements in the problem have already been stated. It\nhas been pointed out that the ends, objectives, of conduct are those\nforeseen consequences which influence present deliberation and which\nfinally bring it to rest by furnishing an adequate stimulus to overt\naction. Consequently ends arise and function within action. They are\nnot, as current theories too often imply, things lying beyond activity\nat which the latter is directed. They are not strictly speaking ends or\ntermini of action at all. They are terminals of deliberation, and so\nturning points _in_ activity. Many opposed moral theories agree however\nin placing ends beyond action, although they differ in their notions of\nwhat the ends are. The utilitarian sets up pleasure as such an\noutside-and-beyond, as something necessary to induce action and in which\nit terminates. Many harsh critics of utilitarianism have however agreed\nthat there is some end in which action terminates, a final goal. They\nhave denied that pleasure is such an outside aim, and put perfection or\nself-realization in its place. The entire popular notion of \"ideals\" is\ninfected with this conception of some fixed end beyond activity at which\nwe should aim. According to this view ends-in-themselves come before\naims. We have a moral aim only as our purpose coincides with some\nend-in-itself. We _ought_ to aim at the latter whether we actually do or\nnot.\n\nWhen men believed that fixed ends existed for all normal changes in\nnature, the conception of similar ends for men was but a special case of\na general belief. If the changes in a tree from acorn to full-grown oak\nwere regulated by an end which was somehow immanent or potential in all\nthe less perfect forms, and if change was simply the effort to realize a\nperfect or complete form, then the acceptance of a like view for human\nconduct was consonant with the rest of what passed for science. Such a\nview, consistent and systematic, was foisted by Aristotle upon western\nculture and endured for two thousand years. When the notion was expelled\nfrom natural science by the intellectual revolution of the seventeenth\ncentury, logically it should also have disappeared from the theory of\nhuman action. But man is not logical and his intellectual history is a\nrecord of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in\nhis old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical\nbasis. So the doctrine of fixed ends-in-themselves at which human acts\nare--or should be--directed and by which they are regulated if they are\nregulated at all persisted in morals, and was made the cornerstone of\northodox moral theory. The immediate effect was to dislocate moral from\nnatural science, to divide man's world as it never had been divided in\nprior culture. One point of view, one method and spirit animated inquiry\ninto natural occurrences; a radically opposite set of ideas prevailed\nabout man's affairs. Completion of the scientific change begun in the\nseventeenth century thus depends upon a revision of the current notion\nof ends of action as fixed limits and conclusions.\n\nIn fact, ends are ends-in-view or aims. They arise out of natural\neffects or consequences which in the beginning are hit upon, stumbled\nupon so far as any purpose is concerned. Men _like_ some of the\nconsequences and _dislike_ others. Henceforth (or till attraction and\nrepulsion alter) attaining or averting similar consequences are aims or\nends. These consequences constitute the meaning and value of an activity\nas it comes under deliberation. Meantime of course imagination is busy.\nOld consequences are enhanced, recombined, modified in imagination.\nInvention operates. Actual consequences, that is effects which have\nhappened in the past, become possible future consequences of acts still\nto be performed. This operation of imaginative thought complicates the\nrelation of ends to activity, but it does not alter the substantial\nfact: Ends are foreseen consequences which arise in the course of\nactivity and which are employed to give activity added meaning and to\ndirect its further course. They are in no sense ends _of_ action. In\nbeing ends of _deliberation_ they are redirecting pivots _in_ action.\n\nMen shoot and throw. At first this is done as an \"instinctive\" or\nnatural reaction to some situation. The result when it is observed gives\na new meaning to the activity. Henceforth men in throwing and shooting\nthink of it in terms of its outcome; they act intelligently or have an\nend. Liking the activity in its acquired meaning, they not only \"take\naim\" when they throw instead of throwing at random, but they find or\nmake targets at which to aim. This is the origin and nature of \"goals\"\nof action. They are ways of defining and deepening the meaning of\nactivity. Having an end or aim is thus a characteristic of _present_\nactivity. It is the means by which an activity becomes adapted when\notherwise it would be blind and disorderly, or by which it gets meaning\nwhen otherwise it would be mechanical. In a strict sense an end-in-view\nis a _means_ in present action; present action is not a means to a\nremote end. Men do not shoot because targets exist, but they set up\ntargets in order that throwing and shooting may be more effective and\nsignificant.\n\nA mariner does not sail towards the stars, but by noting the stars he is\naided in conducting his present activity of sailing. A port or harbor is\nhis objective, but only in the sense of _reaching_ it not of taking\npossession of it. The harbor stands in his thought as a significant\npoint at which his activity will need re-direction. Activity will not\ncease when the port is attained, but merely the _present direction_ of\nactivity. The port is as truly the beginning of another mode of activity\nas it is the termination of the present one. The only reason we ignore\nthis fact is because it is empirically taken for granted. We know\nwithout thinking that our \"ends\" are perforce beginnings. But theories\nof ends and ideals have converted a theoretical ignoring which is\nequivalent to practical acknowledgment into an intellectual denial, and\nhave thereby confused and perverted the nature of ends.\n\nEven the most important among all the consequences of an act is not\nnecessarily its aim. Results which are objectively most important may\nnot even be thought of at all; ordinarily a man does not think in\nconnection with exercise of his profession that it will sustain him and\nhis family in existence. The end-thought-of is uniquely important, but\nit is indispensable to state the respect in which it is important. It\ngives the decisive clew to the act to be performed under the existing\ncircumstances. It is that particular foreseen object that will stimulate\nthe act which relieves existing troubles, straightens out existing\nentanglements. In a temporary annoyance, even if only that caused by the\nsinging of a mosquito, the thought of that which gives relief may\nengross the mind in spite of consequences much more important,\nobjectively speaking. Moralists have deplored such facts as evidence of\nlevity. But the remedy, if a remedy be needed, is not found in insisting\nupon the importance of ends in general. It is found in a change of the\ndispositions which make things either immediately troublesome or\ntolerable or agreeable.\n\nWhen ends are regarded as literally ends to action rather than as\ndirective stimuli to present choice they are frozen and isolated. It\nmakes no difference whether the \"end\" is \"natural\" good like health or a\n\"moral\" good like honesty. Set up as complete and exclusive, as\ndemanding and justifying action as a means to itself, it leads to\nnarrowness; in extreme cases fanaticism, inconsiderateness, arrogance\nand hypocrisy. Joshua's reputed success in getting the sun to stand\nstill to serve his desire is recognized to have involved a miracle. But\nmoral theorists constantly assume that the continuous course of events\ncan be arrested at the point of a particular object; that men can plunge\nwith their own desires into the unceasing flow of changes, and seize\nupon some object as their end irrespective of everything else. The use\nof intelligence to discover the object that will best operate as a\nreleasing and unifying stimulus in the existing situation is discounted.\nOne reminds one's self that one's end is justice or charity or\nprofessional achievement or putting over a deal for a needed public\nimprovement, and further questionings and qualms are stilled.\n\nIt is customary to suppose that such methods merely ignore the question\nof the morality of the means which are used to secure the end desired.\nCommon sense revolts against the maxim, conveniently laid off upon\nJesuits or other far-away people, that the end justifies the means.\nThere is no incorrectness in saying that the question of means employed\nis overlooked in such cases. But analysis would go further if it were\nalso pointed out that overlooking means is only a device for failing to\nnote those ends, or consequences, which, if they were noted would be\nseen to be so evil that action would be estopped. Certainly nothing can\njustify or condemn means except ends, results. But we have to include\nconsequences impartially. Even admitting that lying will save a man's\nsoul, whatever that may mean, it would still be true that lying will\nhave other consequences, namely, the usual consequences that follow from\ntampering with good faith and that lead lying to be condemned. It is\nwilful folly to fasten upon some single end or consequence which is\nliked, and permit the view of that to blot from perception all other\nundesired and undesirable consequences. It is like supposing that\nwhen a finger held close to the eye covers up a distant mountain the\nfinger is really larger than the mountain. Not _the_ end--in the\nsingular--justifies the means; for there is no such thing as the single\nall-important end. To suppose that there is such an end is like working\nover again, in behalf of our private wishes, the miracle of Joshua in\narresting the course of nature. It is not possible adequately to\ncharacterize the presumption, the falsity and the deliberate perversion\nof intelligence involved in refusal to note the plural effects that flow\nfrom any act, a refusal adopted in order that we may justify an act by\npicking out that one consequence which will enable us to do what we wish\nto do and for which we feel the need of justification.\n\nYet this assumption is continually made. It is made by implication in\nthe current view of purposes or ends-in-view as objects in themselves,\ninstead of means to unification and liberation of present conflicting,\nconfused habits and impulses. There is something almost sinister in the\ndesire to label the doctrine that the end justifies the means with the\nname of some one obnoxious school. Politicians, especially if they have\nto do with the foreign affairs of a nation and are called statesmen,\nalmost uniformly act upon the doctrine that the welfare of their own\ncountry justifies any measure irrespective of all the demoralization it\nworks. Captains of industry, great executives in all lines, usually work\nupon this plan. But they are not the original offenders by any means.\nEvery man works upon it so far as he permits himself to become so\nabsorbed in one aspect of what he is doing that he loses a view of its\nvaried consequences, hypnotizing his attention by consideration of just\nthose consequences which in the abstract are desirable and slurring over\nother consequences equally real. Every man works upon this principle who\nbecomes over-interested in any cause or project, and who uses its\ndesirability in the abstract to justify himself in employing any means\nthat will assist him in arriving, ignoring all the collateral \"ends\" of\nhis behavior. It is frequently pointed out that there is a type of\nexecutive-man whose conduct seems to be as non-moral as the action of\nthe forces of nature. We all tend to relapse into this non-moral\ncondition whenever we want any one thing intensely. In general, the\nidentification of the end prominent in conscious desire and effort with\n_the_ end is part of the technique of avoiding a reasonable survey of\nconsequences. The survey is avoided because of a subconscious\nrecognition that it would reveal desire in its true worth and thus\npreclude action to satisfy it--or at all events give us an uneasy\nconscience in striving to realize it. Thus the doctrine of the isolated,\ncomplete or fixed end limits intelligent examination, encourages\ninsincerity, and puts a pseudo-stamp of moral justification upon success\nat any price.\n\nMoralistic persons are given to escaping this evil by falling into\nanother pit. They deny that consequences have anything at all to do with\nthe morality of acts. Not ends but motives they say justify or condemn\nacts. The thing to do, accordingly, is to cultivate certain motives or\ndispositions, benevolence, purity, love of perfection, loyalty. The\ndenial of consequences thus turns out formal, verbal. In reality a\nconsequence is set up at which to aim, only it is a subjective\nconsequence. \"Meaning well\" is selected as _the_ consequence or end to\nbe cultivated at all hazards, an end which is all-justifying and to\nwhich everything else is offered up in sacrifice. The result is a\nsentimental futile complacency rather than the brutal efficiency of the\nexecutive. But the root of both evils is the same. One man selects some\nexternal consequence, the other man a state of internal feeling, to\nserve as the end. The doctrine of meaning well as _the_ end is if\nanything the more contemptible of the two, for it shrinks from accepting\nany responsibility for actual results. It is negative, self-protective\nand sloppy. It lends itself to complete self-deception.\n\nWhy have men become so attached to fixed, external ends? Why is it not\nuniversally recognized that an end is a device of intelligence in\nguiding action, instrumental to freeing and harmonizing troubled and\ndivided tendencies? The answer is virtually contained in what was\nearlier said about rigid habits and their effect upon intelligence.\nEnds are, in fact, literally endless, forever coming into existence as\nnew activities occasion new consequences. \"Endless ends\" is a way of\nsaying that there are no ends--that is no fixed self-enclosed\nfinalities. While however we cannot actually prevent change from\noccurring we can and do regard it as evil. We strive to retain action\nin ditches already dug. We regard novelties as dangerous, experiments\nas illicit and deviations as forbidden. Fixed and separate ends\nreflect a projection of our own fixed and non-interacting\ncompartmental habits. We see only consequences which correspond to our\nhabitual courses. As we have said, men did not begin to shoot because\nthere were ready-made targets to aim at. They made things into targets\nby shooting at them, and then made special targets to make shooting\nmore significantly interesting. But if generation after generation\nwere shown targets they had had no part in constructing, if bows and\narrows were thrust into their hands, and pressure were brought to bear\nupon them to keep them shooting in season and out, some wearied soul\nwould soon propound to willing listeners the theory that shooting was\nunnatural, that man was naturally wholly at rest, and that targets\nexisted in order that men might be forced to be active; that the duty\nof shooting and the virtue of hitting are externally imposed and\nfostered, and that otherwise there would be no such thing as a\nshooting-activity--that is, morality.\n\nThe doctrine of fixed ends not only diverts attention from examination\nof consequences and the intelligent creation of purpose, but, since\nmeans and ends are two ways of regarding the same actuality, it also\nrenders men careless in their inspection of existing conditions. An aim\nnot framed on the basis of a survey of those present conditions which\nare to be employed as means of its realization simply throws us back\nupon past habits. We then do not do what we intended to do but what we\nhave got used to doing, or else we thrash about in a blind ineffectual\nway. The result is failure. Discouragement follows, assuaged perhaps by\nthe thought that in any case the end is too ideal, too noble and remote,\nto be capable of realization. We fall back on the consoling thought that\nour moral ideals are too good for this world and that we must accustom\nourselves to a gap between aim and execution. Actual life is then\nthought of as a compromise with the best, an enforced second or third\nbest, a dreary exile from our true home in the ideal, or a temporary\nperiod of troubled probation to be followed by a period of unending\nattainment and peace. At the same time, as has been repeatedly pointed\nout, persons of a more practical turn of mind accept the world \"as it\nis,\" that is as past customs have made it to be, and consider what\nadvantages for themselves may be extracted from it. They form aims on\nthe basis of existing habits of life which may be turned to their own\nprivate account. They employ intelligence in framing ends and selecting\nand arranging means. But intelligence is confined to manipulation; it\ndoes not extend to construction. It is the intelligence of the\npolitician, administrator and professional executive--the kind of\nintelligence which has given a bad meaning to a word that ought to have\na fine meaning, opportunism. For the highest task of intelligence is to\ngrasp and realize genuine opportunity, possibility.\n\nRoughly speaking, the course of forming aims is as follows. The\nbeginning is with a wish, an emotional reaction against the present\nstate of things and a hope for something different. Action fails to\nconnect satisfactorily with surrounding conditions. Thrown back upon\nitself, it projects itself in an imagination of a scene which if it were\npresent would afford satisfaction. This picture is often called an aim,\nmore often an ideal. But in itself it is a fancy which may be only a\nfantasy, a dream, a castle in the air. In itself it is a romantic\nembellishment of the present; at its best it is material for poetry or\nthe novel. Its natural home is not in the future but in the dim past or\nin some distant and supposedly better part of the present world. Every\nsuch idealized object is suggested by something actually experienced, as\nthe flight of birds suggests the liberation of human beings from the\nrestrictions of slow locomotion on dull earth. It becomes an aim or end\nonly when it is worked out in terms of concrete conditions available for\nits realization, that is in terms of \"means.\"\n\nThis transformation depends upon study of the conditions which generate\nor make possible the fact observed to exist already. The fancy of the\ndelight of moving at will through the air became an actuality only after\nmen carefully studied the way in which a bird although heavier than air\nactually sustains itself in air. A fancy becomes an aim, in short, when\nsome past sequence of known cause-and-effect is projected into the\nfuture, and when by assembling its causal conditions we strive to\ngenerate a like result. We have to fall back upon what has already\nhappened naturally without design, and study it to see _how_ it\nhappened, which is what is meant by causation. This knowledge joined to\nwish creates a purpose. Many men have doubtless dreamed of ability to\nhave light in darkness without the trouble of oil, lamps and friction.\nGlow-worms, lightning, the sparks of cut electric conductors suggest\nsuch a possibility. But the picture remained a dream until an Edison\nstudied all that could be found out about such casual phenomena of\nlight, and then set to work to search out and gather together the means\nfor reproducing their operation. The great trouble with what passes for\nmoral ends and ideals is that they do not get beyond the stage of fancy\nof something agreeable and desirable based upon an emotional wish; very\noften, at that, not even an original wish, but the wish of some leader\nwhich has been conventionalized and transmitted through channels of\nauthority. Every gain in natural science makes possible new aims. That\nis, the discovery of how things _do_ occur makes it possible to conceive\nof their happening at will, and gives us a start on selecting and\ncombining the conditions, the means, to command their happening. In\ntechnical matters, this lesson has been fairly well learned. But in\nmoral matters, men still largely neglect the need of studying the way in\nwhich results similar to those which we desire actually happen.\nMechanism is despised as of importance only in low material things. The\nconsequent divorce of moral ends from scientific study of natural events\nrenders the former impotent wishes, compensatory dreams in\nconsciousness. In _fact_ ends or consequences are still determined by\nfixed habit and the force of circumstance. The evils of idle dreaming\nand of routine are experienced in conjunction. \"Idealism\" must indeed\ncome first--the imagination of some better state generated by desire.\nBut unless ideals are to be dreams and idealism a synonym for\nromanticism and fantasy-building, there must be a most realistic study\nof actual conditions and of the mode or law of natural events, in order\nto give the imagined or ideal object definite form and solid\nsubstance--to give it, in short, practicality and constitute it a\nworking end.\n\nThe acceptance of fixed ends in themselves is an aspect of man's\ndevotion to an ideal of certainty. This affection was inevitably\ncherished as long as men believed that the highest things in physical\nnature are at rest, and that science is possible only by grasping\nimmutable forms and species: in other words, for much the greater part\nof the intellectual history of mankind. Only reckless sceptics would\nhave dared entertain any idea of ends except as fixed in themselves as\nlong as the whole structure of science was erected upon the immobile.\nBehind however the conception of fixity whether in science or morals lay\nadherence to certainty of \"truth,\" a clinging to something fixed, born\nof fear of the new and of attachment to possessions. When the classicist\ncondemns concession to impulse and holds up to admiration the patterns\ntested in tradition, he little suspects how much he is himself affected\nby unavowed impulses--timidity which makes him cling to authority,\nconceit which moves him to be himself the authority who speaks in the\nname of authority, possessive impulse which fears to risk acquisition in\nnew adventures. Love of certainty is a demand for guarantees in advance\nof action. Ignoring the fact that truth can be bought only by the\nadventure of experiment, dogmatism turns truth into an insurance\ncompany. Fixed ends upon one side and fixed \"principles\"--that is\nauthoritative rules--on the other, are props for a feeling of safety,\nthe refuge of the timid and the means by which the bold prey upon the\ntimid.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nIntelligence is concerned with foreseeing the future so that action may\nhave order and direction. It is also concerned with principles and\ncriteria of judgment. The diffused or wide applicability of habits is\nreflected in the _general_ character of principles: a principle is\nintellectually what a habit is for direct action. As habits set in\ngrooves dominate activity and swerve it from conditions instead of\nincreasing its adaptability, so principles treated as fixed rules\ninstead of as helpful methods take men away from experience. The more\ncomplicated the situation, and the less we really know about it, the\nmore insistent is the orthodox type of moral theory upon the prior\nexistence of some fixed and universal principle or law which is to be\ndirectly applied and followed. Ready-made rules available at a moment's\nnotice for settling any kind of moral difficulty and resolving every\nspecies of moral doubt have been the chief object of the ambition of\nmoralists. In the much less complicated and less changing matters of\nbodily health such pretensions are known as quackery. But in morals a\nhankering for certainty, born of timidity and nourished by love of\nauthoritative prestige, has led to the idea that absence of immutably\nfixed and universally applicable ready-made principles is equivalent to\nmoral chaos.\n\nIn fact, situations into which change and the unexpected enter are a\nchallenge to intelligence to create new principles. Morals must be a\ngrowing science if it is to be a science at all, not merely because all\ntruth has not yet been appropriated by the mind of man, but because life\nis a moving affair in which old moral truth ceases to apply. Principles\nare methods of inquiry and forecast which require verification by the\nevent; and the time honored effort to assimilate morals to mathematics\nis only a way of bolstering up an old dogmatic authority, or putting a\nnew one upon the throne of the old. But the experimental character of\nmoral judgments does not mean complete uncertainty and fluidity.\nPrinciples exist as hypotheses with which to experiment. Human history\nis long. There is a long record of past experimentation in conduct, and\nthere are cumulative verifications which give many principles a well\nearned prestige. Lightly to disregard them is the height of foolishness.\nBut social situations alter; and it is also foolish not to observe how\nold principles actually work under new conditions, and not to modify\nthem so that they will be more effectual instruments in judging new\ncases. Many men are now aware of the harm done in legal matters by\nassuming the antecedent existence of fixed principles under which every\nnew case may be brought. They recognize that this assumption merely puts\nan artificial premium on ideas developed under bygone conditions, and\nthat their perpetuation in the present works inequity. Yet the choice is\nnot between throwing away rules previously developed and sticking\nobstinately by them. The intelligent alternative is to revise, adapt,\nexpand and alter them. The problem is one of continuous, vital\nreadaptation.\n\nThe popular objection to casuistry is similar to the popular objection\nto the maxim that the end justifies the means. It is creditable to\npractical moral sense, but not to popular logical consistency. For\nrecourse to casuistry is the only conclusion which can be drawn from\nbelief in fixed universal principles, just as the Jesuit maxim is the\nonly conclusion proper to be drawn from belief in fixed ends. Every act,\nevery deed is individual. What is the sense in having fixed general\nrules, commandments, laws, unless they are such as to confer upon\nindividual cases of action (where alone instruction is finally needed)\nsomething of their own infallible certainty? Casuistry, so-called, is\nsimply the systematic effort to secure for particular instances of\nconduct the advantage of general rules which are asserted and believed\nin. By those who accept the notion of immutable regulating principles,\ncasuistry ought to be lauded for sincerity and helpfulness, not\ndispraised as it usually is. Or else men ought to carry back their\naversion to manipulation of particular cases, until they will fit into\nthe procrustean beds of fixed rules, to the point where it is clear that\nall principles are empirical generalizations from the ways in which\nprevious judgments of conduct have practically worked out. When this\nfact is apparent, these generalizations will be seen to be not fixed\nrules for deciding doubtful cases, but instrumentalities for their\ninvestigation, methods by which the net value of past experience is\nrendered available for present scrutiny of new perplexities. Then it\nwill also follow that they are hypotheses to be tested and revised by\ntheir further working.[8]\n\n [8] Among contemporary moralists, Mr. G.\u00a0E. Moore may be\n cited as almost alone in having the courage of the\n convictions shared by many. He insists that it is the true\n business of moral theory to enable men to arrive at precise\n and sure judgments in concrete cases of moral perplexity.\n\nEvery such statement meets with prompt objection. We are told that in\ndeliberation rival goods present themselves. We are faced by competing\ndesires and ends which are incompatible with one another. They are all\nattractive, seductive. How then shall we choose among them? We can\nchoose rationally among values, the argument continues, only if we have\nsome fixed measure of values, just as we decide the respective lengths\nof physical things by recourse to the fixed foot-rule. One might reply\nthat after all there is no fixed foot-rule, no fixed foot \"in itself\"\nand that the standard length or weight of measure is only another\nspecial portion of matter, subject to change from heat, moisture and\ngravitational position, defined only by conditions, relations. One might\nreply that the foot-rule is a tool which has been worked out in actual\nprior comparisons of concrete things for use in facilitating further\ncomparisons. But we content ourselves with remarking that we find in\nthis conception of a fixed antecedent standard another manifestation of\nthe desire to escape the strain of the actual moral situation, its\ngenuine uncertainty of possibilities and consequences. We are confronted\nwith another case of the all too human love of certainty, a case of the\nwish for an intellectual patent issued by authority. The issue after all\nis one of fact. The critic is not entitled to enforce against the facts\nhis private wish for a ready-made standard which will relieve him from\nthe burden of examination, observation and continuing generalization and\ntest.\n\nThe worth of this private wish is moreover open to question in the light\nof the history of the development of natural science. There was a time\nwhen in astronomy, chemistry and biology men claimed that judgment of\nindividual phenomena was possible only because the mind was already in\npossession of fixed truths, universal principles, pre-ordained axioms.\nOnly by their means could contingent, varying particular events be truly\nknown. There was, it was argued, no way to judge the truth of any\nparticular statement about a particular plant, heavenly body, or case of\ncombustion unless there was a general truth already in hand with which\nto compare a particular empirical occurrence. The contention was\nsuccessful, that is for a long time it maintained its hold upon men's\nminds. But its effect was merely to encourage intellectual laziness,\nreliance upon authority and blind acceptance of conceptions that had\nsomehow become traditional. The actual advance of science did not begin\ntill men broke away from this method. When men insisted upon judging\nastronomical phenomena by bringing them directly under established\ntruths, those of geometry, they had no astronomy, but only a private\nesthetic construction. Astronomy began when men trusted themselves to\nembarking upon the uncertain sea of events and were willing to be\ninstructed by changes in the concrete. Then antecedent principles were\ntentatively employed as methods for conducting observations and\nexperiments, and for organizing special facts: as hypotheses.\n\nIn morals now, as in physical science then, the work of intelligence in\nreaching such relative certainty, or tested probability, as is open to\nman is retarded by the false notion of fixed antecedent truths.\nPrejudice is confirmed. Rules formed accidentally or under the pressure\nof conditions long past, are protected from criticism and thus\nperpetuated. Every group and person vested with authority strengthens\npossessed power by harping upon the sacredness of immutable principle.\nMoral facts, that is the concrete careers of special courses of action,\nare not studied. There is no counterpart to clinical medicine. Rigid\nclassifications forced upon facts are relied upon. And all is done, as\nit used to be done in natural science, in praise of Reason and in fear\nof the variety and fluctuation of actual happenings.\n\nThe hypothesis that each moral situation is unique and that consequently\ngeneral moral principles are instrumental to developing the\nindividualized meaning of situations is declared to be anarchic. It is\nsaid to be ethical atomism, pulverizing the order and dignity of morals.\nThe question, again is not what our inherited habits lead us to prefer,\nbut where the facts take us. But in this instance the facts do not take\nus into atomism and anarchy. These things are specters seen by the\ncritic when he is suddenly confused by the loss of customary spectacles.\nHe takes his own confusion due to loss of artificial aids for an\nobjective situation. _Because_ situations in which deliberation is\nevoked are new, and therefore unique, general principles are needed.\nOnly an uncritical vagueness will assume that the sole alternative to\nfixed generality is absence of continuity. Rigid habits insist upon\nduplication, repetition, recurrence; in their case there is accordingly\nfixed principles. Only there is no _principle_ at all, that is, no\nconscious intellectual rule, for thought is not needed. But all habit\nhas _continuity_, and while a flexible habit does not secure in its\noperation bare recurrence nor absolute assurance neither does it plunge\nus into the hopeless confusion of the absolutely different. To insist\nupon change and the new is to insist upon alteration _of_ the old. In\ndenying that the meaning of any genuine case of deliberation can be\nexhausted by treating it as a mere case of an established classification\nthe value of classification is not denied. It is shown where its value\nlies, namely, in directing attention to resemblances and differences in\nthe new case, in economizing effort in foresight. To call a\ngeneralization a tool is not to say it is useless; the contrary is\npatently the case. A tool is something to use. Hence it is also\nsomething to be improved by noting how it works. The need of such noting\nand improving is indispensable if, as is the case with moral principles,\nthe tool has to be used in unwonted circumstances. Continuity of growth\nnot atomism is thus the alternative to fixity of principles and aims.\nThis is no Bergsonian plea for dividing the universe into two portions,\none all of fixed, recurrent habits, and the other all spontaneity of\nflux. Only in such a universe would reason in morals have to take its\nchoice between absolute fixity and absolute looseness.\n\nNothing is more instructive about the genuine value of generalization in\nconduct than the errors of Kant. He took the doctrine that the essence\nof reason is complete universality (and hence necessity and\nimmutability), with the seriousness becoming the professor of logic.\nApplying the doctrine to morality he saw that this conception severed\nmorals from connection with experience. Other moralists had gone that\nfar before his day. But none of them had done what Kant proceeded to do:\ncarry this separation of moral principles and ideals from experience to\nits logical conclusion. He saw that to exclude from principles all\nconnection with empirical details meant to exclude all reference of any\nkind to consequences. He then saw with a clearness which does his logic\ncredit that with such exclusion, reason becomes entirely empty: nothing\nis left except the universality of the universal. He was then confronted\nby the seemingly insoluble problem of getting moral instruction\nregarding special cases out of a principle that having forsworn\nintercourse with experience was barren and empty. His ingenious method\nwas as follows. Formal universality means at least logical identity; it\nmeans self-consistency or absence of contradiction. Hence follows the\nmethod by which a would-be truly moral agent will proceed in judging the\nrightness of any proposed act. He will ask: Can its motive be made\nuniversal for all cases? How would one like it if by one's act one's\nmotive in that act were to be erected into a universal law of actual\nnature? Would one then be willing to make the same choice?\n\nSurely a man would hesitate to steal if by his choice to make stealing\nthe motive of his act he were also to erect it into such a fixed law of\nnature that henceforth he and everybody else would always steal whenever\nproperty was in question. No stealing without property, and with\nuniversal stealing also no property; a clear self-contradiction. Looked\nat in the light of reason every mean, insincere, inconsiderate motive of\naction shrivels into a private exception which a person wants to take\nadvantage of in his own favor, and which he would be horrified to have\nothers act upon. It violates the great principle of logic that A is A.\nKindly, decent acts, on the contrary, extend and multiply themselves in\na continuing harmony.\n\nThis treatment by Kant evinces deep insight into the office of\nintelligence and principle in conduct. But it involves flat\ncontradiction of Kant's own original intention to exclude consideration\nof concrete consequences. It turns out to be a method of recommending a\nbroad impartial view of consequences. Our forecast of consequences is\nalways subject, as we have noted, to the bias of impulse and habit. We\nsee what we want to see, we obscure what is unfavorable to a cherished,\nprobably unavowed, wish. We dwell upon favoring circumstances till they\nbecome weighted with reinforcing considerations. We don't give opposing\nconsequences half a chance to develop in thought. Deliberation needs\nevery possible help it can get against the twisting, exaggerating and\nslighting tendency of passion and habit. To form the habit of asking\nhow we should be willing to be treated in a similar case--which is what\nKant's maxim amounts to--is to gain an ally for impartial and sincere\ndeliberation and judgment. It is a safeguard against our tendency to\nregard our own case as exceptional in comparison with the case of\nothers. \"Just this once,\" a plea for isolation; secrecy--a plea for\nnon-inspection, are forces which operate in every passionate desire.\nDemand for consistency, for \"universality,\" far from implying a\nrejection of all consequences, is a demand to survey consequences\nbroadly, to link effect to effect in a chain of continuity. Whatever\nforce works to this end _is_ reason. For reason, let it be repeated is\nan outcome, a function, not a primitive force. What we need are those\nhabits, dispositions which lead to impartial and consistent foresight\nof consequences. Then our judgments are reasonable; we are then\nreasonable creatures.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nCertain critics in sympathy with at least the negative contention, the\ncritical side, of such a theory as has been advanced, regard it as\nplacing too much emphasis upon intelligence. They find it\nintellectualistic, cold-blooded. They say we must change desire, love,\naspiration, admiration, and then action will be transformed. A new\naffection, a changed appreciation, brings with it a revaluation of life\nand insists upon its realization. A refinement of intellect at most only\nfigures out better ways of reaching old and accustomed ends. In fact we\nare lucky if intellect does not freeze the ardor of generous desire and\nparalyze creative endeavor. Intellect is critical, unproductive while\ndesire is generative. In its dispassionateness intellect is aloof from\nhumanity and its needs. It fosters detachment where sympathy is needed.\nIt cultivates contemplation when salvation lies in liberating desire.\nIntellect is analytic, taking things to pieces; its devices are the\nscalpel and test-tube. Affection is synthetic, unifying. This argument\naffords an opportunity for making more explicit those respective offices\nof wish and thought in forming ends which have already been touched\nupon.\n\nFirst we must undertake an independent analysis of desire. It is\ncustomary to describe desires in terms of their objects, meaning by\nobjects the things which figure as in imagination their goals. As the\nobject is noble or base, so, it is thought, is desire. In any case,\nemotions rise and cluster about the object. This stands out so\nconspicuously in immediate experience that it monopolizes the central\nposition in the traditional psychological theory of desire. Barring\ngross self-deception or the frustration of external circumstance, the\noutcome, or end-result, of desire is regarded by this theory as similar\nto the end-in-view or object consciously desired. Such, however, is not\nthe case, as readily appears from the analysis of deliberation. In\nsaying that the actual outcome of desire is different in kind from the\nobject upon which desire consciously fastens, I do not mean to repeat\nthe old complaint about the fallibility and feebleness of mortals in\nvirtue of which man's hopes are frustrated and twisted in realization.\nThe difference is one of diverse dimensions, not of degree or amount.\n\nThe object desired and the attainment of desire are no more alike than a\nsignboard on the road is like the garage to which it points and which it\nrecommends to the traveler. Desire is the forward urge of living\ncreatures. When the push and drive of life meets no obstacle, there is\nnothing which we call desire. There is just life-activity. But\nobstructions present themselves, and activity is dispersed and divided.\nDesire is the outcome. It is activity surging forward to break through\nwhat dams it up. The \"object\" which then presents itself in thought as\nthe goal of desire is the object of the environment _which, if it were\npresent_, would secure a re-unification of activity and the restoration\nof its ongoing unity. The end-in-view of desire is that object which\nwere it present would link into an organized whole activities which are\nnow partial and competing. It is no more like the actual end of desire,\nor the resulting state attained, than the coupling of cars which have\nbeen separated is like an ongoing single train. Yet the train cannot go\non without the coupling.\n\nSuch statements may seem contrary to common sense. The pertinency of the\nillustration used will be denied. No man desires the signboard which he\nsees, he desires the garage, the objective, the ulterior thing. But does\nhe? Or is the garage simply a means by which a divided body of\nactivities is redintegrated or coordinated? Is it desired in any sense\nfor itself, or only because it is the means of effective adjustment of a\nwhole set of underlying habits? While common sense responds to the\nordinary statement of the end of desire, it also responds to a statement\nthat no one desires the object for its own sake, but only for what can\nbe got out of it. Here is just the point at which the theory that\npleasure is the real objective of desire makes its appeal. It points out\nthat not the physical object nor even its possession is really wanted;\nthat they are only means to something personal and experiential. And\nhence it is argued that they are means to pleasure. The present\nhypothesis offers an alternative: it says that they are means of removal\nof obstructions to an ongoing, unified system of activities. It is easy\nto see why an objective looms so large and why emotional surge and\nstress gather about it and lift it high above the floor of\nconsciousness. The objective is (or is taken to be) the key to the\nsituation. If we can attain it, lay hold of it, the trick is turned. It\nis like the piece of paper which carries the reprieve a condemned man\nwaits for. Issues of life hang upon it. The desired object is in no\nsense the end or goal of desire, but it is the _sine qua non_ of that\nend. A practical man will fix his attention upon it, and not dream about\neventualities which are only dreams if the objective is not attained,\nbut which will follow in their own natural course if it is reached. For\nthen it becomes a factor in the system of activities. Hence the truth in\nthe various so-called paradoxes of desire. If pleasure or perfection\nwere the true end of desire, it would still be true that the way to\nattainment is not to think of them. For object thought of and object\nachieved exist in different dimensions.\n\nIn addition to the popular notions that either the object in view or\nelse pleasure is the end of desire, there is a less popular theory that\nquiescence is the actual outcome or true terminal of desire. The theory\nfinds its most complete practical statement in Buddhism. It is nearer\nthe psychological truth than either of the other notions. But it views\nthe attained outcome simply in its negative aspect. The end reached\nquiets the clash and removes the discomfort attendant upon divided and\nobstructed activity. The uneasiness, unrest, characteristic of desire is\nput to sleep. For this reason, some persons resort to intoxicants and\nanodynes. If quiescence were the end and it could be perpetuated, this\nway of removing disagreeable uneasiness would be as satisfactory a way\nout as the way of objective effort. But in fact desire satisfied does\nnot bring quiescence unqualifiedly, but that _kind_ of quiescence which\nmarks the recovery of unified activity: the absence of internal strife\namong habits and instincts. Equilibration of activities rather than\nquiescence is the actual result of satisfied desire. This names the\noutcome positively, rather than comparatively and negatively.\n\nThis disparity of dimensions in desire between the object thought of and\nthe outcome reached is the explanation of those self-deceptions which\npsycho-analysis has brought home to us so forcibly, but of which it\ngives elaborately cumbrous accounts. The object thought of and the\noutcome _never_ agree. There is no self-deceit in this fact. What, then,\nreally happens when the actual outcome of satisfied revenge figures in\nthought as virtuous eagerness for justice? Or when the tickled vanity of\nsocial admiration is masked as pure love of learning? The trouble lies\nin the refusal of a person to note the quality of the outcome, not in\nthe unavoidable disparity of desire's object and the outcome. The honest\nor integral mind attends to the result, and sees what it really is. For\nno terminal condition is exclusively terminal. Since it exists in time\nit has consequences as well as antecedents. In being a consummation it\nis also a force having causal potentialities. It is initial as well as\nterminal.\n\nSelf-deception originates in looking at an outcome in one direction\nonly--as a satisfaction of what has gone before, ignoring the fact that\nwhat is attained is a state of habits which will continue in action and\nwhich will determine future results. Outcomes of desire are also\nbeginnings of new acts and hence are portentous. Satisfied revenge may\n_feel_ like justice vindicated; the prestige of learning may _feel_ like\nan enlargement and rectification of an objective outlook. But since\ndifferent instincts and habits have entered into them, they are\nactually, that is dynamically, unlike. The function of moral judgment is\nto detect this unlikeness. Here, again, the belief that we can know\nourselves immediately is as disastrous to moral science as the\ncorresponding idea regarding knowledge of nature was to physical\nscience. Obnoxious \"subjectivity\" of moral judgment is due to the fact\nthat the immediate or esthetic quality swells and swells and displaces\nthe thought of the active potency which gives activity its moral\nquality.\n\nWe are all natural Jack Horners. If the plum comes when we put in and\npull out our thumb we attribute the satisfactory result to personal\nvirtue. The plum is obtained, and it is not easy to distinguish\nobtaining from attaining, acquisition from achieving. Jack Horner, Esq.,\nput forth _some_ effort; and results and efforts are always more or less\nincommensurate. For the result is always dependent to some extent upon\nthe favor or disfavor of circumstance. Why then should not the\nsatisfactory plum shed its halo retrospectively upon what precedes and\nbe taken as a sign of virtue? In this way heroes and leaders are\nconstructed. Such is the worship of success. And the evil of\nsuccess-worship is precisely the evil with which we have been dealing.\n\"Success\" is never merely final or terminal. Something else succeeds it,\nand its successors are influenced by its nature, that is by the\npersisting habits and impulses that enter into it. The world does not\nstop when the successful person pulls out his plum; nor does he stop,\nand the kind of success he obtains, and his attitude toward it, is a\nfactor in what comes afterwards. By a strange turn of the wheel, the\nsuccess of the ultra-practical man is psychologically like the refined\nenjoyment of the ultra-esthetic person. Both ignore the eventualities\nwith which every state of experience is charged. There is no reason for\nnot enjoying the present, but there is every reason for examination of\nthe objective factors of _what_ is enjoyed before we translate enjoyment\ninto a belief in excellence. There is every reason in other words for\ncultivating another enjoyment, that of the habit of examining the\nproductive potentialities of the objects enjoyed.\n\nAnalysis of desire thus reveals the falsity of theories which magnify it\nat the expense of intelligence. Impulse is primary and intelligence is\nsecondary and in some sense derivative. There should be no blinking of\nthis fact. But recognition of it as a fact exalts intelligence. For\nthought is not the slave of impulse to do its bidding. Impulse does not\nknow what it is after; it cannot give orders, not even if it wants to.\nIt rushes blindly into any opening it chances to find. Anything that\nexpends it, satisfies it. One outlet is like another to it. It is\nindiscriminate. Its vagaries and excesses are the stock theme of\nclassical moralists; and while they point the wrong moral in urging the\nabdication of impulse in favor of reason, their characterization of\nimpulse is not wholly wrong. What intelligence has to do in the service\nof impulse is to act not as its obedient servant but as its clarifier\nand liberator. And this can be accomplished only by a study of the\nconditions and causes, the workings and consequences of the greatest\npossible variety of desires and combinations of desire. Intelligence\nconverts desire into plans, systematic plans based on assembling facts,\nreporting events as they happen, keeping tab on them and analyzing them.\n\nNothing is so easy to fool as impulse and no one is deceived so readily\nas a person under strong emotion. Hence the idealism of man is easily\nbrought to naught. Generous impulses are aroused; there is a vague\nanticipation, a burning hope, of a marvelous future. Old things are to\npass speedily away and a new heavens and earth are to come into\nexistence. But impulse burns itself up. Emotion cannot be kept at its\nfull tide. Obstacles are encountered upon which action dashes itself\ninto ineffectual spray. Or if it achieves, by luck, a transitory\nsuccess, it is intoxicated, and plumes itself on victory while it is on\nthe road to sudden defeat. Meantime, other men, not carried away by\nimpulse, use established habits and a shrewd cold intellect that\nmanipulates them. The outcome is the victory of baser desire directed by\ninsight and cunning over generous desire which does not know its way.\n\nThe realistic man of the world has evolved a regular technique for\ndealing with idealistic outbursts that threaten his supremacy. His aims\nare low, but he knows the means by which they are to be executed. His\nknowledge of conditions is narrow but it is effective within its\nconfines. His foresight is limited to results that concern personal\nsuccess, but is sharp, clearcut. He has no great difficulty in drafting\nthe idealistic desire of others with its vague enthusiasms and its\ncloudy perceptions into canals where it will serve his own purposes. The\nenergies excited by emotional idealism run into the materialistic\nreservoirs provided by the contriving thought of those who have not\nsurrendered their minds to their sentiment.\n\nThe glorification of affection and aspiration at the expense of thought\nis a survival of romantic optimism. It assumes a pre-established harmony\nbetween natural impulse and natural objects. Only such a harmony\njustifies the belief that generous feeling will find its way illuminated\nby the sheer nobility of its own quality. Persons of a literary turn of\nmind are as subject to this fallacy as intellectual specialists are apt\nto the contrary fallacy that theorizing apart from force of impulse and\nhabit will get affairs forward. They tend to fancy that things are as\npliant to imagination as are words, that an emotion can compose affairs\nas if they were materials for a lyric poem. But if the objects of the\nenvironment were only as plastic as the materials of poetic art, men\nwould never have been obliged to have recourse to creation in the medium\nof words. We idealize in fancy because our idealizations in fact are\nbalked. And while the latter must start with imaginative idealizations\ninstigated by release of generous impulse, they can be carried through\nonly when the hard labor of observation, memory and foresight weds the\nvision of imagination to the organized efficiencies of habit.\n\nSometimes desire means not bare impulse but impulse which has sense of\nan objective. In this case desire and thought cannot be opposed, for\ndesire includes thought within itself. The question is now how far the\nwork of thought has been done, how adequate is its perception of its\ndirecting object. For the moving force may be a shadowy presentiment\nconstructed by wishful hope rather than by study of conditions; it may\nbe an emotional indulgence rather than a solid plan built upon the rocks\nof actuality discovered by accurate inquiries. There is no thought\nwithout the impeding of impulse. But the obstruction may merely\nintensify its blind surge forward; or it may divert the force of forward\nimpulse into observation of existing conditions and forecast of their\nfuture consequences. This long way around is the short way home for\ndesire.\n\nNo issue of morals is more far-reaching than the one herewith sketched.\nHistorically speaking, there is point in the attacks of those who speak\nslightingly of science and intellect, and who would limit their moral\nsignificance to supplying incidental help to execution of purposes born\nof affection. Thought too often is specialized in a remote and separate\npursuit, or employed in a hard way to contrive the instrumentalities of\n\"success.\" Intellect is too often made a tool for a systematized apology\nfor things as \"they are,\" that is for customs that benefit the class in\npower, or else a road to an interesting occupation which accumulates\nfacts and ideas as other men gather dollars, while priding itself on its\nideal quality. No wonder that at times catastrophes that affect men in\ncommon are welcomed. For the moment they turn science away from its\nabstract technicalities into a servant of some human aspiration; the\nhard, chilly calculations of intellect are swept away by floods of\nsympathy and common loyalties.\n\nBut, alas, emotion without thought is unstable. It rises like the tide\nand subsides like the tide irrespective of what it has accomplished. It\nis easily diverted into any side channel dug by old habits or provided\nby cool cunning, or it disperses itself aimlessly. Then comes the\nreaction of disillusionment, and men turn all the more fiercely to the\npursuit of narrow ends where they are habituated to use observation and\nplanning and where they have acquired some control of conditions. The\nseparation of warm emotion and cool intelligence is the great moral\ntragedy. This division is perpetuated by those who deprecate science and\nforesight in behalf of affection as it is by those who in the name of an\nidol labeled reason would quench passion. The intellect is always\ninspired by some impulse. Even the most case-hardened scientific\nspecialist, the most abstract philosopher, is moved by some passion. But\nan actuating impulse easily hardens into isolated habit. It is unavowed\nand disconnected. The remedy is not lapse of thought, but its quickening\nand extension to contemplate the continuities of existence, and restore\nthe connection of the isolated desire to the companionship of its\nfellows. The glorification of \"will\" apart from thought turns out either\na commitment to blind action which serves the purpose of those who guide\ntheir deeds by narrow plans, or else a sentimental, romantic faith in\nthe harmonies of nature leading straight to disaster.\n\nIn words at least, the association of idealism with emotion and impulse\nhas been repeatedly implied in the foregoing. The connection is more\nthan verbal. Every end that man holds up, every project he entertains is\nideal. It marks something wanted, rather than something existing. It is\nwanted because existence as it _now_ is does not furnish it. It carries\nwith itself, then, a sense of contrast to the achieved, to the existent.\nIt outruns the seen and touched. It is the work of faith and hope even\nwhen it is the plan of the most hard-headed \"practical\" man. But though\nideal in this sense it is not _an_ ideal. Common sense revolts at\ncalling every project, every design, every contrivance of cunning,\nideal, because common sense includes above all in its conception of the\nideal the _quality_ of the plan proposed.\n\nIdealistic revolt is blind and like every blind reaction sweeps us away.\nThe quality of the ideal is exalted till it is something beyond all\npossibility of definite plan and execution. Its sublimity renders it\ninaccessibly remote. An ideal becomes a synonym for whatever is\ninspiring--and impossible. Then, since intelligence cannot be wholly\nsuppressed, the ideal is hardened by thought into some high, far-away\nobject. It is so elevated and so distant that it does not belong to this\nworld or to experience. It is in technical language, transcendental; in\ncommon speech, supernatural, of heaven not of earth. The ideal is then a\ngoal of final exhaustive, comprehensive perfection which can be defined\nonly by complete contrast with the actual. Although impossible of\nrealization and of conception, it is still regarded as the source of all\ngenerous discontent with actualities and of all inspiration to progress.\n\nThis notion of the nature and office of ideals combines in one\ncontradictory whole all that is vicious in the separation of desire and\nthought. It strives while retaining the vagueness of emotion to simulate\nthe objective definiteness of thought. It follows the natural course of\nintelligence in demanding an object which will unify and fulfil desire,\nand then cancels the work of thought by treating the object as ineffable\nand unrelated to present action and experience. It converts the surge of\npresent impulse into a future end only to swamp the endeavor to clarify\nthis end in a gush of unconsidered feeling. It is supposed that the\nthought of the ideal is necessary to arouse dissatisfaction with the\npresent and to arouse effort to change it. But in reality the ideal is\nitself the product of discontent with conditions. Instead however of\nserving to organize and direct effort, it operates as a compensatory\ndream. It becomes another ready-made world. Instead of promoting effort\nat concrete transformations of what exists, it constitutes another kind\nof existence already somewhere in being. It is a refuge, an asylum from\neffort. Thus the energy that might be spent in transforming present ills\ngoes into oscillating flights into a far away perfect world and the\ntedium of enforced returns into the necessities of the present evil\nworld.\n\nWe can recover the genuine import of ideals and idealism only by\ndisentangling this unreal mixture of thought and emotion. The action of\ndeliberation, as we have seen, consists in selecting some foreseen\nconsequence to serve as a stimulus to present action. It brings future\npossibilities into the present scene and thereby frees and expands\npresent tendencies. But the selected consequence is set in an indefinite\ncontext of other consequences just as real as it is, and many of them\nmuch more certain in fact. The \"ends\" that are foreseen and utilized\nmark out a little island in an infinite sea. This limitation would be\nfatal were the proper function of ends anything else than to liberate\nand guide present action out of its perplexities and confusions. But\nthis service constitutes the sole meaning of aims and purposes. Hence\ntheir slight extent in comparison with ignored and unforeseen\nconsequences is of no import in itself. The \"ideal\" as it stands in\npopular thought, the notion of a complete and exhaustive realization, is\nremote from the true functions of ends, and would only embarrass us if\nit could be embraced in thought instead of being, as it is, a comment by\nthe emotions.\n\nFor the sense of an indefinite context of consequences from among which\nthe aim is selected enters into the _present_ meaning of activity. The\n\"end\" is the figured pattern at the center of the field through which\nruns the axis of conduct. About this central figuration extends\ninfinitely a supporting background in a vague whole, undefined and\nundiscriminated. At most intelligence but throws a spotlight on that\nlittle part of the whole which marks out the axis of movement. Even if\nthe light is flickering and the illuminated portion stands forth only\ndimly from the shadowy background, it suffices if we are shown the way\nto move. To the rest of the consequences, collateral and remote,\ncorresponds a background of feeling, of diffused emotion. This forms the\nstuff of the ideal.\n\nFrom the standpoint of its _definite_ aim any act is petty in comparison\nwith the totality of natural events. What is accomplished directly as\nthe outcome of a turn which our action gives the course of events is\ninfinitesimal in comparison with their total sweep. Only an illusion of\nconceit persuades us that cosmic difference hangs upon even our wisest\nand most strenuous effort. Yet discontent with this limitation is as\nunreasonable as relying upon an illusion of external importance to keep\nourselves going. In a genuine sense every act is already possessed of\ninfinite import. The little part of the scheme of affairs which is\nmodifiable by our efforts is continuous with the rest of the world. The\nboundaries of our garden plot join it to the world of our neighbors and\nour neighbors' neighbors. That small effort which we can put forth is in\nturn connected with an infinity of events that sustain and support it.\nThe consciousness of this encompassing infinity of connections is ideal.\nWhen a sense of the infinite reach of an act physically occurring in a\nsmall point of space and occupying a petty instant of times comes home\nto us, the _meaning_ of a present act is seen to be vast, immeasurable,\nunthinkable. This ideal is not a goal to be attained. It is a\nsignificance to be felt, appreciated. Though consciousness of it cannot\nbecome intellectualized (identified in objects of a distinct character)\nyet emotional appreciation of it is won only by those willing to think.\n\nIt is the office of art and religion to evoke such appreciations and\nintimations; to enhance and steady them till they are wrought into the\ntexture of our lives. Some philosophers define religious consciousness\nas beginning where moral and intellectual consciousness leave off. In\nthe sense that definite purposes and methods shade off of necessity into\na vast whole which is incapable of objective presentation this view is\ncorrect. But they have falsified the conception by treating the\nreligious consciousness as something that comes _after_ an experience in\nwhich striving, resolution and foresight are found. To them morality and\nscience are a striving; when striving ceases a moral holiday begins, an\nexcursion beyond the utmost flight of legitimate thought and endeavor.\nBut there is a point in _every_ intelligent activity where effort\nceases; where thought and doing fall back upon a course of events which\neffort and reflection cannot touch. There is a point _in_ deliberate\naction where definite thought fades into the ineffable and\nundefinable--into emotion. If the sense of this effortless and\nunfathomable whole comes only in alternation with the sense of strain in\naction and labor in thought, then we spend our lives in oscillating\nbetween what is cramped and enforced and a brief transitory escape. The\nfunction of religion is then caricatured rather than realized. Morals,\nlike war, is thought of as hell, and religion, like peace, as a respite.\nThe religious experience is a reality in so far as in the midst of\neffort to foresee and regulate future objects we are sustained and\nexpanded in feebleness and failure by the sense of an enveloping whole.\nPeace in action not after it is the contribution of the ideal to\nconduct.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nOver and over again, one point has recurred for criticism;--the\nsubordination of activity to a result outside itself. Whether that goal\nbe thought of as pleasure, as virtue, as perfection, as final enjoyment\nof salvation, is secondary to the fact that the moralists who have\nasserted fixed ends have in all their differences from one another\nagreed in the basic idea that present activity is but a means. We have\ninsisted that happiness, reasonableness, virtue, perfecting, are on the\ncontrary parts of the present significance of present action. Memory of\nthe past, observation of the present, foresight of the future are\nindispensable. But they are indispensable _to_ a present liberation, an\nenriching growth of action. Happiness is fundamental in morals only\nbecause happiness is not something to be sought for, but is something\nnow attained, even in the midst of pain and trouble, whenever\nrecognition of our ties with nature and with fellow-men releases and\ninforms our action. Reasonableness is a necessity because it is the\nperception of the continuities that take action out of its immediateness\nand isolation into connection with the past and future.\n\nPerhaps the criticism and insistence have been too incessant. They may\nhave provoked the reader to reaction. He may readily concede that\northodox theories have been onesided in sacrificing the present to\nfuture good, making of the present but an onerous obligation or a\nsacrifice endured for future gain. But why, he may protest, go to an\nopposite extreme and make the future but a means to the significance of\nthe present? Why should the power of foresight and effort to shape the\nfuture, to regulate what is to happen, be slighted? Is not the effect of\nsuch a doctrine to weaken putting forth of endeavor in order to make the\nfuture better than the present? Control of the future may be limited in\nextent, but it is correspondingly precious; we should jealously cherish\nwhatever encourages and sustains effort to that end. To make little of\nthis possibility, in effect, it will be argued, is to decrease the care\nand endeavor upon which progress depends.\n\nControl of the future is indeed precious in exact proportion to its\ndifficulty, its moderate degree of attainability. Anything that actually\ntends to make that control less than it now is would be a movement\nbackward into sloth and triviality. But there is a difference between\nfuture improvement as a result and as a direct aim. To make it an aim is\nto throw away the surest means of attaining it, namely attention to the\nfull use of present resources in the present situation. Forecast of\nfuture conditions, scientific study of past and present in order that\nthe forecast may be intelligent, are indeed necessities. Concentration\nof intellectual concern upon the future, solicitude for scope and\nprecision of estimate characteristic of any well conducted affair,\nnaturally give the impression that their animating purpose is control of\nthe future. But thought about future happenings is the only way we can\njudge the present; it is the only way to appraise its significance.\nWithout such projection, there can be no projects, no plans for\nadministering present energies, overcoming present obstacles.\nDeliberately to subordinate the present to the future is to subject the\ncomparatively secure to the precarious, exchange resources for\nliabilities, surrender what is under control to what is, relatively,\nincapable of control.\n\nThe _amount_ of control which will come into existence in the future is\nnot within control. But such an amount as turns out to be practicable\naccrues only in consequence of the best possible management of present\nmeans and obstacles. Dominating _intellectual_ pre-occupation with the\nfuture is the way by which efficiency in dealing with the present is\nattained. It is a way, not a goal. And, upon the very most hopeful\noutlook, study and planning are more important in the meaning, the\nenrichment of content, which they add to present activity than is the\nincrease of external control they effect. Nor is this doctrine\npassivistic in tendency. What sense is there in increased external\ncontrol except to increase the intrinsic significance of living? The\nfuture that is foreseen is a future that is sometime to be a present. Is\nthe value of _that_ present also to be postponed to a future date, and\nso on indefinitely? Or, if the good we are struggling to attain in the\nfuture is one to be actually realized when that future becomes present,\nwhy should not the good of _this_ present be equally precious? And is\nthere, again, any intelligent way of modifying the future except to\nattend to the full possibilities of the present? Scamping the present in\nbehalf of the future leads only to rendering the future less manageable.\nIt increases the probability of molestation by future events.\n\nRemarks cast in this form probably seem too much like a logical\nmanipulation of the concepts of present and future to be convincing.\nBuilding a house is a typical instance of an intelligent activity. It is\nan activity directed by a plan, a design. The plan is itself based upon\na foresight of future uses. This foresight is in turn dependent upon an\norganized survey of past experiences and of present conditions, a\nrecollection of former experiences of living in houses and an\nacquaintance with present materials, prices, resources, etc. Now if a\nlegitimate case of subordination of present to regulation of the future\nmay anywhere be found, it is in such a case as this. For a man usually\nbuilds a house for the sake of the comfort and security, the \"control,\"\nthereby afforded to future living rather than just for the fun--or the\ntrouble--of building. If in such a case inspection shows that, after\nall, intellectual concern with the past and future is for the sake of\ndirecting present activity and giving it meaning, the conclusion may be\naccepted for other cases.\n\nNote that the present activity is the only one really under control. The\nman may die before the house is built, or his financial conditions may\nchange, or he may need to remove to another place. If he attempts to\nprovide for all contingencies, he will never do anything; if he allows\nhis attention to be much distracted by them, he won't do well his\npresent planning and execution. The more he considers the future uses to\nwhich the house will probably be put the better he will do his present\njob which is the activity of building. Control of future living, such as\nit may turn out to be, is wholly dependent upon taking his present\nactivity, seriously and devotedly, as an end, not a means. And a man has\nhis hands full in doing well what now needs to be done. Until men have\nformed the habit of using intelligence fully as a guide to present\naction they will never find out how much control of future contingencies\nis possible. As things are, men so habitually scamp present action in\nbehalf of future \"ends\" that the facts for estimating the extent of the\npossibility of reduction of future contingencies have not been\ndisclosed. What a man _is_ doing limits both his direct control and his\nresponsibility. We must not confuse the act of building with the house\nwhen built. The latter _is_ a means, not a fulfilment. But it is such\nonly because it enters into a new activity which is present not future.\nLife is continuous. The act of building in time gives way to the acts\nconnected with a domicile. But everywhere the good, the fulfilment, the\nmeaning of activity, resides in a present made possible by judging\nexisting conditions in their connections.\n\nIf we seek for an illustration on a larger scale, education furnishes us\nwith a poignant example. As traditionally conducted, it strikingly\nexhibits a subordination of the living present to a remote and\nprecarious future. To prepare, to get ready, is its key-note. The actual\noutcome is lack of adequate preparation, of intelligent adaptation. The\nprofessed exaltation of the future turns out in practice a blind\nfollowing of tradition, a rule of thumb muddling along from day to day;\nor, as in some of the projects called industrial education, a determined\neffort on the part of one class of the community to secure _its_ future\nat the expense of another class. If education were conducted as a\nprocess of fullest utilization of present resources, liberating and\nguiding capacities that are now urgent, it goes without saying that the\nlives of the young would be much richer in meaning than they are now. It\nalso follows that intelligence would be kept busy in studying all\nindications of power, all obstacles and perversions, all products of the\npast that throw light upon present capacity, and in forecasting the\nfuture career of impulse and habit now active--not for the sake of\nsubordinating the latter but in order to treat them intelligently. As a\nconsequence whatever fortification and expansion of the future that is\npossible will be achieved--as it is now dismally unattained.\n\nA more complicated instance is found in the dominant quality of our\nindustrial activity. It may be dogmatically declared that the roots of\nits evils are found in the separation of production from\nconsumption--that is, actual consummation, fulfilment. A normal case of\ntheir relationship is found in the taking of food. Food is consumed and\nvigor is produced. The difference between the two is one of directions\nor dimensions distinguished by intellect. In reality there is simply\nconversion of energy from one form to another wherein it is more\navailable--of greater significance. The activity of the artist, the\nsportsman, the scientific inquirer exemplifies the same balance.\nActivity should be productive. This is to say it should have a bearing\non the future, should effect control of it. But so far as a productive\naction is intrinsically creative, it has its own intrinsic value.\nReference to future products and future enjoyments is but a way of\nenhancing perception of an immanent meaning. A skilled artisan who\nenjoys his work is aware that what he is making is made for future use.\nExternally his action is one technically labeled \"production.\" It seems\nto illustrate the subjection of present activity to remote ends. But\nactually, morally, psychologically, the sense of the utility of the\narticle produced is a factor in the present significance of action due\nto the present utilization of abilities, giving play to taste and skill,\naccomplishing something now. The moment production is severed from\nimmediate satisfaction, it becomes \"labor,\" drudgery, a task reluctantly\nperformed.\n\nYet the whole tendency of modern economic life has been to assume that\nconsumption will take care of itself provided only production is grossly\nand intensely attended to. Making things is frantically accelerated; and\nevery mechanical device used to swell the senseless bulk. As a result\nmost workers find no replenishment, no renewal and growth of mind, no\nfulfilment in work. They labor to get mere means of later satisfaction.\nThis when procured is isolated in turn from production and is reduced to\na barren physical affair or a sensuous compensation for normal goods\ndenied. Meantime the fatuity of severing production from consumption,\nfrom present enriching of life, is made evident by economic crises, by\nperiods of unemployment alternating with periods of exercise, work or\n\"over-production.\" Production apart from fulfilment becomes purely a\nmatter of quantity; for distinction, quality, is a matter of present\nmeaning. Esthetic elements being excluded, the mechanical reign.\nProduction lacks criteria; one thing is better than another if it can be\nmade faster or in greater mass. Leisure is not the nourishment of mind\nin work, nor a recreation; it is a feverish hurry for diversion,\nexcitement, display, otherwise there is no leisure except a sodden\ntorpor. Fatigue due for some to monotony and for others to overstrain in\nmaintaining the pace is inevitable. Socially, the separation of\nproduction and consumption, means and ends, is the root of the most\nprofound division of classes. Those who fix the \"ends\" for production\nare in control, those who engage in isolated productive activity are the\nsubject-class. But if the latter are oppressed the former are not truly\nfree. Their consumptions are accidental ostentation and extravagance,\nnot a normal consummation or fulfilment of activity. The remainder of\ntheir lives is spent in enslavement to keeping the machinery going at an\nincreasingly rapid rate.\n\nMeantime class struggle grows between those whose productive labor is\nenforced by necessity and those who are privileged consumers. And the\nexaggeration of production due to its isolation from ignored consumption\nso hypnotizes attention that even would-be reformers, like Marxian\nsocialists, assert that the entire social problem focuses at the point\nof production. Since this separation of means from ends signifies an\nerection of means into ends, it is no wonder that a \"materialistic\nconception of history\" emerges. It is not an invention of Marx; it is a\nrecord of fact so far as the separation in question obtains. For\npracticable idealism is found only in a fulfilment, a consumption which\nis a replenishing, growth, renewal of mind and body. Harmony of social\ninterests is found in the wide-spread sharing of activities significant\nin themselves, that is to say, at the point of _consumption_.[9] But the\nforcing of production apart from consumption leads to the monstrous\nbelief that class-struggle civil war is a means of social progress,\ninstead of a register of the barriers to its attainment. Yet here too\nthe Marxian reads aright the character of most current economic\nactivity.\n\n [9] Acknowledgment is due \"The Social Interpretation of\n History\" by Maurice Williams.\n\nThe history of economic activity thus exemplifies the moral consequences\nof the separation of present activity and future \"ends\" from each other.\nIt also embodies the difficulty of the problem--the tax placed by it\nupon thought and good will. For the professed idealist and the\nhard-headed materialist or \"practical\" man, have conspired together to\nsustain this situation. The \"idealist\" sets up as the ideal not fullness\nof meaning of the present but a remote goal. Hence the present is\nevacuated of meaning. It is reduced to being a mere external instrument,\nan evil necessity due to the distance between us and significant valid\nsatisfaction. Appreciation, joy, peace in present activity are suspect.\nThey are regarded as diversions, temptations, unworthy relaxations. Then\nsince human nature _must_ have present realization, a sentimental,\nromantic enjoyment of the ideal becomes a substitute for intelligent and\nrewarding activity. The utopia cannot be realized in fact but it may be\nappropriated in fantasy and serve as an anodyne to blunt the sense of a\nmisery which after all endures. Some private key to a present entering\nupon remote and superior bliss is sought, just as the evangelical enjoys\na complacent and superior sense of a salvation unobtained by fellow\nmortals. Thus the normal demand for realization, for satisfaction in the\npresent, is abnormally met.\n\nMeantime the practical man wants something definite, tangible and\npresumably obtainable for which to work. He is looking after \"a good\nthing\" as the average man is looking after a \"good time,\" that natural\ncaricature of an intrinsically significant activity. Yet his activity is\nimpractical. He is looking for satisfaction somewhere else than where it\ncan be found. In his utopian search for a future good he neglects the\nonly place where good can be found. He empties present activity of\nmeaning by making it a mere instrumentality. When the future arrives it\nis only after all another despised present. By habit as well as by\ndefinition it is still a means to something which has yet to come. Again\nhuman nature must have its claims satisfied, and sensuality is the\ninevitable recourse. Usually a compromise is worked out, by which a man\nfor his working-hours accepts the philosophy of activity for some future\nresult, while at odd leisure times he enters by conventionally\nrecognized channels upon an enjoyment of \"spiritual\" blessings and\n\"ideal\" refinements. The problem of serving God and Mammon is thus\nsolved. The situation exemplifies the concrete meaning of the separation\nof means from ends which is the intellectual reflex of the divorce of\ntheory and practice, intelligence and habit, foresight and present\nimpulse. Moralists have spent time and energy in showing what happens\nwhen appetite, impulse, is indulged without reference to consequences\nand reason. But they have mostly ignored the counterpart evils of an\nintelligence that conceives ideals and goods which do not enter into\npresent impulse and habit. The life of reason has been specialized,\nromanticized, or made a heavy burden. This situation embodies the import\nof the problem of actualizing the place of intelligence in conduct.\n\nOur whole account of the place of intelligence in conduct is exposed\nhowever to the charge of being itself romantic, a compensatory\nidealization. The history of mind is a record of intellect which\nregisters, with more or less inaccuracy, what has happened after it has\nhappened. The crisis in which the intervention of foreseeing and\ndirecting mind is needed passes unnoted, with attention directed toward\nincidentals and irrelevancies. The work of intellect is _post mortem_.\nThe rise of social science, it will be pointed out, has increased the\namount of registering that occurs. Social post mortems occur much more\nfrequently than they used to. But one of the things which the unbiased\nmind will register is the impotency of discussion, analysis and\nreporting in modifying the course of events. The latter goes its way\nunheeding. The reply that this condition of matters shows not the\nimpotency of intelligence but that what passes for science is not\nscience is too easy a retort to be satisfactory. We must have recourse\nto some concrete facts or surrender our doctrine just at the moment when\nwe have formulated it.\n\nTechnical affairs give evidence that the work of inquiry, reporting\nand analysis is not always ineffectual. The development of a chain\nof \"nation-wide\" tobacco shops, of a well managed national telephone\nsystem, of the extension of the service of an electric-light plant\ntestify to the fact that study, reflection and the formation of plans do\nin some instances determine a course of events. The effect is seen in\nboth engineering management and in national commercial expansion. Such\npotency however, it must be admitted, is limited to just those matters\nthat are called technical in contrast with the larger affairs of\nhumanity. But if we seek, as we should, for a definition of \"technical,\"\nwe can hardly find any save one that goes in a circle: Affairs are\ntechnical in which observation, analysis and intellectual organization\nare determining factors. Is the conclusion to be drawn a conviction that\nour wider social interests are so different from those in which\nintelligence is a directing factor that in the former science must\nalways remain a belated visitor coming upon the scene after matters are\nsettled? No, the logical conclusion is that as yet we have no technique\nin important economic, political and international affairs. Complexity\nof conditions render the difficulties in the way of the development of a\ntechnique enormous. It is imaginable they will never be overcome. But\nour choice is between the development of a technique by which\nintelligence will become an intervening partner and a continuation of a\nregime of accident, waste and distress.\n\n\n\n\nPART FOUR\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\nConduct when distributed under heads like habit, impulse and\nintelligence gets artificially shredded. In discussing each of these\ntopics we have run into the others. We conclude, then, with an attempt\nto gather together some outstanding considerations about conduct as a\nwhole.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe foremost conclusion is that morals has to do with all activity into\nwhich alternative possibilities enter. For wherever they enter a\ndifference between better and worse arises. Reflection upon action means\nuncertainty and consequent need of decision as to which course is\nbetter. The better is the good; the best is not better than the good but\nis simply the discovered good. Comparative and superlative degrees are\nonly paths to the positive degree of action. The worse or evil is a\nrejected good. In deliberation and before choice no evil presents itself\nas evil. Until it is rejected, it is a competing good. After rejection,\nit figures not as a lesser good, but as the bad of that situation.\n\nActually then only deliberate action, conduct into which reflective\nchoice enters, is distinctively moral, for only then does there enter\nthe question of better and worse. Yet it is a perilous error to draw a\nhard and fast line between action into which deliberation and choice\nenter and activity due to impulse and matter-of-fact habit. One of the\nconsequences of action is to involve us in predicaments where we have to\nreflect upon things formerly done as matter of course. One of the chief\nproblems of our dealings with others is to induce them to reflect upon\naffairs which they usually perform from unreflective habit. On the other\nhand, every reflective choice tends to relegate some conscious issue\ninto a deed or habit henceforth taken for granted and not thought upon.\nPotentially therefore every and any act is within the scope of morals,\nbeing a candidate for possible judgment with respect to its\nbetter-or-worse quality. It thus becomes one of the most perplexing\nproblems of reflection to discover just how far to carry it, what to\nbring under examination and what to leave to unscrutinized habit.\nBecause there is no final recipe by which to decide this question all\nmoral judgment is experimental and subject to revision by its issue.\n\nThe recognition that conduct covers every act that is judged with\nreference to better and worse and that the need of this judgment is\npotentially coextensive with all portions of conduct, saves us from the\nmistake which makes morality a separate department of life. Potentially\nconduct is one hundred per cent of our acts. Hence we must decline to\nadmit theories which identify morals with the purification of motives,\nedifying character, pursuing remote and elusive perfection, obeying\nsupernatural command, acknowledging the authority of duty. Such notions\nhave a dual bad effect. First they get in the way of observation of\nconditions and consequences. They divert thought into side issues.\nSecondly, while they confer a morbid exaggerated quality upon things\nwhich are viewed under the aspect of morality, they release the larger\npart of the acts of life from serious, that is moral, survey. Anxious\nsolicitude for the few acts which are deemed moral is accompanied by\nedicts of exemption and baths of immunity for most acts. A moral\nmoratorium prevails for everyday affairs.\n\nWhen we observe that morals is at home wherever considerations of the\nworse and better are involved, we are committed to noting that morality\nis a continuing process not a fixed achievement. Morals means growth of\nconduct in meaning; at least it means that kind of expansion in meaning\nwhich is consequent upon observations of the conditions and outcome of\nconduct. It is all one with growing. Growing and growth are the same\nfact expanded in actuality or telescoped in thought. In the largest\nsense of the word, morals is education. It is learning the meaning of\nwhat we are about and employing that meaning in action. The good,\nsatisfaction, \"end,\" of growth of present action in shades and scope of\nmeaning is the only good within our control, and the only one,\naccordingly, for which responsibility exists. The rest is luck, fortune.\nAnd the tragedy of the moral notions most insisted upon by the morally\nself-conscious is the relegation of the only good which can fully engage\nthought, namely present meaning of action, to the rank of an incident of\na remote good, whether that future good be defined as pleasure, or\nperfection, or salvation, or attainment of virtuous character.\n\n\"Present\" activity is not a sharp narrow knife-blade in time. The\npresent is complex, containing within itself a multitude of habits and\nimpulses. It is enduring, a course of action, a process including\nmemory, observation and foresight, a pressure forward, a glance backward\nand a look outward. It is of _moral_ moment because it marks a\ntransition in the direction of breadth and clarity of action or in that\nof triviality and confusion. Progress is present reconstruction adding\nfullness and distinctness of meaning, and retrogression is a present\nslipping away of significance, determinations, grasp. Those who hold\nthat progress can be perceived and measured only by reference to a\nremote goal, first confuse meaning with space, and then treat spatial\nposition as absolute, as limiting movement instead of being bounded in\nand by movement. There are plenty of negative elements, due to conflict,\nentanglement and obscurity, in most of the situations of life, and we do\nnot require a revelation of some supreme perfection to inform us whether\nor no we are making headway in present rectification. We move on from\nthe worse and into, not just towards, the better, which is authenticated\nnot by comparison with the foreign but in what is indigenous. Unless\nprogress is a present reconstructing, it is nothing; if it cannot be\ntold by qualities belonging to the movement of transition it can never\nbe judged.\n\nMen have constructed a strange dream-world when they have supposed that\nwithout a fixed ideal of a remote good to inspire them, they have no\ninducement to get relief from present troubles, no desires for\nliberation from what oppresses and for clearing-up what confuses present\naction. The world in which we could get enlightenment and instruction\nabout the direction in which we are moving only from a vague conception\nof an unattainable perfection would be totally unlike our present world.\nSufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Sufficient it is to\nstimulate us to remedial action, to endeavor in order to convert strife\ninto harmony, monotony into a variegated scene, and limitation into\nexpansion. The converting is progress, the only progress conceivable or\nattainable by man. Hence every situation has its own measure and quality\nof progress, and the need for progress is recurrent, constant. If it is\nbetter to travel than to arrive, it is because traveling is a constant\narriving, while arrival that precludes further traveling is most easily\nattained by going to sleep or dying. We find our clews to direction in\nthe projected recollections of definite experienced goods not in vague\nanticipations, even when we label the vagueness perfection, the Ideal,\nand proceed to manipulate its definition with dry dialectic logic.\nProgress means increase of present meaning, which involves\nmultiplication of sensed distinctions as well as harmony, unification.\nThis statement may, perhaps, be made generally, in application to the\nexperience of humanity. If history shows progress it can hardly be found\nelsewhere than in this complication and extension of the significance\nfound within experience. It is clear that such progress brings no\nsurcease, no immunity from perplexity and trouble. If we wished to\ntransmute this generalization into a categorical imperative we should\nsay: \"So act as to increase the meaning of present experience.\" But even\nthen in order to get instruction about the concrete quality of such\nincreased meaning we should have to run away from the law and study the\nneeds and alternative possibilities lying within a unique and localized\nsituation. The imperative, like everything absolute, is sterile. Till\nmen give up the search for a general formula of progress they will not\nknow where to look to find it.\n\nA business man proceeds by comparing today's liabilities and assets with\nyesterday's, and projects plans for tomorrow by a study of the movement\nthus indicated in conjunction with study of the conditions of the\nenvironment now existing. It is not otherwise with the business of\nliving. The future is a projection of the subject-matter of the present,\na projection which is not arbitrary in the extent in which it divines\nthe movement of the moving present. The physician is lost who would\nguide his activities of healing by building up a picture of perfect\nhealth, the same for all and in its nature complete and self-enclosed\nonce for all. He employs what he has discovered about actual cases of\ngood health and ill health and their causes to investigate the present\nailing individual, so as to further his recovering; recovering, an\nintrinsic and living process rather than recovery, which is comparative\nand static. Moral theories, which however have not remained mere\ntheories but which have found their way into the opinions of the common\nman, have reversed the situation and made the present subservient to a\nrigid yet abstract future.\n\nThe ethical import of the doctrine of evolution is enormous. But its\nimport has been misconstrued because the doctrine has been appropriated\nby the very traditional notions which in truth it subverts. It has been\nthought that the doctrine of evolution means the complete subordination\nof present change to a future goal. It has been constrained to teach a\nfutile dogma of approximation, instead of a gospel of present growth.\nThe usufruct of the new science has been seized upon by the old\ntradition of fixed and external ends. In fact evolution means continuity\nof change; and the fact that change may take the form of present growth\nof complexity and interaction. Significant stages in change are found\nnot in access of fixity of attainment but in those crises in which a\nseeming fixity of habits gives way to a release of capacities that have\nnot previously functioned: in times that is of readjustment and\nredirection.\n\nNo matter what the present success in straightening out difficulties and\nharmonizing conflicts, it is certain that problems will recur in the\nfuture in a new form or on a different plane. Indeed every genuine\naccomplishment instead of winding up an affair and enclosing it as a\njewel in a casket for future contemplation, complicates the practical\nsituation. It effects a new distribution of energies which have\nhenceforth to be employed in ways for which past experience gives no\nexact instruction. Every important satisfaction of an old want creates a\nnew one; and this new one has to enter upon an experimental adventure to\nfind its satisfaction. From the side of what has gone before achievement\nsettles something. From the side of what comes after, it complicates,\nintroducing new problems, unsettling factors. There is something\npitifully juvenile in the idea that \"evolution,\" progress, means a\ndefinite sum of accomplishment which will forever stay done, and which\nby an exact amount lessens the amount still to be done, disposing once\nand for all of just so many perplexities and advancing us just so far on\nour road to a final stable and unperplexed goal. Yet the typical\nnineteenth century, mid-victorian conception of evolution was precisely\na formulation of such a consummate juvenilism.\n\nIf the true ideal is that of a stable condition free from conflict and\ndisturbance, then there are a number of theories whose claims are\nsuperior to those of the popular doctrine of evolution. Logic points\nrather in the direction of Rousseau and Tolstoi who would recur to some\nprimitive simplicity, who would return from complicated and troubled\ncivilization to a state of nature. For certainly progress in\ncivilization has not only meant increase in the scope and intricacy of\nproblems to be dealt with, but it entails increasing instability. For in\nmultiplying wants, instruments and possibilities, it increases the\nvariety of forces which enter into relations with one another and which\nhave to be intelligently directed. Or again, Stoic indifference or\nBuddhist calm have greater claims. For, it may be argued, since all\nobjective achievement only complicates the situation, the victory of a\nfinal stability can be secured only by renunciation of desire. Since\nevery satisfaction of desire increases force, and this in turn creates\nnew desires, withdrawal into an inner passionless state, indifference to\naction and attainment, is the sole road to possession of the eternal,\nstable and final reality.\n\nAgain, from the standpoint of definite approximation to an ultimate\ngoal, the balance falls heavily on the side of pessimism. The more\nstriving the more attainments, perhaps; but also assuredly the more\nneeds and the more disappointments. The more we do and the more we\naccomplish, the more the end is vanity and vexation. From the standpoint\nof attainment of good that stays put, that constitutes a definite sum\nperformed which lessens the amount of effort required in order to reach\nthe ultimate goal of final good, progress _is_ an illusion. But we are\nlooking for it in the wrong place. The world war is a bitter commentary\non the nineteenth century misconception of moral achievement--a\nmisconception however which it only inherited from the traditional\ntheory of fixed ends, attempting to bolster up that doctrine with aid\nfrom the \"scientific\" theory of evolution. The doctrine of progress is\nnot yet bankrupt. The bankruptcy of the notion of fixed goods to be\nattained and stably possessed may possibly be the means of turning the\nmind of man to a tenable theory of progress--to attention to present\ntroubles and possibilities.\n\nAdherents of the idea that betterment, growth in goodness, consists in\napproximation to an exhaustive, stable, immutable end or good, have been\ncompelled to recognize the truth that in fact we envisage the good in\nspecific terms that are relative to existing needs, and that the\nattainment of every specific good merges insensibly into a new condition\nof maladjustment with its need of a new end and a renewed effort. But\nthey have elaborated an ingenious dialectical theory to account for the\nfacts while maintaining their theory intact. The goal, the ideal, is\ninfinite; man is finite, subject to conditions imposed by space and\ntime. The specific character of the ends which man entertains and of the\nsatisfaction he achieves is due therefore precisely to his empirical and\nfinite nature in its contrast with the infinite and complete character\nof the true reality, the end. Consequently when man reaches what he had\ntaken to be the destination of his journey he finds that he has only\ngone a piece on the road. Infinite vistas still stretch before him.\nAgain he sets his mark a little way further ahead, and again when he\nreaches the station set, he finds the road opening before him in\nunexpected ways, and sees new distant objects beckoning him forward.\nSuch is the popular doctrine.\n\nBy some strange perversion this theory passes for moral idealism. An\noffice of inspiration and guidance is attributed to the thought of the\ngoal of ultimate completeness or perfection. As matter of fact, the idea\nsincerely held brings discouragement and despair not inspiration or\nhopefulness. There is something either ludicrous or tragic in the notion\nthat inspiration to continued progress is had in telling man that no\nmatter what he does or what he achieves, the outcome is negligible in\ncomparison with what he set out to achieve, that every endeavor he makes\nis bound to turn out a failure compared with what should be done, that\nevery attained satisfaction is only forever bound to be only a\ndisappointment. The honest conclusion is pessimism. All is vexation, and\nthe greater the effort the greater the vexation. But the fact is that it\nis not the negative aspect of an outcome, its failure to reach infinity,\nwhich renews courage and hope. Positive attainment, actual enrichment of\nmeaning and powers opens new vistas and sets new tasks, creates new aims\nand stimulates new efforts. The facts are not such as to yield\nunthinking optimism and consolation; for they render it impossible to\nrest upon attained goods. New struggles and failures are inevitable. The\ntotal scene of action remains as before, only for us more complex, and\nmore subtly unstable. But this very situation is a consequence of\nexpansion, not of failures of power, and when grasped and admitted it is\na challenge to intelligence. Instruction in what to do next can never\ncome from an infinite goal, which for us is bound to be empty. It can be\nderived only from study of the deficiencies, irregularities and\npossibilities of the actual situation.\n\nIn any case, however, arguments about pessimism and optimism based upon\nconsiderations regarding fixed attainment of good and evil are mainly\nliterary in quality. Man continues to live because he is a living\ncreature not because reason convinces him of the certainty or\nprobability of future satisfactions and achievements. He is instinct\nwith activities that carry him on. Individuals here and there cave in,\nand most individuals sag, withdraw and seek refuge at this and that\npoint. But man as man still has the dumb pluck of the animal. He has\nendurance, hope, curiosity, eagerness, love of action. These traits\nbelong to him by structure, not by taking thought. Memory of past and\nforesight of future convert dumbness to some degree of articulateness.\nThey illumine curiosity and steady courage. Then when the future arrives\nwith its inevitable disappointments as well as fulfilments, and with new\nsources of trouble, failure loses something of its fatality, and\nsuffering yields fruit of instruction not of bitterness. Humility is\nmore demanded at our moments of triumph than at those of failure. For\nhumility is not a caddish self-depreciation. It is the sense of our\nslight inability even with our best intelligence and effort to command\nevents; a sense of our dependence upon forces that go their way without\nour wish and plan. Its purport is not to relax effort but to make us\nprize every opportunity of present growth. In morals, the infinitive and\nthe imperative develop from the participle, present tense. Perfection\nmeans perfecting, fulfilment, fulfilling, and the good is now or never.\n\nIdealistic philosophies, those of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, like the\nhypothesis now offered, have found the good in meanings belonging to a\nconscious life, a life of reason, not in external achievement. Like it,\nthey have exalted the place of intelligence in securing fulfilment of\nconscious life. These theories have at least not subordinated conscious\nlife to external obedience, not thought of virtue as something different\nfrom excellence of life. But they set up a transcendental meaning and\nreason, remote from present experience and opposed to it; or they insist\nupon a special form of meaning and consciousness to be attained by\npeculiar modes of knowledge inaccessible to the common man, involving\nnot continuous reconstruction of ordinary experience, but its wholesale\nreversal. They have treated regeneration, change of heart, as wholesale\nand self-enclosed, not as continuous.\n\nThe utilitarians also made good and evil, right and wrong, matters of\nconscious experience. In addition they brought them down to earth, to\neveryday experience. They strove to humanize other-worldly goods. But\nthey retained the notion that the good is future, and hence outside the\nmeaning of present activity. In so far it is sporadic, exceptional,\nsubject to accident, passive, an enjoyment not a joy, something hit\nupon, not a fulfilling. The future end is for them not _so_ remote from\npresent action as the Platonic realm of ideals, or as the Aristotelian\nrational thought, or the Christian heaven, or Spinoza's conception of\nthe universal whole. But still it is separate in principle and in fact\nfrom present activity. The next step is to identify the sought for good\nwith the meaning of our impulses and our habits, and the specific\n_moral_ good or virtue with _learning_ this meaning, a learning that\ntakes us back not into an isolated self but out into the open-air world\nof objects and social ties, terminating in an increment of present\nsignificance.\n\nDoubtless there are those who will think that we thus escape from remote\nand external ends only to fall into an Epicureanism which teaches us to\nsubordinate everything else to present satisfactions. The hypothesis\npreferred may seem to some to advise a subjective, self-centered life of\nintensified consciousness, an esthetically dilettante type of egoism.\nFor is not its lesson that we should concentrate attention, each upon\nthe consciousness accompanying his action so as to refine and develop\nit? Is not this, like all subjective morals, an anti-social doctrine,\ninstructing us to subordinate the objective consequences of our acts,\nthose which promote the welfare of others, to an enrichment of our\nprivate conscious lives?\n\nIt can hardly be denied that as compared with the dogmas against which\nit reacted there is an element of truth in Epicureanism. It strove to\ncenter attention upon what is actually within control and to find the\ngood in the present instead of in a contingent uncertain future. The\ntrouble with it lies in its account of present good. It failed to\nconnect this good with the full reach of activities. It contemplated\ngood of withdrawal rather than of active participation. That is to say,\nthe objection to Epicureanism lies in its conception of what constitutes\npresent good, not in its emphasis upon satisfaction as at present. The\nsame remark may be made about every theory which recognizes the\nindividual self. If any such theory is objectionable, the objection is\nagainst the character or quality assigned to the self. Of course an\nindividual is the bearer or carrier of experience. What of that?\nEverything depends upon the kind of experience that centers in him. Not\nthe residence of experience counts, but its contents, what's in the\nhouse. The center is not in the abstract amenable to our control, but\nwhat gathers about it is our affair. We can't help being individual\nselves, each one of us. If selfhood as such is a bad thing, the blame\nlies not with the self but with the universe, with providence. But in\nfact the distinction between a selfishness with which we find fault and\nan unselfishness which we esteem is found in the quality of the\nactivities which proceed from and enter into the self, according as they\nare contractive, exclusive, or expansive, outreaching. Meaning exists\nfor some self, but this truistic fact doesn't fix the quality of any\nparticular meaning. It may be such as to make the self small, or such as\nto exalt and dignify the self. It is as impertinent to decry the worth\nof experience because it is connected with a self as it is fantastic to\nidealize personality just as personality aside from the question what\nsort of a person one is.\n\nOther persons are selves too. If one's own present experience is to be\ndepreciated in its meaning because it centers in a self, why act for the\nwelfare of others? Selfishness for selfishness, one is as good as\nanother; our own is worth as much as another's. But the recognition that\ngood is always found in a present growth of significance in activity\nprotects us from thinking that welfare can consist in a soup-kitchen\nhappiness, in pleasures we can confer upon others from without. It shows\nthat good is the same in quality wherever it is found, whether in some\nother self or in one's own. An activity has meaning in the degree in\nwhich it establishes and acknowledges variety and intimacy of\nconnections. As long as any social impulse endures, so long an activity\nthat shuts itself off will bring inward dissatisfaction and entail a\nstruggle for compensatory goods, no matter what pleasures or external\nsuccesses acclaim its course.\n\nTo say that the welfare of others, like our own, consists in a widening\nand deepening of the perceptions that give activity its meaning, in an\neducative growth, is to set forth a proposition of political import. To\n\"make others happy\" except through liberating their powers and engaging\nthem in activities that enlarge the meaning of life is to harm them and\nto indulge ourselves under cover of exercising a special virtue. Our\nmoral measure for estimating any existing arrangement or any proposed\nreform is its effect upon impulse and habits. Does it liberate or\nsuppress, ossify or render flexible, divide or unify interest? Is\nperception quickened or dulled? Is memory made apt and extensive or\nnarrow and diffusely irrelevant? Is imagination diverted to fantasy and\ncompensatory dreams, or does it add fertility to life? Is thought\ncreative or pushed one side into pedantic specialisms? There is a sense\nin which to set up social welfare as an end of action only promotes an\noffensive condescension, a harsh interference, or an oleaginous display\nof complacent kindliness. It always tends in this direction when it is\naimed at giving happiness to others directly, that is, as we can hand a\nphysical thing to another. To foster conditions that widen the horizon\nof others and give them command of their own powers, so that they can\nfind their own happiness in their own fashion, is the way of \"social\"\naction. Otherwise the prayer of a freeman would be to be left alone, and\nto be delivered, above all, from \"reformers\" and \"kind\" people.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nSince morals is concerned with conduct, it grows out of specific\nempirical facts. Almost all influential moral theories, with the\nexception of the utilitarian, have refused to admit this idea. For\nChristendom as a whole, morality has been connected with supernatural\ncommands, rewards and penalties. Those who have escaped this\nsuperstition have contented themselves with converting the difference\nbetween this world and the next into a distinction between the actual\nand the ideal, what is and what should be. The actual world has not been\nsurrendered to the devil in name, but it is treated as a display of\nphysical forces incapable of generating moral values. Consequently,\nmoral considerations must be introduced from above. Human nature may not\nbe officially declared to be infected because of some aboriginal sin,\nbut it is said to be sensuous, impulsive, subjected to necessity, while\nnatural intelligence is such that it cannot rise above a reckoning of\nprivate expediency.\n\nBut in fact morals is the most humane of all subjects. It is that which\nis closest to human nature; it is ineradicably empirical, not\ntheological nor metaphysical nor mathematical. Since it directly\nconcerns human nature, everything that can be known of the human mind\nand body in physiology, medicine, anthropology, and psychology is\npertinent to moral inquiry. Human nature exists and operates in an\nenvironment. And it is not \"in\" that environment as coins are in a box,\nbut as a plant is in the sunlight and soil. It is of them, continuous\nwith their energies, dependent upon their support, capable of increase\nonly as it utilizes them, and as it gradually rebuilds from their crude\nindifference an environment genially civilized. Hence physics,\nchemistry, history, statistics, engineering science, are a part of\ndisciplined moral knowledge so far as they enable us to understand the\nconditions and agencies through which man lives, and on account of which\nhe forms and executes his plans. Moral science is not something with a\nseparate province. It is physical, biological and historic knowledge\nplaced in a human context where it will illuminate and guide the\nactivities of men.\n\nThe path of truth is narrow and straitened. It is only too easy to\nwander beyond the course from this side to that. In a reaction from that\nerror which has made morals fanatic or fantastic, sentimental or\nauthoritative by severing them from actual facts and forces, theorists\nhave gone to the other extreme. They have insisted that natural laws are\nthemselves moral laws, so that it remains, after noting them, only to\nconform to them. This doctrine of accord with nature has usually marked\na transition period. When mythology is dying in its open forms, and when\nsocial life is so disturbed that custom and tradition fail to supply\ntheir wonted control, men resort to Nature as a norm. They apply to\nNature all the eulogistic predicates previously associated with divine\nlaw; or natural law is conceived of as the only true divine law. This\nhappened in one form in Stoicism. It happened in another form in the\ndeism of the eighteenth century with its notion of a benevolent,\nharmonious, wholly rational order of Nature.\n\nIn our time this notion has been perpetuated in connection with a\nlaissez-faire social philosophy and the theory of evolution. Human\nintelligence is thought to mark an artificial interference if it does\nmore than register fixed natural laws as rules of human action. The\nprocess of natural evolution is conceived as the exact model of human\nendeavor. The two ideas met in Spencer. To the \"enlightened\" of a former\ngeneration, Spencer's evolutionary philosophy seemed to afford a\nscientific sanction for the necessity of moral progress, while it also\nproved, up to the hilt, the futility of deliberate \"interference\" with\nthe benevolent operations of nature. The idea of justice was identified\nwith the law of cause and effect. Transgression of natural law wrought\nin the struggle for existence its own penalty of elimination, and\nconformity with it brought the reward of increased vitality and\nhappiness. By this process egoistic desire is gradually coming into\nharmony with the necessity of the environment, till at last the\nindividual automatically finds happiness in doing what the natural and\nsocial environment demands, and serves himself in serving others. From\nthis point of view, earlier \"scientific\" philosophers made a mistake,\nbut only the mistake of anticipating the date of complete natural\nharmony. All that reason can do is to acknowledge the evolutionary\nforces, and thereby refrain from retarding the arrival of the happy day\nof perfect harmony. Meantime justice demands that the weak and ignorant\nsuffer the effect of violation of natural law, while the wise and able\nreap the rewards of their superiority.\n\nThe fundamental defect of such views is that they fail to see the\ndifference made in conditions and energies by perception of them. It is\nthe first business of mind to be \"realistic,\" to see things \"as they\nare.\" If, for example, biology can give us knowledge of the causes of\ncompetency and incompetency, strength and weakness, that knowledge is\nall to the good. A non-sentimental morals will seek for all the\ninstruction natural science can give concerning the biological\nconditions and consequences of inferiority and superiority. But\nknowledge of facts does not entail conformity and acquiescence. The\ncontrary is the case. Perception of things as they are is but a stage in\nthe process of making them different. They have already begun to be\ndifferent in being known, for by that fact they enter into a different\ncontext, a context of foresight and judgment of better and worse. A\nfalse psychology of a separate realm of consciousness is the only reason\nthis fact is not generally acknowledged. Morality resides not in\nperception of fact, but in the _use_ made of its perception. It is a\nmonstrous assumption that its sole use is to utter benedictions upon\nfact and its offspring. It is the part of intelligence to tell when to\nuse the fact to conform and perpetuate, and when to use it to vary\nconditions and consequences.\n\nIt is absurd to suppose that knowledge about the connection between\ninferiority and its consequences prescribes adherence to that\nconnection. It is like supposing that knowledge of the connection\nbetween malaria and mosquitoes enjoins breeding mosquitoes. The fact\nwhen it is known enters into a new environment. Without ceasing to\nbelong to the physical environment it enters also into a medium of human\nactivities, of desires and aversions, habits and instincts. It thereby\ngains new potencies, new capacities. Gunpowder in water does not act the\nsame as gunpowder next a flame. A fact known does not operate the same\nas a fact unperceived. When it is known it comes into contact with the\nflame of desire and the cold bath of antipathy. Knowledge of the\nconditions that breed incapacity may fit into some desire to maintain\nothers in that state while averting it for one's self. Or it may fall in\nwith a character which finds itself blocked by such facts, and therefore\nstrives to use knowledge of causes to make a change in effects. Morality\nbegins at this point of use of knowledge of natural law, a use varying\nwith the active system of dispositions and desires. Intelligent action\nis not concerned with the bare consequences of the thing known, but with\nconsequences _to be_ brought into existence by action conditioned on the\nknowledge. Men may use their knowledge to induce conformity or\nexaggeration, or to effect change and abolition of conditions. The\nquality of these consequences determines the question of better or\nworse.\n\nThe exaggeration of the harmony attributed to Nature aroused men to note\nits disharmonies. An optimistic view of natural benevolence was followed\nby a more honest, less romantic view of struggle and conflict in nature.\nAfter Helvetius and Bentham came Malthus and Darwin. The problem of\nmorals is the problem of desire and intelligence. What is to be done\nwith these facts of disharmony and conflict? After we have discovered\nthe place and consequences of conflict in nature, we have still to\ndiscover its place and working in human need and thought. What is its\noffice, its function, its _possibility_, or use? In general, the answer\nis simple. Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation\nand memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like\npassivity, and sets us at noting and contriving. Not that it always\neffects this result; but that conflict is a _sine qua non_ of reflection\nand ingenuity. When this possibility of making use of conflict has once\nbeen noted, it is possible to utilize it systematically to substitute\nthe arbitration of mind for that of brutal attack and brute collapse.\nBut the tendency to take natural law for a norm of action which the\nsupposedly scientific have inherited from eighteenth century rationalism\nleads to an idealization of the principle of conflict itself. Its office\nin promoting progress through arousing intelligence is overlooked, and\nit is erected into the generator of progress. Karl Marx borrowed from\nthe dialectic of Hegel the idea of the necessity of a negative element,\nof opposition, for advance. He projected it into social affairs and\nreached the conclusion that all social development comes from conflict\nbetween classes, and that therefore class-warfare is to be cultivated.\nHence a supposedly scientific form of the doctrine of social evolution\npreaches social hostility as the road to social harmony. It would be\ndifficult to find a more striking instance of what happens when natural\nevents are given a social and practical sanctification. Darwinism has\nbeen similarly used to justify war and the brutalities of competition\nfor wealth and power.\n\nThe excuse, the provocation, though not the justification for such a\ndoctrine is found in the actions of those who say peace, peace, when\nthere is no peace, who refuse to recognize facts as they are, who\nproclaim a natural harmony of wealth and merit, of capital and labor,\nand the natural justice, in the main, of existing conditions. There is\nsomething horrible, something that makes one fear for civilization, in\ndenunciations of class-differences and class struggles which proceed\nfrom a class in power, one that is seizing every means, even to a\nmonopoly of moral ideals, to carry on its struggle for class-power. This\nclass adds hypocrisy to conflict and brings all idealism into disrepute.\nIt does everything which ingenuity and prestige can do to give color to\nthe assertions of those who say that all moral considerations are\nirrelevant, and that the issue is one of brute trial of forces between\nthis side and that. The alternative, here as elsewhere, is not between\ndenying facts in behalf of something termed moral ideals and accepting\nfacts as final. There remains the possibility of recognizing facts and\nusing them as a challenge to intelligence to modify the environment and\nchange habits.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe place of natural fact and law in morals brings us to the problem of\nfreedom. We are told that seriously to import empirical facts into\nmorals is equivalent to an abrogation of freedom. Facts and laws mean\nnecessity we are told. The way to freedom is to turn our back upon them\nand take flight to a separate ideal realm. Even if the flight could be\nsuccessfully accomplished, the efficacy of the prescription may be\ndoubted. For we need freedom in and among actual events, not apart from\nthem. It is to be hoped therefore that there remains an alternative;\nthat the road to freedom may be found in that knowledge of facts which\nenables us to employ them in connection with desires and aims. A\nphysician or engineer is free in his thought and his action in the\ndegree in which he knows what he deals with. Possibly we find here the\nkey to any freedom.\n\nWhat men have esteemed and fought for in the name of liberty is varied\nand complex--but certainly it has never been a metaphysical freedom of\nwill. It seems to contain three elements of importance, though on their\nface not all of them are directly compatible with one another. (i) It\nincludes efficiency in action, ability to carry out plans, the absence\nof cramping and thwarting obstacles. (ii) It also includes capacity to\nvary plans, to change the course of action, to experience novelties. And\nagain (iii) it signifies the power of desire and choice to be factors in\nevents.\n\nFew men would purchase even a high amount of efficient action along\ndefinite lines at the price of monotony, or if success in action were\nbought by all abandonment of personal preference. They would probably\nfeel that a more precious freedom was possessed in a life of ill-assured\nobjective achievement that contained undertaking of risks, adventuring\nin new fields, a pitting of personal choice against the odds of events,\nand a mixture of success and failures, provided choice had a career. The\nslave is a man who executes the wish of others, one doomed to act along\nlines predetermined to regularity. Those who have defined freedom as\nability to act have unconsciously assumed that this ability is exercised\nin accord with desire, and that its operation introduces the agent into\nfields previously unexplored. Hence the conception of freedom as\ninvolving three factors.\n\nYet efficiency in execution cannot be ignored. To say that a man is free\nto choose to walk while the only walk he can take will lead him over a\nprecipice is to strain words as well as facts. Intelligence is the key\nto freedom in act. We are likely to be able to go ahead prosperously in\nthe degree in which we have consulted conditions and formed a plan which\nenlists their consenting cooperation. The gratuitous help of unforeseen\ncircumstance we cannot afford to despise. Luck, bad if not good, will\nalways be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and\nshowing its back to the stupid. And the gifts of fortune when they come\nare fleeting except when they are made taut by intelligent adaptation of\nconditions. In neutral and adverse circumstances, study and foresight\nare the only roads to unimpeded action. Insistence upon a metaphysical\nfreedom of will is generally at its most strident pitch with those who\ndespise knowledge of matters-of-fact. They pay for their contempt by\nhalting and confined action. Glorification of freedom in general at the\nexpense of positive abilities in particular has often characterized the\nofficial creed of historic liberalism. Its outward sign is the\nseparation of politics and law from economics. Much of what is called\nthe \"individualism\" of the early nineteenth century has in truth little\nto do with the nature of individuals. It goes back to a metaphysics\nwhich held that harmony between man and nature can be taken for granted,\nif once certain artificial restrictions upon man are removed. Hence it\nneglected the necessity of studying and regulating industrial conditions\nso that a nominal freedom can be made an actuality. Find a man who\nbelieves that all men need is freedom _from_ oppressive legal and\npolitical measures, and you have found a man who, unless he is merely\nobstinately maintaining his own private privileges, carries at the back\nof his head some heritage of the metaphysical doctrine of free-will,\nplus an optimistic confidence in natural harmony. He needs a philosophy\nthat recognizes the objective character of freedom and its dependence\nupon a congruity of environment with human wants, an agreement which can\nbe obtained only by profound thought and unremitting application. For\nfreedom as a fact depends upon conditions of work which are socially and\nscientifically buttressed. Since industry covers the most pervasive\nrelations of man with his environment, freedom is unreal which does not\nhave as its basis an economic command of environment.\n\nI have no desire to add another to the cheap and easy solutions which\nexist of the seeming conflict between freedom and organization. It is\nreasonably obvious that organization may become a hindrance to freedom;\nit does not take us far to say that the trouble lies not in organization\nbut in over-organization. At the same time, it must be admitted that\nthere is no effective or objective freedom without organization. It is\neasy to criticize the contract theory of the state which states that\nindividuals surrender some at least of their natural liberties in order\nto make secure as civil liberties what they retain. Nevertheless there\nis some truth in the idea of surrender and exchange. A certain natural\nfreedom is possessed by man. That is to say, in some respects harmony\nexists between a man's energies and his surroundings such that the\nlatter support and execute his purposes. In so far he is free; without\nsuch a basic natural support, conscious contrivances of legislation,\nadministration and deliberate human institution of social arrangements\ncannot take place. In this sense natural freedom is prior to political\nfreedom and is its condition. But we cannot trust wholly to a freedom\nthus procured. It is at the mercy of accident. Conscious agreements\namong men must supplement and in some degree supplant freedom of action\nwhich is the gift of nature. In order to arrive at these agreements,\nindividuals have to make concessions. They must consent to curtailment\nof some natural liberties in order that any of them may be rendered\nsecure and enduring. They must, in short, enter into an organization\nwith other human beings so that the activities of others may be\npermanently counted upon to assure regularity of action and far-reaching\nscope of plans and courses of action. The procedure is not, in so far,\nunlike surrendering a portion of one's income in order to buy insurance\nagainst future contingencies, and thus to render the future course of\nlife more equably secure. It would be folly to maintain that there is no\nsacrifice; we can however contend that the sacrifice is a reasonable\none, justified by results.\n\nViewed in this light, the relation of individual freedom to organization\nis seen to be an experimental affair. It is not capable of being settled\nby abstract theory. Take the question of labor unions and the closed or\nopen shop. It is folly to fancy that no restrictions and surrenders of\nprior freedoms and possibilities of future freedoms are involved in the\nextension of this particular form of organization. But to condemn such\norganization on the theoretical ground that a restriction of liberty is\nentailed is to adopt a position which would have been fatal to every\nadvance step in civilization, and to every net gain in effective\nfreedom. Every such question is to be judged not on the basis of\nantecedent theory but on the basis of concrete consequences. The\nquestion is to the balance of freedom and security achieved, as compared\nwith practicable alternatives. Even the question of the point where\nmembership in an organization ceases to be a voluntary matter and\nbecomes coercive or required, is also an experimental matter, a thing to\nbe decided by scientifically conducted study of consequences, of pros\nand cons. It is definitely an affair of specific detail, not of\nwholesale theory. It is equally amusing to see one man denouncing on\ngrounds of pure theory the coercion of workers by a labor union while he\navails himself of the increased power due to corporate action in\nbusiness and praises the coercion of the political state; and to see\nanother man denouncing the latter as pure tyranny, while lauding the\npower of industrial labor organizations. The position of one or the\nother may be justified in particular cases, but justification is due to\nresults in practice not to general theory.\n\nOrganization tends, however, to become rigid and to limit freedom. In\naddition to security and energy in action, novelty, risk, change are\ningredients of the freedom which men desire. Variety is more than the\nspice of life; it is largely of its essence, making a difference between\nthe free and the enslaved. Invariant virtue appears to be as mechanical\nas uninterrupted vice, for true excellence changes with conditions.\nUnless character rises to overcome some new difficulty or conquer some\ntemptation from an unexpected quarter we suspect its grain is only a\nveneer. Choice is an element in freedom and there can be no choice\nwithout unrealized and precarious possibilities. It is this demand for\ngenuine contingency which is caricatured in the orthodox doctrine of a\nfreedom of indifference, a power to choose this way or that apart from\nany habit or impulse, without even a desire on the part of will to show\noff. Such an indetermination of choice is not desired by the lover of\neither reason or excitement. The theory of arbitrary free choice\nrepresents indeterminateness of conditions grasped in a vague and lazy\nfashion and hardened into a desirable attribute of will. Under the title\nof freedom men prize such uncertainty of conditions as give deliberation\nand choice an opportunity. But uncertainty of volition which is more\nthan a reflection of uncertainty of conditions is the mark of a person\nwho has acquired imbecility of character through permanent weakening of\nhis springs of action.\n\nWhether or not indeterminateness, uncertainty, actually exists in the\nworld is a difficult question. It is easier to think of the world as\nfixed, settled once for all, and man as accumulating all the uncertainty\nthere is in his will and all the doubt there is in his intellect. The\nrise of natural science has facilitated this dualistic partitioning,\nmaking nature wholly fixed and mind wholly open and empty. Fortunately\nfor us we do not have to settle the question. A hypothetical answer is\nenough. _If_ the world is already done and done for, if its character is\nentirely achieved so that its behavior is like that of a man lost in\nroutine, then the only freedom for which man can hope is one of\nefficiency in overt action. But _if_ change is genuine, if accounts are\nstill in process of making, and if objective uncertainty is the stimulus\nto reflection, then variation in action, novelty and experiment, have a\ntrue meaning. In any case the question is an objective one. It concerns\nnot man in isolation from the world but man in his connection with it. A\nworld that is at points and times indeterminate enough to call out\ndeliberation and to give play to choice to shape its future is a world\nin which will is free, not because it is inherently vacillating and\nunstable, but because deliberation and choice are determining and\nstabilizing factors.\n\nUpon an empirical view, uncertainty, doubt, hesitation, contingency and\nnovelty, genuine change which is not mere disguised repetition, are\nfacts. Only deductive reasoning from certain fixed premisses creates a\nbias in favor of complete determination and finality. To say that these\nthings exist only in human experience not in the world, and exist there\nonly because of our \"finitude\" is dangerously like paying ourselves with\nwords. Empirically the life of man seems in these respects as in others\nto express a culmination of facts in nature. To admit ignorance and\nuncertainty in man while denying them to nature involves a curious\ndualism. Variability, initiative, innovation, departure from routine,\nexperimentation are empirically the manifestation of a genuine nisus in\nthings. At all events it is these things that are precious to us under\nthe name of freedom. It is their elimination from the life of a slave\nwhich makes his life servile, intolerable to the freeman who has once\nbeen on his own, no matter what his animal comfort and security. A free\nman would rather take his chance in an open world than be guaranteed in\na closed world.\n\nThese considerations give point to the third factor in love of freedom:\nthe desire to have desire count as a factor, a force. Even if will\nchooses unaccountably, even if it be a capricious impulse, it does not\nfollow that there are real alternatives, genuine possibilities, open in\nthe future. What we want is possibilities open in the _world_ not in the\nwill, except as will or deliberate activity reflects the world. To\nforesee future objective alternatives and to be able by deliberation to\nchoose one of them and thereby weight its chances in the struggle for\nfuture existence, measures our freedom. It is assumed sometimes that if\nit can be shown that deliberation determines choice and deliberation is\ndetermined by character and conditions, there is no freedom. This is\nlike saying that because a flower comes from root and stem it cannot\nbear fruit. The question is not what are the antecedents of deliberation\nand choice, but what are their consequences. What do they do that is\ndistinctive? The answer is that they give us all the control of future\npossibilities which is open to us. And this control is the crux of our\nfreedom. Without it, we are pushed from behind. With it we walk in the\nlight.\n\nThe doctrine that knowledge, intelligence rather than will, constitutes\nfreedom is not new. It has been preached by moralists of many a school.\nAll rationalists have identified freedom with action emancipated by\ninsight into truth. But insight into necessity has by them been\nsubstituted for foresight of possibilities. Tolstoi for example\nexpressed the idea of Spinoza and Hegel when he said that the ox is a\nslave as long as he refuses to recognize the yoke and chafes under it,\nwhile if he identifies himself with its necessity and draws willingly\ninstead of rebelliously, he is free. But as long as the yoke is a yoke\nit is impossible that voluntary identification with it should occur.\nConscious submission is then either fatalistic submissiveness or\ncowardice. The ox accepts in fact not the yoke but the stall and the hay\nto which the yoke is a necessary incident. But if the ox foresees the\nconsequences of the use of the yoke, if he anticipates the possibility\nof harvest, and identifies himself not with the yoke but with the\nrealization of its possibilities, he acts freely, voluntarily. He hasn't\naccepted a necessity as unavoidable; he has welcomed a possibility as a\ndesirability.\n\nPerception of necessary law plays, indeed, a part. But no amount of\ninsight into necessity brings with it, as such, anything but a\nconsciousness of necessity. Freedom is the \"truth of necessity\" only\nwhen we use one \"necessity\" to alter another. When we use the law to\nforesee consequences and to consider how they may be averted or secured,\nthen freedom begins. Employing knowledge of law to enforce desire in\nexecution gives power to the engineer. Employing knowledge of law in\norder to submit to it without further action constitutes fatalism, no\nmatter how it be dressed up. Thus we recur to our main contention.\nMorality depends upon events, not upon commands and ideals alien to\nnature. But intelligence treats events as moving, as fraught with\npossibilities, not as ended, final. In forecasting their possibilities,\nthe distinction between better and worse arises. Human desire and\nability cooperates with this or that natural force according as this or\nthat eventuality is judged better. We do not use the present to control\nthe future. We use the foresight of the future to refine and expand\npresent activity. In this use of desire, deliberation and choice,\nfreedom is actualized.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nIntelligence becomes ours in the degree in which we use it and accept\nresponsibility for consequences. It is not ours originally or by\nproduction. \"It thinks\" is a truer psychological statement than \"I\nthink.\" Thoughts sprout and vegetate; ideas proliferate. They come from\ndeep unconscious sources. \"I think\" is a statement about voluntary\naction. Some suggestion surges from the unknown. Our active body of\nhabits appropriates it. The suggestion then becomes an assertion. It no\nlonger merely comes to us. It is accepted and uttered by us. We act upon\nit and thereby assume, by implication, its consequences. The stuff of\nbelief and proposition is not originated by us. It comes to us from\nothers, by education, tradition and the suggestion of the environment.\nOur intelligence is bound up, so far as its materials are concerned,\nwith the community life of which we are a part. We know what it\ncommunicates to us, and know according to the habits it forms in us.\nScience is an affair of civilization not of individual intellect.\n\nSo with conscience. When a child acts, those about him re-act. They\nshower encouragement upon him, visit him with approval, or they bestow\nfrowns and rebuke. What others do to us when we act is as natural a\nconsequence of our action as what the fire does to us when we plunge our\nhands in it. The social environment may be as artificial as you please.\nBut its action in response to ours is natural not artificial. In\nlanguage and imagination we rehearse the responses of others just as we\ndramatically enact other consequences. We foreknow how others will act,\nand the foreknowledge is the beginning of judgment passed on action. We\nknow _with_ them; there is conscience. An assembly is formed within our\nbreast which discusses and appraises proposed and performed acts. The\ncommunity without becomes a forum and tribunal within, a judgment-seat\nof charges, assessments and exculpations. Our thoughts of our own\nactions are saturated with the ideas that others entertain about them,\nideas which have been expressed not only in explicit instruction but\nstill more effectively in reaction to our acts.\n\nLiability is the beginning of responsibility. We are held accountable by\nothers for the consequences of our acts. They visit their like and\ndislike of these consequences upon us. In vain do we claim that these\nare not ours; that they are products of ignorance not design, or are\nincidents in the execution of a most laudable scheme. Their authorship\nis imputed to us. We are disapproved, and disapproval is not an inner\nstate of mind but a most definite act. Others say to us by their deeds\nwe do not care a fig whether you did this deliberately or not. We intend\nthat you _shall_ deliberate before you do it again, and that if possible\nyour deliberation shall prevent a repetition of this act we object to.\nThe reference in blame and every unfavorable judgment is prospective,\nnot retrospective. Theories about responsibility may become confused,\nbut in practice no one is stupid enough to try to change the past.\nApprobation and disapprobation are ways of influencing the formation of\nhabits and aims; that is, of influencing future acts. The individual is\n_held_ accountable for what he _has_ done in order that he may be\nresponsive in what he is _going_ to do. Gradually persons learn by\ndramatic imitation to hold themselves accountable, and liability becomes\na voluntary deliberate acknowledgment that deeds are our own, that their\nconsequences come from us.\n\nThese two facts, that moral judgment and moral responsibility are the\nwork wrought in us by the social environment, signify that all morality\nis social; not because we _ought_ to take into account the effect of our\nacts upon the welfare of others, but because of facts. Others _do_ take\naccount of what we do, and they respond accordingly to our acts. Their\nresponses actually _do_ affect the meaning of what we do. The\nsignificance thus contributed is as inevitable as is the effect of\ninteraction with the physical environment. In fact as civilization\nadvances the physical environment gets itself more and more humanized,\nfor the meaning of physical energies and events becomes involved with\nthe part they play in human activities. Our conduct _is_ socially\nconditioned whether we perceive the fact or not.\n\nThe effect of custom on habit, and of habit upon thought is enough to\nprove this statement. When we begin to forecast consequences, the\nconsequences that most stand out are those which will proceed from other\npeople. The resistance and the cooperation of others is the central fact\nin the furtherance or failure of our schemes. Connections with our\nfellows furnish both the opportunities for action and the\ninstrumentalities by which we take advantage of opportunity. All of the\nactions of an individual bear the stamp of his community as assuredly as\ndoes the language he speaks. Difficulty in reading the stamp is due to\nvariety of impressions in consequence of membership in many groups. This\nsocial saturation is, I repeat, a matter of fact, not of what should be,\nnot of what is desirable or undesirable. It does not guarantee the\nrightness of goodness of an act; there is no excuse for thinking of evil\naction as individualistic and right action as social. Deliberate\nunscrupulous pursuit of self-interest is as much conditioned upon social\nopportunities, training and assistance as is the course of action\nprompted by a beaming benevolence. The difference lies in the quality\nand degree of the perception of ties and interdependencies; in the use\nto which they are put. Consider the form commonly assumed today by\nself-seeking; namely command of money and economic power. Money is a\nsocial institution; property is a legal custom; economic opportunities\nare dependent upon the state of society; the objects aimed at, the\nrewards sought for, are what they are because of social admiration,\nprestige, competition and power. If money-making is morally obnoxious it\nis because of the way these social facts are handled, not because a\nmoney-making man has withdrawn from society into an isolated selfhood or\nturned his back upon society. His \"individualism\" is not found in his\noriginal nature but in his habits acquired under social influences. It\nis found in his concrete aims, and these are reflexes of social\nconditions. Well-grounded moral objection to a mode of conduct rests\nupon the kind of social connections that figure, not upon lack of social\naim. A man may attempt to utilize social relationships for his own\nadvantage in an inequitable way; he may intentionally or unconsciously\ntry to make them feed one of his own appetites. Then he is denounced as\negoistic. But both his course of action and the disapproval he is\nsubject to are facts _within_ society. They are social phenomena. He\npursues his unjust advantage as a social asset.\n\nExplicit recognition of this fact is a prerequisite of improvement in\nmoral education and of an intelligent understanding of the chief ideas\nor \"categories\" of morals. Morals is as much a matter of interaction of\na person with his social environment as walking is an interaction of\nlegs with a physical environment. The character of walking depends upon\nthe strength and competency of legs. But it also depends upon whether a\nman is walking in a bog or on a paved street, upon whether there is a\nsafeguarded path set aside or whether he has to walk amid dangerous\nvehicles. If the standard of morals is low it is because the education\ngiven by the interaction of the individual with his social environment\nis defective. Of what avail is it to preach unassuming simplicity and\ncontentment of life when communal admiration goes to the man who\n\"succeeds\"--who makes himself conspicuous and envied because of command\nof money and other forms of power? If a child gets on by peevishness or\nintrigue, then others are his accomplices who assist in the habits which\nare built up. The notion that an abstract ready-made conscience exists\nin individuals and that it is only necessary to make an occasional\nappeal to it and to indulge in occasional crude rebukes and punishments,\nis associated with the causes of lack of definitive and orderly moral\nadvance. For it is associated with lack of attention to social forces.\n\nThere is a peculiar inconsistency in the current idea that morals\n_ought_ to be social. The introduction of the moral \"ought\" into the\nidea contains an implicit assertion that morals depend upon something\napart from social relations. Morals _are_ social. The question of ought,\nshould be, is a question of better and worse _in_ social affairs. The\nextent to which the weight of theories has been thrown against the\nperception of the place of social ties and connections in moral activity\nis a fair measure of the extent to which social forces work blindly and\ndevelop an accidental morality. The chief obstacle for example to\nrecognizing the truth of a proposition frequently set forth in these\npages to the effect that all conduct is potential, if not actual, matter\nof moral judgment is the habit of identifying moral judgment with praise\nand blame. So great is the influence of this habit that it is safe to\nsay that every professed moralist when he leaves the pages of theory and\nfaces some actual item of his own or others' behavior, first or\n\"instinctively\" thinks of acts as moral or non-moral in the degree in\nwhich they are exposed to condemnation or approval. Now this kind of\njudgment is certainly not one which could profitably be dispensed with.\nIts influence is much needed. But the tendency to equate it with all\nmoral judgment is largely responsible for the current idea that there is\na sharp line between moral conduct and a larger region of non-moral\nconduct which is a matter of expediency, shrewdness, success or manners.\n\nMoreover this tendency is a chief reason why the social forces effective\nin shaping actual morality work blindly and unsatisfactorily. Judgment\nin which the emphasis falls upon blame and approbation has more heat\nthan light. It is more emotional than intellectual. It is guided by\ncustom, personal convenience and resentment rather than by insight into\ncauses and consequences. It makes toward reducing moral instruction, the\neducative influence of social opinion, to an immediate personal matter,\nthat is to say, to an adjustment of personal likes and dislikes.\nFault-finding creates resentment in the one blamed, and approval,\ncomplacency, rather than a habit of scrutinizing conduct objectively. It\nputs those who are sensitive to the judgments of others in a standing\ndefensive attitude, creating an apologetic, self-accusing and\nself-exculpating habit of mind when what is needed is an impersonal\nimpartial habit of observation. \"Moral\" persons get so occupied with\ndefending their conduct from real and imagined criticism that they have\nlittle time left to see what their acts really amount to, and the habit\nof self-blame inevitably extends to include others since it is a habit.\n\nNow it is a wholesome thing for any one to be made aware that\nthoughtless, self-centered action on his part exposes him to the\nindignation and dislike of others. There is no one who can be safely\ntrusted to be exempt from immediate reactions of criticism, and there\nare few who do not need to be braced by occasional expressions of\napproval. But these influences are immensely overdone in comparison with\nthe assistance that might be given by the influence of social judgments\nwhich operate without accompaniments of praise and blame; which enable\nan individual to see for himself what he is doing, and which put him in\ncommand of a method of analyzing the obscure and usually unavowed forces\nwhich move him to act. We need a permeation of judgments on conduct by\nthe method and materials of a science of human nature. Without such\nenlightenment even the best-intentioned attempts at the moral guidance\nand improvement of others often eventuate in tragedies of\nmisunderstanding and division, as is so often seen in the relations of\nparents and children.\n\nThe development therefore of a more adequate science of human nature is\na matter of first-rate importance. The present revolt against the notion\nthat psychology is a science of consciousness may well turn out in the\nfuture to be the beginning of a definitive turn in thought and action.\nHistorically there are good reasons for the isolation and exaggeration\nof the conscious phase of human action, an isolation which forgot that\n\"conscious\" is an adjective of some acts and which erected the resulting\nabstraction, \"consciousness,\" into a noun, an existence separate and\ncomplete. These reasons are interesting not only to the student of\ntechnical philosophy but also to the student of the history of culture\nand even of politics. They have to do with the attempt to drag realities\nout of occult essences and hidden forces and get them into the light of\nday. They were part of the general movement called phenomenalism, and of\nthe growing importance of individual life and private voluntary\nconcerns. But the effect was to isolate the individual from his\nconnections both with his fellows and with nature, and thus to create an\nartificial human nature, one not capable of being understood and\neffectively directed on the basis of analytic understanding. It shut out\nfrom view, not to say from scientific examination, the forces which\nreally move human nature. It took a few surface phenomena for the whole\nstory of significant human motive-forces and acts.\n\nAs a consequence physical science and its technological applications\nwere highly developed while the science of man, moral science, is\nbackward. I believe that it is not possible to estimate how much of the\ndifficulties of the present world situation are due to the disproportion\nand unbalance thus introduced into affairs. It would have seemed absurd\nto say in the seventeenth century that in the end the alteration in\nmethods of physical investigation which was then beginning would prove\nmore important than the religious wars of that century. Yet the wars\nmarked the end of one era; the dawn of physical science the beginning of\na new one. And a trained imagination may discover that the nationalistic\nand economic wars which are the chief outward mark of the present are in\nthe end to be less significant than the development of a science of\nhuman nature now inchoate.\n\nIt sounds academic to say that substantial bettering of social relations\nwaits upon the growth of a scientific social psychology. For the term\nsuggests something specialized and remote. But the formation of habits\nof belief, desire and judgment is going on at every instant under the\ninfluence of the conditions set by men's contact, intercourse and\nassociations with one another. This is the fundamental fact in social\nlife and in personal character. It is the fact about which traditional\nhuman science gives no enlightenment--a fact which this traditional\nscience blurs and virtually denies. The enormous r\u00f4le played in popular\nmorals by appeal to the supernatural and quasi-magical is in effect a\ndesperate admission of the futility of our science. Consequently the\nwhole matter of the formation of the predispositions which effectively\ncontrol human relationships is left to accident, to custom and immediate\npersonal likings, resentments and ambitions. It is a commonplace that\nmodern industry and commerce are conditioned upon a control of physical\nenergies due to proper methods of physical inquiry and analysis. We have\nno social arts which are comparable because we have so nearly nothing in\nthe way of psychological science. Yet through the development of\nphysical science, and especially of chemistry, biology, physiology,\nmedicine and anthropology we now have the basis for the development of\nsuch a science of man. Signs of its coming into existence are present in\nthe movements in clinical, behavioristic and social (in its narrower\nsense) psychology.\n\nAt present we not only have no assured means of forming character except\ncrude devices of blame, praise, exhortation and punishment, but the very\nmeaning of the general notions of moral inquiry is matter of doubt and\ndispute. The reason is that these notions are discussed in isolation\nfrom the concrete facts of the interactions of human beings with one\nanother--an abstraction as fatal as was the old discussion of\nphlogiston, gravity and vital force apart from concrete correlations of\nchanging events with one another. Take for example such a basic\nconception as that of Right involving the nature of authority in\nconduct. There is no need here to rehearse the multitude of contending\nviews which give evidence that discussion of this matter is still in the\nrealm of opinion. We content ourselves with pointing out that this\nnotion is the last resort of the anti-empirical school in morals and\nthat it proves the effect of neglect of social conditions.\n\nIn effect its adherents argue as follows: \"Let us concede that concrete\nideas about right and wrong and particular notions of what is obligatory\nhave grown up within experience. But we cannot admit this about the idea\nof Right, of Obligation itself. Why does moral authority exist at all?\nWhy is the claim of the Right recognized in conscience even by those who\nviolate it in deed? Our opponents say that such and such a course is\nwise, expedient, better. But _why_ act for the wise, or good, or better?\nWhy not follow our own immediate devices if we are so inclined? There is\nonly one answer: We have a moral nature, a conscience, call it what you\nwill. And this nature responds directly in acknowledgment of the supreme\nauthority of the Right over all claims of inclination and habit. We may\nnot act in accordance with this acknowledgment, but we still know that\nthe authority of the moral law, although not its power, is\nunquestionable. Men may differ indefinitely according to what their\nexperience has been as to just _what_ is Right, what its contents are.\nBut they all spontaneously agree in recognizing the supremacy of the\nclaims of whatever is thought of as Right. Otherwise there would be no\nsuch thing as morality, but merely calculations of how to satisfy\ndesire.\"\n\nGrant the foregoing argument, and all the apparatus of abstract moralism\nfollows in its wake. A remote goal of perfection, ideals that are\ncontrary in a wholesale way to what is actual, a free will of arbitrary\nchoice; all of these conceptions band themselves together with that of a\nnon-empirical authority of Right and a non-empirical conscience which\nacknowledges it. They constitute its ceremonial or formal train.\n\nWhy, indeed, acknowledge the authority of Right? That many persons do\nnot acknowledge it in fact, in action, and that all persons ignore it at\ntimes, is assumed by the argument. Just what is the significance of an\nalleged recognition of a supremacy which is continually denied in fact?\nHow much would be lost if it were dropped out, and we were left face to\nface with actual facts? If a man lived alone in the world there might be\nsome sense in the question \"Why be moral?\" were it not for one thing: No\nsuch question would then arise. As it is, we live in a world where other\npersons live too. Our acts affect them. They perceive these effects, and\nreact upon us in consequence. Because they are living beings they make\ndemands upon us for certain things from us. They approve and\ncondemn--not in abstract theory but in what they do to us. The answer to\nthe question \"Why not put your hand in the fire?\" is the answer of fact.\nIf you do your hand will be burnt. The answer to the question why\nacknowledge the right is of the same sort. For Right is only an abstract\nname for the multitude of concrete demands in action which others\nimpress upon us, and of which we are obliged, if we would live, to take\nsome account. Its authority is the exigency of their demands, the\nefficacy of their insistencies. There may be good ground for the\ncontention that in theory the idea of the right is subordinate to that\nof the good, being a statement of the course proper to attain good. But\nin fact it signifies the totality of social pressures exercised upon us\nto induce us to think and desire in certain ways. Hence the right can in\nfact become the road to the good only as the elements that compose this\nunremitting pressure are enlightened, only as social relationships\nbecome themselves reasonable.\n\nIt will be retorted that all pressure is a non-moral affair partaking of\nforce, not of right; that right must be ideal. Thus we are invited to\nenter again the circle in which the ideal has no force and social\nactualities no ideal quality. We refuse the invitation because social\npressure is involved in our own lives, as much so as the air we breathe\nand the ground we walk upon. If we had desires, judgments, plans, in\nshort a mind, apart from social connections, then the latter would be\nexternal and their action might be regarded as that of a non-moral\nforce. But we live mentally as physically only _in_ and _because_ of our\nenvironment. Social pressure is but a name for the interactions which\nare always going on and in which we participate, living so far as we\npartake and dying so far as we do not. The pressure is not ideal but\nempirical, yet empirical here means only actual. It calls attention to\nthe fact that considerations of right are claims originating not outside\nof life, but within it. They are \"ideal\" in precisely the degree in\nwhich we intelligently recognize and act upon them, just as colors and\ncanvas become ideal when used in ways that give an added meaning to\nlife.\n\nAccordingly failure to recognize the authority of right means defect in\neffective apprehension of the realities of human association, not an\narbitrary exercise of free will. This deficiency and perversion in\napprehension indicates a defect in education--that is to say, in the\noperation of actual conditions, in the consequences upon desire and\nthought of existing interactions and interdependencies. It is false that\nevery person has a consciousness of the supreme authority of right and\nthen misconceives it or ignores it in action. One has such a sense of\nthe claims of social relationships as those relationships enforce in\none's desires and observations. The belief in a separate, ideal or\ntranscendental, practically ineffectual Right is a reflex of the\ninadequacy with which existing institutions perform their educative\noffice--their office in generating observation of social continuities.\nIt is an endeavor to \"rationalize\" this defect. Like all\nrationalizations, it operates to divert attention from the real state of\naffairs. Thus it helps maintain the conditions which created it,\nstanding in the way of effort to make our institutions more humane and\nequitable. A theoretical acknowledgment of the supreme authority of\nRight, of moral law, gets twisted into an effectual substitute for acts\nwhich would better the customs which now produce vague, dull, halting\nand evasive observation of actual social ties. We are not caught in a\ncircle; we traverse a spiral in which social customs generate some\nconsciousness of interdependencies, and this consciousness is embodied\nin acts which in improving the environment generate new perceptions of\nsocial ties, and so on forever. The relationships, the interactions are\nforever there as fact, but they acquire meaning only in the desires,\njudgments and purposes they awaken.\n\nWe recur to our fundamental propositions. Morals is connected with\nactualities of existence, not with ideals, ends and obligations\nindependent of concrete actualities. The facts upon which it depends are\nthose which arise out of active connections of human beings with one\nanother, the consequences of their mutually intertwined activities in\nthe life of desire, belief, judgment, satisfaction and dissatisfaction.\nIn this sense conduct and hence morals are social: they are not just\nthings which _ought_ to be social and which fail to come up to the\nscratch. But there are enormous differences of better and worse in the\nquality of what is social. Ideal morals begin with the perception of\nthese differences. Human interaction and ties are there, are operative\nin any case. But they can be regulated, employed in an orderly way for\ngood only as we know how to observe them. And they cannot be observed\naright, they cannot be understood and utilized, when the mind is left to\nitself to work without the aid of science. For the natural unaided mind\nmeans precisely the habits of belief, thought and desire which have been\naccidentally generated and confirmed by social institutions or customs.\nBut with all their admixture of accident and reasonableness we have at\nlast reached a point where social conditions create a mind capable of\nscientific outlook and inquiry. To foster and develop this spirit is the\nsocial obligation of the present because it is its urgent need.\n\nYet the last word is not with obligation nor with the future. Infinite\nrelationships of man with his fellows and with nature already exist. The\nideal means, as we have seen, a sense of these encompassing continuities\nwith their infinite reach. This meaning even now attaches to present\nactivities because they are set in a whole to which they belong and\nwhich belongs to them. Even in the midst of conflict, struggle and\ndefeat a consciousness is possible of the enduring and comprehending\nwhole.\n\nTo be grasped and held this consciousness needs, like every form of\nconsciousness, objects, symbols. In the past men have sought many\nsymbols which no longer serve, especially since men have been idolators\nworshiping symbols as things. Yet within these symbols which have so\noften claimed to be realities and which have imposed themselves as\ndogmas and intolerances, there has rarely been absent some trace of a\nvital and enduring reality, that of a community of life in which\ncontinuities of existence are consummated. Consciousness of the whole\nhas been connected with reverences, affections, and loyalties which are\ncommunal. But special ways of expressing the communal sense have been\nestablished. They have been limited to a select social group; they have\nhardened into obligatory rites and been imposed as conditions of\nsalvation. Religion has lost itself in cults, dogmas and myths.\nConsequently the office of religion as sense of community and one's\nplace in it has been lost. In effect religion has been distorted into a\npossession--or burden--of a limited part of human nature, of a limited\nportion of humanity which finds no way to universalize religion except\nby imposing its own dogmas and ceremonies upon others; of a limited\nclass within a partial group; priests, saints, a church. Thus other gods\nhave been set up before the one God. Religion as a sense of the whole is\nthe most individualized of all things, the most spontaneous, undefinable\nand varied. For individuality signifies unique connections in the whole.\nYet it has been perverted into something uniform and immutable. It has\nbeen formulated into fixed and defined beliefs expressed in required\nacts and ceremonies. Instead of marking the freedom and peace of the\nindividual as a member of an infinite whole, it has been petrified into\na slavery of thought and sentiment, an intolerant superiority on the\npart of the few and an intolerable burden on the part of the many.\n\nYet every act may carry within itself a consoling and supporting\nconsciousness of the whole to which it belongs and which in some sense\nbelongs to it. With responsibility for the intelligent determination of\nparticular acts may go a joyful emancipation from the burden for\nresponsibility for the whole which sustains them, giving them their\nfinal outcome and quality. There is a conceit fostered by perversion of\nreligion which assimilates the universe to our personal desires; but\nthere is also a conceit of carrying the load of the universe from which\nreligion liberates us. Within the flickering inconsequential acts of\nseparate selves dwells a sense of the whole which claims and dignifies\nthem. In its presence we put off mortality and live in the universal.\nThe life of the community in which we live and have our being is the fit\nsymbol of this relationship. The acts in which we express our perception\nof the ties which bind us to others are its only rites and ceremonies.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n Absentmindedness, 173\n Accidents, in history, 101;\n in consequences, 49, 51, 206-208, 241, 253, 304, 309\n Acquisition, 116-118, 143-148\n Activity is natural, 118-123, 160, 226, 293\n Aims, _see_ Consequences, Ends\n Alexander M., 28, 36\n Altruism, 133, 293\n Analysis, 183\n Anger, 90, 152\n Appetite, 7, 275;\n _see_ Impulse\n Aristotle, 33, 109, 174, 224, 290\n Arts, 15, 23, 71, 159-164, 263\n Atomism moral, 243\n Attitude, 41;\n _see_ Habit\n Authority, 2, 65, 72, 79, 187, 324\n\n Benevolence, 133\n Bergson, 73, 178, 245\n Blame, 18, 121, 320\n\n Causation, 18, 44\n Calculation, 189, 199-209;\n _see_ Deliberation\n Casuistry, 240\n Certainty, love of, 236\n Character, defined, 38;\n and consequences, 47\n Childhood, 2, 64, 89, 96, 99\n Choice, 192, 304, 311\n Classes, 2, 82, 270\n Classification, 131, 244\n Codes, 103\n Compensatory, 8, 30, 33, 257, 275\n Conduct, _see_ Character, Habit, Impulse, Intelligence\n Confidence, 139\n Conflict, 12, 39, 66, 82, 194, 208, 217, 300\n Conscience, 184-188, 314\n Consciousness, 62, 179, 184, 208\n Consequences, and motives, 45-47;\n and aims, 225-229, 245-247\n Conservatism, 66, 106, 168\n Continuity, 12, 232, 239, 244, 259\n Control, 21, 23, 37, 101, 139, 148, 266-270;\n _see_ Accident\n Conventions, 6, 97, 166\n Crowd psychology, 60\n Creative and acquisitive, 143-148\n Customs and habits, 58-69;\n and standards, 75-83;\n rigidity, 103-105\n\n Deliberation, 189-209;\n as discovery, 216\n Democracy, 61n, 66, 72\n Desire, 24, 33, 194, 234, 299, 304;\n and intelligence, 248-264;\n object of, 249-252\n Disposition, 41;\n _see_ Habit\n Docility, 64, 97\n Dualism, 8, 12, 40, 55, 67, 71, 147, 275, 309\n\n Economic man, 220\n Economics, 9, 12, 120-124, 132, 143-148, 212-221, 270-273, 305\n Education, 64, 72, 91, 107, 270, 320\n Egotism, 7\n Emerson, 100, 144\n Emotion, 75, 83, 255, 264\n End, 28, 34-37;\n knowledge as, 187, 215;\n nature of, 223-237;\n of desire, 250, 261;\n and means, 269-272;\n _see_ Consequences, Means\n Environments, 2, 10, 15, 18, 21, 51, 151, 159, 179, 316\n Epicureanism, 205, 291\n Equilibration, 179, 252\n Evolution, 284-287, 297\n Execution, of desires, 33-35\n Expediency, 49, 189, 210;\n _see_ Deliberation\n Experience, 31, 245\n Experimentation, moral, 56, 307\n\n Fallacy, philosophic, 175\n Fanaticism, 228\n Fantasies, 158, 164, 236\n Fear, 111, 132-133, 154-155, 237\n Fiat of will, 29\n Foresight, 204-206, 238, 265-270;\n _see_ Deliberation, Ends\n Freedom, 8, 165;\n three phases of, 303-313;\n _see_ Will\n Functions, 18\n\n Gain, 117\n Goal, 260, 265, 274, 281, 287-289;\n _see_ Evolution, Perfection\n Good, 2, 44, 210-222, 274, 278\n Goodness, 4-8, 16, 43-45, 48, 67, 227\n Good-will, 44\n\n Habits, place in conduct, 14-88;\n and desire, 24;\n as functions, 14;\n as arts or abilities, 15, 64, 66, 71, 170;\n and thought, 31-33, 66-69, 172-180, 182;\n definition, 41;\n and impulses, 90-98, 107-111;\n and principles, 238\n Harmony, natural, 159, 167, 298\n Hedonistic calculus, 204\n Hegel, 312\n Helvetius, 106, 300\n Herd-instinct, 4\n History, 101, 110\n Hobbes, 133\n Human nature, 1;\n and morals, 1-13, 295;\n alterability, 106-124\n Humility, 289\n Hypocrisy, 6\n Hypothesis, moral, 239, 243\n\n Ideas, _see_ Ends, Thought\n Ideals and Idealism, 2, 8, 50, 68, 77, 81, 99, 157, 166, 184, 233,\n 236, 255, 259-264, 274, 282-288, 301, 331\n Imagination, 52, 163, 190-192, 204, 225, 234\n Imitation, 66, 97, 132\n Impulse, place in conduct, 89-171;\n secondary, 89;\n intermediary, 169-170;\n as means of reorganization, 93, 102, 104, 179;\n plastic, 95;\n same as human instincts, 105n;\n and habit, 107-111;\n false simplification, 131-149;\n and reason, 196, 254\n Individualism, 7, 85, 93\n Industry, 11\n Infantilisms, 98\n Instinct, not fixed, 149-168;\n and knowledge, 178;\n _see_ Impulse\n Institutions, 9, 80, 102, 111, 166\n Intelligence, 10, 13, 51, 299, 312;\n place of, in conduct, 172-277;\n relation to habits, 172-180, 228;\n and desire, 248-264, 276\n Interpenetration of habits, 37-39\n Intuitions, 33, 188\n\n James, Wm., 112, 179, 195\n Justice, 18, 52, 198\n\n Kant, 44, 49, 55, 245\n Knowledge, moral, 181-188;\n _see_ Conscience, Intelligence\n\n Labor, 121, 144\n Language, 58, 79, 95\n Le Bon, 61\n Liberalism, 305\n Locke, 106\n\n Marx, 154, 273, 300\n Magic, 20, 26\n Meaning, 37, 90, 151, 207, 262, 271, 280\n Means, 20;\n relation to ends, 25-36, 218-220, 251;\n _see_ Habit\n Mechanization, 28, 70, 96, 144\n Mediation, 197\n Mind, 61, 95;\n and habit, 175-180\n Mind and body, 30, 67, 71\n Mitchell, W.\u00a0C., 213\n Moore, G.\u00a0E., 241n\n Morals, introduction, 40;\n conclusion, as objective, 52;\n of art, 167;\n scope, 278-281\n Motives, 43-45, 118-122, 213, 231, 329\n\n Natural law and morals, 296-300\n Necessity, 312\n Nirvana, 175, 286\n Non-moral, 8, 27, 40, 188, 230\n\n Occult, 11\n Oligarchy, 2-3\n Optimism, 286-288\n Organization, 306\n\n Passion, 9, 193-196\n Pathology, 4, 50\n Perfection, 173-175, 223, 282\n Pessimism, 286\n Plato, 50, 78, 134, 290\n Play, 159-164\n Pleasure, 158, 200-205, 250\n Posture, 32\n Potentiality, 37\n Power, will to, 140-142\n Pragmatic knowing, 181-188\n Principles, 2;\n and tendencies, 49;\n nature of, 238-247\n Private, 9, 16, 43, 85\n Process and product, 142-143, 280\n Progress, 10, 21, 93, 96, 101, 105n;\n in science, 149;\n nature of, 281-288\n Property, 116-118;\n _see_ Economics\n Psycho-analysis, 34, 86, 133, 153, 252\n Psychology and moral theory, 12, 46, 91;\n social, 60-63, 84-88;\n current, 118, 135, 147, 155;\n and scientific method, 150, 322-324\n Punishment, 18\n Puritanism, 5, 157\n Purpose, _see_ Ends\n\n Radicalism, 168\n Reactions, 157\n Realism, 176, 256, 298\n Reason, pure, 31;\n reasonableness, 67, 77, 193-198, 215\n Rebellion, 166\n Reconstruction, 164\n Religion, 5, 263, 330-332\n Responsibility, 315\n Revolution, 10, 108\n Right, 324-328\n Romanticism, 6, 100, 166, 256\n Routine, 42, 66, 70, 98, 211, 232, 238\n\n Satisfaction, 140, 158, 175, 210, 213, 265, 285\n Savagery, 93, 101, 103\n Science of morals, 3, 11-12, 18, 56, 224, 243, 296, 321\n Self, 16, 55, 85-87, 136-139, 217, 292, 314\n Self-deception, 152, 252\n Self-love, 134-139, 293\n Sensations, 18, 31, 189\n Sentimentalism, 17\n Sex, 133, 150, 153, 164-165\n Social, _see_ Environments\n Social mind, 60-63\n Socrates, 56\n Soul, 85, 94, 138, 176\n Spencer, 175, 297\n Standards, 75-82, 241\n Stimulation, 157\n Stimulus and response, 199-207\n Stuart, H.\u00a0W., 218\n Subjective, 16, 22, 27, 52, 54, 85, 202;\n _see_ Dualism\n Sublimation, 141, 156, 164, 194\n Success, 6, 173, 254\n Sumner, 77\n Suppression, 156, 166\n Synthesis, 183-184\n\n Tendency, 49\n Thought, 30, 67, 98, 108, 171, 190, 200, 222, 258;\n vices of, 197\n Tolstoi, 285, 312\n Tools, 25, 32;\n intellectual, 244\n Transcendentalism, 50-52, 54, 81\n\n Universality, 245-247\n Utilitarianism, 50, 189, 199-209, 211, 221-222, 291\n\n Virtues, 4, 16, 22;\n _see_ Goodness\n\n War, 110-115\n Westermarck, 76\n Will, and habits, 25, 29, 40-44, 259;\n will to power, 140-143;\n freedom of, 9\n Williams, M., 273n\n\n\n\n\nCORRECTIONS:\n\n\n page original correction\n v FUNCTIONS 13 FUNCTIONS 14\n 3 go back of the go back to the\n 8 by pleasureable excursions by pleasurable excursions\n 17 infliction of retibutive infliction of retributive\n 41 some-counteracting some counteracting\n 74 an ungoing splurge an ongoing splurge\n 90 wind on a mudpuddle wind on a mud puddle\n 92 the southsea islander the Southsea islander\n 123 to find fulfillment, to find fulfilment,\n l45 it it quite possible it is quite possible\n 163 artificial exitents artificial exigents\n 211 its every presentation its every presentation.\n 212 with only one factor, with only one factor,\n 234 only a phantasy only a fantasy,\n 236 and phantasy-building, and fantasy-building,\n 262 is as unreasonble as is as unreasonable as\n 276 reporting and analysis reporting and analysis\n 325 how to satisfy desire. how to satisfy desire.\"\n 334 Phantasies, 158, Fantasies, 158,","title":"Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychology","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":84271}