{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_77481/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_77481","id":"gutenberg_77481","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77481","summary":null,"tags":["Behaviorism (Psychology)","Psychology","Science -- Philosophy"],"text":"THE MISBEHAVIORISTS\n\n\n\n\n THE MISBEHAVIORISTS\n\n PSEUDO-SCIENCE\n AND THE MODERN TEMPER\n\n BY\n HARVEY WICKHAM\n\n [Illustration]\n\n NEW YORK\n LINCOLN MAC VEAGH \u00b7 THE DIAL PRESS\n LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY\n TORONTO\n 1928\n\n\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY DIAL PRESS INCORPORATED\n\n MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y.\n\n\n\n\n TO ALL ENQUIRING MINDS, AND TO THOSE DISTURBED\n BY THE APPARENT LOGIC IN MANY\n CURRENT THEORIES HOSTILE TO THEIR\n DEAREST CONVICTIONS, THIS BOOK IS\n DEDICATED\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n CHAPTER I--THE MODERN TEMPER                                       13\n\n CHAPTER II--BEHAVIORISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A PSYCHOLOGIST      22\n   1. The Missing Mr. Mind                                          22\n   2. An Undecided Synapse                                          35\n   3. Eliza Does not Cross the Ice                                  43\n   4. Tinks! Tinks! Kwaks! Kwaks!                                   54\n\n CHAPTER III--DR. MCDOUGALL\u2019S X                                     67\n   1. At the Beck of Thirteen Masters                               67\n   2. Psyche Wields the Broom                                       79\n\n CHAPTER IV--A SLAVE TO DREAMS                                      88\n   1. The Confessions of Sigmund Freud                              88\n   2. The Elaboration of a Fiction                                 104\n   3. Two Oft-Thwarted Passions                                    108\n   4. More Suppositions                                            117\n   5. Freud the Metaphysician                                      129\n\n CHAPTER V--THE FAIRY HALLS OF SCIENCE                             139\n   1. The Idols of the Tribe                                       139\n   2. Some Nebulous Matters                                        150\n   3. The Bed of Procrustes                                        159\n   4. The New Physics                                              164\n   5. Chance                                                       174\n\n CHAPTER VI--THE FAMILY TREE                                       186\n   1. Are Monkeys People?                                          186\n   2. Burbanking the Human Race                                    201\n   3. Salvation by Who\u2019s Who                                       213\n\n CHAPTER VII--THIS UNBELIEVING WORLD                               225\n   1. Dorsey                                                       225\n   2. The Brazen Bough                                             242\n   3. St. Paul as Scapegoat                                        258\n   4. The Church as Scapegoat                                      267\n   5. The Stories of Duran                                         280\n\n CHAPTER VIII--THE ANCIENT TEMPER                                  292\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n PORTRAIT OF                      TO FACE PAGE\n\n DR. JOHN WATSON                            56\n   \u201cGive me the baby\u201d\n\n PROFESSOR WILLIAM MCDOUGALL                74\n   Are we trying to say something?\n\n DR. SIGMUND FREUD                         104\n   He tells us his dreams\n\n ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM                      202\n   The Devil take the hindmost!\n\n DR. GEORGE A. DORSEY                      238\n   \u201cWe do not use the brains we have\u201d\n\n LEWIS BROWNE                              250\n   Stranger than fiction\n\n WILL DURANT                               280\n   Almost an institution\n\n\n\n\nTHE MISBEHAVIORISTS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE MODERN TEMPER\n\n\nThe past appears to be dead.\n\n\u201cIf the world of poetry, mythology and religion represents the world\nas man would like to have it, while science represents the world as he\ngradually comes to discover it, we need only compare the two to realize\nhow irreconcilable they appear,\u201d says Joseph Wood Krutch, associate\neditor of _The Nation_ and the author of a biography of Poe, writing\nin _The Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1927. \u201cThe romantic ideal of\na world well lost for love, and the classic ideal of austere dignity\nseem equally ridiculous, equally meaningless when referred, not to the\ntemper of the past, but the temper of the present.\u201d\n\nHilaire Belloc is equally insistent as to the existence of this modern\ntemper, for he remarks in the course of some \u201cCheerful Thoughts on\nChristmas.\u201d[1]\n\n\u201cI think it foolish to disguise from ourselves the plain fact that,\nin the societies which abandoned the Faith in the sixteenth and\nseventeenth centuries, the last supports of Christian doctrine are\nbreaking down very rapidly indeed. Of the doctrines themselves there is\nlittle left ... while the minority, which still feel some attachment\nto some few of these doctrines, feel that attachment in a decreasing\ndegree and more and more as a vague, dissolving sentiment; less and\nless as a principle.\n\n\u201cThe old feeling that the doctrines were sacred and intangible, and\nthat attack upon them was intolerable, has so utterly passed that the\nmodern generation does not even understand it.... There has been hardly\nany defense, hardly any resistance; the last remainder of the creed ...\nhas been allowed to slip away unnoticed like the last few coins of a\nfortune dissipated by a man so debauched as to have lost his memory.\u201d\n\nBoth Belloc and Krutch, it will be observed, agree that the world has\nchanged--that is, that the popular idea as to what life really is,\nhas changed. They differ only as to the sentiment with which the mass\nof the population are supposed to regard the alterations which have\ntaken place in the view. Belloc, who is a Catholic, believes that\nProtestants at least are quite satisfied to have lost the world of\n\u201cpoetry, mythology and religion\u201d; have in fact \u201callowed it to slip away\nunnoticed.\u201d Krutch, the radical editor, suggests that there has been a\nstruggle, that science has forced man to give up the world as he would\nlike to have it and to accept the world as he has gradually come to\ndiscover it--not by making the lost world undesirable, but by making it\nseem ridiculous and without actuality.\n\nKrutch, I think, is right, in so far as the vast majority are\nconcerned. They have resisted, Protestants as well as Catholics,\nand many who are neither Catholic nor Protestant but merely lovers\nof tradition and of the classic ideal of austere dignity and of the\nromantic ideal of a world well lost for love. They have struggled.\nThey still struggle. But there is an ever increasing demand from some\nquarters that the struggle be given up in despair.\n\nNow if science indeed represents the world as man gradually comes to\ndiscover it--that is, if science represents the world as it is; and if\nthe testimony of scientists as to the nature of this reality be fairly\nuniform and uncontradictory, with a growing unanimity promising to\nbring an eventual unison out of such discords as may still exist, then\nthe only thing for the sensible citizen to do is to let the dead past\nbury its dead, turn from the grave with as little moaning as possible,\nand adapt himself with all speed to changed conditions. The advice,\n\u201cDo it now!\u201d is being hurled at him. Why should he not heed it? Nobody\nwants to be a mere reactionary, still less to live in a fool\u2019s paradise.\n\nBut does science represent the world as the world really is? Can we\nsay that there is any likelihood of the scientific picture being\nmore photographically perfect than is, or was, the romantic picture?\nAre scientists in agreement, so that there is little or no choice or\nopinion offered? Are their theories themselves logically consistent?\nWhat, precisely, is science? And finally, have its findings been\nfaithfully reported to us?\n\nThese are some of the questions which this book attempts to answer.\nBut before plunging merrily into such a task it may be well to pause\nand consider yet further the testimony of Belloc. He may be mistaken\nas to people in general, but he is almost incredibly correct in regard\nto a small but very influential body of conspicuous persons who may\nbe described as the Materialistic Philosophers. Scientists some of\nthem call themselves, and scientists they are--of a sort. But as\nthey permit themselves to be perpetually hag-ridden by questions of\neschatology--doctrines relating to that ultimate dim Thule towards\nwhich the whole creation does or does not move--philosophy is what they\nchiefly have to offer, no matter by what other name they seek to give\nit a more modern and therefore presumably sweeter odor.\n\nThe ultimate nature of things engrosses them, and just how little they\nstruggle against the threatened loss of a world of poetry, mythology\nand religion may be seen by a quotation taken at random, or, to be\nmore specific, from \u201cThe Mechanist Conception of Life,\u201d by a veritable\ngeneral in the materialistic army, Prof. Jacques Loeb, formerly of the\nUniversity of California.\n\n\u201cOur wishes and hopes, disappointments and sufferings,\u201d he says,\n\u201chave their source in the instincts which are comparable to the light\ninstincts of the heliotropic animals.\u201d\n\nA tropism, it should perhaps be explained for the benefit of the older\ngeneration, is a tendency to move toward or away from any external\nobject, the operation being carried out by means of chemical and\nmechanical changes within the subject. Thus the heliotrope, which\nalways strives to turn towards the sun, got its name. It is said to be\npositively tropic to light. Prof. Loeb, however, seems to be negatively\ntropic in this regard, for he continues:\n\n\u201cThe need of the struggle for food, the sexual instinct with its poetry\nand its chain of consequences, the maternal instincts with the felicity\nand the suffering caused by them ... are the roots from which our inner\nlife develops. For some of these instincts, the chemical basis is at\nleast sufficiently indicated to arouse the hope that their analysis\nfrom the mechanistic point of view is only a question of time.\u201d\n\n\u201cHope,\u201d he says. The second of the virtues, once set between Faith\nand Charity, is here involved to express the author\u2019s reaction to the\nprospect that some day all the movements of the inner life may be\nreduced to the level of so many warping planks exposed to variations\nin humidity and to changing temperatures. The modern temper, as it\nexists in the minds of those who seek to create and control it,\ncertainly seems to have become emotionally adjusted to an abandonment\nof the classic idea of dignity. Heretofore man has based his pride\nchiefly upon his intelligence, the freedom of his will, his possession\nof a soul, and his conviction that he was made in the image of God. But\naccording to the materialists, no mind, no will, no soul exists, and\nGod is merely the \u201cbehavior of the universe.\u201d[2]\n\n\u201cThere is no such thing as mind in the old sense of the word,\u201d says J.\nB. Eggen.[3] And what is it in the new sense of the word? \u201cIt cannot be\nconsidered as ... separate from the body,\u201d Mr. Eggen goes on. Is it the\nbrain, then--the brain in the old sense of the word? By no means. \u201cThe\nmind is not a thing with which we react, it is a form of reaction. We\ndo not think with our brain; there is nothing inside the brain but a\nlot of neurones.\u201d\n\nThe mind cannot be considered as separate from the body, neither do we\nthink without brain. With what, then, do we think? Obviously we do not\nthink at all in the old sense of the word. Thinking, we are about to be\ntold, is only a collection of motions. And he who \u201cthinks\u201d the theory\ncannot be made plausible has yet to read Eggen\u2019s illustrious masters.\nBut is this science? That same science which has transformed the\nappearance of the world and given us the telegraph, the telephone, the\nphonograph, the automobile, the electric light, the air-plane, radio,\nand television? We shall see.\n\n\u201cThe Approaching Crisis\u201d would seem to be well named, and in it Mr.\nWieman, who is also the author of \u201cReligious Experience and the\nScientific Method,\u201d informs us that the decline of religion has been\nlargely due to its \u201cinadequate adjustment to scientific method and\ndiscovery.\u201d Adding, \u201cAt the present time it is research in the field\nof psychology and sociology which is demanding a transformation in our\nthinking,\u201d--that is, in our notions. Psychology is unquestionably the\nmost popular form of that \u201cchallenge to fundamental beliefs\u201d of which\nso much is heard. And Dr. John B. Watson, editor of the _Journal of\nExperimental Psychology_, and formerly Professor of Psychology at Johns\nHopkins, makes all former challenges seem weak, for he says--in the\nfirst chapter of his \u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist\u201d:\n\n\u201cPsychology, up to very recent times, has been held so rigidly under\nthe dominance both of traditional religion and of philosophy--the two\ngreat bulwarks of medievalism--that it has never been able to free\nitself and become a science.... In the late sixties an attempt was\nmade\u201d to make it such. \u201cThe boast was voiced that psychology ... had\nbecome a science without a soul--that is, a natural science.\u201d But\n\u201cnotwithstanding the many laboratories here and abroad, it has never\nbeen able to substantiate this claim.... The psychology begun by Wundt\nhas failed to become a science,\u201d--apparently because some remnants of\nsoul still cling to it. And Dr. Watson concludes, \u201cBefore progress\ncould be made in astronomy, it had to bury astrology; neurology had\nto bury phrenology; and chemistry had to bury alchemy. But the social\nsciences, psychology, sociology, political science and economics, will\nnot bury their medicine men.\u201d\n\nHe is speaking, of course, of psychology prior to Dr. Watson, of the\npsychology of Wundt, which resulted in the Binet intelligence tests.\nThis in its day was considered a very materialistic psychology indeed,\nsuperseding the psychology of the William James or the Herbert Spencer\ntype, which also in its day voiced the boast that it was a science,\ntough, and without bowels of compassion. How rapidly we progress. James\nlived until 1910, Spencer until 1903. It was not until 1912, when,\naccording to Dr. Watson, \u201cbehaviorism first showed its head,\u201d that\nthe burying of the medicine men began. And two years later came the\nWar! The boast can now be voiced without fear of contradiction that\npsychology has no soul.\n\nStill if it be true science, and if science be but another name for\nreality, I for one am going to get at the burying of my own medicine\nmen without further delay. I notice a considerable amount of such\nburying going on about me. Men are hurrying with the work as if afraid\nof being caught with a corpse or two on their hands and undisposed of.\nA sort of terror is stalking through the land, afflicting especially\nthe writers of books and magazine articles--the terror of not being\nable to keep up with the Joneses in their employment of the undertaker.\nThe famous Experimental Method, but late a fugitive, hounded from hole\nto corner and from corner to hole, has found influence and capital. It\nwields a big stick, or at least a big stick is being wielded in its\nname.\n\nIt was once said, \u201cWisdom crieth in the streets, How long ye simple\nones will ye love simplicity?\u201d And now a voice, still purporting to be\nWisdom\u2019s, fairly yells: \u201cBring us your dead!\u201d One would think that a\npestilence was abroad. Possibly there is. Formerly men bowed down to\nthe image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up, or cast their babes\nbefore the car of Juggernaut. Today they would rather die, some of\nthem, than be found obstructing the wheels of progress. Science, grown\nrich, has acquired such prestige as was once accorded only to C\u00e6sar.\n\nAnd no wonder. It has given us Copernicus, Galileo, Galvani, Volta,\nFaraday, Pasteur, the Curies, Edison, Marconi, Westinghouse, Burbank,\nand thousands of others--men for the most part personally poor, but\nadding without measure to the material wealth of the world. If all\nthese men are back of the big stick; if it be they who bid us give up\nour God, our souls, wills and even our minds, ordering us to become\naccustomed to the idea that we are but machines--and if in doing so\nthey are sticking to their business and not wandering off into fields\nthey have failed to make their own, it might (perhaps) be folly to\ndisobey.\n\nBut let us first make certain as to whose voice is on the air. We\nhave, all of us, a few more or less cherished beliefs. We have grown\nup leaning upon--call them props and crutches if you will. Some of us\nhave even been riveted to moral scruples which, when we try to go in a\ndirection they forbid, dog us with the clanking hinderance of a ball\nand chain. We doubt if we could continue to be good citizens without\nthem. We do not even know if good citizens, in the old sense of the\nword, are any longer desired. Without our props we are likely simply to\nfall--and we have never yet seen people walking upright without props\nof some sort. We actually doubt the advisability of trying to progress\non all fours.\n\nThere are new props, better than the old? Good! Let us see them. Let\nus test them, and make sure that they be indeed from science\u2019s own\nworkshop. And having mentioned the Watson brand of artificial limb, we\nmay as well begin by experimenting with that, finding out by what still\nwaters and into what green pastures we may wander with its aid.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _America_, December, 4, 1926.\n\n[2] \u201cThe Approaching Crisis,\u201d by Henry Nelson Wieman, teacher of\nphilosophy at Occidental College, Los Angeles, _Century Magazine_,\nNovember, 1926.\n\n[3] _Current History_, September, 1926.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nBEHAVIORISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A PSYCHOLOGIST\n\n\n1. THE MISSING MR. MIND\n\nDr. Watson practically begins his best known book, \u201cPsychology from\nthe Standpoint of a Behaviorist,\u201d with the statement that he is not\nconcerned with problems of consciousness. And one at first understands\nhim to mean that in his capacity of behaviorist he is not concerned\nwith problems of this sort. He knows as a human being, one supposes,\nthat he is alive. He does not, presumably, address his books to people\nin a state of coma. So it would seem that, as a man, he is concerned\nnot only with his own consciousness but with the consciousness of\nothers; that he is like the judge who knew something when off the Bench\nbut refused to know it when on.\n\nAs we read, however, this kindly interpretation becomes untenable.\n\n\u201cConsciousness ... is but an indefinable phrase.... Even if [objective\nproofs of consciousness] existed, they would exist as isolated,\nunmeasurable \u2018mental curiosities.\u2019... The behaviorist finds no\nevidence for \u2018mental existences\u2019 or \u2018mental processes\u2019 of any kind....\nIf behaviorism is ever to stand for anything ... it must make a\nclean break with the whole concept of consciousness.\u201d Our thinking\nprocesses \u201care not different in essence from tennis-playing, swimming,\nor any other activity.... Meaning ... never arises in the scientific\nobservation of behavior.\u201d\n\nThus far he goes in this one book. In a previous volume[4] he merely\nconcluded that \u201cone can assume either the presence or absence of\nconsciousness ... without affecting the problems of behavior by one\njot or one tittle.\u201d But in \u201cThe Myth of the Unconscious\u201d[5] he throws\nsubterfuge to the winds and says plainly:\n\n\u201cThe behaviorist finds no \u2018mind\u2019 in his laboratories, sees it nowhere\nin his subjects ... if the behaviorists are right, then ... _there can\nbe no such thing as consciousness_.\u201d\n\nWhy? Because \u201cpersonality ... is the reaction-mass as a whole.\u201d Can you\nput marbles in a bag and shake them till the mass of their reactions\nbecomes aware of itself? Obviously not. Accepting for the sake of\nargument the definition of personality as it appears from the Watson\n\u201cstandpoint,\u201d--there is no argument. Logic leads us straight into\nnothing. This is also the conclusion of J. S. Moore, who contends\nthat _content_ when accented upon the first syllable signifies merely\n_context_--not the thing inside (there is no thing inside) but the\nthings around it. Which makes it clear that I have been guilty of gross\npresumption in even trying to attach meaning to \u201cpsychology from the\nstandpoint of a behaviorist.\u201d\n\nThis may sound like an attempt to be funny, to make cheap humor out of\nrandom extracts from a book half or not at all understood, but whether\nI understand psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist or not, I\nwas never more serious in my life. Not only Dr. Watson but many other\nadult men are solemnly asking us with perfectly straight faces if we\ndare to call not our souls but ourselves our own. And if we nod an\naffirmative, they smile in their beards, and imply that we must have\nlacked early advantages.\n\nBut it will be urged it cannot be that so large a number of university\nprofessors have gone mad. They must have some way of deceiving\nthemselves. And indeed they have. Metaphysics has been defined as\nthe art of befuddling one\u2019s self methodically, and of metaphysics of\nthis sort none are so fond as those who decry metaphysics altogether.\n\u201cReaction-mass as a whole\u201d sounds like a reasonable expression, does it\nnot? Abstractions always do. And yet reactions can have no mass. They\nare only movements, not the things which move. Try and get any meat out\nof a movement and see what you have for dinner.\n\nBut these fallacies do not usually travel alone. Watsonianism in\nparticular is fond of the company of facts. It mixes up Behaviorism,\nas a mere study of behavior, in a vast confusion of Psychology,\nPhysiology, Ethics and irreligion. It seeks now to blind us with\npassion, now to swamp us in detail--lest we remember what we are\ntalking about.\n\nThus Dr. Watson\u2019s great book bristles with facts--pages and pages of\nthem taken straight from physiology. He divides our bodies into three\ngroups of parts, according to function--receptors, conductors and\neffectors. The receptors receive impressions from the outer world and\nare nothing but our old friends, the five senses--eyes, ears, nose, the\ntaste-buds of the tongue, and those areas (chiefly of cuticle) which\nare sensitive to touch. The conductors are the nerves. The effectors,\nor the bringers about of effects, are the muscles and glands. Now\nthe glands, at least those of the endocrine or ductless variety, are\ncomparatively new-comers in the world of knowledge. But the other\nthings are as familiar as doctors\u2019 bills. There have been changes in\nnomenclature, nothing more.\n\nYet these changes are significant. Receptors take the place of the\nsenses because (in all seriousness) the behaviorist wishes to get rid\nof that hateful word \u201csense\u201d and its implications. A similar motive\nmust have been active when it came to naming the secretions from the\nductless glands. They used to be called Hormones, meaning \u201cI stir up.\u201d\nThis no doubt was objectionable, because some of the hormones do not\nstir us up; they quiet us down. Dr. Watson knows them all as autocoids,\nwhich has the advantage of being non-committal in this regard. What is\nmore to the point, it implies something automatic. Let us see how they\nwork.\n\nBut right here we are met by a lack of knowledge. The secretions from\nonly a few of the endocrines (notably andrenin and thyroxin) have as\nyet been isolated and analyzed. But there is good reason for believing\nthat they regulate, to a certain extent at least, not only the ductless\nglands among themselves but (through the sympathetic nerves) the action\nof the unstriped muscles which control the stomach, intestines and\nvarious other unconscious or vegetative processes.\n\nAutocoidal secretion seems to be very much at the beck and call of our\nemotions, or else our emotions are very much at the beck and call of\nour autocoids; but whether you hitch the cart before the horse or the\nhorse before the cart, the believer in human freedom need be no more\nalarmed over the autocoids than he is over the fact that drugs have\ncertain effects when taken into the system. It was known even in the\nages of faith that a man was not quite himself after partaking too\nfreely even of a drug so charmingly outward mannered as is alcohol.\n\nThe behaviorism of the autocoids is more obscure. They become\nconspicuous chiefly by their absence. Thus the removal of the\nparathyroids (part of the thyroid apparatus situated on either side\nof the larynx and windpipe) produces convulsions. Its autocoid is\ntherefore believed to be of a restraining type. The removal of the\nthyroids themselves produces cretinism, and thyroxin, their active\nprinciple (it is sixty percent iodine) was isolated only recently by\nE. C. Kendall, of the Mayo Foundation. Suprarenal extract (from the\nsuprarenal apparatus near the kidneys) aids in recovery from fatigue.\n\nAs to the pituitary apparatus at the base of the brain, \u201cgigantism is\nsupposed to be due to an overactive anterior lobe; obesity and sexual\ninfantilism to the lack of secretion of the posterior lobe.\u201d (Watson.)\nThe thymus gland (in the neck near the thyroids) is believed by Dr.\nWalter Timme to be linked with the pineal (which is a part of the brain\nstructure) in a related system dominating the life cycle from birth to\npuberty. If the function of the pineal is disturbed in children, \u201cthere\nis a rapid development of the reproductive organs, precocity, and an\nincreased growth of skeleton. It is thus supposed that this gland\nfurnishes an inhibitory autocoid.\u201d (Watson.)\n\nTo the absence of the puberty gland (also called the interstitial, and\nendocrine not to be confounded with the gonads, or true sex cells,\nto which is entrusted the reproductive function)--to the absence of\nthe puberty gland is attributed the observed effects of castration,\nand \u201cthere is a growing tendency on the part of investigators ...\nto believe that man is as old as his glands.\u201d Therefore, \u201csince the\nremaining glands apparently cannot stay youthful in the absence of\na sufficient output from the puberty glands, it is only natural to\nconnect senescence or old age with the decline in the output from\nthis gland.\u201d (Watson.) Hence all the experiments in rejuvenation, the\ntransplantation of glands from monkeys and goats, made from the days\nof Brown-Sequard (famous about the year 1889) down to those made by\nSteinach, Voronoff and many others of the present time. Thus the simian\nbecomes our \u201cglandcestor,\u201d so to speak, whether he be our forbear or\nnot.\n\nBut let us take leave of all this physiology and observe what sort of\npsychology we can get from our receptors, conductors and effectors\nunder experimental conditions.\n\nFor convenience sake, the behaviorist calls whatever happens to the\nvictim of an experiment the \u201cstimulus\u201d or \u201csituation,\u201d and whatever\nthe victim does in consequence the \u201cresponse.\u201d So we will imagine\nthat a stimulus of some sort, say the spectacle of Eliza crossing the\nice, impinges upon a receptor--in this case the retina. Physically,\nthis is a light stimulus, and for a brief instant Eliza may be said\nto be all in your eye. But a conductor (the optic nerve) takes the\nmatter up and transmits an impulse (in the form of a \u201cwave of chemical\ndecomposition\u201d) to the brain. Here it encounters a lot of cells, called\nneurones. If J. B. Eggen be right in saying that \u201cthere is nothing\ninside the brain but a lot of neurones,\u201d it could not well encounter\nanything else.\n\nA neurone under the microscope looks somewhat like a bush which\nhas been pulled up by the roots. The ball of earth adhering to it\nrepresents the nucleus, or brain-cell proper. The branches are called\ndendrites, and in the human body they extend from sometimes less than\na millimeter to sometimes more than a yard in length--in the latter\ncase becoming what the layman usually means when he says \u201cnerves.\u201d Each\nnucleus possesses several, often a great number, and it is through\nthese dendrites that it receives the neural, or nervous, impulse\nwhich it passes on through its axone to the next cell. There should\nbe a small tap-root to our bush, terminating in brush-like fibres, to\nrepresent this axone. Usually there is but one to a cell, though it may\nsend off collaterals.\n\nWe have many millions of these neurones, each one complicated beyond\nbelief if examined in detail. But let us not venture too far into that\nawful tangle of vaguely definable structures where even the neurologist\ngropes with difficulty, and about which he is constrained to make his\ntentative conclusions with bated breath. But it may be well to note\nthat neurones are of three sorts. Let us call them receiving neurones,\nassociation neurones, and sending neurones; and let us liken them to\nthree lines of soldiers, the receivers busily getting information from\nNo Man\u2019s Land, the associators passing it on to the senders operating\nthe artillery. Receptors, conductors and effectors again. But out of\nfairness to Dr. Watson it should be said that he calls them nothing of\nthe sort. In fact, he thinks that \u201centirely too much\u201d has been made of\nthe association neurone, and \u201cof the whole localization of function.\u201d\nThe brain is not popular with behaviorists anywhere, for sometimes it\nshows a tendency to upset their most cherished theories.\n\nNevertheless the brain is there, and Eliza is crossing the ice. The\nbrain sees her. How? Through its receiving neurones. A soldier out\nin No Man\u2019s Land holds a camera (the eye) in his hand, or dendrite,\nand takes her picture, which he transfers to his other hand, or axone,\nready to pass on. It is like one of these very modern pictures sent by\ntelegraph, for all he receives or passes on is a series of shocks, or\n\u201cwaves of chemical decomposition.\u201d The effect would be the same if the\nsoldiers communicated by means of hand-clasps, a Morse code of squeezes\nor taps,--something like that.\n\nThe second soldier (association neurone) having possessed himself of\nthe picture, relays it in turn to the third--one who is in touch with\nthe guns, which in this case are the muscles and glands. The truth,\nof course, is not quite so simple as this. There are probably nine\nbillion neurones to begin with, each supplied with numerous arms. Any\nassociation neurone appears to be able to get in touch with every other\nneurone in either of the other two classes, and even the simplest\npicture or bit of information must manifest itself in an unconscionable\nnumber of waves or impulses, each one quite meaningless in itself.\nWhat a wild tumult of activity must be taking place within us when the\nbattle outside waxes hot!\n\nNor are all the observation posts outside. Many are within the body.\nAnd from the data which they all transmit emotions and co\u00f6rdinate\nactions are born--at least so behaviorists would have us believe. The\nstriped muscles twitch, and bones are jerked about. The unstriped\nmuscles are stimulated to action, and the viscera are affected. The\nductless glands increase their secretions, or suspend them. This, say\nthe behaviorists, is what makes us brave; or cowardly; wild with rage\nor tender with love. Our bowels of compassion are moved. Perhaps we\nhave no stomach for a fight. If we run away the vulgar will declare\nthat we have no guts.\n\nBut we cannot always be thinking of neurones individually, so we think\nof them in chains. When two get in touch with each other (through the\naxone of the one and the dendrite of the other) the connection is\ncalled a synapse. When the chain includes all three sorts of neurones,\nit is called a reflex arc.\n\nA reflex is what happens when you strike the patellar tendon of the\nknee with the side of your hand, with a tack-hammer, or with what Dr.\nWatson prefers to call \u201ca percussion hammer.\u201d The leg registers a\nkick, because the blow sets up a wave of chemical decomposition in the\ndendrites of the receiving neurones which are nearest concerned; the\nwave passes to certain association neurones, and by them is passed to\nthe kicking (striped) muscle. That is, it passes through a reflex arc,\none of the several reflex arcs which are already in working order when\nwe are born. Which means that the association neurones here involved\nhave somehow already been educated to relay all despatches to the\nneurones which operate the kick--and to none other. So this reflex arc\nis called \u201cunconditioned,\u201d and the stimulus which sets it in motion is\nsaid to be a \u201cnatural\u201d stimulus. An unconditioned reflex is practically\na tropism. Prof. Loeb ordered it to get busy and account for all\nbehavior, human and other. It fell down on the job. We have not, it\nseems, enough knee and similar jerks to enable us to write a Ninth\nSymphony with their aid alone. Some other trifle was needed.\n\nDr. Watson says he has it--in the conditioned reflex. It is possible,\nwe find, to get a reflex to respond to a stimulus which is not its\n\u201cnatural\u201d stimulus. Food, for example, is the natural stimulus of the\nreflex arc operating the salivary glands. The mouth waters when we\nbegin to eat. But the Russian, Pavlov, bored holes in the cheeks of a\ndog, brought the salivary ducts into the open, and discovered that not\nonly would the dog\u2019s mouth water at the contact of food, but that it\nwould water at the mere sight of food. Then he rang a bell for several\ndays at feeding time, and had the satisfaction eventually of seeing\nthe dog\u2019s mouth begin to water when the bell was rung and no food was\nanywhere about.\n\nProf. Lashley, of the Hopkins Laboratory, has since invented an\ninstrument which can be fastened to the inside of the cheek by means of\nsuction, so that the secretions may be led to a tube without a surgical\noperation--which is a convenience when the victim is human. He has thus\nascertained how many drops per minute was the normal slaver, and that\nchocolate in the (human) subject\u2019s hand increased it from three to five\ntimes; the smell of chocolate, five times; chocolate brought to the\nlips, nine times. \u201cIt may be said,\u201d observes Bertrand Russell[6] \u201cthat\nmodern psychology consists of the discovery by the professors of what\neverybody else has always known.\u201d\n\nYet it must be confessed that we did not know the number of drops\nof saliva which lay behind the licking of our chops in the presence\nof something good, or that the sight and smell of chocolate were\n\u201cunnatural\u201d or \u201csubstituted\u201d stimuli--still less that the substitution\nof unnatural for natural stimuli was both the foundation and\nsuperstructure of \u201ceducation.\u201d\n\nBut we know now that we can obtain the knee-jerk by blowing a whistle,\nor cause the iris to contract at the smell of asaf\u0153tida. We have but\nto flash a bright light every time the herb is introduced into the\nvicinity; or (if I may use such old-fashioned language), associate\nwhistles with percussion hammers in the \u201cmind\u201d of the subject.\n\nAssociation is all it is. If you have learned to expect to be blinded\nby radiance every time you get a whiff of asaf\u0153tida, your eyes will\nbegin to protect themselves even in the dark. If the sound of a whistle\nleads you to anticipate a blow on the patellar tendon, your leg will\nfly forward--at least theoretically. To get practical results, this\neducation must begin very early.\n\nBut I have used the words \u201cmind,\u201d \u201cexpect,\u201d \u201canticipate,\u201d and many\nexpressions which imply conscious intelligence. In behaviorism all\nthese are barred. The new stimuli are said to be \u201cgrafted\u201d on the old\nstimuli, not upon the consciousness. All that can be said, then, is\nthat when two stimuli, one natural and one unnatural, happen at the\nsame time on a sufficient number of occasions, the reflex becomes\nconditioned so that it will do its stuff when the unnatural stimulus\nhappens alone.\n\nOne other item and the mechanical foundation of psychology from the\nstandpoint of a behaviorist will be complete. There are certain\nreflexes called \u201cemotional reflexes.\u201d These are the things we do when\nwe are afraid, angry, or in love--for Dr. Watson traces all emotions\nback to one of these three. Some go further, lump fear and anger\ntogether, and give us an emotional outfit reducable to likes and\ndislikes.\n\nThe new-born babe, Dr. Watson tells us, is afraid of nothing but loud\nnoises and the sudden loss of physical support. These, then, are\nthe natural stimuli of fear. Nothing but restraint makes him angry.\nRestraint, therefore, is the natural stimulus of fury. To prove it,\nthe behaviorist drops a baby face downwards on a pillow, and notes that\nit clenches its hands as if in the attempt to grab something to prevent\nitself from falling. He hammers on an iron bar behind the infant ear,\nand observes that there is crying and shrinking away. He grips the\nlittle arms, and a struggle ensues.\n\nAs to love, Dr. Watson is not so clear. In one place he speaks of\nthe reaching out of the baby arms as being prophetic of the nuptial\nembrace. In another he describes the natural love stimulus as a\nstroking of the erogenous zones. These zones, to be blunt, are the\ngenitals, the breasts, the anal region and certain other portions of\nthe surface of the body especially sensitive to touch. Perhaps there\nare two sorts of love, the active and the passive; just as there may\nbe two sorts of dislike, shrinking fear and self-assertive rage. The\nformer professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins can hardly be blamed\nfor not making it plain. He is not the first who has been obfuscated by\nlove.\n\nBut whatever love may be, the love-reflex, like the fear-reflex, the\nanger-reflex, or the unemotional motor-reflexes such as the knee-jerk,\nmay be conditioned by having unnatural stimuli grafted on to their\nnatural stimuli by bringing the natural and unnatural together in the\nfield of their experience.\n\nAlbert, for example, the eleven-months old infant of a wet-nurse in the\nHopkins Laboratories, was not naturally afraid of rats, a rat being\nneither a sudden loss of support nor a big noise. He reached out for\na rat as readily as he reached for anything else. But every time he\nreached, an operator standing out of sight beat heavily upon an iron\nbar. So the reflex arc, beginning with the ear and ending in such\nglands as distill cowardice or inhibit courage, grafted itself on to\nthe reflex arc beginning with the rat-wave coming through the eye and\nterminating in the striped muscles that jerk the hand forward. And, as\noften happens, the grafter eventually won the day.\n\n\u201cAt the first experiment,\u201d rat and noise being presented together,\n\u201cthe infant jumped violently and fell forward, burying his face in the\nmattress--he did not cry, however.\u201d But \u201cat the eighth experiment,\u201d\nseven days later, when the rat alone was shown, \u201cthe baby began to cry.\nAlmost instantly he turned sharply away, so rapidly that he was caught\nwith difficulty before he reached the end of the table.\u201d[7]\n\nAlbert is now afraid of rats, there is no least doubt of that. You may\nthrow your bang-bang instrument away, he will continue to recoil from\nrats. And not from rats only. The fear extends to furry animals of\nall sorts, to human hair, to cotton wool. In this instance it did not\nextend to the nurse, but sometimes it does. The fear stimulus is apt to\ngraft itself on to whatever other stimuli happen to be operating.\n\nThus are emotional reflexes conditioned--by a performance which has\na remarkable resemblance to the old method of punishing a child for\nwrong-doing, except that wrong-doing on the child\u2019s part is omitted as\na necessary condition precedent.\n\nThis is psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. From the\nstandpoint of a psychologist it looks as if all trace of psychology had\nthus far been carefully left out; for psychology is the study of the\npsyche, the soul, of the conscious self, or that part of the self which\nhas at least the capacity of becoming conscious. Dr. Watson says not.\nHe thinks that psychology is the study of the reaction-mass. Anyway, he\nis convinced that reaction-mass psychology is all the psychology needed\nto explain everything. Mr. Mind may be missing, but he never will be\nmissed. \u201cThe behaviorist asks for nothing to start with in building\na human being but the squirmings everyone can see in the newborn\ninfant.\u201d[8]\n\nIt is not asking for much, so we will now let him try.\n\n\n2. AN UNDECIDED SYNAPSE\n\nEliza is still crossing the ice. The spectacle (in the form of a series\nof waves of chemical decomposition) is on its way, through reflex arcs,\nto striped and unstriped muscles; to ductless glands; to effectors, in\nshort. It is time that some action ensued, that behavior on Eliza\u2019s\npart resulted in behavior on the part of the spectator.\n\nLet us suppose that the spectator most interested is a bloodhound. \u201cThe\nbehaviorist,\u201d we learn from Dr. Watson[9] \u201crecognizes no dividing line\nbetween man and brute,\u201d save (he adds later) perhaps in the matter of\n\u201clanguage.\u201d As the occasion here affords no time for talk, a bloodhound\nwill serve as well as Senator Borah. Now what will the bloodhound do?\n\nWere his reflexes unconditioned, he would do nothing of any\nconsequence. On the unlikely chance of Eliza throwing a stone and\nhitting him on the patellar tendon, he might do a knee-jerk. Or, should\nher shadow come between him and the sun, the iris of his fearful eyes\nmight contract. But none of these things happen. Eliza furnishes no\nnatural stimuli upon which an unconditioned reflex could act. Prof.\nLoeb, with all his tropisms, would be able to bring no real drama about.\n\nThis is a Watson bloodhound, however--a trained dog. All sorts of\nunnatural stimuli have been grafted upon his reflexes. For one thing,\nhe has had the sight of little girl and the taste of little girl\nbrought simultaneously into his experience a great many times. So the\nglands in his cheeks advance immediately from a salivary output of,\nsay, five drops per minute, to some forty-five. He probably snaps his\njaws, a \u201cseeking motion\u201d prompted by the emotion of love--for meat. Not\nonly that, but he bounds forward--another seeking motion, which was\nonce, I presume a puppy squirm. Anyway he bounds forward, and Eliza\nis caught. Or else he does not bound forward, but stands and sniffs,\nwhines, or gives tongue, thus bridging the space between animal and\nman, but flatly refusing to attempt to leap the space of open water\nbetween dog and Eliza\u2019s cake of ice.\n\nBut why? Why does not the dog act automatically in obedience to\nthe waves of chemical decomposition faithfully transmitted to his\neffectors? The villain of uncertainty lies in that intermediate set\nof neurones--those association neurones which Dr. Watson thinks have\nreceived already altogether too much attention. Some of their dendrites\nhave made synapse with axones laden with the fear of the cold wetness\nof ice-water, and have communicated, not with the leaping but with the\nsniffing, whining and baying muscles, leaving the legs merely trembling.\n\nWhat? Have the association neurones some choice as to the synapses\nthey shall make? Is it left to them to say which, of a multitude of\ndifferently charged axones, their dendrites shall shake hands with?\nDoes not mechanics govern the connection which the association neurone\neffects with a million waiting dendrites already linked with a million\ndifferent effectors? Is our soldier in the middle row permitted to suit\nhimself as to what listening-post he shall get in touch with, and is he\nthen allowed to do as he likes with the information?\n\nWhat was lately a mere relay instrument seems suddenly to have been\nendowed with strange powers. If ever an arrangement was devised to\nlook like the physical embodiment of consciousness and free will,\nthis certainly is it. No wonder Dr. Watson would prefer to have us\nregard these brain areas as vague \u201csilent\u201d ones, wherein no function\ncan be \u201clocalized.\u201d A behaviorist who should lose his unconsciousness\nwould be more frightened than was Peter Schlemihil when he lost his\nshadow to the devil. The mere suggestion that the association neurone\nmight be the Achilles\u2019 heel of insensibility must have shocked many\na conditioned reflex back into infantilism. Dr. Watson remained and\nremains calm and aloof in the midst of his \u201csilent areas.\u201d But others\nbestirred themselves with considerable zeal if not discretion. The\nproblem was to find some purely blind and mechanistic agent capable of\nregulating the resistance of the synapse.\n\nFor that is the best way to think of it--as a resistance. A neural\nimpulse will go farther in a given time along a simple nerve than it\nwill along a route interrupted by neurones with little gulfs between\nthem. Not only that, but when it comes out it is found to be measurably\nweaker than when it went in. Almost immediately it picks up again, and\ngoes on, full speed ahead, as if somebody had stepped on the gas. How\nthis little miracle is accomplished, nobody knows; nor whence comes\nthe added force. Doubtless, however, it comes from the body in some\nperfectly natural and ascertainable way. Certainly it has nothing to\ndo with the will.\n\nHas the synapse? That depends upon what causes its resistance to vary.\nThe association neurone itself cannot possibly be the will. The very\nfact that it is observable under the microscope proves that. The most\nhopeful field of inquiry, therefore, is that of the resistance which\nis offered the neural impulse on its way from one neurone to another.\nIf this resistance varies--and it does--it is possible to conceive how\nthe disturbances from the outside world may be sifted, some ignored\nand some allowed full play in the responses which follow. Here would\nbe Psyche, locking and unlocking her doors. I do not say that this\nis exactly what happens. Our knowledge of the brain, though vastly\nmore complete than it was ten years ago, is still far too fragmentary\nto permit of the localization of function to this extent. I am only\noffering a hypothesis to explain the workings of a belief arrived at in\nquite another fashion from the one we are following here.\n\nThe synapse offers the least resistance in what used to be called\nthe field of conscious attention; and by fancying that attention\nmoved about from one brain-area to another without constraint and in\nconformity with some non-physical law, we used to, in the good old\ndays, be able to picture free will in action--not with much pretense to\naccuracy of detail, but in a way which was at least intelligible.\n\nPhysical scientists never liked this loose-footed field of attention.\nIf it moved about, they wanted to know what moved it. Even if attention\nbe only an area of super-\u201cneutrition,\u201d it could hardly move without\nforce--a fact which some psychologists, desperately anxious to be free\nbut having no force to put at the will\u2019s disposal, have tried in vain\nto get around.\n\nBut behaviorists will have nothing to do with conscious attention,\nfree or bound. And as it was obviously necessary to find something to\nregulate synapsial resistance, they proceeded to find it.\n\nIt was soon discovered that the neural impulse, having once traversed a\nparticular route, found the way thereafter easier, just as we find it\neasier to walk through snow after somebody has broken a trail. Repeated\nsynapses, therefore, may be left in charge of Habit. But there has to\nbe a first time. Habit, itself, depends upon this first time for its\nown direction; for habit follows the line of least resistance which\nthis very first time creates. And the first time, the time of times,\nwhich determines all other times by wearing the initial path through\nthe cranial snow, is--behavioristically speaking--determined by Chance!\n\nWhat behaviorists wanted was to have nothing determine the first\nsynapse, and not being mathematicians they fell into the error of\nsupposing that chance was nothing, or the next thing to it. In reality\nthey could not have made a worse selection. But, granting their\npremises, there was really nothing else to choose.\n\nBut let us call to the stand a distinguished witness as to the reality\nof the choice having been made. Chance leads me to select Prof. C. H.\nWarren, whose \u201cA Study of Purpose\u201d was first published in the _Journal\nof Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method_.[10] It chances that\nI have access to certain passages from this paper. Also he happens not\nto be a thoroughgoing behaviorist, as may be seen from the fact that\nhe speaks of \u201cpurposive action\u201d and of \u201cideas.\u201d Bertrand Russell is\nof the opinion that there is only one thoroughgoing behaviorist in\nthe world--Dr. Watson, to wit. I even hope to show that Dr. Watson\nsteps out of his r\u00f4le in certain desperate pinches. But Prof. Warren\nis sufficiently mechanistic to warrant his being heard. He says:\n\u201cThe notion of purpose arose from a certain definite type of human\nexperience. The typical purposive experience consists of a thought of\nsome future occurrence followed by a series of actions which culminate\nin the very situation which the original idea represented. A human act\nis said to be purposive when it is preceded by an idea representing the\nsituation which the act itself brings about.\u201d\n\nNot quite as clear as a crystal, but it means that I light my pipe,\nnot because I want to smoke but because I foresee that I will light\nit. Dr. Watson says practically the same thing, only he points out\nthat the motions which provoke desire are small, observable only by\nmeans of instruments. \u201cVisceral phenomena,\u201d for instance. And he\nmakes the statement thoroughly behavioristic by adding that these\nvisceral phenomena _are_ desire, the only kind of desire which\nexists. But causes must precede effect, so Prof. Warren is trying to\nmake \u201cforeknowledge\u201d serve for the needed something to touch off the\nvisceral phenomena and bring desire into being.\n\nHe goes on to describe how he turns on the electric light in his\nstudy--not because he wants to read, but because he foresees that he\nis going to press the button and that then there will be light--in a\nphysical sense, at least. He admits \u201cdesire\u201d into the realm of being\nonly after the action has begun, and explains it as a \u201ckinesthetic\nimage,\u201d--that is, an image derived from the muscular sense. Which means\nthat he begins to want to read, and that I begin to want to smoke,\nonly after our muscles are on the way to produce smoke and light in\navailable quantities. And he further testifies. \u201cIf the thought of an\naction leads to the production of that particular action ... rather\nthan to any one of the thousands of other kinesthetic experiences,\nthe reason is that a definite association has previously been formed\nbetween this particular thought and this particular impulse. The origin\nof such an association _may be attributed to chance occurrence_.\u201d\n\nIt is interesting to speculate upon what would have occurred had Prof.\nWarren chanced first to associate the electric light button with\nkinesthetic experiences originating in his feet instead of in his\nhands. What if he had been standing on his head amusing the children on\nthat momentous day? Or, since he probably made his first acquaintance\nwith electric light early in life, what if when playing circus as a boy\nhe had accidentally _kicked_ the button from \u201cOff\u201d to \u201cOn\u201d? Obviously\nhe would have obtained the fateful foresight that kicks will produce\nlight. And he would have been destined all his life to play the acrobat\nbefore ever the kinesthetic experiences of his muscles could instigate\nin him the desire to read after dusk. Nor is it possible that he could\nhave been rescued from his fate save by another chance experience yet\nmore kinesthetically violent.\n\n\u201cThe synapse,\u201d says Professor Pillsbury, sensibly enough, \u201cis the\npoint where action leaves its impress upon the nervous system.\u201d But he\ndoes not grow lyrical about it. For lyricism we must go to Miss Clara\nStevens, a real behaviorist. She thus deposes and sings in _The Open\nCourt_:[11] \u201cHere [in the synapse] lies the basis of character and\ndestiny. No need of a recording angel to set down our shortcomings\nagainst us. The mystic synapse is recorder; and avenger as well. Its\nuse renders it all-powerful ... its neglect bars further way for either\ntemptation on the one hand or profitable deeds on the other. We can\nonly act and think in the future as we have habituated the synapse in\nthe past.\u201d\n\nSurely the lady has allowed her enthusiasm to carry her too far. How\ncan we have anything to do with the habituating of a synapse which is\ngoverned by chance? She tries to find a way out by maintaining that\nthe original neural impulse may be determined \u201cby such a material fact\n... as nutrition supplied or withheld by the cell-body.\u201d Does the\ncell-body, then, have a will of its own, so that it can either issue or\nwithhold supplies? That were power indeed. And she speaks throughout\nher article of \u201cmystery,\u201d \u201cinclination,\u201d \u201cmotives,\u201d \u201cambitions,\u201d\n\u201ctolerance,\u201d \u201cbigotry,\u201d \u201cprinciple,\u201d \u201cidealistic acts,\u201d \u201cclearness of\njudgment,\u201d and \u201cfirmness of purpose.\u201d\n\nI have wronged her. Here we have no behaviorist, but a good woman\ntrying to be a behaviorist but unable to leave all her commonsense\nbehind her--a woman born, happily, without a trace of logic, and spared\nby chance from acquiring any. Not that Miss Stevens is one whit more\nillogical than is Dr. Watson. She is merely less obscure. On pages 319\nto 321 of \u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist\u201d we are\ngiven a list of six \u201cdeterminers of acts,\u201d and told that \u201cof course\nthe most important determiner is the life-history of the individual.\u201d\nAnd the other five are mere portions of life-history. Dr. Watson is\nfond of the word Genetics, yet he carefully avoids the subject of true\nbeginnings.\n\nAnd Eliza still is crossing the ice. The bloodhound still is doing\nsomething or nothing. Somehow, with all this \u201cpsychology\u201d and with all\nDr. Watson\u2019s mass of reactions at our disposal, we cannot get things to\nmove. It will be necessary to try again.\n\n\n3. ELIZA DOES NOT CROSS THE ICE\n\n\u201cThe behaviorist,\u201d Dr. Watson assures us,[12] \u201ccan take [the]\nsquirmings of the new-born--his unorganized finger movements, the\nmovements of his arms, legs, feet and toes, the squirmings in his\ntrunk, and weave them into highly complicated acts of sport, of\nskill--such as driving a nail with a hammer, carving with a knife,\nshooting with bow and arrow, or tennis-playing, climbing, crawling,\nrunning and walking. [He] can take the squirmings of the throat\nmuscles, and weave them into those highly organized acts we call\ntalking and singing--and, yes, even thinking. [He] can take the\ninfantile squirmings of the gut--the unstriped muscular tissue of the\nalimentary tracts, diaphragm, heart, respiration, etc.--and actually\norganize them into those complicated emotional responses we call fears,\nloves and rages.... Give [him] just one hundred \u2018squirmings\u2019 ... and\nlet [him] tie them together by [his] methods, and [he will] have more\nthan enough.\u201d\n\nThis is a comprehensive programme; if it is carried out it ought\nto be able not only to get Eliza across the ice but to produce the\nwhole play of Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin. Certainly one hundred squirmings are\nenough--enough of squirming. Their mere combination would produce an\nuntold number--of squirms. And lest some might doubt as to this, Dr.\nWatson calls attention to that mathematical formula known as \u201cfactorial\nn.\u201d\n\nBy factorial n one can determine the number of ways in which a given\nnumber of things can be put together. The calculation is accomplished\nby taking the given number and multiplying it by a number one less than\nitself; and then multiplying this result by a multiplier less by one\nthan the first multiplier; and so on, the multiplier shrinking until\nit reaches zero. For instance, how many ways are there of arranging\nsix books upon a shelf? The answer is amazing enough. For six times\nfive times four times three times two, equals seven hundred and twenty,\nand we have limited the combinations to arrangements along a single\nstraight line. One hundred squirms may be combined in enough different\nways to satisfy the most captious. Factorial one hundred would, if\nworked out, look like an inter-allied debt.\n\nBut are squirms all we are looking for? What does Dr. Watson mean by\n\u201cthose complicated emotional responses we call fears, loves and rages?\u201d\nHe has used such words before, and it is time he were called to an\naccount. There is no such thing as consciousness. Can there still be\nsuch a thing as an emotion? Yes, says Dr. Watson.\n\nWe are now in the presence of one of the most preposterous attempts at\nhocus-pocus ever recorded in the history of the human race. William\nJames prepared the way by saying, \u201cWe feel sorry because we cry,\nangry because we strike,\u201d etc. But with James there was always the\npossibility of assuming that an emotion is what we feel of the various\nmotions involved. At worst it was but the natural order of things\nreversed. And in James, if one does not like his philosophy of the\nmoment, the totally different philosophy of some other moment is never\nfar to seek. But now that there is no such thing as consciousness,\nthere would seem to be no way of feeling even a motion. Ergo, an\nemotion is merely motion. Squirms. The behaviorist asks for nothing\nelse. Does he not?\n\n\u201cAn emotion,\u201d says Dr. Watson,[13] \u201cis an hereditary \u2018action pattern\u2019\ninvolving profound changes of the bodily mechanism as a whole, but\nparticularly of the glandular systems.\u201d This is at least consistent. An\nemotion is a group of motions which have been somehow linked together\ninto a pattern by reflex arcs before we were born. He then speaks of\nemotion as a raising of the \u201cbodily tone,\u201d--that is, a speeding up,\nan increase in the general average and celerity of motions. Still\nconsistent, however absurd. But why did Albert, the eleven-months old\ninfant of that wet-nurse at the Hopkins Laboratories, \u201cturn sharply\naway\u201d at the eighth experiment, when the rat alone was shown him?\nBecause he had learned to associate rats with a loud noise of which he\nwas afraid. But does not this imply that he _disliked_ the noise?\n\nBy a wild stretch of the imagination, I think I can almost see what is\nin the behaviorist\u2019s mind when he bids us believe that like and dislike\ncan exist in a creature without consciousness. He means that there is\nno like or dislike about it; that what we call likes and dislikes are\ncertain chemical changes which make us move either towards or away\nfrom objects. Tropisms, in short. I do not quite see how the mechanism\nfor such phenomena could be arranged, but this may be merely because\nthe mechanism of a tropism is too complicated for my comprehension.\nLikes and dislikes vary so much even when the same objects and the same\npeople are involved. We are not simple in the way that a mariner\u2019s\ncompass is simple, its north pole always liking the south pole of a\nmagnet, always disliking its fellow.\n\nConsciousness itself is a complicated matter. For instance, we are\nnever directly conscious of it; we are only conscious of objects. Our\ninmost self can only contemplate that which is not our inmost self. The\neye does not see the eye, though it can observe its reflection in a\nmirror.\n\nThings also happen of which we are not centrally conscious at\nall--things, for example, to which we are paying no attention. They\nyet have their effect. Can likes and dislikes perform their functions,\nthen, without our knowing anything about it? I am for the moment quite\nwilling to admit it--in the case of Dr. Watson. For all I know to\nthe contrary, he may never be conscious. He would not be the first\nepistemologist who has made such a claim. But he does not claim just\nthis. The behaviorist finds no consciousness \u201cin his laboratories,\u201d\nnone \u201cin his subjects.\u201d He implies that _I_ am never conscious, and\nthere I know he is wrong.\n\nNow since consciousness exists, in me at least (the reader must speak\nfor himself), it probably has a function. So far as I am concerned, it\nis the one important--the only important--thing in life. Why, then, try\nto leave it out of the explanation of Albert\u2019s acquired dislike for\nrats?\n\nIt might have been well enough to leave it out of the description of\nAlbert\u2019s behavior. If behaviorism were merely what its name implies,\nthe detailed study of the way people other than the observer behave, it\nmight be useful and certainly would not be ridiculous. But it seeks to\nbe psychology and philosophy as well. It assumes, as we soon shall see,\nto instruct us in ethics and to overthrow religion. It fancies that it\nhas deprived us of will.\n\nYour consciousness and mine are of course two different phenomena,\nsevered by the gulf which yawns between _meum_ and _tuum_. I do not\nknow that you are aware in the same way that I know that I myself am\naware. I merely assume that you are. You look much like me. You behave\nmuch as I do. Therefore, as an act of courtesy, I grant that you are\nprobably sentient and know what you are about--for the simple reason\nthat I feel sure that I am sentient and know what I am about.\n\nBut all I am positively and subjectively certain of, as to you, is\nwhat I observe you to do. This observation may be extended, with\nyour permission, to your insides. I may insert tubes which tap your\nglands. I may induce you to swallow rubber balloons, which I then fill\nwith hot water (an experiment mentioned by Dr. Watson), and note the\nresultant reactions upon your muscles, smooth and striped. Still, all\nI know about you is what strikes my senses, which in the last analysis\nresolves itself into motions, large or small, of your body and members.\nThe behaviorist\u2019s contention that an individual is merely the sum\nof his acts fits you well enough from my point of view. Were I not\nconscious myself, I would never even dream that you are conscious. If I\ndid not reason, I would not be wise enough to suppose that you do. Did\nI not feel emotion, pleasure, and pain, I would be the last person to\naccuse you of feeling them.\n\nNow Dr. Watson, when he assumes that because he finds no consciousness\nin his subjects there is therefore no such thing as consciousness, is\nentirely justified--if he is himself an unconscious man. But I fancy\nhe is merely paying us the compliment of confusing himself with us.\nHe is unable to put his hands upon _our_ minds or feelings because\nthey are forever hidden within us, and will never, never, never\npermit themselves to be isolated, taken apart and chemically analyzed.\nThat which is objective is conduct--it is not feeling. Certain light\nwaves are felt as redness--but the waves are not the redness. Outside\nourselves, everything of red exists, saving and excepting only its\nredness. Now is or is not redness an important part of red?\n\nThe brain is indeed but a few billion neurones, slightly damp. Dr.\nWatson, fumbling among them, sees only certain motions of matter.\nNaturally he sees no mind. But he modestly forgets that all the while\nhe is observing these motions of ours and attributing them to other\nmotions, and these to yet other motions, and so on _ad infinitum_, he\nis using his own mind--and a very ingenious mind it is, thus to reason\nitself out of existence. We all remember how granny used to lose her\nspecs and look for them everywhere--through the very specs in question,\nwhich were all the while on the end of her nose.\n\nConsciousness is a fact of consciousness, the most obtrusive fact in\nall the world. But it is not a fact outside of consciousness. There it\nis only an inference. Should Dr. Watson get hit on the head by a brick\nfalling from his laboratory chimney (which God forbid!), he would not\nbe immediately able to observe whether a dog\u2019s salivary secretions were\nincreased by the sight and smell of chocolate or not.\n\nKnowledge of glands can \u201camplify our conception,\u201d[14] says Levine, \u201cbut\nit by no means abolishes the need for a mental state.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot even by poetic license,\u201d adds Sidney Hook,[15] \u201ccan the earth be\ncreated through a deft masonry of its derivative effects.\u201d Neither\ncan the mind. Or as J. R. Kantor, of the University of Indiana,\nexpresses it in his \u201cPrinciples of Psychology,\u201d--\u201cThe writers who\nhold such doctrines [that psychology is a matter of neuro-muscular\nor neuro-glandular responses] inevitably face the consequence of\nneglecting the description of most of the actual content not only of\nhuman but of animal psychology.\u201d\n\nSays William James,[16] \u201cCases ... prove the existence in our mental\nmachinery of a sense of present reality more diffused and general than\nthat which our special senses yield.... Nothing would be more natural\nthan to connect it with the muscular sense.... But our interest lies\nwith the faculty rather than its organic seat.... Something in you\nabsolutely _knows_ that result to be truer than any logic-chopping,\nrationalistic talk, however clever, that may contradict it.\u201d\n\nNaturally, James H. Leuba, professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr, takes\nexception to such language on the part of James. Prof. Leuba has been\nattempting--in his \u201cPsychology of Religious Mysticism\u201d--to prove that\nholiness is a form of hysteria. He uses the old method of those who\nwould define red without taking account of redness. That is, he leaves\nholiness out of the question, and then shows that the residue and\nhysteria (whatever that may be) have much in common.\n\n\u201cIt is fortunate for science and philosophy,\u201d he says in a footnote\nto page 293, \u201cthat this passage does not represent William James\ncompletely. It expresses only one, or perhaps two, of the several moods\nor attitudes of this gifted writer.\u201d\n\nThis is quite true. The passage does not represent James entirely.\nI know of no passage which does. But does saying so dispose of the\nattitude? The reader must judge for himself whether he has any inner\nconviction, or state, which will warrant him in saying he has it.\nWell may Prof. Kantor ask, \u201cIs it not the attempt to biologize human\nphenomena which has resulted in handing over to novelists [to say\nnothing of novelists\u2019 brothers] the sole guardianship of the problems\nof human behavior and human personality?\u201d\n\nAnd since we have now allowed novelists to get in, we may as well\nlisten to Stewart Edward White, who is not only a novelist but a\njournalist to boot. And he complains that \u201cit is the habit of science\nto thrust in the background that which it is unable to weigh and\nmeasure and understand, which is the same as saying that it is the\nhabit of science to be unscientific.\u201d It is certainly the habit of Dr.\nWatson. The hunting of big game seems to have given White most accurate\npowers of observation. Lions have this advantage over fallacies--they\nare able to kill off those who do not see them right and in time.\n\nGeorge A. Dorsey, whose \u201cWhy We Behave Like Human Beings\u201d I shall\nventure to take a shot at before I finish, attempts to come to Dr.\nWatson\u2019s rescue and to save emotion for behaviorism without admitting\nany of its troublesome implications. So Dorsey tells us not to be\npuzzled; that emotions are like any of the other circumstances which go\nto make up a situation to which our mass of reactions must react. We\n\u201cfeel\u201d them, he adds. Now as Dr. Watson\u2019s main contention is that we\ndo not feel them, the admission of feeling is like permitting a wooden\nhorse to be carried into the mechanistic Troy.\n\nIt may be argued (but not by behaviorists) that though Dorsey is not\ntalking good Watsonianism, he is at least talking sense. And of\ncourse he is when he speaks of emotion as a feeling. But he is talking\nnonsense when he claims that emotion is a factor like any other factor\nin a situation. And for this reason. The other factors may be viewed\nboth objectively and subjectively, while if we attempt to objectify an\nemotion--to drive it into the open--it ceases to exist. It becomes a\nbundle of its own causes--autocoids, or what have you? Or of its own\neffects--yowlings, scratchings, clenchings of fists, grittings of the\nteeth, and other alterations in bodily positions, tensions, together\nwith such chemical changes as may accompany them.\n\nThe fact that certain secretions from the ductless glands keep pace\nwith certain emotions does not even prove that secretions cause\nemotion. An emotion that can be felt may cause the secretions. Still\nless does it prove that the secretion is the emotion. A scolding by\nyour grandmother may also give you an emotion. Does that prove that the\nemotion was your grandmother? Emotion tends to release adrenin from the\nadrenal apparatus, which in turn acts upon the liver\u2019s surplus supply\nof sugar. This sugar gets into the blood, and the increase of sugar in\nthe blood is therefore evidence that you have experienced an emotion.\nEven if you want to say that what you felt was sugar, need you add that\nthe feeling _was_ sugar?\n\nA cat, we will say, is sitting on the table. Can we also say that there\nis an emotion sitting there beside the cat? An emotion belonging to\nyou or to me, and not to the cat? Let us suppose that the cat has just\nupset a vase which you and I both prize. Behavioristically speaking,\nour reflexes are similarly conditioned in regard to it. So we both are\ngrieved.\n\nThe cat exists subjectively within us (or at least within me) in the\nform of a group of ideas of cat--or as Dr. Watson would insist, in\nthe form of certain squirmings of particles, members, atoms, and such\nthings. We seem to experience cat as a group of sensations of form,\ncolor, of cat-movements, etc. But if I shut my eyes, put cat out of my\nmind (i. e., shut off cat-stimuli from my receptors), I seem to cease\nto feel or think or to be aware of cat. Then, from some remark you\nmake, I infer that you have kept your eyes open, and are still cat-wise\n_en rapport_. So I infer that your awareness of cat (no matter what\n\u201cawareness\u201d is) does not depend upon my awareness, or even upon your\nawareness of my awareness. So I assume that the cat has an objective\nexistence, outside of us, and is a real cat. I assume also that the cat\nitself is the cause of our awareness of it; and I feel certain that\nwhile there may be as many awarenesses as there are people who are\naware, there is only one cat in the room.\n\nThere is also but one broken vase. And it, too, is the cause of our\nbeing aware of it. Cat and vase are evidently of the same order of\nthings to the extent that they both have an existence within the\nbeholder (which the beholder knows through consciousness), and a\ncertain inferred existence of their own. But how about the emotion\nawakened by the broken vase? Has that an existence independent of those\nexperiencing it?\n\nEver since the days of ancient Greece, and probably since long before,\ncertain philosophers have been trying to prove that not even the cat\nhas such an outside existence. Things exist only in the philosopher\u2019s\nmind, and therefore the one thing which exists is the philosopher. The\nonly way to refute this theory is by using your brains to an extent\nsufficient to arrive at the conclusion that, since some of the things\nyou see look amazingly like yourself, and react much as you do to yet\nother things, then it is at least highly probable that these other\npeople and other things actually are.\n\nNow the behaviorist\u2019s contention is merely the reverse of this\nall-in-the-mind theory--and is equally absurd. To him there is nothing\nin the mind; there is no mind. Instead of all being inside, all is\noutside.\n\nYet Dr. Watson considers himself privileged to speak not only of\nemotions and emotion-reflexes, but of \u201cpurpose,\u201d \u201cfailure,\u201d and\n\u201csuccess.\u201d We begin with \u201crandom\u201d squirms, he says, and now and then\none of these \u201crandom\u201d squirms is \u201csuccessful,\u201d it accomplishes its\n\u201cobject.\u201d Unconscious \u201cseeking motions\u201d are continued until they are\n\u201csatisfied.\u201d Such expressions are to be found scattered through all his\nwritings.\n\nBut a seeking motion must be a motion which seeks something. If the\nbabe be unconscious, how does it know when the seeking has been\nsuccessful? Does it move in hopes of finding pleasure or of avoiding\npain? It can feel neither pleasure nor pain. Does it squirm to improve\nits general welfare? That is what the tropism theory assumes. But\nwithout consciousness there can be no such thing as welfare. It makes\nno slightest difference to the organism what happens to it, whether it\nlives or dies.\n\nOur unconscious Eliza refuses to cross the ice, even when bayed at\nby an unconscious bloodhound. There is no reason why she should. An\nunconscious Eliza would be as comfortable inside of a bloodhound as\nanywhere else. And an unconscious bloodhound is as comfortable fasting\nas when fed.\n\nNevertheless, Dr. Watson, who is \u201cnot concerned with problems of\nconsciousness,\u201d is about to introduce us to language, morality and\nreform!\n\n\n4. TINKS! TINKS! KWAKS! KWAKS!\n\n\u201cGive me the baby,\u201d Dr. Watson begs,[17] \u201cand I\u2019ll make it climb and\nuse its hands in constructing buildings of stone or wood.... I\u2019ll make\nit a thief, a gunman, or a dope fiend. The possibilities of shaping in\nany direction are almost endless. Even gross difference in anatomical\nstructure limit us far less than you may think.... Make him a\ndeaf-mute, and I will still build you a Helen Keller.... Men are built,\nnot born.\u201d\n\nShall we indeed give Dr. Watson the baby? Not yet. If baby is as\nplastic as he would have us suppose, the choice of a teacher carries\nwith it momentous consequences. You see, we don\u2019t want him to make a\nthief, a gunman, or even a dope-fiend. This is just an old-fashioned\nprejudice, a hang-over from the days of consciousness. But we have it.\nA Helen Keller, a carpenter or a good stone-mason will do very well.\nWe must, however, be reassured as to teacher\u2019s intentions. He has, no\ndoubt, some high principle to guide him. Let him reveal it.\n\n\u201cThe psychologist, having chosen human behavior as his material, feels\nthat he makes progress only as he can manipulate and control it.\u201d[18]\nVery good. But this is not quite the point.\n\n\u201cIn this work there is involved not only ability to predict situation\nfrom response, and the probable response given the situation, but the\nexperimental manipulation of stimulus and the creation of response....\nStimuli must be added to or subtracted from until appropriate response\nis attained.\u201d[19]\n\nThe method at least is plain. Baby is helpless protoplasm in the grip\nof whatever situation he finds himself. Dr. Watson does not allow even\nchance to interfere with those all-important initial synapses which,\nonce made, will turn conduct over to habit. Baby is a mechanism, with\nno ability save that of wax to receive. His only \u201cchance\u201d is that\nthe situation shall be all that could be desired. Not even the word\n\u201cprobable\u201d placed before response promises any individual initiative,\nsince the psychologist proposes to predict (he clearly means \u201cwork back\nto\u201d) the situation of which any given response was the answer. One\nwonders where the teacher\u2019s initiative is to come from, whether he too\nis the inevitable result of a chain of situations reaching back to the\nbeginning of time; and if so, where the first situation came from--to\nsay nothing of the first baby. But, which is more to the point, what\nis the meaning of that word \u201cappropriate\u201d preceding \u201cresponse\u201d? What\nmakes a response \u201cappropriate\u201d? Obviously an appropriate situation. And\nwe cannot tell whether a situation is appropriate or not until we know\nwhat response we wish to produce.\n\n\u201cUntil we know more about the control of behavior during the tender\nyears of infancy, it seems almost a dangerous experiment to bring\nup a child. The old argument that a good many millions of children\nhave been successfully reared in the past few millions of years has\njust about broken down in the light of the now generally recognized\nlack of success of most people in making satisfactory adjustments to\nsociety.\u201d[20]\n\nWhat has also just about broken down is the argument that it is not\na dangerous experiment to bring up a child--for the reason that no\nsane parent ever thought that it was not a dangerous experiment, quite\nthe most dangerous and gloriously all-important experiment which life\naffords. If the child has no will or say in the matter, parenthood\ninvolves a higher responsibility even than that which a man has for\nhis own soul--though of course the behaviorist will plead that he has\nno soul to be responsible for, and that--but there is no use going\nback again to the beginning of time. We shall have to give the teacher\nnot only a soul but a free will, _pro tempore_, or he will stick on\nour hands just as Eliza stuck on the ice, and refuse to move. Things\nare not moving very rapidly as it is. What, for instance, is meant by\n\u201csatisfactory adjustments\u201d? Is there some doubt, after all, how baby\nwill adjust himself to what is happening around him? No, says Dr.\nWatson.\n\n\u201cWithout going too far beyond our facts [how far would be \u2018too far\u2019?]\nit seems possible to say that the stimulus is always provided by the\nenvironment, external to the body, or by the movements of man\u2019s own\nmuscles and the secretions of his glands; finally, that response always\nfollows relatively immediately upon the presentation or incidence of\nthe stimulus.... These are really assumptions, but they seem to be\nbasal ones for psychology.\u201d[21]\n\n[Illustration: DR. JOHN B. WATSON\n\n\u201cGive me the baby\u201d]\n\nSince they are basal we will have to grant them, else we will be left\nrelatively immediately without any psychology at all. A satisfactory\nadjustment, then, must be the usual and inevitable adjustment, but to\na satisfactory situation. Those children who were successfully reared\nduring the past few millions of years must have had satisfactory\nsituations to begin with. And it is \u201cnow generally recognized\u201d that\nthey were exceptions, and not \u201cmost people.\u201d There must be some\ncriterion, then, by which a satisfactory situation--that is, one\nproducing satisfactory response, or conduct--may be recognized. Has\nDr. Watson any such criterion to offer? No. He says on page twelve\nof this same book, which gives us his \u201cstandpoint\u201d: \u201cPsychology is\nnot concerned with the goodness or badness of acts, or with their\nsuccessfulness, as judged by occupational or moral standards.\u201d[22]\n\nI am afraid, then, it will not be possible to let Dr. Watson have the\nbaby after all. Behaviorism has no ethics; no standard of conduct.\nYet behaviorists are preparing to build \u201cinfant laboratories,\u201d and to\nsave children from \u201cunscientific parents.\u201d Dr. Watson, in particular,\ncalls upon us to make \u201csystematic, long-sustained genetic studies\nupon the human species, begun in infancy and continued until past\nadolescence,\u201d--an excellent idea. And he demands it because only thus\ncan we gain that \u201cexperimental control over human conduct so badly\nneeded both for general social control and for individual happiness.\u201d\nHe has, then, ethical notions, though he nowhere explains how he came\nby them. What are they? This question at least can be answered by\nnoting what sort of conditioning he wishes to give the reflexes. And of\nthese, love should be the most important.\n\n\u201cThe original situation which calls out the observable love responses\nseems to be the stroking or manipulation of some erogenous zone,\ntickling, shaking, gentle rocking, patting and turning upon the stomach\nacross the attendant\u2019s knee,\u201d so psychology from the standpoint\nof a behaviorist would have us believe. And sex emotions, however\nunderstood, become later on the touch-offs of the gonads and of the\ninterstitial glands. How are these reflexes to be conditioned so as to\nact in response to something besides tickling, shaking, gentle rocking,\npatting and turning upon the stomach across the attendant\u2019s knee? They\nare not to be conditioned at all. The behaviorist wants to condition\nfear and rage as much as possible, but he advises that love be left\nwhere we find it soon after birth.\n\n\u201cIn our opinion,\u201d says Dr. Watson (still in this same book)\n\u201cconditioned love responses [i. e. responses awakened otherwise than\ndirectly through the aforementioned zones], especially those directed\n[towards] father and mother, breeding too great dependence upon parents\nas they do, are probably the most sinister factors in the whole system\nof human organization.\u201d And he laments the fact that such conditioning\nis not only tolerated by society, but actually encouraged by it. This\nis a most melancholy philosophy, and seems to put masturbation above\nmarriage.\n\nAnd what of the future? \u201cThe research psychologists in the\ninfant-behavior laboratories, once they are established, will in time\nlearn how to remove these conditioned emotional reactions.\u201d\n\nNo doubt parents frequently do make their children too dependent. So\nDr. Watson advises that babies be hard-boiled; for the conditioning\nwhich he objects to takes place, according to his own account, chiefly\nduring the second year.\n\nA certain physician in a once-notorious book, entitled \u201c_Les\nCivilis\u00e9es_,\u201d insists that another of the characters, generally\nconsidered much debauched, is entirely normal and healthy, \u201c_parce\nqu\u2019il ne cherche pas les femmes que par le co\u00eft_.\u201d Our leading\nbehaviorist is more civilized still, for he says:[23]\n\n\u201cIn observing the two-year-old only child brought up by an unscientific\nmother, we find that the child cries unless held in the lap of\nthe mother ... will sleep only when in bed with the mother....\nVerbalization [speech] begins: it clusters around the mother just as\n... manual and bodily activity clusters around the mother. In a similar\nway the gut reactions have their center of reference in the mother.\nManual, verbal and emotional reactions are tied together by this one,\nall-exciting stimulus,\u201d--the mother, to wit.\n\nWhich means that the gut-reactions, or the stir of the unstriped\nmuscles along the intestinal tract, are what the child feels when it\nloves its mother, or would be if it could feel anything; and that if\nthe mother be not scientific and careful, there is apt to ensue a\n\u201cconditioning\u201d likely to depose the gut from its position of supremacy.\nUnless the behaviorists can save us, our native, purely physical,\nalmost mechanical lust runs the danger of being swallowed up by\nsentiment and affection.\n\nThis danger has been avoided in some parts of the world. Katherine\nMayo, whose book, \u201cMother India,\u201d has received deserved attention,\nsays that the \u201cwhole pyramid of India\u2019s woes, material and spiritual\npoverty, sickness, melancholy, ineffectiveness, not forgetting the\nsubconscious conviction of inferiority which [the Hindu] forever bears\nand advertises by his gnawing and imaginative alertness for social\naffronts,\u201d is due to an excess of tumescence, to sex dominant and\nrampant in Indian life. She is not speaking of the India of dreaming,\nVedantic philosophers, but of the real India of every-day life, which\nshe has studied at first hand. There sexual impulses, indulged in\nupon a purely erogenous plane, are fostered and encouraged even by\nreligion--by the Kali belief; by the \u201cphallic cult for females\u201d; by\nthe training of girl babies so that they may become the playthings\nof the carnal passions of men. I do not see where we could find a\nbetter picture of what is likely to happen to us when Dr. Watson\u2019s\n\u201cinfant-behavior laboratories\u201d once accomplish their task.\n\nAnd now, having measured the loveliness of sex by the degree of\nexcitement existing in the erogenous zones, Dr. Watson offers us\nanother test for the excellence of conduct in general.\n\n\u201cIn my opinion, one of the most important elements in the judging of\npersonality, character and ability is the history of the individual\u2019s\nyearly achievements. We can measure this objectively by the length\nof time the individual stayed in his various positions--the yearly\nincreases he received in his earnings.... If the individual is a\nwriter, we should want to draw a curve of the prices he gets for his\nstories year by year. If from our leading magazines he receives the\nsame average price per word for his stories at thirty that he received\nat twenty-four, the chances are he is a hack writer and will never do\nanything but that.\u201d\n\nBertrand Russell (upon whose authority I take this quotation) has\ntried to apply this criterion to \u201cBuddha, Christ, Mohammed, Milton and\nBlake,\u201d and confesses himself staggered by the result.\n\nIt seems strange that Dr. Watson should have selected excellence in\nwriting--even excellence marked in dollars--as an instance of a\nworkable, objective substitute for those old and by him discredited\nsubjectivities, right and wrong. \u201cA word,\u201d he says,[24] \u201cis just an\nexplosive clutter of sound made by expelling the breath over the\ntongue, teeth and lips whenever we get around [near to?] objects.\u201d It\ndoes not appear how the clutter can be much improved when we express it\nin written symbols. In neither case does it mean anything.\n\n\u201cMeaning,\u201d according to \u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a\nBehaviorist,\u201d \u201cnever arrives in the scientific observations of\nbehavior.... An animal or human being \u2018means\u2019 what he does.\u201d That is,\nhe does not mean what he does. His doing is his meaning. If he makes a\nclutter of sounds, that is all there is to it. \u201cIt is often said that\nthinking somehow peculiarly reveals meaning. If we look upon thinking\nas a form of action ... such speculations concerning meaning lose their\nmystery and hence their charm.\u201d[25]\n\n\u201cTo answer what the church means to men,\u201d he continues, \u201cit is\nnecessary to look upon the church as a stimulus and find out what\nreactions are called out, [and] why.... This might lead us into\nfolklore ... into the influence of parents upon children, causing\nthe race to project the father and mother into a heavenly state\nhereafter ... finally into the realms of the incest-complex, homosexual\ntendencies, and so on.\u201d\n\nI do not comprehend the \u201cand so on.\u201d It would seem that we had\nalready gone on about as far as we could go. This passage, unlike our\nspeculations concerning meaning in thinking, has not lost its mystery.\nIts charm speaks for itself. But one thing is clear. Thinking is\nspeaking, and a word is an explosive clutter of sound.\n\nNot always audible, however. Dr. Watson reduces the greater part of\nour thought to what he terms \u201csub-vocal speech.\u201d And Mr. Eggen agrees.\n\u201cWe do not think with our brain ... we think with our muscles,\u201d he\nsays.[26] The yokel, always suspected of thinking with his feet, thus\ncomes into his own.\n\n\u201cThinking,\u201d says the behaviorist,--and I now quote from David Wechsler,\n\u201cPsychology as a Practical Science in Modern Life,\u201d[27]--\u201cthinking\nis but a sub-vocal speech--that is, it consists of certain muscular\nmovements of the throat and chest [like those observed in a\nsemi-literate man when he is attempting to read to himself] which are\nnot accompanied by the production of sounds.\u201d _Id est_, they are not\n_always_ accompanied by sounds, and some of them are observable only by\nmeans of instruments. The child, we are told, begins by doing all his\nthinking aloud--but some of us eventually learn to do it without noise.\nProf. Wechsler adds that the muscular theory of thinking is \u201cnot as\nfar-fetched as it seems.\u201d\n\nWhy is it not? Because these sub-vocal movements seem always to\nbe going on when we are thinking, and to some minds--or should I\nsay muscles?--it seems logical to say that an accompaniment or a\nconsequence is a cause. The same sort of sub-vocal speech will lead us\nto conclude that the foam in the wake of a steamer is what causes the\nvessel to go. I have often noticed that a little troupe of dogs usually\naccompanies Mrs. Belfeather in her walks in the park. I now learn that\nthese dogs _are_ Mrs. Belfeather.\n\nThat great psychologist, Eric Peters, once said to Chlorine Garnet,\n\u201cI uses my eyes to see with an\u2019 my brains to think thoughts.\u201d[28]\nEvidently Peters is not a behaviorist. Neither was Shenute, who died\nin the year 451, famous for his anti-pagan propaganda among the Copts\nof Egypt. But he seems to have had some of our moderns in mind, for\nhe said: \u201cThey also make the sound of birds, having filled books,\nfor themselves and you, with vain words: Tinks! Tinks! Kwaks! Kwaks!\nsaying: We are making the sound of birds.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat possible good does it do,\u201d demands Dr. Watson,[29] \u201cwhen\ndiscussing brick-laying or sub-vocal arithmetic to guess at what goes\non in the synapse, in the efferent or afferent leg of the reflex arc,\nor in the muscle itself?\u201d Such problems, he adds, \u201cbelong to the realm\nof physiology, and this section of physiology has not yet been written.\u201d\n\nSo he proceeds to write it, not as physiology, but as behaviorism.\nThese \u201cKwaks! Kwaks! Tinks! Tinks!\u201d and explosive clutterings of ours\nmust be conditioned. And they begin to get conditioned the moment the\nparents begin to pay some attention to them--which usually happens\nwithout delay. Snoodlekins explodes, \u201cDada! Dada!\u201d Paterfamilias is\nbrought into the presence. Wrong! The explosions continue. A watch is\ndisplayed and dismembered. Wrong again! Then somebody hits upon the rag\ndoll in the corner. It fills the bill. Silence reigns, interrupted only\nby goo-goos. And if the parents or other attendants did not afterwards\nundo this conditioning by beating upon iron bars or what not, and so\ninsist upon the rising generation adapting its language to the usages\ncurrent among the old, \u201cdada\u201d would become the child\u2019s word for doll.\nThis is a faithful translation into every day kwaks of what Dr. Watson\nsays in the more refined tinks of the scholar, and I do not wish for a\nmoment to deny that things happen much as he says they do.\n\nBut the point is, Snoodlekins discovers through the trial and error\nmethod that explosive clutterings of sound will cause things to move\naround the house. He finds that if he says \u201cdoll,\u201d slaves will hurry to\nplace a doll in his hands. Does this not give the word a meaning, in\nthe meaningful sense of the term? Does it not imply will and purpose\nupon the baby\u2019s part; consciousness, likes, dislikes; the ability to\nfeel pain and pleasure; the desire to eschew the one and pursue the\nother? And do we not by implication admit similar intelligence and\nemotional capacity on the part of the parents and attendants? Otherwise\nwhy should they care whether a yell or a coo assaulted their ears?\n\n\u201cEvery time I question young children, or even college graduates,\u201d Dr.\nWatson complains,[30] \u201cI am struck by their dumbness.\u201d But surely they\nare not as dumb as this. By dumb presumably he means unverbalized,\nspeechless. But of what use is speech to an unconscious, will-less\npiece of protoplasm without a mind? Can the imagination of even\nthe least dumb among us see how or why a speech-mechanism has been\ndeveloped and an almost infinite number of reflex arcs conditioned to\nrespond to its innumerable demands if there be nobody anywhere in a\ncondition to know whether silence or bedlam reigns?\n\nDr. Watson objects to the evidence of \u201cjournalists\u201d being received\nupon any matter involving human conduct, because they always make\ntheir depositions \u201cin terms of some phases of the original nature of\nman.\u201d But nobody can say anything otherwise. A man born deaf could\nunderstand Beethoven\u2019s \u201cChoral Symphony\u201d in terms of acoustics, because\non that side he would not be \u201cdumb.\u201d But could he understand what it\nis which the world prizes in the melody that lifts up Schiller\u2019s \u201cOde\nto Joy\u201d in the last movement? And yet acoustics explains everything in\nmusic--except the music. Trying to describe human conduct except in\nterms of the nature of man is like trying to dip a net into the sea\nwithout getting it wet.\n\n\u201cConsider for a moment what people mean, or at least should mean,\nwhen they say they are conscious or have consciousness,\u201d the \u201cMyth\u201d\nproceeds. \u201cThey mean, in the words of the behaviorist, that they can\ncarry on some kind of brief sub-vocal talk with \u2018themselves\u2019 behind\nthe closed doors of the lips.\u201d Do they, Dr. Watson? But what do you\nmean, \u201cmean\u201d? Have you not told us that \u201cmeaning never arrives in the\nscientific observations of behavior\u201d? Have you not told us that we are\nnothing but a mass of reactions? Can one reaction \u201cmean\u201d anything to\nanother reaction?\n\nAnd why tell us that we \u201cshould\u201d do this or that? You have given us\nonly our \u201clife history\u201d as the determiner of our acts. That history\nfound us with certain reflexes with which we had nothing to do; certain\n\u201csituations\u201d arose to which we automatically responded; our reflexes\nbecame \u201cconditioned\u201d in a way that we could neither help nor hinder. In\n\u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist\u201d you say, \u201cA host of\nstimuli act concurrently, but the organism reacts now to one, now to\nanother, depending upon which group of stimuli becomes prepotent.\u201d It\ndoes not depend upon us, you see. The credit or the blame rests either\nwith our original protoplasm or with the stimuli which have made up its\nlife history. If slaves we were born, if in slavery we have grown up,\nyou cannot set us free and make us morally responsible now by letting\nus talk a little sub-vocally to selves which do not exist.\n\nYet this is precisely what Dr. Watson attempts to do--or at least\nhe warns us how helpless we will be if we don\u2019t learn to talk. The\nold Chinese philosopher, Lao Tse, once said, \u201cThose who do not know,\ntalk; those who know keep silence.\u201d Dr. Watson says, going on with his\nMyth of the Unconscious--calling it mythical because he prefers the\nno-conscious: \u201cThe child brought up in isolation or among taciturn\nparents or in groups where verbalization is frowned upon ... can\nonly act when brought face to face with objects in their appropriate\nsettings.\u201d That is, he cannot think. \u201cThis is typical of the behavior\nof animals. It is typical of the behavior of many primitive peoples; of\nmen like Jack Dempsey, Calvin Coolidge, or a great many athletes and\nacrobats.\u201d[31]\n\nIf the acrobatic, athletic, primitive, Dempsey-like Calvin Coolidge has\nto be content not to think of consequences it is no great wonder that\nwe could not get Eliza logically and behavioristically across the ice.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] \u201cBehavior, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology,\u201d New York,\n1914.\n\n[5] _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, September, 1927.\n\n[6] \u201cThe Training of Young Children,\u201d _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, August, 1927.\n\n[7] From Dr. Watson\u2019s own account of these experiments in \u201cPsychology\nfrom the Standpoint of a Behaviorist.\u201d\n\n[8] \u201cThe Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,\u201d _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, July,\n1927.\n\n[9] \u201cBehavior, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology,\u201d p. 1.\n\n[10] Vol. XIII.\n\n[11] September, 1926.\n\n[12] \u201cThe Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,\u201d _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, July,\n1927.\n\n[13] \u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,\u201d p. 215.\n\n[14] \u201cThe Unconscious,\u201d p. 59.\n\n[15] \u201cThe Metaphysics of the Instrument,\u201d in _The Monist_, July, 1927.\n\n[16] \u201cVarieties of Religious Experience,\u201d Lecture III, \u201cThe Reality of\nthe Unseen.\u201d\n\n[17] \u201cThe Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,\u201d _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, July,\n1927.\n\n[18] \u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,\u201d p. 7.\n\n[19] \u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,\u201d p. 8.\n\n[20] _Ibid._, p. 8.\n\n[21] \u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,\u201d p. 10.\n\n[22] _Ibid._, p. 8.\n\n[23] \u201cThe Myth of the Unconscious,\u201d _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, September,\n1927.\n\n[24] \u201cThe Myth of the Unconscious,\u201d _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, September,\n1927.\n\n[25] _Op. cit._, p. 355.\n\n[26] _Current History_ for September, 1926.\n\n[27] _Ibid._, December, 1926.\n\n[28] \u201cThe Trained Flea,\u201d by Octavus Roy Cohen, _Saturday Evening Post_,\nDecember 17, 1927.\n\n[29] \u201cPsychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,\u201d p. 372.\n\n[30] \u201cThe Myth of the Unconscious,\u201d _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, September,\n1927.\n\n[31] _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, September, 1927, page 104, col. 2.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nDR. McDOUGALL\u2019S X\n\n\n1. AT THE BECK OF THIRTEEN MASTERS\n\nDr. William McDougall, once of Oxford and Harvard, now of Duke\nUniversity in North Carolina, came to America as one of England\u2019s\nleading psychologists. If he is less well known to the public than some\nother psychologists, it is because he is less eminently \u201cverbalized\u201d\nalong the lines of gripping, every-day speech. As an example of his\nliterary style, as well as of his philosophy, take his definition of\nInstinct.\n\n\u201cAn inherited or innate psycho-physical disposition which determines\nits possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to, objects of a\ncertain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular\nquality upon perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in\na particular manner, or, at least, to experience an impulse to such\naction.\u201d\n\nMcDougall is nothing if not cautious. His subtile mind foresees every\nobjection which can be made, and tries to forestall it. The result is a\nlabyrinth in which even a professor, lacking a golden thread from the\nhead of Ariadne to guide him, must--and does--frequently get lost. And\nyet all that this famous definition actually means is that we are born\nin such a way that we act in such a way.\n\nAs to whether the way is marked by physical roads or by roads which\nare something else; as to whether these roads are bequeathed to us\nby our ancestors, or whether we just have them, McDougall does not\ncommit himself. But he implies that there is something in us which\npays attention or does not pay attention, and that this something does\nnot always follow a road even if it sees it. Sometimes it merely wants\nto follow, but forbears. Each road, we learn as we continue to read\nfrom this, his \u201cOutline of Psychology,\u201d[32] has a lure of its own--as\nroads are apt to have--something which he calls the \u201chormic impulse,\u201d\nor \u201chormic faculty.\u201d And sometimes, instead of having it always acting\nfrom the roads themselves and moving us with a pull, he seems to\nthink of it as in or behind us and giving us a push. In its latter\nposition it can easily be mistaken for a will--even for a free will. To\nexperience an impulse to act, and then not to act as the impulse would\nhave you--is not that to be free to act as you like?\n\nYes; but what determines the like? Has the slave-driver gone, or has he\nmerely stepped into the background?\n\nA hormic impulse is a \u201cstriving\u201d impulse. We are born with these\nimpulses, therefore they are \u201cinstincts.\u201d William James gave us\ntwenty-four--the instincts of climbing, imitation, emulation, rivalry,\npugnacity, anger, resentment, sympathy, hunting, fear, approbation,\nacquisitiveness, kleptomania, constructiveness, play, curiosity,\nsociability, shyness, cleanliness, modesty, shame, love, jealousy,\nparental love. Dr. Watson says he has been able to find none of them.\nDr. McDougall rejects some and discovers several new ones, leaving\nthirteen in all--which was for him an unlucky number.\n\nInstead of being free, we have now thirteen masters, always wrangling\namong themselves, it is true, but never consulting us about their\ndecisions. If we hesitate to obey one of them it is only because\nsome other happens for the moment to be stronger. Or we are mastered\nby a combination; by a bloc. If we decide to move from the city to\nthe country, it is probably a farm bloc. According to this theory, a\nsufficiently knowing person could calculate your conduct in advance.\n\nDraw two straight lines of the same length, or of different lengths,\nas you prefer, from a single point; call that point yourself; let the\ndirection of the lines represent the direction of the instincts, and\nlet the relative lengths of the lines represent the relative strength\nof the instincts. If you then draw two other lines, each one parallel\nto one of the first two, and if you finally draw a diagonal from the\noriginal point to the opposite corner of the parallelogram you have\njust constructed, this diagonal will represent the action you will take\nwhen played upon by two hormic impulses at the same time.\n\nBut is this not free will, to do as you are moved to do? It was\nSchopenhauer, I think, who said that if a stone thrown through the air\ncould be conscious, it would imagine that it was free; would translate\ngravity, momentum, resistance and the like into terms of personal\ndesire. And it was Will Durant who, in his \u201cStory of Philosophy,\u201d said\nthat Schopenhauer was right. This, of course, is but another way of\nsaying that free will is an illusion. It seems to come from within us,\nbut in reality comes from without. And so it must be if we are the\nplaythings of these hormic, instinctive impulses with which we are said\nto be born.\n\nMcDougall has specifically repudiated this interpretation of his\ntheory. He calls himself a \u201cVitalist\u201d; a believer in an active\n\u201clife-principle,\u201d in something which, if not an actual soul, is at\nleast a mind. But being an eminently fair-minded gentleman, he has\nbeen at pains to marshal together all the objections to his own views\nwhich he can think of, and he has proven himself to be a better enemy\npropagandist than defender of his own territory.\n\nThus C. E. M. Joad, a British writer, author of \u201cThe Babbitt Warren,\u201d\nin his essay, \u201cThe End of Ethics,\u201d[33] compared McDougall to Watson\nand to Freud, and finds that one and all \u201cpreclude free will.\u201d And he\nadds: \u201cWhether ... the conscious will overcomes the unconscious desire,\nor whether the unconscious desire overcomes the conscious will, is a\nmatter which appears to lie outside our control.\u201d\n\nMr. Joad does not go half far enough. Under the McDougall hypothesis,\nthe conscious will overcoming the unconscious desire is a matter\nwhich can never happen. Will is merely the conscious result of a war\nof unconscious impulses. But he is quite right in believing that it\nmakes no difference whether a striving be called an \u201cinstinct,\u201d as by\nMcDougall; an \u201cemotion-reflex,\u201d as by Watson; or a \u201clibido,\u201d with or\nwithout a \u201ccomplex,\u201d as by Freud. If we were born with it, or found\nit innate within us, or acquired it through circumstances not of our\nmaking, then we are its puppets or the puppets of its fellows. So Mr.\nJoad quite logically groups McDougall, Watson and Freud together as\ndeterminists, all the protests of the eminent English professor to the\ncontrary notwithstanding.\n\nMcDougall nevertheless is possessed by an idea which negatives such a\nconclusion, negatives his whole philosophy; but he has never let it\npossess him wholly. That is why he has become so subtile, so difficult\nto read. Among those objects \u201cof a certain class\u201d which his thirteen\ninnate or inherited instincts have moved him to pay attention to, is\nthe materialistic physical science of the nineteenth century. And the\nconclusions of that science emphatically forbid the conclusion which he\nlongs to arrive at in his own particular sphere. He wants to be free;\nto have a soul. And this old science tells him that he can\u2019t be free,\nnor have anything of the sort.\n\nThe trouble, of course, comes from the \u201claw\u201d of the Conservation of\nEnergy--the idea that force is incapable of being either increased or\ndiminished; that the amount of power which enters into anything is the\namount of power which eventually issues from it, no more and no less.\nIf will be anything but the net result of a group of pushes and pulls,\nit obviously contravenes this law by \u201ccreating\u201d enough force to upset\nthe balance--that is, unless we interpret the law very liberally and\ntake it to mean that the sum total of the force of the entire universe\nalone is constant. In that case, if the will can smuggle in a little\nenergy without having to pay for it, so to speak, it could be free to\nthat extent.\n\nThe nineteenth century provided against this catastrophe by making\nmatter indestructible. No particle of it was to be permitted to give\nup the ghost--a ghost which might be snatched by the will and used to\nwreck the materialistic machine. So even if matter had some energy\nlocked up in it somehow, it was going to stay locked up. Those were\nthe days of a static universe; of a world completely finished, set\ngoing and deserted by a God who had gone out of business and was never\nexpected to return. And to prove it, scientists devised instruments,\nmeasured the energy--income and output, found that the two balanced,\nand boldly announced that they always \u201cmust\u201d balance.\n\nNaturally, McDougall is not so crude as to accept either those\nexperiments or those theories today. It takes a popular author to\ndo that--one whose reading stopped or was curtailed many years ago.\nAfter saying that the only ground for doubting the freedom of the\nwill is that offered by the strict determinists who contend for the\nuniversality of the Law of Causation--a dependent brother of the Law of\nConservation,--after saying this, he boldly adds that this law \u201cis not\nsusceptible of being proved\u201d; has \u201chad its day\u201d; and \u201cis merely a clog\non speculation.\u201d\n\nNothing could be more hopeful. We seem to be setting out on a\nmagnificent, unincumbered highway. But McDougall is a born reconciler\nof irreconcilables. He can not abandon Conservation even after having\nrepudiated it. Earlier predilections, no doubt, bar the way. So he\nseeks to retain both his Will and the Law which forbids it. Fit\nsuccessor to James and to Santayana, he presents the spectacle of a\nhouse divided against itself. Yet he lacks the wistful melancholy of\nthe unbelieving Catholic, who found the intellect so hard and dry and\nuseless when made supreme over all, but strove faithfully to worship it\nnevertheless. Nor has he the reckless inconsistency of the unbelieving\nProtestant, James, who could say one thing heartily, and then, in\nanother mood, say something quite the opposite--no less heartily.\n\nMcDougall is neither hearty nor melancholy. He has partially\naccepted Freud, and has worked in the same clinic with Jung. He is\na psychiatrist. His important contributions to knowledge all deal\nwith the abnormal. He has studied insects and animals. But such\nthirst for the human as he owns to has been largely satisfied by his\npractical ministrations to the sick and semi-demented. Therefore he is\nable to weave his intricate patterns of words about the incompatible\npresumptions of his argument with a certain appearance of enjoyment,\nand seems to fancy that when the thread of the discourse has become\nsufficiently tangled it will have brought the incompatibles together.\n\n\u201cResolutions of the will are not bolts from the blue,\u201d he asserts.[34]\nAnd he does not see that this commits him hopelessly to the mechanistic\ncamp. For resolutions of the will must be bolts from the blue--just\nthat, exactly--or they do not transcend the law of the Conservation of\nEnergy. And if they do not add a jot or tittle by way of effect to what\nis already found in the cause, they are not free.\n\n\u201cShall we say that Divine [clearly he means \u2018human\u2019] Reason sits at the\nhead, controlling the fierce passions that reside in the belly as a\ncharioteer controlls a team of savage steeds?\u201d asks McDougall.[35]\n\n\u201cAye!\u201d cried the great Aristotle, centuries ago.\n\n\u201cHardly!\u201d exclaims our Carolina professor. \u201cReason is not a conative\n[i. e. striving] energy that may be thrown on this side or that in our\nmoral conflicts.\u201d[36] \u201cReason is not that X of which we are in search,\nthough it plays an important part in bringing that X to bear.\u201d[37]\n\nIt begins to have the interest of a detective story. X marks the spot\nwhere the Will is to be found--and if X is something superior to\nReason, all the better. But it is clearly asserted here that the Will\nis not the Reason; that Reason merely plays a part in bringing the\nWill to bear. That is, Reason guides, directs, aims the Will? No; for\nin such a case Reason would be the master, the mysterious Mr. X after\nall--which is contrary to the hypothesis. Is Reason, then, a channel of\ninformation, an open book where the Will reads the latest returns from\nthe environment, so that there may be no action without knowledge? It\nlooks that way for the moment. But McDougall goes on: \u201cThe X of which\nwe are in search is always an impulse awakened within the sentiment\nof self-regard. It is the desire that I, the precious self ... shall\nrealize in action the ideal of conduct which it has formulated and\naccepted.\u201d[38]\n\nSo X is an impulse wakened within a sentiment, which[39] he tells us is\nthe \u201cmost general term to denote all acquired conative (i. e. striving)\ntrends.\u201d This makes X an impulse wakened within an acquired striving\ntrend. And if we turn back to the definition of instinct we are\nreminded that a disposition to experience an impulse is an instinct,\nand therefore not acquired. So the impulse must have slumbered in\na disposition before the sentiment within which it eventually woke\nhad been acquired. X is also a desire belonging to an \u201cI\u201d which has\nformulated and accepted an ideal of conduct. Are we ringing the changes\nupon an octave of bells, or are we trying to say something?\n\n[Illustration: PROFESSOR WILLIAM MCDOUGALL\n\nAre we trying to say something?]\n\nHere we have Reason, Desire, Impulse, Instinct and Sentiment, not to\nmention Trend, all getting together and trying to make a Will with the\nhelp of an X and an I. We were out fishing, and just when the prospect\nseemed encouraging for a bite of something edible, we catch a wad\nof verbal flounces, beneath which if anything be concealed it looks\nstrangely like a gudgeon in the shape of Nietzsche\u2019s \u201cWill to Power\u201d\nrechristened as the Sentiment of Self-Regard. Or it may be the \u201clibido\u201d\nof Freud, or the \u201cegotistic impulse\u201d of Dr. Alfred Adler, of Vienna,\nwhich even Freud has denounced as \u201cfounded entirely upon the impulse of\naggression,\u201d leaving \u201cno place at all for love.\u201d It is a Will such as\nDr. Watson might have made, had he been making one. But at least, you\nwill say, it is a Will. Yet is it?\n\nA Will must have power, else it cannot move at all. And it must have\nthe direction of that power, else it has no choice as to the way in\nwhich it shall move. X, being an impulse and a desire, may be said to\nhave power. But McDougall puts it within an acquired striving trend,\nand my dictionary tells me that a trend is an inclination to move in\na particular direction--which is precisely what an instinct is. The\nchannel, you will note, has already been dug. Whatever was acquired\nwas foredoomed to be acquired. The ideal of conduct which the \u201cI\u201d\nformulated and accepted lay hidden from the first, with no possibility\nof its being rejected in favor of some other ideal. The \u201cbalance sheet\u201d\nof the Law of Conservation has been retained, all protestations to the\ncontrary notwithstanding.\n\nMcDougall has also attempted to make a Will out of attention.\n\nNow attention is probably the slightest piece of luggage of all our\ninner impedimenta. It is such a little thing. It weighs almost nothing.\nCan\u2019t we get at least \u201cattention\u201d past the old-fashioned scientific\ncustom-house without paying duty under the Conservation law? This looks\nat first like a feasible scheme. But the customsmen are lynx-eyed.\nOnce we submit to their jurisdiction they will let nothing pass, though\nit weigh less than the tiniest bit of fuzz off the end of a feather\nboa. Thus far McDougall has been held up as an undesirable citizen by\nthese hoary custodians, and not allowed to land in Mechanistia. They\nhave been alarmed by the suspicious manner of the traveler. But in\nthinking that he has any free will hidden in his theoretical baggage\nthey are deceived.\n\nThis \u201cinterest\u201d or \u201cattention\u201d with which we have to deal, is\n\u201cconative.\u201d[40] And conation is \u201ca convenient Latin word ... to denote\nthe striving aspect of the mental processes.\u201d[41] I am afraid that it\nis all it is, a convenient Latin word. For \u201cinstinct\u201d too is a \u201cdirect\nconative trend.\u201d[42] Here we have two kinds of striving, only one of\nwhich is said to be direct, that is to have a direction. But this\ndirected striving comes first; it is in-born, instinctive. Naturally so\nis instinct, \u201ca disposition which determines its possessor to perceive,\nand to pay attention to, objects of a certain class.\u201d But in trying to\nfind a Will it is precisely this determining which we are interested\nin. We don\u2019t care what makes the water run in the ditch, we want to\nknow what digs the ditch. In McDougall it is always instinct. He has\nstudied insects too much. He has seen too many lunatics whose wills\nwere paralyzed. \u201cInstinctively\u201d he gives us only the mechanisms which\nhe thinks he finds in grasshoppers.\n\nOnce, indeed, he does get up to the level of birds. On page 255 of the\nbook[43] which contains the most complete expression of his theories,\nhe says: \u201cThe only instance of pure cognition, as distinct from\nrecognition, are those in which a creature is confronted for the first\ntime with an object of the kind that evokes an instinctive reaction....\nAs when the hen nightingale hears for the first time the song of the\nmale.\u201d\n\nWe are back to a first time, so for the moment are freed from habit.\nBut \u201cinstinctive reaction\u201d evoked by an object in the environment\npromptly takes us in charge. If the hen nightingale has no X, neither\nhave we. She is merely a concrete example of the class \u201ccreature,\u201d\nto which we unquestionably belong. And obviously the hen can pay no\nattention to objects in which she has no instinctive interest, since it\nis instinct which \u201cdetermines\u201d the disposition to attend.\n\nBut what if the hen sees a snake as well as hears a song? Can reason\ndig a channel for her striving which will lead her to make a detour on\nher way past snake towards song? Is Reason the X? Impossible. \u201cReason\nis not a conative [striving] energy.\u201d Then it has no power, it cannot\ndig ditches.\n\nIt cannot even control attention, since that is the yes-man of\ninstinct, the only thing having power which we have yet encountered.\nSo if the hen nightingale decides to risk the possibility of laying\nunfertilized eggs rather than the possibility of making a snake\u2019s\ndinner--if she turns a deaf ear to the song of the male and simply goes\naway from there, it will be because her instinct of self-preservation\nproved a stronger and a quicker ditch-digger and trend-giver for her\nhormic impulses than did her sexual or maternal instincts. Or perhaps\nit was her instinct of self-regard which led her to take wing.\n\nNo doubt it will be argued that it was Reason which put before her\nthe probable consequences of coming too close to a snake, reason\nbased on experience or observation. Let us suppose that Reason did\nhave this information--though I don\u2019t see how a powerless reason could\nacquire anything,--what is it going to do with it? Call it to the hen\u2019s\nattention? It cannot. Her attention wears the shackles of instinct. She\nmoves without waiting to know. Moving without knowing why is the very\ncore of instinctive behavior.\n\nAnd yet McDougall assures us[44] that \u201cconative [striving] behavior is\nindicative of an energy that works teleologically [i. e. purposefully]\nand which is therefore radically different from the energies which\nphysical science conceives as working always mechanistically.\u201d He\nloves to console himself with sentences like this one. We grow more\nrational and less instinctive as we grow older. How perfectly true. But\nMcDougall brings it about by having Reason \u201cwaken\u201d in a world where no\nenergy is required to amass and classify data and then bring them to\nthe attention of an X in the face of thirteen instincts which among\nthem possess all the power there is.\n\nIf Reason only were a bolt from the blue! Or if X were such a bolt and\ncould lend Reason a little current! But X itself wakens in a particular\ninstinct, self-regard, and it is wakened by nothing. X does not mark\nthe place where the will is to be found, it marks the place where the\n_body_ is to be found. And what is McDougall\u2019s conclusion of the whole\nmatter? What one might expect. \u201cThe stallion arches his thick neck ...\nthe bull bellows; the lion roars; the cat caterwauls; and the young man\ncurls his mustache.\u201d\n\n\n2. PSYCHE WIELDS THE BROOM\n\nIn an unclaimed desert anyone may erect fences, but it is difficult\nto see how fences, especially when they are only imaginary, can\nearn dividends if they enclose no cattle. McDougall introduces us\nto a region where there is not even sand--only words. And nothing\nis required of these words, whether they be conveniently Latin or\nless conveniently English, except that they follow one another in\ngrammatical order. He makes distinction after distinction; and as they\nare verbal distinctions merely, all that ensues when they contradict\neach other is a conflict like that of several contending currents of\nair.\n\nWe see now why Dr. Watson so much objected to the introspective method.\nIn truth, \u201cintrospective\u201d is an unhappy term. We may note what goes on\ninside of our bodies, and even of our brains to a certain extent; and\ngive names to various thoughts, feelings and sensations, or to what\nwe take to be such. We can tell in what order they occur. But this is\nnot introspection in any literal sense, it is simply paying attention\nto things which are intimate and near. Actually to try to look inside\nof \u201courselves,\u201d implies that \u201cwe\u201d are standing outside and looking\nin--an impossible situation. Its physical counterpart is the attempt to\nroll the eyeballs so as to get a view of the interior of the skull--a\nperformance not to be recommended.\n\nThe outer world, physicists tells us, is a \u201ccontinuum,\u201d something all\nof a piece. A chair and the air around it are not so separate as one\nmight suppose. It is the sense of touch and the sense of sight which\ndistinguish so sharply between one and the other. Make the chair of\nglass, and the eye is not so certain. Lenses and mirrors can be so\narranged as to project a visible chair which the hand cannot feel.\nMake the chair of aromatic wood and the sense of smell will perceive it\nas pervasively emanating from a vague center yet permeating the whole\nroom.\n\nBut in dividing such a continuum we have at least the warrant of our\nsenses. We remain practical. When we attempt to divide up the continuum\nperceived only by the inner self, such guides are lacking. We have\nto depend upon psychologists. And if we try to go further and cut\nthe inner self, itself doing the cutting, we only commit subjective\n_hari-kari_, the sensation of which is very uncomfortable. This is the\nsort of metaphysics which is indeed but methodical befuddlement. Yet\nit is practiced, not by metaphysicians but by men calling themselves\nscientists; men who profess for the most part to despise both\nmetaphysics and philosophy--dogmatic men, who never lose an opportunity\nfor expressing their horror of dogma. Such misbehavior entitles anyone\nto the title \u201cmisbehaviorist,\u201d whether he be a Watsonian or a Freudian,\nand McDougall, for all his agreeable manners, will have to be convicted.\n\nR. H. Hingley, B.A., who signs himself a \u201cresearch student in\npsychology, Edinburgh University,\u201d picking and choosing such\nverbalization as pleases him, even attempts to reconcile McDougall\nwith the impalpable Boris Sidis. Hingley writes as a friend of the\naccused, and in his book, \u201cPsycho-Analysis,\u201d proves it by defining\n\u201cself-consciousness\u201d as \u201ca recognized and acknowledged synthesis of\n... impulses.\u201d[45] If that is all self-consciousness is, it is this\nsame familiar nothing with which we have already had so much to do.\nCan you imagine a \u201csynthesis\u201d as existing by itself? In the case of\ngin, perhaps, for the atoms in synthetic gin are real atoms in good\nstanding in their several communities brought together by no fault\nof their own. Nor even yet do they exist as gin except as there is\nsomething outside of themselves capable of conceiving of them as gin.\nThey belong to the physical continuum--and generally it is safer to\nleave them where they belong.\n\nI won\u2019t ask what is to be expected of a synthesis of McDougallian\nhormic impulses. Another verbal whirlwind threatens to blow, and it\nwill be better to keep out of it. But let us make a synthesis of\nmatches.\n\nArrange a number of matches on the table before you so that they form\na cross, a star, or any other geometrical figure. Then sweep them up\nin your hand and forget all about it. Where is the figure now? What\nhas become of it? Have you at last succeeded in defying \u201cnatural\nlaw,\u201d and annihilated something? No; the figure did not exist, as a\nfigure, except in you. And if some trace of it be not in you now, as an\n\u201cunconscious idea\u201d or what not, it can be nowhere. It was only a form,\nand form is an entity only by grace of the perceiver of form.\n\nIt was you who perceived certain relations among the matches. The\nrelations were not in the matches. Unless the matches managed somehow\nto get outside of themselves, they had no idea that they were parts\nof a cross, a star, or a triangle. And when this form is \u201cdestroyed\u201d\nthey are conscious of no loss. Now a self, or a self-consciousness\nwhich is only a form made out of the things which constitute it and not\nperceived by anything else, is less a self than a piece of bread rubbed\non the outside of an empty closet door is a cheese sandwich.\n\nThis habit of playing with words signifying a multitude of things\nconceived of as a unit, is evident in all the literature of mechanist\nthinking. As soon as such a word is found, the group of things is\ntreated as if it were a force, an entity, or even an intelligent\ncreature standing on its own legs. And usually the things in the groups\nare also but words.\n\nDr. McDougall, for instance, says that a man in the presence of a great\nwork of art is being played upon by a \u201cfusion\u201d of the \u201cinstincts\u201d of\n\u201ccuriosity\u201d and \u201cwonder,\u201d fused in their turn with the instinct of\n\u201csubmission.\u201d It is a predicament in which no one should lightly wish\nto find even an art critic.\n\nBut if we have thirteen instincts, why not fourteen? Why not the whole\ntwenty-four listed by James? Why not twenty-five? If I can be played\nupon by a fusion of curiosity, wonder and submission, all instinctive,\nwhy cannot I be played upon by the instinct to light my pipe at three\no\u2019clock in the afternoon of Friday, the Thirteenth of January? Think of\na self-conscious synthesis of unconscious impulses being played upon\nby a fusion of unconscious determining impulses wakened in an innate\npsycho-physical disposition to pay attention!\n\nBut let us abandon the materialistic hypothesis, however disguised.\nLet us say that it was Psyche who built her house, not the house which\nbuilt Psyche--and how the situation changes! She cannot have built it\nout of nothing, it is true. So let Dr. Watson give her a dwelling with\nonly the foundation reflex courses laid, or let Dr. McDougall escort\nher into a completely and instinctively furnished apartment. In either\ncase, she begins at once to make alterations, for she is a \u201cchoosy\u201d\nwoman, this Psyche of ours. She has power in her right arm, and does\nnot care a tinker\u2019s dam about the conservation of energy.\n\nSo she proceeds in her disposition to pay attention to objects \u201cof\na certain class,\u201d and totally to ignore others. Things progress\nfrom a \u201cpredominantly mechanical to a predominantly teleological\ndetermination.\u201d Pure instincts, the original furnishings of the flat,\nbecome modified by experience and rational reflection. Dr. Watson[46]\nsays \u201cthere is no mystery in building the human being into as\ncomplicated an organism as he is.\u201d Avowed mechanists are never tired of\ntelling us this, and they are right. There is no mystery at all--save\nin Psyche herself. And she is all mystery. I would no sooner think of\ntrying to explain her than I would think of explaining myself. For she\n_is_ myself. And she and I, like Drs. Watson and McDougall, are totally\ninexplicable. Not even we understand in the least.\n\nWhat is explanation? Let us explain a sunset. It is caused, we will\nsay, by the earth turning upon its axis, so that the sun, which at\nnoon was overhead, seems to sink to the horizon. Actually, it is the\nhorizon which rises and obscures the sun--no matter. The rays which\nwere perpendicular, become slant. They encounter drops of water in the\natmosphere--encounter too the laws of refraction, and break up into\ngorgeous yellows and purples. Follow the rays in one direction, and\nyou come to the \u201crods\u201d in the eye; the optic nerve; the brain; and to\nSomething which translates the result into the color sensations, and\nthese, perhaps, into a fusion of wonder, curiosity and submission--and\nthese into a lot of theories.\n\nFollow the rays in the other direction, and you arrive at the sun,\nand are tempted to construct various theories of light. Whence came\nthe sun? Whence came these primal particles or protons of which it\nis theoretically composed? We know of the sun\u2019s existence only from\nwhat Psyche perceives--through her senses or otherwise. Imagine\nthat neither Psyche nor the sun exists. Start now and try to imagine\nyourself creating either or both. Why, you cannot even make a\nbeginning. You have nothing to imagine with. You are lost between the\nimpossibility of existence and the impossibility of non-existence. Did\nyou ever stop to think how utterly impossible is either of these two\nopposite impossibilities? And yet--here we are!\n\nExplanation, then, consists in nothing but the addition to one\nmysterious experience of Psyche certain other mysterious experiences\nwhich precede, accompany or follow it. And as they usually precede,\naccompany or follow in much the same order, we call them causes,\ncontrolling circumstances, and effects. But instead of explaining the\nmystery away, we have merely heaped Pelions and Ossas of mystery all\nabout it. And so we often manage to hide it, and to fancy that there\nis no mystery at all. Would it not be wholesome exercise occasionally\nto admit openly that we do not know what we are talking about? Why not\nfor once exclaim with Dr. Bertry, in \u201c_L\u2019\u00e9vasion_,\u201d by Brieux, \u201c_On \u2019s\nimagine savoir des millions de choses!--on veut formuler les lois de la\nvie--et l\u2019on assiste impuissant \u00e0 sa propre agonie!--Nous ne comprenons\nrien \u00e0 tout ce qui se passe autour de nous, rien \u00e0 ce que se passe en\nnous_\u201d?\n\nSo far as the mind is concerned, this is undoubtedly true. The mind\ncan know nothing of the proper essence of that which surrounds us. The\nmind, says Newman, cannot comprehend even its own activities to the\nfull. So we \u201cdo but assist at our own agony.... Why is it that I die?\nThe scelerose invades the arteries. Why? What is the scelerose?\u201d And\nDr. Bertry continues: \u201cDo you wish me to tell you? We know nothing\nabout it--nothing! We have found nothing about it--but words.\u201d\n\nThat is no reason, however, why we should use yet other words to create\nmysteries of our own--like the unconscious emotions of Dr. Watson, or\nthe enslaved freedom of Dr. McDougall. And this is my answer to those\nwho will object that my explanation, too, is incomprehensible. Its\nincomprehensibility comes from the facts, not from my contrivance. The\nmetaphor of Psyche grants the natural mystery by making our inner self\na human being, which, after all, is what it is. And with this for a\nstart, the reason can work--at the only job for which it is fitted.\n\nIt does not follow that Psyche discovers nothing which is of any use.\nKnowledge is relative, but Truth is not--Pragmatism or no Pragmatism.\nAnd she soon discovers, let William James have said what he may have\nsaid, that it makes a great difference whether her approximations are\nmore or less wide of the mark. Which is to say that she profits by\nexperience. Her original house does not suit her. She makes certain\nrearrangements. They suit her better, but not to perfection. She\ncontinues to rearrange and to build, with such material as life affords\nher. That, I fancy, is what she is here for--to learn how to keep\nhouse. For though the house be not Psyche, any more than your house\nor your body is you, do not think for a moment that it is useless. As\nwell say that the parallel bars in the gymnasium are of no use to the\nathlete for whom they afford the opportunity of exercise.\n\nScientists at one time used to exercise--not their powers of\nobservation, but their verbal ingenuity--upon a set of bars of their\nown which they called the psycho-neural parallel, saying that inasmuch\nas two parallel lines can never touch, so neurology and psychology,\nnerves and mind, matter and the immaterial, can never influence one\nanother. According to this theory, there were two eternally separate\ntwins dancing along, each on its own line of the parallel, forever\naping each other as our reflections ape us in a mirror. And it was\nstrictly forbidden to cross the track!\n\nThe materialists have repealed this \u201claw,\u201d on the ground that there is\nno psychic rail out of which to make the right hand parallel. Others\nwould repeal it, saying that there is no left-hand rail. The rails are\nthere, nevertheless. What is not there nor anywhere is the prohibition\nagainst crossing. The idea that the immaterial cannot influence the\nmaterial because spirit and matter are things of different orders comes\nfrom the same sort of logic as would maintain that waves cannot rock a\nboat because wood and water, too, are of different orders of things.\n\nBut, think you, this is merely human experience and common sense, not\nscience? That there is no Scientific Psyche? That the idea of there\nbeing somebody at home within us is a sweet but forbidden doctrine;\nsomething forever outlawed by the experimental method? On the contrary,\nit was the experimental method which first made us aware of this state\nof things. And the experimental method in its most modern, scientific\nform, politely lifts its hat to the Housekeeper whenever she appears.\nIt was only during a decade or two--the decade or two when most of\nour psychologists were young and learned all they ever did learn of\nphysics--that science forgot her manners. If you want to be in style,\ndo not continue to wear your hat in the house. In the best circles it\nis no longer done.\n\nWe are not ready yet, however, to enter the best circles. We have first\nto pass through the fires of passion, of madness and dreams.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[32] My quotations are from the edition of 1925.\n\n[33] _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, August, 1927.\n\n[34] \u201cOutline of Psychology,\u201d p. 446.\n\n[35] _Ibid._, p. 439.\n\n[36] _Ibid._, p. 446.\n\n[37] _Ibid._, p. 440.\n\n[38] \u201cOutline of Psychology,\u201d pp. 140 and 141.\n\n[39] _Ibid._, p. 418.\n\n[40] \u201cOutline of Psychology,\u201d p. 274.\n\n[41] _Ibid._, p. 418.\n\n[42] _Ibid._, p. 418.\n\n[43] _Op. cit._\n\n[44] \u201cOutline of Psychology,\u201d p. 317.\n\n[45] \u201cOutline of Psychology,\u201d p. 18.\n\n[46] \u201cThe Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,\u201d _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, July,\n1927.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nA SLAVE TO DREAMS\n\n\n1. THE CONFESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD\n\nPsycho-analysis, we are told by Hingley[47] began with a \u201cvery\ninteresting case of hysteria\u201d suffered by a patient of Dr. J. Breuer,\nof Vienna. Sigmund Freud, then a young man, was in Paris, studying\nwith Charcot at the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re. The patient lost the use of the right\narm, lost the power to drink; but recovered both when Dr. Breuer,\nresorting to hypnotism, revived the memory of a painful experience in\nthe patient\u2019s childhood.\n\nMesmer, with his magnetic fluid and his \u201cpasses,\u201d had almost been\nforgotten, but in France the hypnotists of the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re were still\nbattling against the \u201csuggestion\u201d school of Nancy--as in deed they are\ntoday. Here, therefore, was a case after Freud\u2019s own heart. He hurried\nback home.\n\nThe two doctors worked for a while in harmony, and soon arrived at the\nconclusion that to cure hysteria it was not sufficient to revive the\npast. Patients must re-live the painful experience in all its original\nemotional intensity. Thus the ground was prepared for the later\nNaturopaths, who insist that one must have all one\u2019s diseases over\nagain in inverse order, avoiding remedies as these merely \u201csuppress the\nsymptoms.\u201d\n\nBut some people have had diseases which they do not care to have over\nagain, and prefer suppressed symptoms to almost any other kind. So\nNaturopathy has had a hard row to hoe. At first there was the same\nreluctance on the part of the public in regard to painful emotional\nexperiences. Not until Freud, abandoned by Breuer but accompanied by\na disciple named Jung, visited America in 1919, was sales-resistance\nfinally overcome. By this time it was generally known that, though the\nmethod was called the \u201ccathartic method,\u201d no cathartics were used;\nand that the \u201cpainful experiences\u201d to be re-lived were all sexual\nexperiences, painful only in a Pickwickian sense.\n\nFor he came with the announcement that there was within each one of us\na bogie, or endo-psychic censor, which prevented us from dwelling with\nany real enjoyment upon the more unsavory episodes of the past; that\nit was this spoil-sport which made us ill; and that it could be put to\nrout by \u201cPsycho-Analysis.\u201d\n\nSoon it was discovered that an outer censor, familiarly known as\nAnthony Comstock--a rather ignorant gentleman with the annoying habit\nof sending policemen after those who published what was, in those days,\nquaintly termed \u201cpornographic literature,\u201d--could be floored by the\nsame means. Psychology was not \u201cliterature.\u201d Therefore it could not be\n\u201cpornographic literature,\u201d within the meaning of the law. The Venusburg\n_motif_ shivered with joy. The Pilgrim\u2019s Chorus sank to a gruff base.\nSo the Austrian became a best-seller, out-vending even Havelock Ellis,\nwho had previously had our perversions pretty much in his politer\ncharge. Dr. Breuer, on the contrary, clinging to hypnotism, which Freud\nhad discarded, and more or less discarding the eroticism to which\nFreud had nailed his colors, sank back straightway into his native\noblivion, a warning to all.\n\nIt need not be thought that the cathartic method did us no good. The\nUnited States, just emerging from the taboos of Queen Victoria, was\nin need of hyssop. Some of us, brought up among tables and chairs\nhaving limbs in lieu of legs, were really in a bad way. But Freud has\nbecome much more than a physician. Through books which sell in hundreds\nof thousands, he seeks to officiate as a pedagogue, a scientist, a\nphilosopher and a priest.\n\nTherefore it may not be amiss to enquire into his antecedents and his\ncharacter, and then to ask ourselves what his teachings amount to as\ntheory and how they influence our lives if put into practice.\n\nIn order to be perfectly fair, I shall confine myself almost\nexclusively to the analysis of a single book, the master-piece into\nwhich he has put his most fully elaborated and carefully worked out\nspeculations, \u201cThe Interpretation of Dreams,\u201d using the third edition\nof the authoritative English translation of A. A. Brill.\n\nThis work, whatever it may be as psychology, is certainly one of the\ngreatest autobiographies in existence; for in it Freud not only tells\nus his dreams--which alone would tell us nothing--but the incidents\nfrom which he deems the dreams to have sprung, and the thoughts and\nmemories which his study of the dreams have brought to mind. It is a\nmethod to be recommended for those who wish to stand quite naked before\nthe world. By the time he has done, not even Rousseau or Benvenuto\nCellini are better revealed.\n\n\u201cWhen I was six years old,\u201d he writes,[48] \u201cand was receiving my first\ninstructions from my mother, I was asked to believe that we are made\nof earth, and that therefore we must return to earth. But this did not\nsuit me, and I doubted her teaching. Thereupon my mother rubbed the\npalms of her hands together--just as in making dumplings, except that\nthere was no dough between them--and showed me the blackish scales of\nepidermis which were thus rubbed off as a proof that it is earth of\nwhich we are made. My astonishment at this demonstration _ad oculos_\nwas without limit, and I acquiesced in the idea.\u201d\n\nAnd so, in maturer years, when he came to dream of a woman rubbing her\nhands together, the incident was recalled, and he identifies the dream\nwoman as one of the Fates!\n\nFor once his conclusion is not far-fetched. One of the Fates, indeed!\nTo speak his own jargon, it may have been from those blackish scales\nof epidermis that he received the psychic blow which resulted in his\nlife-long anti-religious mania. His love of God (he once used to\nread Philippson\u2019s Bible, and to dream of the illustrations) was made\nashamed by this ridiculous demonstration _ad oculos_, and forced out\nof consciousness. The course of history was turned on a certain famous\noccasion by the cackling of a flock of geese. It might have been turned\nagain by the timely use of a cake of soap upon a maternal epidermis.\n\nFreud describes the inability of a child to detach its \u201clibido\u201d from\nthe parent whom he asserts first awakens it, as a \u201cmother-fixation.\u201d\nHis own mother-fixation takes the following startling form:[49] \u201cIt is\nonly of late that I have learned to value the significance of fancies\nand unconscious thoughts about life in the womb. They contain the\nexplanation of the curious fear felt by so many people of being buried\nalive, as well as the profoundest unconscious reason for the belief in\na life after death, which represents nothing but a projection into the\nfuture of this mysterious life before birth. The act of birth [he means\nthe act of being born] is the first experience with fear, and is thus\nthe source and model of the emotion of fear.\u201d\n\nHere emerges his marvelous gift for the enunciation of inconsistent\nformulas. Birth, the \u201cfirst experience with fear,\u201d is the \u201csource and\nthe model of all fear.\u201d Yet it is the pre-natal life, which knew no\nfear, which is the source of the fear of being buried alive. Moreover,\nunconscious thoughts about this happy life _in ventro_ have but to be\nprojected into the future to become the source of a belief in a life\nafter death--a belief which is fraught both with fear and hope to all\nthose who entertain it.\n\nThen, to make his inconsistency complete, he maintains (in his essay\non \u201cThe Anxiety Neurosis,\u201d and in many other places) that \u201cneurotic\nfear has its origin in the sexual life and corresponds to a libido\nwhich has been turned from its object.\u201d From what object? One of the\nerogenous zones. Birth thus ceases to be the source of fear--at least\nof \u201cneurotic\u201d fear--unless we assumed that it was a the moment of birth\nthat erotic passion was first awakened.\n\nDr. Ernest Jones, in \u201c_Zur Psycho-analyse der Kriegsneurosen_,\u201d says\nthat all fear is due to suppressed libidinousness, but adds that\nfear consists in anxiety lest the suppression be overcome and the\nerotic demon escape control. The natural hero, then, would be the\nman who either had no erotic impulses or was indifferent as to when\nand where and how they manifested themselves. Freud, perhaps, agrees\nwith this. Yet evidently, like Hamlet (to whom also he attributes a\nmother-fixation) he still carries with him another fear--a \u201cfear of\nsomething after death,\u201d an apprehension of such \u201cdreams\u201d as may come\nin such a \u201csleep,\u201d baffling all psycho-analysis and worse than the\ndelusions of a suppressed libido--and this notwithstanding the blackish\nscales in the demonstration _ad ocolus_ and the incredible reasons\nwhich he gives for his \u201csymptom.\u201d\n\nFreud hates to abandon anything altogether. He likes to keep a little\nfear, a little shame--not enough to control conduct, but just enough to\nlend a thrill to transgression. \u201cThe original situation which calls out\nthe observable love-responses ... the stroking or manipulation of some\nerogenous zone, tickling, shaking, gentle rocking, patting and turning\nupon the stomach across the attendant\u2019s knee,\u201d would become intolerably\nmonotonous if sought to be prolonged for a lifetime. Anatole France\u2019s\npenguins were not \u201cexcessively occupied\u201d by it even after they became\nhuman, before they learned to wear clothes. Dr. Watson, could he\nreally prevent other stimuli from being \u201cbuilt in\u201d or \u201cgrafted upon\u201d\nthis unconditioned reflex, would reduce all love-interest to that\nseasonal intermittance owned to by the beasts of the field--with\nwhat consequences to the film industry, who can say? Freud, though\nhe prefers the words \u201cmother-fixation\u201d to \u201cgut-reaction,\u201d and\n\u201cpolymorphous perverse\u201d to \u201cunconditioned reflexes,\u201d--to say nothing of\n\u201coriginal sin\u201d--agrees perfectly with the behaviorist as to what the\nnatural stimuli are and that they should be spared all interference.\nBut he can never quite get over the idea that, though natural, they\nare wrong. He speaks sometimes of \u201cpollution\u201d and of \u201cfilth.\u201d The\nlove-adventure thus becomes as exciting as a pact with the devil. At\nthe same time he drives us to it with the threat of psycho-neurosis and\npossible paralysis if we refrain. In his hands, psychology becomes an\naphrodisiac.\n\nFrom this same autobiography we learn that he was once actually in a\ngrave, though only \u201can empty Etruscan grave near Orvieto.\u201d And when he\ndreams of death, it is, he sometimes thinks, from a wish that _if_ he\nmust go (\u201cif\u201d is the word he uses!) it may be to a grave something like\nthis \u201cpleasant one.\u201d\n\nFor a moment one thinks that the uterine obsession has abated. Yet I\nremember that somewhere he explains that the fondness of youths for\nflinging themselves down in the open is due to the fact that the ground\nis \u201cthe womb of mother earth,\u201d and to a longing for return--whether in\na f\u0153tal or other capacity I do not recall. The Etruscan tomb-dream is\nnot so pastoral as it seems.\n\n\u201cDreams which are conspicuously innocent,\u201d he warns us,[50] \u201cinvariably\n(sic!) embody coarse erotic wishes.\u201d Note the word \u201ccoarse,\u201d a term of\ncondemnation. And yet if we refine them we go mad!\n\nHe can look forwards at times, for he asks,[51] \u201cIs not the having of\nchildren the only access to immortality for us all?\u201d Which is certainly\nan inadequate--no man really \u201clives again\u201d in his children--yet a\nbetter explanation for the general belief in immortality than the\nextremely psycho-analytic idea that it comes from thoughts and memories\nof the unborn state. But the mother hypothesis seizes him again when\nhe comes to interpret dreams \u201cabout landscapes and localities in which\nemphasis is ... laid upon the assurance\u201d that one has \u201cbeen there\nbefore.\u201d For he adds, \u201cthe locality [indicated] is always the genital\norgan of the mother.\u201d\n\nFreud was born in a little village of Moravia, \u201cinhabited by Slavs,\u201d\nand \u201cmust have understood the Czech language during the first three\nyears of childhood.\u201d Until the end of his third year, his \u201cinseparable\u201d\ncompanion was his nephew, John, a boy about a twelvemonth older than\nhimself. John occasionally took advantage of signority, treating the\nfuture psychiatrist \u201cvery badly\u201d; and the memory of this association\nhas, in his own opinion, \u201ccolored\u201d Freud\u2019s relationships with people of\nhis own age ever since.\n\nHe had, when he was fourteen, the pleasure of playing Brutus to the\nhated and beloved playmate\u2019s C\u00e6sar--not in Shakespeare\u2019s drama but\nin Schiller\u2019s poem--the audience being composed of children. Long\nafterwards he dreams of the event, and connects up the \u201cassociations\u201d\nin characteristic style. The dream-month, it seems, was July--named\nafter the mighty C\u00e6sar himself. Which leads him at once to Brutus\u2019\nspeech in Shakespeare: \u201cAs C\u00e6sar loved me, I weep for him; as he was\nfortunate, I rejoiced at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he\nwas ambitious, I slew him.\u201d So old scores are evened, if only in that\nthing less than a dream--dream-analysis. Freud\u2019s favorite method of\ntaking revenge is in his sleep.\n\nYet there is a certain truculence in his waking character too, a\n_Schlagerfertigkeit_ which he acknowledges to be his. This seems to owe\nits origin not so much to the teasing John as to a conversation which\ntook place when Freud was ten or twelve. His father was telling him\nhow, in his own youth, he was walking on a Saturday through a street in\nthe village where Freud was born.\n\n\u201cAlong comes a Christian,\u201d says the father to the boy, \u201cknocks my cap\ninto the mud with one blow, and shouts, \u2018Jew, get off the sidewalk!\u2019\u201d\nSigmund asks, \u201cAnd what did _you_ do?\u201d his eyes big with wonder and the\nhope for some happy issue. But the father answers simply, \u201cI went into\nthe street and picked up the cap.\u201d\n\nHere was born another complex--this time an inferiority complex--with\nwhich all right-minded persons must sympathize. Stoutly has he sought\nto fight it off, to assert himself. But it is easy to see how he has\nbeen hurt by the anti-Semitic feeling which from time to time has\ndisgraced Austrian politics; how he hates the white carnations that, in\nVienna, are the insignia of the Jew-baiters.\n\nBut with what gusto he tells us of the old peasant midwife who assisted\nat his \u201cfirst experience with fear\u201d and prophesied, after the manner\nof her kind, that he would become \u201ca great man!\u201d His father, not to\nbe outdone, was of the opinion that he was \u201cpoetically gifted\u201d from\nthe start. The idea of anticipated power may also lie behind the fact\nthat the favorite toy of his babyhood was a yellow porcelain lion. And\nwere I to follow his own method of the free association of ideas yet\nfurther, I might suggest that it was this lion which afterwards led him\nto visit England.\n\nIn any case, visit England he did, when he was nineteen, and spent a\nday on the shore of the Irish sea, amusing himself by catching the\n\u201csea animals\u201d left behind by the waves. A pretty little girl, seeing\nhim engaged with a starfish, approaches and asks, \u201cIsn\u2019t it alive?\u201d He\nanswers in halting English but correctly enough, \u201cYes, he is alive.\u201d\nAnd now the adult Freud must needs spoil this idyl by explaining that\nhe was much embarrassed by his grammatical \u201cmistake,\u201d and hastened to\nsubstitute an _it_ for the _he_, fearing that the slip of the tongue\nin dealing with gender had already betrayed the improper meaning which\nin his thoughts he had attached to the masculine pronoun. Really, at\ntimes Freud is quite intolerable--and he seems to fancy, even yet, that\nhe improved matters by his \u201ccorrection\u201d of himself.\n\nSince visiting England, he has always wanted to visit Rome, but has\nnever done so, pretending to himself that Rome is not healthy in\nsummer, the only time he is free to travel. He knows quite well that\nthis excuse is about a hundred years out of date, but appears to be\nprevented by a complex from entering the Eternal City. For Freud, all\nroads lead to sex, and no road leads to Rome--which becomes quite\nunderstandable when we learn that for him Rome meant Catholicism. And\nwhen he tells us further that he often dreams that he is Hannibal, whom\nhe identifies as Judaism, he makes it plain that with him it is _aut\nC\u00e6sar aut nullus_. He would like to enter Rome as Hannibal the Semitic\ncommander, would have liked to enter it--in the r\u00f4le of conqueror. At\npresent the Pope and Mussolini stand like inhibitions at the gate.\n\nAt one time in Vienna he lived in a house having one set of rooms upon\nthe ground floor, serving him for an office, and a second set upon the\nstory above, where he had his domestic quarters. The two levels were\nconnected only by an outside stairway, and it was his custom always to\n\u201cjump over the steps,\u201d two at a time, arriving at the top suddenly and\nout of breath. And from this he derives his unrepeatable description of\nthe symbolism of staircases as seen in dreams, where he gives them a\nsexual, even a rhythmic, significance.\n\nIt is also his custom, it appears, not only to run up stairs but to\nspit upon them as he goes. He does this, he says, even in the houses\nof patients unless spittoons are provided at convenient intervals. And\non the occasions when he has been reproved by servants, he has always\nbeen able to retort that a spittoon was missing.\n\nAs to his wife, we learn that he \u201ckept her waiting five years\u201d before\nhe married her, but derived great satisfaction from the circumstance,\nsoon evident, that the marriage was not to be unfruitful. And, being\non a visit to Breslau and seeing the sign of a \u201cDr. Herrod\u201d in an\noffice window, he at once cried out, \u201cI hope he is not a children\u2019s\nspecialist!\u201d Since then Freud\u2019s most likeable trait has been his\nanxiety over the future of his offspring. He seems to have worried,\nboth sleeping and waking, because of the fact that, as they are Jews,\nhe cannot give them \u201ca native country of their own.\u201d\n\nConcerned lest one of his sons should grow up one-sided either in\nmind or body, he dreamed that the boy said at first \u201csalted\u201d and then\n\u201cunsalted.\u201d This, he assures us, was a wish-fulfillment, because in the\ndream at least the boy was acting \u201cin obedience to bilateral symmetry.\u201d\n\nFreud\u2019s incredible ingenuity never fails him. Nor is he, except when\ndiscussing metaphysics, lacking in abundant wit, humor, and other\namiable qualities. He says that he will put in italics all the features\nof a certain young lady\u2019s dream that have a sexual significance--and\nfollows this up with two solidly italicised pages and no other remark.\n\nHe tells with glee how a lady in the audience at one of his lectures in\nAmerica interrupted him by exclaiming, \u201cMaybe all Austrian dreams are\nerotic, but I am sure it is not so in the United States.\u201d\n\nHe is suffering from a boil, which had been poulticed, and dreams that\nhe is in a saddle riding a horse, the poultice being the \u201cday-remnant\u201d\nnow transformed into a saddle. He declares that the dream (which,\namong other things is \u201cthe guardian of sleep\u201d) meant to say to him,\n\u201cKeep on sleeping. You have no furnucle [boil] at all. You are riding\non a horse, and with a furnucle where you [think] you have it, riding\nwould be impossible.\u201d[52] This also means that his friend, F., has been\nputting on airs, \u201criding the high horse\u201d with him ever since he (Freud)\nsuperceded him in the treatment of a particular female patient. So the\nsaddle becomes a side-saddle to indicate the lady, and the dreamer\nperforms circus antics upon it as a dream-boast of the great things he\nhad been doing for her while she was under his care. And to those who\nobject to the super-abundance of his \u201cassociations\u201d he retorts that it\nis always the rich who have the most money.\n\nReal money he seems to regard as \u201cfilthy lucre,\u201d since he holds\nthat \u201cthe uncleanliness of childhood is often replaced in the dream\nby greediness for gold.\u201d His stout republicanism comes out in his\nstatement that \u201caristocrats can be readily confounded with coachmen,\u201d\nthat their merit is \u201cthat they have taken the trouble to be born\u201d; that\n\u201cto us middle-class plebeians\u201d an aristocrat is one who likes to put\nhimself \u201con the driver\u2019s seat,\u201d as Count Thun once liked to drive the\nAustrian car of state.\n\nMuch light is thrown upon the author\u2019s environment, perhaps even some\njustification to be found for his American auditor\u2019s exception to the\ninclusion of the United States in the all-erotic hypothesis, by such\nremarks as the one which distinguishes page 462: \u201cThat the sexual\nintercourse of adults appears strange to children who observe it, and\narouses fear in them, _I dare say is a fact of daily experience_.\u201d\nThis, as they say in Vienna, must have been \u201cgrown on his own manure.\u201d\nI have added only the italics. It also reminds one of a Hungarian\nproverb which Freud is fond of quoting, \u201cPigs dream of acorns, geese of\nmaize.\u201d\n\nIn his part of the country, he informs us,[53] \u201cIt is hardly possible\nto go through a village ... without meeting a two-or-three-year-old\ntot who lifts up his or her shirt before the traveler, perhaps in his\nhonor.\u201d And lest there be any doubt about the sort of life with which\nFreud is familiar, his translator takes the trouble to note[54] the\ncustom of _Fensterlein_ as practiced in the Schwarzwald. Lovers there,\nhe says, are in the habit of mounting by ladders to the windows of\ntheir sweethearts, and \u201cbecoming so intimate that they practically\nenjoy a system of trial marriage.\u201d And he adds, \u201cThe reputation of\nthe young woman never suffers on account of _Fensterlein_ unless she\nbecomes intimate with too many suitors.\u201d\n\nStill, it is hardly fair to single out the Black Forest, which after\nall is not Vienna. Even the Welsh have their _carangwelly_; Irving\nfound evidences of bundling in the history of Father Knickerbocker; and\ncompanionate marriage knows how to speak English.\n\nFreud himself has become a linguist, partly through searching for the\n\u201cbad\u201d sense of words in all languages, partly by looking for puns, the\npun being one of the tools with which he digs out \u201cmeanings\u201d from his\npatients\u2019 dreams. A great mass of knowledge is required to trace some\nof these word-plays. For instance, a dream of a botanical monograph\nleads from cyclamen to cocaine, from cocaine to a _Festschrift_,\nand thence to Dr. K\u00f6nigstein, to Prof. Gartner and his _blooming_\nwife whose name is Flora, to Freud\u2019s wife and her favorite flower,\nto his own favorite flower (the artichoke) and thus to Italy. To\ndream that there is \u201ca terrible storm outside\u201d may mean that somebody\nis superfluous, for everything is overflowing with water, \u201cwith\nfluid,\u201d--\u201csuperfluid\u201d--\u201csuperfluous.\u201d\n\n\u201cPeople who dream often of swimming, of cleaving the waves with great\nenjoyment, have usually been persons who wetted their beds, and they\nnow repeat in the dream a _pleasure_ which they have long since learned\nto forego.\u201d This also seems superfluous.\n\nHe accuses people who form collections of neckties of using this bit\nof haberdashery as a sex-symbol. Nothing in Freud is harmless, though\nhe professes that his constant digging for muck sometimes wearies him.\nThus one day after a lecture upon the usual subject he felt a longing\nto get away \u201cfrom rummaging in human filth,\u201d and was reassured only\nwhen a student followed him to a caf\u00e9 and told him that he was a great\nman. Filth and greatness are again associated in his dream of being\nGulliver and cleansing a foul closet by the means used by that famous\ntraveler in putting out a never-to-be-forgotten fire in the queen\u2019s\npalace at Lilliput. In the same dream he became Hercules cleansing the\nAugean stables.\n\nNaturally he reads Rabelais; but he has also read C. F. Meyer\u2019s \u201c_Die\nLeiden eines Knaben_.\u201d And when Louise N., a visitor to his home,\nasked for a book, he recommended Rider Haggard\u2019s \u201cShe,\u201d \u201cwhich deals\nwith the eternal feminine,\u201d and the Haggard-Lang romance, \u201cThe Heart\nof the World,\u201d which he attributes to Haggard alone. This may indeed\nbe the eternal feminine, but it has at least undergone a charming\nsea-change--\u201cshe-change,\u201d Freud undoubtedly would say. Strain a desert\nand the lions remain. Strain Freud, and if sex does not remain nothing\ndoes--except his wit. After all he is no _Deutzenmensch_, not of the\nsort who come in dozens, and is always rich enough, at least in humor,\nto be able to ask the price of Graz.[55]\n\nHe adores the tale of the husband who said to the wife, \u201cIf one of us\ndies I shall move to Paris.\u201d And the story of the dreamer, who, when\nasked \u201cAre you asleep?\u201d answered \u201cNo\u201d; but at the words \u201cThen lend\nme ten florins,\u201d promptly responded, \u201cYes, I am asleep.\u201d But some\nsexual implication of a sort lower than animal is liable to germinate,\nwhatever the occasion, and rise, as he would say, \u201clike a toadstool\nfrom its mycelium\u201d to poison the air. In Vienna they employ an art\ncalled Gsnas, which consists in making \u201csomething valuable out of\ntrifles.\u201d Nothing valuable comes from the Freudian Gsnas, unless you\ncount a bad conscience which uses vestigial inhibitions merely to\nheighten tumescence.\n\nHe confesses that he was once \u201ca green youth, full of the materialistic\ndoctrine.\u201d[56] What he does not seem to realize is that he has never\nrecovered from this adolescent characteristic. But it is always a\nrelief to turn from his \u201cinterpretations\u201d to the honest facts of his\nlife--to read that he once spent a \u201ccharmingly beautiful day\u201d with his\nwife looking from the window of a hotel (evidently the Danieli) on the\nriva Schiavoni, at Venice, watching the English warships that were\ntaking part in a _fiesta_; and to know that his wife was interested in\nthe toilet-table of an \u201cEtruscan lady\u201d in a Venetian museum. It was \u201ca\nrectangular black object with two handles, with little boxes for rouge\nand powders,\u201d and the _gn\u00e4dige Frau_ \u201cthought it would be nice to have\nin the house.\u201d By rare good fortune, Freud failed to dream of these\nlittle boxes, or at least forgot to mention it if he did.\n\nUpon a less happy occasion he becomes so vexed with Mrs. Freud that\nwhen she gives him a book as a present he immediately forgets it--thus\nliving up to his absurd theory that we only remember things which\nhave agreeable associations. Then his \u201cbeloved mother\u201d falls sick,\nand his wife takes such \u201ctender care of her\u201d that the domestic breach\nis healed. So the victim of amnesia suddenly recovers his memory, and\nwalks straight to the lost book, \u201clike a somnambulist.\u201d\n\nOne likes also to turn to the amusingly recounted hardships of his\nstudent days, and to learn that the five years provided for the study\nof medicine was \u201cas usual\u201d not enough for the future great man. So\nhe \u201cworked along unconcernedly,\u201d though \u201cconsidered a loafer\u201d by\nhis associates, who doubted if he would ever \u201cget through.\u201d He had\nintended to study law, but was moved to take up science upon reading\nGoethe\u2019s \u201cbeautiful essay on Nature.\u201d He never did get through very\nfar, and failed in his examinations for the degree of Doctor of Legal\nMedicine. Consequently, when he dreams of examinations the subject is\ninvariably botany, zoology, chemistry or history--it being another of\nhis contentions that no one ever dreams of examinations excepting those\nin which one has succeeded. On the other hand, one dreams only of the\ntrains which one has missed, such dreams being \u201cconsolation\u201d dreams,\ndirected against the fear of dying. One missed the train--that is, one\ndid not \u201cdepart,\u201d did not die. Railroad travel seems to be dangerous in\nAustria.\n\nFreud always wanted to be \u201ca professor _extraordinarius_,\u201d but was held\nback by the fact that he was a Jew in a country where appointments were\nin the hands of Gentile politicians. By way of compensation he is now a\ndoctor of laws, _honoris causa_.\n\nBut first, what struggles! The \u201chonored teacher\u201d of his youth was\nBruecke, who in his age had eyes which were \u201cwonderfully beautiful,\u201d\nyet was a terrible fellow in his prime. One morning Freud, then a\ndemonstrator at the Physiological Institute, came late to work--and the\neyes, not yet so beautiful, turned to a \u201cterrible blue,\u201d and before\ntheir glare the hapless demonstrator \u201cmelted away.\u201d But Bruecke has his\nday; he dies. And Freud takes characteristic revenge by dreaming that\nhe denounces him as a ghost before a group of living people with whom\nthe deceased was presuming to mingle as an equal.\n\nIt is interesting to note that \u201cthe first scientific task\u201d at which\nBruecke set him \u201cwas concerned with the nervous system of a fish--the\nAmmoc\u0153tes.\u201d[57] Have we here the origin of the Freudian philosophy?\nIt seems to me so, but perhaps this is merely because I have recently\nbeen reading Roland Pertwee\u2019s inimitable \u201cFish are Such Liars,\u201d in _The\nSaturday Evening Post_.\n\n\n2. THE ELABORATION OF A FICTION\n\nBut it is time to leave the fascinating subject of Freud the man\nand turn to Freud the psychologist. Everybody understands his\npsycho-analysis in a vague, general way, but I know of no one who has\never taken the trouble to reduce its chaos to order and so expose the\nkind of \u201clogic\u201d which rules it. His disciples merely choose such bits\nas please them, add a rhetorical p\u00e6an, and say, \u201cThis is Freud!\u201d\nOthers skip all but the salacious passages. Let us take it fairly, the\nlean and the fat together. After all, it is important. For if this\ntheory be \u201ctrue\u201d we must submit to it though the heavens fall. We are\nnot \u201cirrational\u201d I hope.\n\n[Illustration: DR. SIGMUND FREUD\n\nHe tells us his dreams]\n\nPsycho-analysis is based upon six main assumptions, but even\nassumptions deserve for once to be stated in plain language.\n\n_First Assumption_: That we are born with a certain equipment, called\nthe Primary Psychic Apparatus, or the Unconscious Mind. This is much\nlike the \u201cInstinctive\u201d apparatus of McDougall, or the \u201cUnconditioned\nReflex\u201d apparatus of Watson. It has a certain resemblance to the Old\nAdam of popular speech, with that Flesh which was formerly associated\nwith the World and the Devil. It is Psyche\u2019s house as originally\nbequeathed to her.\n\n\u201cWe have elaborated the fiction of a primitive psychic apparatus whose\nwork is regulated by the efforts to avoid accumulation of excitement,\u201d\nsays Freud.[58] \u201cFor this reason it was constructed after the plan of a\nreflex apparatus. The accumulation of excitement is perceived as pain\nand sets the apparatus in motion in order to reproduce a feeling of\ngratification in which the diminution of the excitement is perceived as\npleasure.\u201d\n\nThis \u201cfiction\u201d then is Oriental. Pain is positive, pleasure merely the\ndiminution of excitement. The logical procedure would be to get rid of\nsuch an apparatus, if in no other way then by committing suicide. But\nlater we shall learn that notwithstanding its perception of pain and\npleasure, the apparatus is unconscious. Freud and Watson together give\nus a no-conscious, an unconscious, and a pre-conscious, and not a bit\nof consciousness in any of the three.\n\n_Second Assumption_: That as we develop under stress of\ncircumstances,--conform to our environment as a Darwinian would say,\nor in other words become educated--we develop a Secondary Psychic\nApparatus whose emotional reactions are different from and often\nin opposition to the emotional reactions of the first. This is the\nnon-instinctive, reasonable, or acquired mental equipment, the\nconditioned reflex system--what we ordinarily term our second nature.\nFreud divides it further into the Pre-Conscious and the Conscious--and\nhere at last we become really conscious. But we shall be \u201ccompelled\nto build a series of new assumptions concerning the structure of the\npsychic apparatus,\u201d he informs us.[59] And here they begin. \u201cFrom the\nmoment that we wish to penetrate deeper into the psychic processes\n... all paths lead to darkness.\u201d[60] The darkness is about to be\nours--darkness abundant, Stygian, Egyptian; darkness which may be felt.\n\n_Third Assumption_: That, owing to the emotional differences of the two\npsychic systems, the Second System offers a resistance to the desires,\nthoughts and memories (all unconscious) of the first. \u201cWhenever a\nwish-fulfillment is unrecognizable or concealed, there must be a\npresent feeling of repulsion towards the wish, and in consequence\nof this repulsion the wish is unable to gain expression except in a\ndisfigured state.\u201d[61] It is this resistance which he personifies as\nthe Endo-Psychic Censor and imagines standing like a watch-dog at the\nthreshold of the pre-conscious. He even imagines a second censor\nstanding at the threshold of the conscious.\n\nEverybody must admit that this resistance, personified or otherwise,\nis a fact. The adult does acquire a distaste for childishness. He at\ntimes exercises upon himself a sort of discipline. He has different\ninclinations which are at war with one another. Freud\u2019s contribution to\npsychology at this point consists in the discovery that such discipline\nis a perilous thing to indulge in. For--\n\n_Fourth Assumption_: A desire so disciplined does not cease to exist,\nbut continues in being. The opposition of the Secondary Apparatus\ncauses it to be forgotten, to became a part of the unconscious. But\nthere it remains, \u201csuppressed\u201d but biding its time.\n\nThese unconscious wishes \u201csuffer the same form of annihilation as\n[do] the shades of the lower region in the Odyssey, who awoke to\nnew life the moment they drank blood.\u201d[62] Shall we then keep them\naway from blood? That is not the programme. But for the moment Freud\nmerely says:[63] \u201cNothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious;\nnothing can cease or be forgotten.\u201d Adding:[64] \u201cI believe that these\nunconscious wishes are always active and ready for expression--the as\nit were immortal wishes from the unconscious.\u201d\n\nThis implies that a wish cannot be deflected, but persists as a desire\nfor its original object--which is totally contrary to reason and\ncommon sense, to experience, and to physical science. It is the same\nas saying that a boy who was looking forward to a Saturday afternoon\nvisit to his grandmother\u2019s grave and was induced to go to the circus\ninstead, would--especially if he suppressed his cemeterial inclination\nto the point of not telling the fellows about it--straightway forget\neverything but the circus, and yet be haunted by an unconscious desire\nfor the grave. Nor could anything but a conscious visit to the scene of\ninterment (or to a psycho-analyst) ever set the desire at rest.\n\nSuch a suppressed, abashed and forgotten but far-from-done-with desire\nis called a \u201ccomplex.\u201d There are many complexes, but they all reduce\nthemselves to two, the \u0152dipus and the Inferiority. Let us pause to\nconsider them before going on to other suppositions.\n\n\n3. TWO OFT-THWARTED PASSIONS\n\nAn inferiority complex originates in a blow to our self-love, to our\nsense of personal regard. And as Dr. McDougall is the most eminent\ngodfather of this instinct, we had better go to him for a working\nexample.\n\nA famous architect visits his alma mater after many years of successful\npost-graduate life. Suddenly he begins knocking men down right and\nleft, shouting, and trying to climb over the head of the bed in\nspite of the efforts of three attendants to hold him within bounds.\nAn old-fashioned expert would have pronounced him a paranoic, a\nmegalomaniac, or something equally disagreeable. But Jung, McDougall\u2019s\none-time co-worker, was called in. He said that it was only a case\nof schizophrenia, and that what the patient needed was--not a\nstraight-jacket but a quiz.\n\nBy \u201cfree word-association\u201d (Jung\u2019s personal invention) it was\ndiscovered that the schizophreniac had once been jilted by a fair co-ed\nat the dear old school, and had quite sensibly forgotten all about\nit. But when he returned to the scene of his adolescent chagrin, it\nall came back--the very campus seemed to him suddenly to sway beneath\na purple sea of emotion. He thought that the fair one was not really\nmarried to another after all, notwithstanding rumors which he had heard\nto that most likely effect, but was still waiting for him--waiting\nuntil he should prove himself a man. So he commenced knocking other men\ndown. Proof enough. He even added song and gymnastics by way of good\nmeasure; and a second attack, like the first but milder, occurred upon\nhis next visit to the fateful place.\n\nWhat had happened (internally) was this. The co-ed had given him a\nmental traumatism, a blow upon the solar plexus of his vanity. And\nhe was so shamed that he could not bear to think of it. So he put it\nfrom his mind--as he fondly thought. But alas, there is no such thing\nas putting anything from one\u2019s mind. Things so put only go into the\nunconscious mind, there to fester like a potato in a damp cellar. The\npsychiatrist digs it out, and all is well. This is the story as set\nforth (in quite other language) in McDougall\u2019s \u201cOutline of Abnormal\nPsychology.\u201d\n\nUnquestionably it is a great discovery--that we are not always crazy\nwhen we appear to be. Introverts, schizoids, dreamy people (you may\nhave your choice of terms) are especially to be congratulated. For\nthey are apt to find themselves battling suddenly with a suspiciously\ninsane looking bosom monster long hidden from themselves--the battle\nresulting in hysteria if they give way and in compulsion-neurosis if\nthey resist. If one happens not to be a schizoid but an extrovert--that\nis, a commonplace, practical sort of person--a bad inferiority-complex\nmerely leads to multiple personality, a splitting of individuality\ninto parts, one of which may go about calling itself Smith, another\nJones, another Brown.\n\nBut what shall we do with our famous architects, introvert or\nextrovert, when they begin to misbehave along non-professional lines?\nMcDougall quite rightly attributes the cure of the one in question\nto Jung\u2019s showing him just how ridiculous he had been in laying the\nco-ed\u2019s treachery so much to heart in the first place. He need not have\nbeen so rich in false pride, Jung seems to have told him; need not have\nbeen ashamed of being jilted. Into each life some rain must fall. His\nwas but the common fate of all men in general and of undergraduates in\nparticular. He should have laughed the incident off, or perhaps have\nsought relief in another bite from another vampire, on the homeopathic\nprinciple of _similia similibus curantur_. What he had needed as a\nchild was not the indulgence of self-esteem, for life is not always\nkind, but early preventative measures tending to curb self-esteem\u2019s\nabnormal growth.\n\nOne may agree with the diagnosis and treatment of this case without\ndifficulty. It was not a Freudian case. The wound was only remotely\nsexual, and McDougall manages to ignore its erotic elements altogether.\nHe is always the Dr. Jekyll of the couple of which Freud is the Mr.\nHyde.\n\nJung, for some reason, also enjoys a Jekyllian reputation, but he\nhardly deserves it. Indeed, he frequently out-Hydes his former teacher.\nFor Freud observes that the \u201csignificance of sexual complexes must\nnever be forgotten, nor must they, of course, be exaggerated to the\npoint of being considered exclusive.\u201d[65] Jung on the other hand writes\n(I am certain of his words but have forgotten the book and the page),\n\u201cI am often asked why it is just the erotic complex rather than any\nother which is the cause of the neuroses. There is but one answer. No\none asserts that this ought to be the case.... But as a simple matter\nof fact, it is always found to be so, notwithstanding all the cousins\nand aunts, godparents and teachers who rage against it.\u201d\n\nIn another place, Jung declares quite sensibly that the real cause of\ntrouble is \u201cthe non-fulfillment of life\u2019s task.\u201d He is, it seems, so\nanxious not to be lost beneath the shadow of the master that he seeks\nto outshine him even in the production of self-contradictions.\n\nWhat chiefly distinguishes this noted citizen of Zurich, however,\nis the vast array of complications which he has added to the map of\nour psychic \u201clocalities\u201d by drawing in the \u201carchetypes ... the great\nprimordial images\u201d; the \u201ccollective unconscious\u201d (inherited or innate\ntendencies of various awesome shades); the \u201cPersona,\u201d or mask beneath\nwhich the developed self timidly confronts the world; the \u201cAnima,\u201d\nor submerged personality; the \u201cKabyr,\u201d or undeveloped intuitive\npremonitions, and many other romantic features whose names seem to have\nbeen taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Yet his attempt to write\nas picturesquely as Freud is a failure, like his endeavor to evolve an\nindependent philosophy. Jung is merely Freud, McDougall, and water.\nHis principal Avatars in this country are Dr. Maurice Nicoll and Dr.\nConstance Long.\n\nAnd now for the \u0152dipus Complex.\n\n\u201cKing \u0152dipus, who has struck his father, Laius, dead and has married\nhis mother, Jocasta, is nothing,\u201d says Freud,[66] \u201cbut the realized\nwish of our childhood.... His fate moves us only for the reason that\nit might have been ours, for the oracle has put the same curse upon us\n... as upon him.\u201d He adds that, unless we have become psycho-neurotics,\nwe have since \u201csucceeded ... in withdrawing our sexual impulses from\nour mothers and in forgetting our jealousy of our fathers,\u201d--and\npresumably we have withdrawn, too, from the cousins, aunts, godparents\nand teachers listed by Jung. If these impulses have found their\nway into the unconscious, however, they must have become eternal.\nPsycho-analysis drags them into consciousness, not to kill them but to\ngive them a transfer. The patient, it is said, always falls in love\nwith the operator as a half-way step on the road to cure. But in regard\nto \u201cfalling in love with one member of the parental couple and hatred\nof the other,\u201d Freud does not think that \u201cpsycho-neurotics are ...\nsharply distinguished from ordinary human beings.\u201d[67] The only way to\npreserve normality, then, without calling in the doctor, would be never\nto lose consciousness of our original polymorphus perversities.\n\nIn such a case, how is a transfer to be brought about? Not by\ndiscipline, evidently. Considering the dire horrors said to lie in the\nwake of any attempt to thwart the perversities in question, the natural\nconclusion is that children should just grow, like Topsy, without\nhaving to suffer the stern and perilous ordeal of being brought up. And\ndoes not such a scheme leave perversity in control?\n\nCertainly the effect of the study of Freudianism everywhere has been\nto make parents afraid of resorting to corrective measures when their\nchildren are \u201cnaughty.\u201d A stern word, let alone a sound spanking, may\n(according to the Freudian theory) cause a suppression of desire, a\nthrusting of a native impulse into the Sheol of the lower psychic\nlocality, \u201cwhere ... wishes ... recall the legendary Titans who from\ntime immemorial have borne the ponderous mountains which were once\nrolled upon them by the victorious gods, and which even now quiver from\ntime to time from the convulsions of their mighty limbs.\u201d[68]\n\nMust one, then, totally abstain from mountain-rolling for fear of\nearthquakes? A boy\u2019s \u201clibido\u201d is first excited by his mother, so that\nhe wants to murder his father because the fellow is this woman\u2019s\nhusband and the boy would like to be her husband himself. Is this to\ngo on? And of the two ways out of the situation, which shall we chose?\nLet the boy murder the father? Or shall we let him marry the mother?\nIt seems to be a Hobson\u2019s choice. We do not want to run the risk of\ncreating a \u201ccomplex\u201d by harshly thwarting either of these amiable\ndesires, for a complex, Freud assures us, may produce psycho-neurotic\nsymptoms ranging all the way from a mild hysterical excitement to\nparalysis, blindness and homicidal mania.\n\nIf there happens to be a daughter born in the family before the murder\ncan take place, another difficulty arises. For the daughter\u2019s \u201clibido\u201d\nwill be excited by the father even as was the son\u2019s by the mother.\nSo the girl will want to kill her mother for being the wife of the\nfather--will want to become her own father\u2019s bride. In case all these\ninstincts are given sway, there will be two murders; but where are\nthe weddings coming from? The boy now has no mother. His sister has\nmurdered her to get her out of the way. And the girl has no father, he\nhaving been murdered by the jealous boy. Brother and sister have nobody\nleft but each other. Ergo, they should make the easiest transference\navailable, and live happily ever after.\n\nIn some instances, due to circumstances over which the infants have no\ncontrol, the libidos may not reach out to the parent of the opposite\nsex, but attach the daughter to the mother and the son to the father.\nBut this only complicates the situation. The murders will take place\nas before, the murderers\u2019 parts being merely exchanged, and in the\nend brother and sister will be left as before, the sole survivors of\nthe massacre. And in this case they will have especial difficulty\nin making the necessary libidinous transference. They have, through\nsome accident in the nursery bringing similars instead of dissimilars\ntogether in the field of desire, become homo-sexual. The future of the\nrace is threatened. Either that, or we must run the risk of a race of\nmaniacs by teaching the young that some things are--not \u201cunspeakable,\u201d\n\u201cunverbalizable,\u201d or \u201cunthinkable,\u201d but shameful--murder and incest\nbeing among the number. If they cannot endure the shock of such\nknowledge, driven home until it becomes effective, so much the worse.\nFreud leaves the prospect gloomy indeed. And yet David Seabury, author\nof \u201cUnmasking our Minds,\u201d--Seabury, whom William James is said once\nto have dandled on his knee--endeavors to convince us in an article\nentitled \u201cThe Bogey of Sex,\u201d[69] that Freud has spent his life in\nbeautifying and ennobling human love.\n\nBeautiful and ennobling or not, the assumption that a desire and its\nfirst object are a pair of Siamese twins incapable of separation, is\nthe very father of fallacies. Nor does it become more reasonable if\nby object is understood a class of objects. In either case desire in\ngeneral is cut up into particulars, each one deathless and indomitable.\nWhy should those who deny free will to the individual be permitted\nthus to attribute all powerful will to his several reactions?\n\nFreudians always instance hunger as an example of a persistent\ndesire. You want your dinner, they say, and you go to the theatre\ninstead of dining. You forget all about food, but you still continue\nto crave it; and when the show is over you discover that you are\nstarving. Incidentally, this desire persists even if not driven into\nthe unconscious by shame beyond hope of easy recall--which somewhat\nenlarges the hypothesis. A further enlargement is made with the\nadmission that the hunger here is not a desire for turkey, or for\nchicken, but merely for food.\n\nNow it must be admitted that the Freudian supposition so understood has\nthe superficial appearance of truth. In a case of this sort it does\nlook as if only a limited transference were possible. One dish may be\nserved in place of another, but unless we eat we continue to be hungry.\nBut do we?\n\nHad Freud known anything about fasting, had he been a good Jew and kept\nthe Passover, he would have learned that the symptoms soon cease. The\nsensation of hunger is produced by certain tensions in the stomach.\nThe glands containing the digestive fluids are distended. The forces\ndesigned to attack the food are mobilized, and where the food should\nbe yawns only emptiness. But soon the digestive fluids dissipate\nthemselves; in the course of a few hours the last feeling of appetite\nis gone. One does not have to be a Dr. Tanner to be aware of this. Many\npeople have gone without food for long periods, and with little or no\nsuffering or ill effects.\n\nIt is not pretended that we can go without food forever. The body\ncannot be altogether ignored--not by the majority of us; and one\nmust remember the farmer\u2019s horse, who, taught to live upon one straw\na day, was so inconsiderate as then to die. But even with this, the\nmost fundamental and imperative of all the desires, discipline may\noperate to a great extent. Gluttony is not a _sine qua non_ of health.\nIndeed, if no discipline be exercised there is likely to ensue--if not\npsycho-neurosis at least another and most distressing symptom, known as\ngout.\n\nAnd how is it with sex-hunger? This not being actually necessary to\nthe preservation of the earthly life of the individual, is even more\namenable to the curb, and may be divorced altogether from its carnal\nobject. We are certain of this because it has been done and is being\ndone in innumerable instances.\n\nI am not claiming that sex should be suppressed by cold negation, any\nmore than I hold that one ceases to be hungry if one has nothing to\ndo but think about dinner. But there is such a thing as sublimation,\nwhich may be defined as a transference of libido upon such a broad\nand magnificent scale that we may say not only that one object is\nsubstituted for another but that one desire is substituted for\nanother. Thus lust--and I use the word without implications of the\nunnatural--may be overwhelmed by love, and a lower love by a higher.\n\nEven without going very high we find that the ardently moved members\nof the endocrine system at times cease to trouble in the absence of\nexterior physical stimuli, and a different type of autocoid than\nthe burning one makes its appearance in the blood-stream. Those who\npretend that lack of indulgence perpetually increases the store of\nsexual desire and capacity, conscious or unconscious, run the risk of\nbeing likened to that boastful bridegroom so inimitably described by\nMontaigne, who, because of the sheer extravagance of his claims, was\neventually adjudged \u201cunfamiliar with the practice\u201d under consideration.\n\nA particular wish, then, is a wish with a direction--a direction which\nmay be changed. The belief that a grown man has an unappeased longing\nto be fed once more at the breast or the bottle--a longing suppressed\nin his primary psychic apparatus--deserves itself to be classed as a\npsycho-neurotic symptom.\n\nAnd now we may resume our suppositions.\n\n\n4. MORE SUPPOSITIONS\n\n_Fifth Assumption_: That dreams open the road for the discovery of\nfestering wish-thoughts in the unconscious.\n\n\u201cThe dream is the distorted fulfillment of a suppressed wish.... The\nwish manifested in the dream must be an infantile one.\u201d[70]\n\nThe ingenuity which our author has expended in the attempt to prove\nthat \u201cdreams are never nonsense\u201d passes belief. To begin, he makes a\nsharp distinction between \u201cmanifest\u201d and \u201clatent\u201d content, between the\ndream as it appears and the dream as it secretly is. Then he divides\nthe modes of disguise which this latent content or meaning of the\nunconscious mind adopts in sneaking its obscenities past the censor for\nthe production of the manifest dream-show into three categories: (a)\nCondensation; (b) Displacement; (c) Regard for Presentability--which\nmeans presentability in pictures or symbols. The word \u201cdistortion\u201d\nsufficiently covers these three processes. Then there is a fourth\ncategory, (e) called Secondary Elaboration.\n\n\u201cA psychic function which cannot be differentiated from our waking\nthoughts may make contributions to the dream content.... It is an\nexpression of the _esprit d\u2019escalier_ on the part of the psychic\ncensor.... The result is that the dream loses the appearance of\nabsurdity and incoherence [given it by distortion] and approaches\nthe pattern of an intelligible experience.\u201d[71] That is, we half\nwake up, and give to the manifest dream a specious logic--which the\npsycho-analyst warns us to ignore.\n\nNow it is clear that the principle of symbolical interpretation, if\nonce admitted, will open wide the gates for whatever \u201cmeanings\u201d it\nis necessary to find in order to establish the general theory. For\nthese are not \u201carbitrary\u201d symbols, like \u201cthose used in stenography.\u201d\nThey are such symbols as may be taken from \u201cfolk-lore,\u201d or any other\navailable source, their meanings loosely worn. All that is required of\nthem is that they shall yield a general sexual significance whenever\nsufficiently squeezed.\n\nFor example,[72] an \u201cintelligent and refined young lady\u201d related the\nfollowing dream to Freud: \u201cHer husband asks: Should not the piano be\ntuned? She answers: It won\u2019t pay; the hammers would have to be newly\nbuffed.\u201d\n\nThis, we learn, \u201crepeats an actual event of the previous day,\u201d--for in\nevery dream there is a \u201cday-remnant\u201d to furnish stuff for the manifest\ncontent, as well as a suppressed infantile wish to give it its real\n\u201cmeaning,\u201d and some of this remnant at least must relate to the waking\nexperiences of the past twenty-four hours. Once we grasp the general\nidea, we shall see meaning after meaning, each one deeper than the\npreceding, revealing itself like so many skins peeled from an onion.\n\nThe lady\u2019s husband had actually asked her about the piano; but that,\nbeing real, amounts to nothing. What is more significant is that the\nlady, lying upon Freud\u2019s couch and relaxing, refers to the piano as \u201ca\ndisgusting old box,\u201d and says that it was one of the things which her\nhusband had before his marriage.\n\nThe outer onion-skin has now come off. But it promises to be so\nunsavory that we would better drop this particular bulb and take up\nanother. For dream onions are not only laminated, but there are always\nseveral onions to every dream. Let us regard the one from which sprang\nthe phrase, \u201cIt won\u2019t pay.\u201d The outer skin here was a visit the patient\nhad made the day before to a lady friend who asked her to take off her\ncoat; but as she had to go in a moment she replied that it would not\npay. And here again I am forced to drop the subject, or at least to\navoid the line of thought which is immediately suggested by a knowledge\nof the symbolism here involved. Freud himself takes a new lead by\nremarking that during a previous analytical s\u00e9ance this same patient\n_had_ taken off her coat, \u201ca button of which had opened,\u201d--taken it\noff with a gesture which seemed to say, \u201cPlease don\u2019t look in this\ndirection; it won\u2019t pay.\u201d From which he concludes that among the many\nthings which \u201cdisgusting old box\u201d refers to is \u201cchest,\u201d or \u201cbust.\u201d\n\nWere this lady but an American we might now conclude (without\nexaggerating the Freudian procedure in the slightest) that this means\n\u201cPike\u2019s Peak or Bust\u201d; that this in turn recalls a bust which she went\non when she was younger and in the neighborhood of 142nd street, New\nYork, locally known as \u201cPike\u2019s Peak\u201d; that the peak of her ambition was\nto marry a Jew--with incidentally a hidden desire to be peeked at; and\nthat because of her failure to realize these wishes she was piqued, and\nsuffered accordingly.\n\nBut as she seems to be an Austrian we must be content with the idea\nthat \u201cthe interpretation of the dream leads directly to a time in her\nbodily development when she was dissatisfied with her shape.\u201d She\nwanted to be fat--an eminently Austrian thought. And from here we\nare led to a yet earlier period. For the words \u201cdisgusting\u201d and \u201cbad\ntone,\u201d make it necessary, Freud informs us, to remember \u201chow often in\nallusions and in dreams the two small hemispheres of the ... body take\nthe place--as a substitute and as an antithesis--of the larger ones.\u201d\nThat is, the piano was a dream disguise for the buttocks.\n\nIt now hardly seems necessary to remark that \u201cthe dreamer, owing to\na peculiar set of circumstances, may create for himself the right to\nuse anything whatever as a sexual symbol.\u201d[73] Still less to add that,\ngenerally speaking, \u201call elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks and\numbrellas, all sharp weapons, knives, daggers and pikes,\u201d are masculine\nsymbols; while \u201call little cases, boxes, caskets, closets and stoves\u201d\nhave a feminine signification; or that \u201cstairways, stairs, ladders\n... or anything analogous to them\u201d are to be regarded as specifically\nerotic suggestions. And to make the system complete, whenever a symbol\nrefuses to fit in with the desired significance, we are at liberty to\nregard it as \u201cmisplaced emphasis\u201d due to distortion, and to interpret\nit in an opposite sense. So pain may mean pleasure, and a crowd a\nsecret.\n\nNor is even this enough. He goes on and invents a veritable grammar\nof dreams. Logical connection (in the latent content) is rendered (in\nthe manifest content) by simultaneousness; causation is expressed by\nsuccession; \u201ceither--or\u201d by \u201cand--and\u201d (you dream of both alternates as\nbeing true); similarity or agreement is pictured by the concentration\nof several images into a fantastic unity, etc., etc.\n\nFreud commits the common and fatal error of proving too much. He should\nhave been warned by the fate of the late Ignatius Donnelly, once\nLieutenant-Governor of Minnesota. Donnelly, having shown that Bacon\nwrote Shakespeare\u2019s plays, went on to show that he also wrote Burton\u2019s\n\u201cAnatomy of Melancholy\u201d and Bunyan\u2019s \u201cPilgrim\u2019s Progress.\u201d And having\ndiscovered that these works had all a sort of sense when read from left\nto right, proceeded to demonstrate (in \u201cThe Great Cryptogram\u201d) that\nthey had an even better sense when read more or less from right to left.\n\nUsing the Freudian premises, we are forced to conclude that the average\nchild\u2019s aversion to the multiplication table is a blind to cover his\nunconscious but shamefaced eagerness for illegitimate parenthood. The\nvery name, \u201cMultiplication,\u201d gives us the key. Freud has met this\nobjection by saying that he does not permit himself to wander at random\nover the field of conjecture, but is always guided by a principle. What\nprinciple? That dreams come from suppressed erotic desires--the very\nprinciple he is trying to prove. No, the court does not admit evidence\nat random, it measures it by the supposition that the defendant is\nguilty.\n\nThe Multiplication Table is quite admissible, for dreams are not the\nonly things which may be subjected to dream-analysis. Waking thoughts\nare interpreted in the same way. If a patient refuses to dream,\nthe analyst pounces upon his inventions, his replies to questions.\nThe \u201c\u0152dipus Tyrannus\u201d of Sophocles and Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cHamlet\u201d fall\nnaturally into the dream category.\n\n\u201cWe are far too much inclined to over-estimate the conscious character\nof intellectual and artistic productions,\u201d since \u201cfrom communications\nof some of the most highly productive persons, such as Goethe and\nHelmholtz, we learn that the most essential and original parts in their\ncreations came to them in the form of inspirations and reached their\npreceptions almost finished.\u201d[74]\n\nBut though a dream can compose a \u201cHamlet\u201d or an \u201c\u0152dipus,\u201d it cannot\ncompose a speech. \u201cNo matter how many speeches and answers may occur\nin dreams, analysis always shows ... that the dream has only taken\n... fragments of speeches which have been delivered or heard.\u201d[75]\nWhat, then, is this dreaming faculty which is at once so competent and\nincompetent? Is it a gift, or a disease?\n\n\u201cA dream,\u201d says Freud, in the Introductory Remarks to the book we\nhave been following, \u201cis the first link in a chain of abnormal\npsychic structures whose other links [are] the hysterical phobia, the\nobsession, and the delusion.\u201d Then on page 482 he declares, \u201cThe dream\nis not a pathological phenomenon and does not leave behind [it] an\nenfeeblement of the mental faculties.\u201d\n\nThose whose mental faculties have not been too much enfeebled by the\nattempt to reconcile these two statements, may try their logic\u2019s teeth\nupon page 437, where it is said that \u201cin view of the complete identity\n[to be] found between the peculiarities of the dream-work and the\npsychic activity forming the psycho-neurotic symptoms, we shall feel\njustified in transferring to the dream the conclusions urged upon us by\nhysteria.\u201d Or one may turn to page 471, and read: \u201cIt is condensation\nthat is mainly responsible for the strange impression of the dream,\nfor we know of nothing analogous to it in the normal psychic life\naccessible to consciousness.\u201d Remember, too, that Freud does not think\nthat in regard to \u201cfalling in love with one member of the parental\ncouple and hatred of the other,\u201d psycho-neurotics are \u201csharply\ndistinguished from ordinary human beings.\u201d\n\nNow if you are not very sharply distinguished from ordinary human\nbeings you naturally indulge in \u201ctypical dreams,\u201d--the dreams that\neverybody has. And among typical dreams is the \u0152dipus dream of the\ndeath of parents or other near relatives. But here a difficulty arises.\n\n\u201cThese dreams show the very unusual case where the dream-thought,\nwhich has been created by the repressed wish, completely escapes the\ncensor, and is transferred to the dream without alteration.\u201d[76] Is the\ntheory then at fault? No; but the censor is. \u201cThere is no wish which we\nbelieve further from us.... The dream censor is therefore not prepared\nfor this monstrosity, just as the legislation of Solon was incapable of\nestablishing a punishment for parricide.\u201d[77]\n\nObjections to the Freudian theory are vain; the theory bends to\naccommodate whatever it encounters, then straightens out and goes its\nway as if nothing had happened.\n\nIf we are consciously anxious about our dear ones, the wily unconscious\nmerely takes advantage of that fact to stage a dream about somebody\u2019s\ndeath, well knowing that the conscious anxiety will blind us to the\ndeep-down truth. But there is consolation in the thought that \u201cif\nsomeone dreams ... that his father or mother, his brother or sister has\ndied,\u201d Freud does not \u201cuse the dream as a proof that he wishes them\ndead _now_.... The theory of dreams ... is satisfied with concluding\nthat the dreamer has wished them dead ... at some one time in\nchildhood.\u201d[78] And to console us still further, he adds (p. 214) that\na child has no idea \u201cof the terror of the Infinite Nothing.\u201d\n\nPursuing the infinite nothing of this now happily satisfied dream\ntheory, we discover that \u201cdreams of the death of parents predominately\nrefer to that member of the parental couple which shares the sex of the\ndreamer,\u201d except, of course, in the case of the homo-sexual. Or, \u201cto\nexpress the matter boldly, it is as though a sexual preference becomes\nactive at an early period, as though the boy regards his father as a\nrival in love, and as though the girl takes the same attitude towards\nher mother ... a rival by getting rid of whom he or she cannot but\nprofit.\u201d[79] Dr. Watson, though he knew not the reason, was certainly\nright in saying that bringing up children was a perilous business. What\nelse would the fate of Laius and Jocasta lead us to expect?\n\nTo put the matter beyond doubt, Freud cites the case of an\neight-year-old girl of his acquaintance, who, if her mother happens to\nbe called away from the table, reveals her psychic enormity by saying,\n\u201cNow I shall be Mamma. Charles, do you want some more vegetables?\u201d[80]\nFreud is not a man to be deceived by the seeming innocence of play. And\nhe blames \u201cthat sanctity which we have ascribed to the injunctions of\nthe Decalogue\u201d[81] for the dullness which keeps us from perceiving the\nincestuous and homicidal tendencies of our young.\n\nIt may be admitted that \u201cno other impulse has had to undergo so much\nsuppression from the time of childhood as the sex impulse\u201d;[82] and,\nthe parental instinct of self-preservation being what it is, the fact\nis not surprising. And these suppressive tactics seem to have been in\nvogue from the earliest times. \u201cThe obscure and primitive ages of human\nsociety give us an unpleasant idea of the power of the father\u201d and\nthe ruthlessness with which it was used. Kronos devours his children\nas the wild boar devours the brood of the sow; Zeus [in the r\u00f4le of\nretributive justice] castrates his father ... and takes his place as\nruler.\u201d[83]\n\nNow, as I remember this legend, Zeus operated with a sickle--an\nimmemorial image of Time. And as Kronos is himself a symbol of Time,\nI long supposed that here was a figurative way of saying that Time\n(Kronos), which devours all things (his children), shall himself\neventually be devoured, as it were by himself--the sickle. But\nevidently the theory of dreams cannot be satisfied by symbols when they\nare used to interpret mythology.\n\nEvidently, too, the time has now arrived in this, our Freudian era,\nfor Kronos to suffer again and as literally as before, notwithstanding\nthe \u201cfrantic attempts\u201d of modern parents to hold on to \u201cwhatever\nremnants of the ... _potestas patris_\u201d remain. The newspapers certainly\nchronicle occasional incidents of this childish rebellion, if not of\nthe frantic efforts which are being made to resist it. Freud even knows\nof a little girl--this one not yet three years old--who \u201ctried to\nstrangle a suckling in the cradle, because she suspected its continued\npresence boded her no good.\u201d[84] So not the parents alone are in\ndanger. In the case of his own children, \u201cwho followed one another\nrapidly,\u201d he \u201cmissed the opportunity to make such observations,\u201d the\nsupplanted baby always being too young to be dangerous at the time when\nits nose was broken--another argument in favor of large families.\n\nHe foresees, however, what is to be dreaded later, for he describes the\npredicament of a man of 31 who had a compulsion-neurosis which took\nsuch a pronounced homicidal form that he (the young man) was forced\nto lock himself in his room and to give the housekeeper the key for\nfear that he should one day commit a murder. The father in this case\nwas dead and beyond the reach of reprisals, so \u201cthe obsessive reproach\ntransferred itself to strangers.\u201d[85]\n\nI do not wish for a moment to suggest that this case was unreal or to\nbelittle its horror. I am dealing merely with a peculiarity of the\ndiagnosis. You will observe that the blame is laid to a \u201creproach.\u201d Had\nthe patient never reproached himself he would have remained normal.\nNow if he was guilty of nothing but some childish fit of temper, and,\nbecause of some senseless system of early training, led to magnify it\nbeyond all reason, the diagnosis may be sound. The danger comes from\nthe attempt to elaborate from these instances of abnormality a general\nsystem of philosophy applicable to life in general. The implication\nthat reproaches should give way and any sort of conduct spared even\ncriticism, is inescapable. For example, Freud says[86] that \u201ca\ncompulsion-neurosis ... corresponds to a super-morality, imposed upon\nthe primary character.\u201d He chooses morality by name as the target of\n_his_ \u201creproach.\u201d\n\nIn the case under consideration, the patient remembered, under\npsycho-analytic treatment, that at the age of seven he had \u201cexpressed\nenmity\u201d towards his father, and (still under treatment) at once\n\u201crealized that the hatred lay much deeper still.\u201d Remorse, awakened\nby the father\u2019s painful last illness, had brought about that\nfatal \u201csuper-morality,\u201d without which the son might have remained\nunrepentant, normal and happy. \u201cAnyone,\u201d Freud ominously adds, \u201ccapable\nof wishing to push his own father from a mountain-top into an abyss is\ncertainly not to be trusted to spare the lives of those not so closely\nbound to him. He does well to lock himself into his room.\u201d[87]\n\nHere the psychiatrist distinctly gives to the childish wish that very\nimportance which would naturally lead to excessive repressive measures\nand to abnormal interior reproach. Moreover, it follows that all of us\nwho are not \u201csharply distinguished from ordinary human beings\u201d would do\nwell to lock ourselves up. For we are not only capable of entertaining\nsuch a wish, we have--so Freud has been telling us through fifty or\nsixty pages--already entertained it, time and time again. Which brings\nus to our--\n\n_Sixth and Last Assumption_: That the cure for hysterical symptoms (and\nthese include most of the ills to which flesh is heir) is the recapture\nby consciousness of the lost knowledge of that circumstance which drove\nthe original wish-thought into the limbo of the lower psychic locality.\n\nThe procedure is for the patient to dream a dream, or if he cannot do\nthis to make up a dream, which the psychiatrist \u201canalyzes.\u201d Then the\npatient lies down on a couch, \u201crelaxes,\u201d and repeats whatever random\nthoughts come into his head as the various parts of the dream are\nbrought to his attention. These \u201cassociated\u201d thoughts are analyzed\nin their turn. If there is reluctance, the operator knows he has\nencountered modesty (\u201cresistance,\u201d he calls it) and has got the range.\nHe can now tell where to train his guns. For all these neuroses,\npsychoses and psycho-neuroses (mental troubles in general and their\nphysical results) are, according to the hypothesis, the children of\nshame. Kill shame, and the brats perish. That is what it amounts to.\n\nIt may have seemed unaccountable that it should have been thought\nnecessary to invent an elaborate system of dream interpretation when\nthe psychiatrist is convinced from the moment his office door-bell\nrings that he is about to be confronted with a case of suppressed\nincest. But the hocus-pocus serves its turn. Never has the ingenuity\nof man devised a more effective excuse for the discussion of the\nabominations of the human heart.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d cries Freud, \u201cmy analyses bring about cures!\u201d\n\nGranted. But that only proves that Freud the man is better than Freud\nthe scientist and philosopher.\n\nThe world is full of miserable wretches whose early education was of\nthe most atrocious kind; who were first permitted improper contacts,\nand then taught that their infantile imaginings were unpardonable\nsins. The doctor poo-poos the whole matter, and they are relieved. In\nother words, if he is a wise doctor, he tries to remedy the defects\nof education by re-education. So long as he has to deal with those\nsuffering from abuse, or from starvation of natural desires--desires\nwhich have failed of their ordinary satisfaction without having been\nsublimated by devotion to higher aims--so long as he deals with these\nunwilling anchorites and pitiable social victims, he does well.\n\nBut what if he writes books, circulating in huge editions among the\nnormal and spreading the doctrine that mental disease comes from\nrestraint, and not from the rank growth of passions, undisciplined or\nmerely balked?\n\nAs to this, I will quote the opinion of Judge William McAdoo, Chief\nMagistrate of the City of New York. The Judge sees some half-million\ncriminal cases pass through the courts every year, so can hardly be\naccused of speaking without opportunities for gathering information.\nAnd he says in a recent article[88] that psycho-analysis is one of the\nmost \u201cactive\u201d evils \u201ceffecting modern youth.\u201d Parents, he tells us,\nhave been led to believe that any attempt to \u201csuppress\u201d the desires of\ntheir children is likely to lead to dangerous \u201ccomplexes.\u201d Hence \u201cthe\ncomplete collapse of parental authority,\u201d of what Freud himself has\ncalled \u201cthe antiquated _potestas patris_.\u201d\n\nBut Freud is but one of the figures in a movement, and by following\nhis dreaming for a few more pages we shall be able to learn yet other\nstrange things which are not so, and some--yet stranger--which are.\n\n\n5. FREUD THE METAPHYSICIAN\n\nSuperficially considered, Freud is the very antithesis of Dr. Watson.\nThe behaviorist, indeed, will have none of him. In his \u201cMyth of the\nUnconscious\u201d he accuses him of having \u201cresorted to voodooism instead of\nfalling back upon his early scientific training.\u201d[89] He even suggests\nthat the psychiatrist was \u201cmuch influenced in his youth by the fable\nof the devils who took flight into the Gadarene swine.\u201d Nevertheless,\nWatsonianism and Freudianism are parts of the same gigantic piece of\nmystification.\n\nFreud may speak of the \u201cunconscious\u201d and Dr. Watson of the\n\u201cunverbalized\u201d; the one of \u201cunconditioned reflexes,\u201d the other of \u201ca\nprimary psychic apparatus\u201d; but both agree in effect that the will is\na mere phenomenon resulting from the preponderance of forces, that the\nself is a collection of movements after the things which move have been\ntaken away. In other words, both are mechanists. Their difference is in\ntemperament.\n\nNor is even this difference very profound. The two philosophies\nhave but one effect--to sanction _laissez-faire_ in matters of sex.\nA verbalized but otherwise unconditioned \u201cgut-reaction\u201d is but a\nconscious \u201clibido\u201d freed from the suppression which might create\na \u201ccomplex.\u201d Dr. Watson\u2019s superiority lies in his insistence upon\neducation where sex is not involved. Freud\u2019s superiority is literary.\n\nBut there are two Freuds, the literary and the metaphysical. In\ntelling dreams no mortal ever dared to tell before, he uses language\nthat he who runs may read. In his book on \u201cWit in its Relation to the\nUnconscious\u201d--one of the most complete compendiums of smutty stories in\nthe world--he proves himself a lively raconteur. But when he seeks to\nplunge deep down to the roots of things, his style suddenly becomes a\nChinese puzzle. Take, for instance, the following paragraph from pages\n478 and 479 of \u201cThe Interpretation of Dreams\u201d: \u201cWhen I termed one of\nthe psychic processes in the psychic apparatus the primary process,\nI did so not only in consideration of the order of precedence and\ncapability, but also as admitting the temporal relations to a share\nin the nomenclature. As far as our knowledge goes there is no psychic\napparatus possessing only the primary process, and in so far it is a\ntheoretic fiction; but so much is based on fact, that the primary\nprocesses are present in the apparatus from the beginning, while the\nsecondary processes develop gradually in the course of life.\u201d\n\nIn the original German this seems, to me at least, even less like\nlanguage than it does in the Brill translation. So much less that one\nevening as I was puzzling over it, trying in vain to make it fit into\nany conceivable sense, I fell asleep. And as I slept I dreamed; and as\nI dreamed Freud appeared to me, and, after considerable persuasion,\nproceeded to re-translate:\n\n\u201cWhen I said that one of the psychic processes was the primary process,\nI meant that it was not only first in capacity but first in the time of\nits appearance.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery good,\u201d said I. \u201cKindly go on.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs far as we know,\u201d he did go on, \u201cthere is no psychic apparatus in\nexistence, and there never was one, which possesses only the primary\nprocess. Therefore it is a theoretic fiction to suppose that there can\nbe a primary process standing alone.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy then,\u201d I interrupted, \u201cdo you complicate matters with a theoretic\nfiction when they are complicated enough, in all conscience, if we\nbother only with facts?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause,\u201d--and his tone showed some asperity, as if he were addressing\na stupid pupil, \u201cbecause the primary processes are present in the\napparatus from the beginning, while the secondary processes develop\ngradually in the course of life.\u201d\n\nI gasped. \u201cAccording to that there _is_ a time when the primary\napparatus _does_ stand alone, viz, the time before the secondary\nprocess develops. I thought you just said there was no such time?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou needn\u2019t be rude,\u201d said the great man. \u201cNobody is supposed to read\nthese obscure passages. But I have to write them, just as a doctor\nhas to talk a little Latin when you go to him for a prescription. You\nwouldn\u2019t respect him if he didn\u2019t. Besides, what difference does it\nmake whether the primary apparatus ever stands alone or not?\u201d\n\nIn my dream I pondered this for a long time before replying:\n\n\u201cPerhaps it doesn\u2019t make any difference, in a theoretic fiction. But if\nyou mean that the primary apparatus is real, the idea that it can come\nfirst and stand alone seems to imply that it really comes first and\nreally stands alone, not only in the individual but in the universe.\nThat would mean that the universe was built from the bottom upwards.\u201d\n\nThe Freudian dream-image nodded. \u201cOf course--just the way we build a\nhouse.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d I objected, \u201cif we build a house _we_ build it--the house does\nnot build itself. Therefore the house begins with something even higher\nthan its roof. So it is really built from the top down. So is the\ncosmos, if you will admit that its builder and maker was God. But if I\nlet you build a man from his primary psychic apparatus up, you will be\nsaying next that the universe was built from _its_ primary apparatus\nup--that is, from a theoretic fiction.\u201d\n\nFreud lighted a dream-cigar and sat down. \u201cI\u2019m no worse than the\ntheologians,\u201d he smiled. \u201cThey say the universe was created out of\nnothing.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat theologian,\u201d I retorted, \u201cever said that the universe created\nitself out of nothing? Your own Old Testament suggests that God created\nthe universe out of nothing but Himself.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you profess to understand that?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly not. The beginning and the end are postulated together in\none great mystery. But it isn\u2019t a mystery which we invented. We found\nit here. It is a mystery with force in it--something which goes.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe are such stuff as dreams are made of,\u201d said Freud. \u201cAnd dreams come\nfrom a suppressed libido.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo? How about a dog\u2019s dream?\u201d I suddenly asked. \u201cDoes that, too, come\nfrom a suppressed libido--a suppressed puppy libido? Or is it due to a\nsuper-morality restraining a mother-fixation?\u201d\n\n\u201cHow do you know that dogs dream?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the same way I know that you dream. I infer it from the way you\nact.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo dream of a dog,\u201d he responded heavily, paraphrasing one of his own\npages, \u201cis to dream of the major function--French, _chien_; German,\n_Chier_.\u201d He had willfully missed the point.\n\nAnd so the dream went on and on, until I finally woke up and began idly\nto turn the pages of the great Dream Book itself. It was difficult\nto believe that I was not still asleep, for I kept coming upon such\npassages as the following, from page 442: \u201cTo speak figuratively,\nit is quite possible that a day-thought plays the part of the\ncontractor (_entrepreneur_) in the dream. But ... no matter what idea\nthe contractor may have in his mind, and how desirous he may be of\nputting it into operation, he must depend upon a capitalist to defray\nthe necessary expenses; and this capitalist ... is invariably and\nindisputably a wish from the unconscious. In other cases the capitalist\nhimself is the contractor for the dream; this, indeed, seems to be the\nmore usual case. An unconscious wish is produced by the day\u2019s work,\nwhich in turn creates the dream. The dream processes, moreover, run\nparallel with all the other possibilities of the economic relationship\nused here as an illustration. Thus the _entrepreneur_ may contribute\nsome capital himself, or several _entrepreneurs_ may jointly supply the\ncapital required by the _entrepreneur_.\u201d\n\nThis is certainly a moving picture. We seem to be looking upon\na lively scene in the financial district, with contractors and\ncapitalists running hither and thither, forming combinations for the\nprosecution of great works. Yet it is a scene which belongs properly\nto \u201cAlice in Wonderland,\u201d not in a book purporting to be scientific.\nIt is a conjurer\u2019s trick, worked by that initial phrase, \u201cTo speak\nfiguratively.\u201d\n\nNow anybody who admits the existence of God, of a life which is vital\nrather than mechanical, has the right to speak figuratively. With him\nfigures are the signs and symbols of real things. They have force\nbecause they are the personifications of real forces whose existence he\nis prepared to admit outside of metaphor.\n\nBut with the materialist, figures of speech are dishonest subterfuges.\nThey make the impossible seem possible and reasonable. By being\nadmittedly figures of speech, they escape criticism when they come upon\nthe stage. And once there, they act parts possible only to entities\npossessing energy and will--the very things which the mechanistic\nhypothesis professes to exclude from the picture. And in the end it\nis claimed that all things which may be done by these flesh and blood\nactors may be done by the nothings which they stand for.\n\nThis psychic contractor of Freud\u2019s has something \u201cin his mind\u201d which\nhe is \u201cdesirous\u201d of putting into operation! On the stage he is as full\nof reason, consciousness and vim as is Mr. Douglas Fairbanks. But in\nthe Freudian philosophical system, literally considered, he is one of\nthe processes of a primary psychic system standing alone--that is, a\nprocess in a state of things admittedly fictitious.\n\nBut the Great Man goes on:\n\n\u201cThe story of \u0152dipus is the reaction of the imagination to these two\ntypical dreams [of murdering one\u2019s father and marrying one\u2019s mother].\nAnd just as the dream when occurring to an adult is experienced\nwith feelings of resistance, so the legend must contain terror and\nself-chastisement. The appearance which it further assumes is the\nresult of an uncomprehending secondary elaboration which tries to\nmake it serve a theological purpose. The attempt to reconcile divine\nomnipotence with human responsibility must, of course, fail with this\nmaterial as with every other.\u201d[90]\n\nSo it is an \u201cuncomprehending\u201d elaboration which busies itself with\ntrying to reconcile divine omnipotence with human responsibility. One\nwould hardly expect an uncomprehending elaboration to succeed in such a\ntask. As to actual incompatibility of the two ideas, it is such a large\nquestion that I prefer to consider it later under another head. Freud\ngoes on:[91]\n\n\u201cThe unconscious idea, as such, is altogether incapable of entering\ninto the foreconscious, and ... it can exert an influence there only by\nuniting with a harmless idea already belonging to the foreconscious, to\nwhich it transfers its intensity and under which it allows itself to be\nconcealed.\u201d\n\n\u201cAllows itself to be concealed!\u201d It has intelligence and purpose, this\nunconscious thought. A cunning fellow for a mere reflex in a process\nantedating memory and reason. But the theatre has suddenly become dark\nwith purple shadows through which absurdity stalks, obscure but naked\nand unashamed. The unconscious wish is incapable of entering into the\nforeconscious, but, without entering it, nevertheless manages to exert\nan influence there, by means of what go-between Freud only knows; for\nthe \u201charmless idea\u201d with which union is to be made is already beyond\nreach in the foreconscious. Nor is this all.\n\n\u201cThe relations existing for the repressed idea are similar to the\nsituation existing in Austria for the American dentist, who is\nforbidden to practice unless he gets permission from a regular\nphysician to use his name on the public signboard and thus cover the\nlegal requirements. Moreover, just as it is naturally not the busiest\nphysicians who form such alliances with dental practitioners, so in\nthe psychic life only such foreconscious or conscious ideas are chosen\nto cover a repressed idea as have not themselves attracted much ...\nattention.\u201d[92]\n\nThe _entrepreneur_ (French for \u201cundertaker\u201d) has now become a dentist,\nand the entire Austrian code of civil procedure has been introduced\ninto the psychic apparatus. Yet, such is the lure of figurative speech,\nso easy is it to fancy that whatever can be true of the figure is\nnecessarily true of the abstraction for which it \u201cdoubles,\u201d that even\nFreud obviously thinks he is saying something.\n\nHe proceeds to speak of \u201coccupation,\u201d meaning not occupation but the\npossession of energy. And in this way we come to the problem of Will,\nin these words:[93] \u201cIt is probable that the principle of pain first\nregulates the displacements of occupation automatically, but it is\nquite possible that the consciousness of these qualities adds a second\nand more subtile regulation which may even oppose the first.... The\nautomatic control of the primary principle of pain and the restriction\nof mental capacity connected with it are broken by the sensible\nregulations which in their turn are again automatisms.\u201d And again: \u201cThe\nmental processes are in themselves devoid of quality except for the\nexcitement of pleasure and pain accompanying them,\u201d which, as we know,\nare to be held in check as possible \u201cdisturbers of thought.\u201d[94]\n\nThis, if it means anything, means that energy in the primary psychic\nsystem is automatically regulated by pleasure and pain. But the primary\nprocesses are not only unconscious, they are incapable of becoming\nconscious. \u201cThere are,\u201d we are told,[95] \u201ctwo kinds of unconscious\n... both are unconscious in the psychological sense; but in our sense\nthe first, which we call the unconscious, is likewise incapable of\nconsciousness.\u201d Freud, like Dr. Watson, attempts to conceive of\npleasure, pain and unconsciousness altogether. He, like the great\nbehaviorist, subtracts the quality of painfulness from pain and the\nquality of pleasurableness from pleasure, and fancies that he has\nsomething left--something capable of regulating our unconscious conduct\nautomatically.\n\nEven when we come to the secondary process, with its \u201csensible\nregulation,\u201d these \u201cin their turn are again automatisms.\u201d And though\nthey have no quality except as exciters of pleasure and pain, this\nexcitement must be held in check as a possible disturber of thought--of\nthe sensible regulations. So these higher mental processes, which\nhave no quality save the one of which they are deprived, yet\nexercise a control at once \u201csensible\u201d and \u201cautomatic\u201d over their more\nhumble neighbors in the psychic basement. And somewhere there is \u201ca\nrestriction of mental capacity.\u201d With this last statement I have no\nquarrel.\n\n\u201cWhat part,\u201d Freud wants to know,[96] \u201cnow remains in our description\nof the once all-powerful and all overshadowing consciousness?\u201d Very\nlittle, one would think. \u201cNone,\u201d he says, \u201cother than that of a sensory\norgan for the perception of psychic qualities.... The psychic process\nwhich is turned to the outer world is itself the outer world for the\nsensory organ of consciousness.\u201d\n\nSo the lower sensory organ, turned towards the world, is unconscious.\nAnd the higher sensory organ, turned towards the lower, is an\nautomatism. No doubt it is true that \u201cthe most complex mental\noperations are possible without the cooperation of consciousness,\u201d and\nthat \u201cthe state of becoming conscious depends upon the exercise of a\ncertain psychic function, viz, attention.\u201d[97] But not even attention\ncan be moved about by nothing. And one complex mental operation which\ncannot operate without consciousness is rational control. To suppose\nthat the boss of a job does not know what he is doing is to suppose\nthat the job is without a rational boss.\n\nFor yet another time the attempt to create a psychology without a\nveritable Psyche falls to the ground. Freud\u2019s fictional apparatus lands\nhim squarely upon the spot marked by Dr. McDougall\u2019s X. Once more\nhis verbalization has brought him into complete agreement with the\nunappreciative Dr. Watson. But what has all this to do with science?\nLet us find out.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[47] \u201cPsycho-Analysis,\u201d by R. B. Hingley, B.A., Edinburgh, second\nedition, 1922, p. 17.\n\n[48] \u201cThe Interpretation of Dreams,\u201d p. 172.\n\n[49] _Ibid._, p. 244, note.\n\n[50] _Op. cit._, p. 241.\n\n[51] _Ibid._, p. 388.\n\n[52] _Op. cit._, p. 195.\n\n[53] _Op. cit._, p. 106.\n\n[54] At the bottom of p. 171.\n\n[55] \u201cWhat is the price of Graz?\u201d An expression used by the Viennese\nwhen they wish to boast of wealth.\n\n[56] _Op. cit._, p. 179.\n\n[57] _Op. cit._, p. 325.\n\n[58] _Ibid._, p. 474.\n\n[59] _Op. cit._, p. 405.\n\n[60] _Loc. cit._\n\n[61] _Op. cit._, p. 120.\n\n[62] _Op. cit._, p. 439, note.\n\n[63] _Ibid._, p. 456.\n\n[64] _Ibid._, p. 439.\n\n[65] \u201cThe Interpretation of Dreams,\u201d p. 240.\n\n[66] _Op. cit._, p. 224.\n\n[67] _Op. cit._, p. 221.\n\n[68] _Ibid._, p. 439.\n\n[69] _The Century Magazine_, September, 1927.\n\n[70] \u201cThe Interpretation of Dreams,\u201d p. 136.\n\n[71] _Op. cit._, p. 390.\n\n[72] _Vide_ p. 155.\n\n[73] _Op. cit._, p. 246.\n\n[74] _Op. cit._, p. 486.\n\n[75] _Ibid._, p. 329.\n\n[76] _Ibid._, p. 226.\n\n[77] _Ibid._, p. 226.\n\n[78] _Op. cit._, p. 211.\n\n[79] _Ibid._, pp. 216-217.\n\n[80] _Ibid._, p. 218.\n\n[81] _Vide_ _op. cit._, p. 217.\n\n[82] _Ibid._, p. 240.\n\n[83] _Ibid._, p. 217.\n\n[84] _Ibid._, p. 213.\n\n[85] _Op. cit._, p. 221.\n\n[86] _Ibid._, p. 212.\n\n[87] _Ibid._, p. 221.\n\n[88] _The Ladies\u2019 Home Journal_, October, 1927.\n\n[89] _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, September, 1927\n\n[90] _Op. cit._, p. 224.\n\n[91] _Ibid._, p. 443.\n\n[92] _Op. cit._, p. 444.\n\n[93] _Ibid._, p. 388-489.\n\n[94] _Ibid._, p. 490.\n\n[95] _Ibid._, p. 488.\n\n[96] _Op. cit._, p. 489.\n\n[97] _Ibid._, pp. 469-470.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE FAIRY HALLS OF SCIENCE\n\n\n1. THE IDOLS OF THE TRIBE\n\nWhenever I stand beside one of those wonders of modern achievement, a\ngreat turbine engine, for example, smoothly and silently performing\nthe work of a myriad men, I feel like taking off my hat to the\ngeniuses (for the most part unnamed and unknown) who have made such\na thing possible. There may be two opinions about the social effect\nof machinery, but there can be no two opinions about the prodigies of\nintelligence which have gone into its making.\n\nEverybody knows that machinery is scientific. And because of the vast\nesteem which our master mechanics rightly enjoy, the word Science has\ncome to command a reverence once accorded only to the name of God.\nIt is no longer possible to advertise a toy or a tooth-brush without\ncalling it \u201cscientific.\u201d\n\nBut what is Science? Is it a synonym for Truth? By no means. It is not\neven a search for truth. Truth is something general; the highest truth\nis universal. The search for it is called Philosophy. Science, as we\nnow understand it, did not begin to have an independent existence until\nit definitely abandoned Truth as its province and devoted itself to the\nstudy of those--not general but particular phenomena known as facts.\nWhen we say that Science is classified knowledge we mean that it is\nour classified knowledge of facts. And in that word \u201cclassified\u201d lies\nthe root of its only difference from common sense.\n\nScience is also a method for ascertaining new facts as well as the\nclassification of those we already know. What do we mean when we say\nthat science is a method? What is its method? Every schoolboy can\nanswer, \u201cThe method of science is the experimental method.\u201d\n\nThe experimental method itself is less generally understood. To\nexperiment without an object in view is like starting on a journey\nwith no destination in mind. In the vernacular phrase, it does not\nget you anywhere. The object of an experimenter is always to prove or\nto disprove something. And what is there for him to prove? A fact,\nonce established, is already proven. But behind one fact there always\nlies another, and behind that yet others. We soon leave the world of\ncertainty and find ourselves in the world of theories. It is a theory,\nthen, which the experimentalist seeks to prove--his own theory, while\ndisproving that of somebody else. Theories, dignified by the name\nhypotheses, are as necessary to science as are microscopes and scales.\nThey are invented generalities used as conveniences in a region where\nTruths are too much to expect. A hypothesis does not even pretend to\nbe true. It is merely the best approximation, the best guess, possible\nunder the circumstances.\n\nEvery scientist worthy of the name has at one time or another said\nsomething like the following: \u201cThe only thing we positively know about\na hypothesis is that it is to a certain extent wrong. Progress is made\nby gradually substituting the less erroneous for the more erroneous,\nuntil the hypothesis is finally established in a modified form as a\nfact, or becomes so untenable that it must be abandoned altogether. In\neither case, it has served its turn.\u201d Thus Darwin, true scientist that\nhe was, characterized his theories as to the descent of man as \u201chighly\nspeculative,\u201d adding, \u201cSome will no doubt prove erroneous.\u201d[98]\n\nThe ideal scientist, therefore, never becomes dogmatic, never cocksure.\nHe knows that though Truth be not relative, Knowledge is. He forever\ndeals with conclusions which are highly tentative, and constantly\nwaits for that appeal to experience which will reveal his mistakes.\nUnfortunately, scientists are but men, and the ideal scientist no more\nexists than does the ideal Christian. Only those whose specialties keep\nthem constantly close to experience remain truly scientific for any\nlength of time--which is one of the reasons why most of our progress\nhas been made in physics and chemistry.\n\nFrancis Bacon, who is generally credited with having first put science\nupon the firm ground of inductive reasoning, or generalizing from\nobserved particulars, says in his _Novum Organum_:[99] \u201cHaving first\ndetermined the question according to his will, man then resorts to\nexperience; and bending her into conformity ... leads her about like a\ncaptive in a procession.\u201d\n\nHow well Bacon understood our human nature\u2019s proneness to determine\nquestions according to its will, and then to bend experience to fit\nthe occasion! But he did not call this method the scientific method.\nOn the contrary, he described it as one of those \u201cIdols of the Tribe,\u201d\nor habits leading to error, to which everybody is subject. And he only\n_hoped_ that science would avoid it as much as possible.\n\nTrue science has avoided it--as much as possible. But how little\ntrue science we have! The experimental method is so limited in its\napplication that there are few matters important to human life which\ncan be put to the test of immediate experience. We must wait long\nyears for experience in general to tell its tale, and even then its\nconclusions are not always convincing. To be convincing, experience\nmust take place under conditions of our own contriving, every unknown\ninfluence eliminated. And the experience must be repeated time and\nagain. The field of true science is, therefore, one of the narrowest in\nthe world. Much that goes by the name of science is but semi-science,\npseudo-science, false science, or no science at all.\n\nThe ideal scientist, having suffered an initial experience, then forms\na tentative hypothesis merely to direct his subsequent experiments,\nand never for an instant permits his enthusiasm for theory to warp his\njudgment regarding fact. But as there are no ideal scientists, what is\nto be done? Bacon thus notes what is to be expected:\n\n\u201cThe human understanding, when any proposition has been once laid down\n... forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation: and\nalthough most cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary,\nyet [the understanding] either does not observe, or despises them, or\nit gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and\ninjurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first\nconclusions.\u201d[100]\n\nHow highly fateful, then, must have been those first propositions\nwhich modern science laid down in its infancy. But man is not to be\nbalked by his own infirmities. Since he cannot hope to abolish the\nworship of this particular Idol of the Tribe, cannot hope to be led by\nnon-existent ideal scientists, he will make a virtue of his necessity\nand reap what good he may from his very shortcomings. Men will not\nabandon their fetishes and become reasonable. Very well, then, we\nwill incorporate the Idol of the Tribe in our general method, and let\nabuses correct themselves. We will give them rope until they are hanged\nthereby.\n\nThis is precisely what has been done. Bacon\u2019s Idol of the Tribe, the\nhuman tendency to bend experience to suit theory, has been put upon a\npedestal and crowned with the high-sounding name of a principle called\n\u201cThe Economy of Hypotheses.\u201d\n\nOf two possible explanations of a phenomenon, that one is chosen which\nrequires the fewer suppositions, the least departure from hypotheses\nalready existing.\n\nThis is nothing more nor less than the principle of conservatism,\nand probably, in the long run, it does more good than harm. It is a\nprotection against wild and radical theories. It gives men a chance\nfor that long and intense application which they will give to nothing\nbut to the defense of old and cherished beliefs. But it makes the\ncorrection of a fundamental error a very slow business, and though a\npart of the now recognized methods of science, it is not scientific.\n\nIt is, however, immensely popular, this principle of the economy of\nhypotheses. The other ideal--that of submitting continually to the\nstern discipline of trial--never appealed to the man in the street.\nFor ages he was prejudiced against science altogether. He left it to\nmonks and such people. Then, finally--and not so very long ago--the\nidea, having proved a money-maker, was \u201csold\u201d to him. He swallowed it\nhook, line and sinker, until today he will not admit that he has a\npain in the stomach unless he finds in his basic theories something\nwhich will let him account for it. What we need now is to be reminded\nto be economical not with our hypotheses but with our credulity, our\nacceptance of hypotheses as final. For there are still many things in\nheaven and earth not dreamed of in our major syntheses.\n\nA major synthesis, of course, is that broadest, most shadowy, least\ndependable, but widely inclusive hypothesis by which it is sought to\nbind all minor theories into one more or less coherent system. It is\nthe point where science most nearly approaches to philosophy, the\npoint where, according to its own premises regarding the authority of\nexperience, it should be most cautious and humble. The making of a\nmajor synthesis is an awesome business. The fall of a major synthesis\nmarks the end of an epoch. We are now living at the end of such an\nepoch, though the pseudo-scientists do not appear to be yet aware\nof the fact. And the major synthesis which has fallen is that which\nsought to bind all phenomena together as manifestations of matter--the\nMechanist Hypothesis.\n\nThat the Mechanist Hypothesis should be the first generalization of\nmodern science was inevitable. It began with astronomy, the first\nscience to dare to call itself \u201cexact.\u201d In astronomy we cannot\nexperiment. We cannot take planets and comets and suns, and subject\nthem to laboratory conditions. But we can at least make observations;\nand what we observe appears to be matter, pure and simple.\n\nThen came physics and chemistry, throwing off the attempt to be magic\nand buckling down to practical jobs. Both experiment and observation\nwere possible here--and still matter held the field. Matter, it was\nsoon noted, had exceedingly regular habits. And when it failed to\nfollow one habit, continued observation would discover that it was only\nfollowing some other. These habits came to be called laws, and it was\npractically impossible not to confound laws with force.\n\nIn the back of the scientific mind were those human laws--customs,\nbehind which was Government, always ready to manifest itself as the\nforce in a policeman\u2019s club. And back of that was the idea of the laws\nof God--of a real God with all the force of the universe in His hand.\n\n\u201cOur laws are the laws of God,\u201d said the early scientist, quite\nrightly. And then, after he had abandoned that ancient idea, the\n\u201chypothesis of a God,\u201d he continued to say it, not realizing how\nridiculous and empty his notion of \u201claw\u201d had become. Eventually he\ndid begin to see this, and was minded to drop force altogether. A law\nbecame merely the way things acted under given circumstances, and force\nmerely a persistence in such action--in other words, the way in which\nother things would act which stood in the way.\n\nA given amount of some substance put into a scale pan will lift the\nsame amount of the same substance to a level with it, and this behavior\nof the substance in the second pan is the measure of the \u201cforce\u201d of\ngravity moving the substance in the first pan. As to the nature of\nforce itself, the scientist came to say that it lay outside of his\nprovince--which was well and good. Pseudo-sciences went further, and\nsaid that there was no such thing as force--quite another pair of\nshoes. But long before this, which marks the end and not the beginning\nof the last scientific epoch, the Mechanist Hypothesis had been\nformulated in terms recognizing both force and matter, and brought to\nthe attention of the average man through the writings of Newton.\n\nSir Isaac Newton had one of the greatest minds granted to a human being\nsince the Reformation; yet inadvertently he did his fellows about the\nmost evil turn which modern history records. He robbed them of their\nbelief in free will--or if not quite that, he at least induced them to\nabandon those fundamental propositions upon which alone the belief in\nfree will can reasonably be based.\n\nFree will presupposes force--real force--at the disposition of the\nwill. A will without force is a powerless will--no will at all. And\na man without will is not a man; he is not even an animal. He is on\na level with his own lawn-mower. Upon free will depends not only all\nreligion, all ethics, all sense of human responsibility, but our\nphysical and mental well-being, our happiness, our very self-respect.\nIf we are but weathercocks, blown this way and that by every breeze,\nit is folly to talk of striving; of reasoning; of good or of evil; of\nloyalty or of treason; of anything which makes us act indeed like human\nbeings. It is folly to speak even of consciousness. What good could\nit do us? We might as well surrender to Dr. Watson at once--and it is\nfolly for him to write books to tell us so, though a folly which he\ncannot help. To rob man of his will would be to rob him of his life,\nand to rob him of his belief in the freedom of his will is to rob\nhim of all faith in any means proposed to make life better. Yet our\nmechanists one and all pretend to be philanthropists, and nearly all\nare reformers. Every day of their lives is a self-contradiction.\n\nSir Isaac Newton, when he saw the apple fall and deduced the law of\ngravitation, did not intend to precipitate another Fall of Man. He\nseems to have been quite unmindful of the evil reputation of the fruit\nin question. Nor would much harm have been done had not his discovery\nbeen one of those rare scientific ventures which are \u201cgood theatre.\u201d\nEverybody has seen apples fall. Nobody can ignore gravity. The law\nwas the best newspaper story of a scientific sort since Copernicus and\nGalileo dislodged the earth from the center of the universal stage. It\ngave Newton such prestige that his slightest word became Gospel.\n\nMuch of this prestige was deserved. His laws were, and still\nare, mighty monuments of human genius. The trouble came from the\nimplications that were drawn from them. The mechanistic hypothesis\nhad long been in existence--no fruit of science, but both root and\nbranch of an old mechanistic philosophy. Descartes had brought it up\nto date. So Newton adopted it in preference to any other philosophy.\nAnd his worship of that Idol of the Tribe, the economy of hypotheses,\nled him to arrange his laws so as to cause as little disturbance to\nCartesianism as possible.\n\nThe result was a world in which the Conservation of Energy was the only\nreal God. Neither energy nor matter could be created or destroyed.\nWhatever went into anything, that or its equivalent came out. A \u201cfree\u201d\ncreature gives out more energy than it receives. Therefore to believe\nin freedom was to be crazy.\n\nMoreover, the \u201claws\u201d did account very well for most of the known\nphysical phenomena of the day. There were then no Becquerel rays,\nX-rays, actinium, radium, protons, electrons, quanta or ultramicroscopy\nto be dealt with. Accurate observation was in its infancy. Materialism\nwas in the very air. Had not science won its first triumphs by looking\nat matter and ignoring everything else? Newton lived some two hundred\nyears ago. His \u201cclosed system\u201d of a universe in which all creative\nactivity had ceased, though it gave us a life without a future, a\nlife wherein everything had already as good as happened, a life that\nwas really a moving death with its future behind it--this all fitted\namazingly well with the static ideas of the age. It was a Calvin\u2019s\nuniverse, unlit by the fires even of fanaticism. Prayer was futile.\nInitiative an illusion. Heaven and hell either non-existent or\nforedoomed. We were here but to turn the pages of a book printed long\nbefore we were born.\n\nActual mechanics, busy at their work-benches, satisfied with a\nhypothesis which was accurate enough for their immediate needs, thought\nvery little of these far-reaching implications. But here were weapons\nforged to a nicety for the hands of the leaders of that vast movement\nwhich today we loosely and inaccurately call modern paganism--it\nbeing neither pagan nor modern, but an old, old disease marked by\nthe hardening of the arteries of the soul self-deprived of conscious\ncommunion with God. Pains were taken to bring Newton\u2019s findings home\nto every intellect. Popular science became intensely interesting,\nand hot with fervor; for in reality it was not science at all but\nanti-religious propaganda--and this even when it sugar-coated itself,\nas it sometimes did, with phrases having what might pass for a pious\ntaste.\n\nBut it was more than even the \u201ctough-minded\u201d--that is to say,\nsclerotic-brained--long could endure. Oliver L. Reiser, of the\nUniversity of Pittsburg (a writer for _The Monist_) goes so far as\nto say that \u201chad Newton been able to foresee the inevitable logical\nconsequences of his doctrine in the godless universe of Laplace, he\nmight have been constrained towards a more hospitable regard for the\nviews of Leibniz\u201d--the reference, of course, being to the attempt of\nLeibniz to reconcile the mechanical Cartesian universe with the idea\nthat creation, after all, has a meaning and a purpose. Newton, indeed,\nmight have done even more than this.\n\nBut he died leaving us nothing but a big machine which continued\nto dominate men\u2019s minds until about the year 1890, when the whole\nthing suddenly broke down. Says R. A. Millikan, of the Norman Bridge\nLaboratory of Physics, writing recently for _Scribner\u2019s_: \u201cIn [the\ndiscovery of radio-activity and the electrical constitution of\nmatter] the physical world changed in our thinking over night in its\nfundamental elements from a fixed, changeless, static, dead thing,\nto a changing, evolving, dynamic, living organism. Two principles,\nconservation of mass and conservation of energy, are now gone, clean\ngone, as distinct and separate verities.\u201d In other words, matter and\nenergy are now thought to be capable of changing, the one into the\nother. In the opinion of G. Urbain,[101] the experiments of Rutherford\nentitle us to say that there are \u201ctwo chemical elements, the electron\nand proton, out of which the universe is made.\u201d But--\u201cwe physical\nchemists of today do not tell what matter is.... The least metaphysical\namong us all see in electrons and protons merely centers of convergence\nof lines of force. That evidently explains nothing fundamental....\nIt makes for us a world formed of minute hairy points, the hairs\nstrikingly abstract.\u201d\n\nSo matter itself is force and nothing else--or rather it is two forces,\nelectrons (negative electricity) and protons (positive electricity)\nlocked together in a strange conflict whose resistance to interference\ngives tangibility and \u201chardness\u201d to the things of the world--all of\nwhich sounds rather as if it had been translated from the Rig-Veda.\nGone by the board is the idea that matter is the fundamental reality,\nthat nothing can happen in the mind but what has first happened in the\nbrain.\n\nBut has mind itself to obey the old law? Is it but a more subtile\nmanifestation of the preponderance of exterior forces? We shall have to\npenetrate yet farther into these fairy halls of science before finding\nan answer to that question.\n\n\n2. SOME NEBULOUS MATTERS\n\nOf all the facts of the old science, none was more firmly established\nthan what was known as the \u201cNebular Hypothesis.\u201d The name \u201chypothesis\u201d\nclung to it always, because \u201cnebular hypothesis\u201d makes an imposing\nmouthful of syllables. Yet it was everywhere treated as a fact. Indeed,\nafter the \u201cfact\u201d of the conservation of energy, it was just about the\nfact of facts. What has become of it now?\n\nA. Vibert Douglas, M.B.E., M.Sc., writing in _Discovery_ for August,\n1925, says, \u201cThe nebular hypothesis of Laplace and the planetesimal\nhypothesis of Chamberlain have gone into the history of science as\ngreat and lasting _monuments_ to their originators.\u201d\n\nMonuments! Memorials marking the last resting place of things now dead.\n\nHow carefully Herbert Spencer used to explain the manner in which a lot\nof star-dust, scattered somehow through the space marked roughly by the\norbit of the planet Neptune, started to contract, revolve, grow warm,\nand to throw off rings (since known as Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Earth,\nMars, _et cetera_) and ended by central concentration in our glowing\nsun. There was nothing difficult to understand about the theory except\nthe language in which Spencer couched it--that is, unless one tried to\nlook beyond and into some of the things which it took for granted. In\nthat case certain questions arose. What scattered the dust in the first\nplace? Would it scatter it again, again, and yet again, thus creating\nthe universe of recurrent phenomena imagined by the horror-loving\nNietzsche? What force separated the rings from the mass and rolled them\nneatly up into planets? Why haven\u2019t Saturn\u2019s rings rolled up? Will\nthey, in time? What is keeping them back? These matters, and various\ndetails which had been observed but by few, troubled the mathematicians.\n\nThey hardly caused the average citizen to lose a wink of sleep. Saturn\nlooked like a working model preserved for school-room purposes. And\nthe nebular hypothesis was a pleasant story to tell to children. But\nthe contrary observations increased and multiplied--for the most part\nwithout getting into the newspapers--until now we have Vibert, with\na host of competent astronomers ready to echo his words, saying, \u201cA\nnebula giving rise to a solar system [is] an impossible hypothesis in\nthe light of modern knowledge.\u201d\n\nThe hypothesis itself has not been altogether carried away to the\nbone-yard. Like an old and faithful horse, it has been taken from the\nshafts and turned out to grass so that it may enjoy its declining years\nin comparative peace. The latter pastures of the nebular hypothesis\nare sufficiently large, for it is being used now to help make stellar\nsystems. As there is little in this far region save assumptions to\ndrag around, the work is light. Fit ending for an honorable career.\nBut astronomers have grown cautious. It is not likely that any of them\nwill be rash enough ever again to impose the weight of a real star,\nlet alone a system, upon the already broken back. They at least know\nthe hypothesis for what it is--a hypothesis, and a dying one. Only\nlaymen, half asleep over their Sunday supplements, now think it was\never anything else.\n\nAnd what has come to take its place? The \u201cBig Star Theory.\u201d An\nastronomer named Jeans brought forward this entry in 1919. He said\nthat if a big star had ever come near enough to the sun, it might have\ncaused a fearful tide of solar substance--a long arm of stuff more or\nless gaseous and very hot--to reach out millions of miles into space.\nAnd from this hypothetical arm (there were really two, but let us not\ncomplicate matters with details), broken into several pieces, the\nplanets might have originated.\n\nThis time there was plenty of force at hand, enough to satisfy all the\nequations which the mathematicians were likely to contrive. No need\nto try to think how the dust had been scattered. The force came from\nthe big star, which Jeans made a very big star indeed, with a diameter\nof eight thousand million kilometers--say about twice the distance of\nthe farthest planet from the sun. Anyway, there was a very big star\nconcerned. Too big. The mathematicians could not use all the force thus\nput at their disposal. Dr. Harold Jeffers therefore reduced the mammoth\nto a diameter of a mere forty million kilometers.\n\nThe mathematicians still objected. It was no longer a question of\nforce. But the theory of probability, they said, made it almost\nunreasonable to suppose that a collision or near collision could\nactually have happened within the lifetime of the sun. So astronomers\nset to work again, some of them to lengthen the past life of the sun,\nothers to bring the stars in general closer together so as to increase\nthe risks of collision. Both parties succeeded admirably. Jeans himself\npublished a calculation which made the sun a million million years\nof age--seven thousand times older than any other calculation had\never made it. There were now seven thousand times more chances of a\ncollision having taken place than there had been when he started.\n\nOthers (you may read an account of their observations in an article\non the Spiral Nebul\u00e6, by C. Wirtz, in _Scientia_, November, 1925),\ndiscovered that when you look long enough and deep enough into the gulf\nof space (about three hundred thousand light-years is as far as you\nneed to go), it looks as if all matter were outward bound, and moving\nfaster and faster all the time. Therefore the stars used to be much\nmore thickly placed here around home than they are now. A collision\nbecomes easy to imagine.\n\nBut why is matter going away from here? Apparently for the same reason\nthat rats leave a sinking ship. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, ought\nto be five times more thickly settled with stars. As things stand, it\nis much too light for its size. It cannot hold itself together and is\nbeing deserted by its outer fringe of suns all the time. Nor is this\nthe worst of it. The very matter of our solar system is fifty-two times\nless dense than it should be. Its critical point--that is, the point\nwhere it will fly to pieces at the slightest provocation--has long\nsince been passed. Some day, a few million years hence, when you get up\nin the morning the morning is likely not to be there. This is not such\na good story to tell to the children.\n\nNor is the situation any better if you turn your back to the stars, and\nlook at those little stars within things which we call atoms. Very much\nto the contrary. Some meteorologists created considerable consternation\na few years ago by prophesying that one of the glacial epochs, probably\nthe last one, was coming back to play a return engagement--decidedly\nnot by request. But what is a glacial epoch or two compared with atoms\nin the state ours are in?\n\n\u201cWe owe to Sir Ernest Rutherford [the great English physicist] what\nis basic in our actual ideas about atoms,\u201d says Urbain.[102] This\nsavant was once a pupil of Pierre Curie, discoverer of radium, and\nspeaks with authority. And he asks: \u201cAs to the atom, have we attained\nsomething real, or only a model, symbolic of observed phenomena?\u201d He\nthen answers his own question by declaring that \u201cit is difficult to\nsay.... Rutherford allowed the electrons [in the atom] to radiate,\nsince it was supposed that the model must obey the standard laws.\u201d The\ndifficulty was that such an atom as Rutherford\u2019s ought, all agreed,\nto be luminous. And all atoms are not luminous. Another difficulty\nwas this. \u201cEach outer electron must gradually approach the central\nnucleus,\u201d--I still quote from Urbain--\u201cfinally falling into it, which\nmeans death.\u201d Presumably it is not intended to be implied that the same\nelectrons which were allowed to radiate ended by falling into the thing\nthey radiated from. Anyway, Urbain continues: \u201cWe might have accepted\nthe death of the stars ... but we cannot that of the atoms. That would\nmean a definite death of the universe.\u201d\n\nFor once, even scientists were appalled. What was to be done?\nSomething, evidently. So an astronomer named Bohr rose to the occasion.\nHe constructed--not another atom, but another \u201cmodel.\u201d This one was\nguaranteed to last forever, and if real atoms would only conform to it\nall would be well.\n\n\u201cBohr\u2019s atom,\u201d says Urbain, \u201cis not a clear explanation, for the\nprivileged orbits [he gave the electrons \u2018privileged orbits\u2019 to keep\nthem contented without either flying off into space or into the\ndeadly nucleus] are not understandable in themselves; neither are\nthe quanta of energy set free by the electrons in leaping from one\nprivileged orbit to another.... Bohr\u2019s models have their own laws with\nno necessary relation to the law of ordinary experiments, and he thus\nturned scientific thought into a new and unknown direction.... In the\nfuture are theories to be built upon such contradictions?\u201d\n\nApparently they are. We have now observed so many things that it is\nflatly impossible to grapple with them, or to find out which ones\nare so and which are not. The \u201cnew and unknown direction\u201d into which\nscientific thought has been turned is clearly that of imagining\nartificial working-models known to be at variance with reality, getting\nwhat satisfaction can be had from the models, and leaving reality to\nshift for itself until some really serious collision with fact damages\nthe model beyond repair. It is not such a new direction, after all,\nbut merely a new frankness which acknowledges the shortcomings of a\nhypothesis from the start without a period of pretending that it is\na genuine \u201cexplanation.\u201d Every new discovery makes the universe--not\neasier, but more difficult to explain. Progress uncovers our ignorance\nmuch faster than it brings us knowledge--arm-chair progress, of course\nexcepted.\n\nSo Urbain is thankful for the new model atom, and says that \u201cBohr, in\nreviving our hopes, is a great benefactor.\u201d Adding, \u201cIt seems necessary\neither to resign ourselves to not understanding, as Bohr has done, or\nto resign ourselves to a model in flagrant violation with experience.\u201d\n\nThose sufficiently resigned to not understanding I now ask to return\nwith me for a short and final visit to those suburban stellar districts\nsituated some three hundred thousand light-years from our sun, where\nmatter is moving ever faster and faster away from us. By a strange\ncontradiction, time in those regions seems to be moving slower and\nslower, as if tired with the long journey and no longer able to keep\nup the killing pace set by the stars. Light, too, appears to be\nlosing the race. Professor Michelson, of the University of Chicago,\nestablished the velocity of light not long ago at 299,796 kilometers\nper second--roughly 186,000 miles. But now Monsignor E. J. Gheury\nde Braye, in an article in _L\u2019Astronomie_, official organ of the\nAstronomical Society of France, declares that the velocity of light\ndecreases by four kilometers every second. We may perhaps grasp a\nmoment\u2019s understanding by saying that this is relativity, that light\nmerely travels slower in comparison with the quickened pace of time and\nmatter in the outer stellar spaces.\n\nThis, however, will not serve us long, for W. de Sitter, the Dutch\nastronomer, taking all these things into consideration, must needs\noffer an \u201cexplanation.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe world of de Sitter,\u201d says Wirtz in summing it up, \u201cis a\nfour-dimensional continuum of space and time, forming the surface of a\nsphere in five-dimensional co-ordinates.\u201d\n\nIf you look wise and pretend in scientific circles that you understand\nthis, you go to the foot of the class. A four-dimensional sphere with\na surface in five-dimensional co-ordinates does not pretend to be\ncomprehensible. To declare it to be graspable by the human mind is to\ninsult it. But it can be used in equations, like any other \u201cimaginary\u201d\nquantity, though--again like any other imaginary quantity--it is quite\nunimaginable.\n\nImaginary quantities are not such awesome nonentities. Anybody can\nmake a few for himself and play with them as well as can anybody else.\nLet us take nothing to begin with, thus--0. Write a 2 under it--0/2.\nWe have now one-half of nothing. Now multiply a cipher by 2, and we\nhave twice nothing, or 2(0)--not for a moment to be confounded with\ntwenty. Then one half of 2(0), or twice nothing, equals two times 0/2,\nor one-half of nothing, because each is equal to nothing at all and\nthings which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other--and\nfor various other reasons.\n\nAbstractions are other imaginary no-things which cannot be imagined.\nA mathematical point has, by hypothesis, neither length, breadth nor\nthickness. We always think of it as a very small dot, having all three.\nYet in dealing with it, mathematically, we ignore these dimensions in\nthe result. A line has length, but no breadth or thickness. We think\nof it as something long and very slender. It is the edge of a solid. A\nplane has length and breadth but no thickness, theoretically speaking.\nWe think of it as a very thin slice of a solid. Try to think of the\nsurface of a solid without thinking of the solid! Abstractions are\nconveniences when we wish to travel light without carrying all the\nmystery of material reality about with us. They are like Bohr\u2019s model\natoms. And like all other unreal things, they have a danger of their\nown.\n\nThe practical man, especially if he be a physicist or a chemist, a\nworker in those domains where our greatest scientific triumphs have\nbeen won, has experience always at his elbow ready to correct his\nerrors whenever they pass beyond a certain point. Invent a machine, or\na shaving soap, and you are immediately compelled to prove that your\ninvention will work. And the only proof which those who invest in such\nthings will accept is the sort of proof which we require of a pudding\nwhen we eat it.\n\nExperience has shown that not even the best calculations ever quite\nverify themselves when put to the test of novel circumstances. A small\nmodel may run smoothly, yet a large machine made in the same way will\ndevelop unexpected flaws. Even increased size is sufficient to upset\nthe forecast. A machine may run for a week, yet become cantankerous\nif we try to make it run for a year. Time adds a new element. So does\nspeed. Chemical compounds which cannot be made to explode in minute\nquantities--coal dust, for example--sometimes work havoc in large\nquantities.\n\nNow the physical sciences, like chemistry and astronomy, deal with the\nsimplest and most tangible things of which we have any knowledge. Yet\nthose who make them their study confess themselves baffled at every\nturn. In these dreadful regions, Science, the real Simon Pure, humble,\nbeautiful and courageous, tries to maintain itself under the pitiless\nbombardment of facts, smoky with the infinite mystery from which they\ncome, that rain every year more violently upon its defenseless head.\n\nWhat has become of the Sunday-supplement, positive, dogmatic,\nyou-are-a-fool-if-you-do-not-agree-with-what-I-say attitude? These\nmen, who do not wish to be mystics, engage in more ghostly talk than\ndid the delegates to the Meta-Physic Congress which met last year\nat the Sorbonne in Paris to discuss telepathy, haunted houses, and\nkindred matters. Gone is the cocksure vanity of the closing nineteenth\ncentury. Gone is the God-defying materialistic impiety, the arrogance,\nthe hard-heartedness of an older and more ignorant day. In this\nultimate dim Thule where the higher syntheses are born, kissing the\ndust is today the only permitted posture. Hypotheses hardly dare to\ncall themselves even hypotheses any more. They are content to be known\nas assumptions, postulations, fancies, guesses, and thankful if they\nmay be allowed to live their unreal existences from the time of the\npublication of one pamphlet to that of the next. Early modern science\nwas drunk with victory. New science is dizzy with awe.\n\nHow comes it, then, that our Dr. Watsons can say that there is no\nmystery in the building of a man? A man! Ah, that is different. We have\nas yet hardly touched upon those positively certain \u201csciences\u201d which\ndeal with human nature, with love, life and destiny.\n\n\n3. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES\n\nHans Driesch, at Jena, working in the very laboratory of Ernst Haeckel\nshortly after the death of that master argument-maker for the mechanist\nconception of life, inadvertently broke a fertile egg in two--and\nthereby broke not in two but into smithereens the whole mechanism of\nthe mechanist which he had been taught to defend. For the egg hatched,\neach half producing a perfect creature as if nothing had happened.\n\nDriesch then reduced a fertile egg fairly to hash--and still each\nfragment functioned like a whole egg. As long as the egg was not\nkilled--and the eggs of primitive creatures are tough eggs except\nwhere temperature and certain poisons are concerned--hashing merely\nmultiplied the hatch.\n\nThe biologist was much disturbed. For it seemed fairly obvious that\nif the design which growth was to follow lay anywhere in the material\nof the eggs, division of said eggs would--if it did not bring the\nwhole vital process to an end--result at least in the division of the\nincubated organisms. One half of an egg should, if it hatched at all,\nhatch a head; the other half a tail--and so on. But this not being\nwhat happened, design could no longer be located in egg material. Any\npart of the material was ready to develop into either head, or tail, or\nwing, or antenn\u00e6, or what not, according to the direction of something\nbeyond the dividing process--something which remained whole in each\npart.\n\nPerhaps the experiment was not conclusive. In these days of model\natoms no doubt somebody can construct a model egg, each atom of which\nis, potentially, a complete chicken. But what troubled Driesch was\nthe immediate necessity of violating a primary principle and being\ncompelled to be extravagant in the matter of hypotheses. Even a model\negg required a great many changes in Haeckelianism.\n\nNow if Driesch had been of an older generation or of a different\npersuasion, he would have found the ideas of Haeckel, not the idea of\nexterior design, extravagant. For one of the most ancient hypotheses\nin the world assumes that the design for everything lies outside of\nits material self. And I sometimes wonder if the principle of economy\nshould not have been earlier applied, before so many of us abandoned\nthis grand old major synthesis which found its highest expression in a\nbelief in God. If it did not explain everything, it at least left room\nfor the explanation of everything. All we had to do was to struggle\nfor a truer and clearer conception of what it meant. Astronomers,\nfor instance, would not now be so hard put to it in the matter of\ninventing Big Star theories, nor physicists in making model atoms\nwhich neither work nor exist, if they were at liberty to suppose that\na forceful spirit lay behind phenomena, lending a guiding hand to all.\nIntellectually that would be at least as satisfactory as points of\nforce surrounded by highly abstract hairs.\n\nBut the idea of God as it emerged from the nineteenth century presented\nitself to many minds as the idea of a rather ridiculous monster--the\nmonster that Sinclair Lewis dared to strike dead,--the monster that\nStephen Crane once fancied as lying \u201cdead in heaven,\u201d and at another\ntime warned not to shake its bloody spears at him if its \u201csublime\nears\u201d did not wish to \u201chear curses.\u201d Neither Crane nor Lewis need have\nshocked anybody. They had each seen a straw man set up, and were but\nproceeding to knock it down. The only shocking thing was the idea, the\ndeformity, which had been presented to them. Where it came from it is\nnot my present purpose to enquire.\n\nAstronomers and physicists have now gone far beyond Crane and Lewis\nand are looping back--saving their faces (i.e., hypotheses) as much\nas possible--and picking up ever more and more of the ancient belief\nthrown away in the hour of materialistic extravagance. Chemists, too,\nare beginning to realize that there is no use going on and pretending\nthat our thoughts, our feelings, our every manifestation, can be\nreduced to a mechanical basis, since not even a sea-urchin or a pismire\ncan be so reduced.\n\nThis something which we call life shows itself, ordinarily at least,\nonly when certain physical elements are present. But it shows\nsufficient independence of these elements to make it impossible for any\nrational, unprejudiced being with the facts before him to continue to\nconfound life with matter.\n\nYet many learned professors do continue to confound them. Why? In\nsome cases it is, perhaps, not too much to say that the holder of a\nuniversity degree is not necessarily in possession of all the facts.\nAnd very few of us, professors or not, are without prejudice. We must\nremember the Idol of the Tribe, the capacity of the mind to become so\nclouded by passion and biased zeal that it sheds unwelcome evidence as\nreadily as a duck\u2019s back sheds water.\n\nIt was Herbert Spencer who first popularized the notion that\nmaterialistic science could explain everything. It had not been\ninvented with an eye to explaining everything--only a few things, with\nthe hope of getting hold of them in a way that might be useful. But so\ngreat was the success of the early applications of the method that the\ntemptation to turn it into a synthetic philosophy was too great for\nmortal to resist. Spencer had the advantage of not knowing very much.\nHis early education had been neglected. And his powers of invention\nwere practically without limit.\n\nIt is always easier to explain when not burdened with too much\nfirst-hand knowledge. Hearsay, and what we learn from books, is the\nstuff for theories. But the facts which have entered intimately into\nour own lives are stubborn. We are too familiar with their edges to\nfancy that they fit into whatever space may be contrived for them.\nIgnorance is satisfied with almost any account. Those who deal a good\ndeal with retorts and crucibles may speak of men and women as retorts\nand crucibles. This is impossible to those whose knowledge of human\nnature has made them distinguished in affairs. The books of a closet\neconomist satisfy everybody but business men.\n\nIf you have spent much of your time in observing, say, the behavior\nof rats on inclined planes, you may come to think of animals as\nmachines. One such investigator has recently discovered that rats are\n\u201cnegatively geotropic.\u201d That is, they are afraid of falling; and when\nthe plane is tipped will scramble away from the lower edge. A pet rat\nwould have taught him not only this, but that, under kind treatment,\nthe rat is one of the cleverest and most affectionate four-footed\ncreatures in existence. A scientist bores holes in a dog\u2019s cheek to\nmeasure his autocoid secretion; or he removes part of a dog\u2019s brain,\nscratches the animal\u2019s leg, notes that a kick results, and comes out\nof the laboratory convinced that we all walk--not with a desire to get\nanywhere, but because of the irritating effects of the ground on the\nsoles of the feet. Go tell that story to a man who knows dogs!\n\nThose who love and understand animals cannot be made to believe that\nanimals are devoid of sense and feeling, or act blindly in response\nto stimuli. Why then should we listen only to those who know nothing\nof animals and care less? Lovers of flowers will even go so far as\nto attribute a sort of sentience to vegetation. Are they necessarily\nwrong because their opinions are contradicted by teachers in flowerless\nschool-rooms?\n\nJ. C. Bose, the great Hindu scientist, has lately intrigued the whole\nworld by writing a book in which he shows that trees have eyes, nerves,\nveins, something which corresponds to a heart; are capable of pain;\nof fatigue; can be poisoned; and to a certain extent seem to remember\nwhat has happened to them. What is the result? Why, our mechanists have\nhurried to invert the Bose philosophy and to describe it with its heels\nin the air. It is \u201c_la fin du mythe de la force vitale_,\u201d cries Pierre\nGuitet-Vauquelin.[103] Bose, according to this ingenious writer, has\ndiscovered \u201c_l\u2019unit\u00e9 de la mati\u00e8re vivante et non vivante_,\u201d and the\nconclusion is drawn that said unity has been arrived at by making the\n_non vivante_ universal.\n\nThe Idol of the Tribe, the economy of hypotheses, has become a\nProcrustean bed, to which everything must be stretched or cut to\nfit. But unfortunately this particular bed was made by chemists and\nphysicists in Newton\u2019s time to fit certain facts and approximations\nto truth in which they were dealing for the moment. It was then a\nconvenient bit of furniture. Now it is very awkward. We cling to it\nonly for old time\u2019s sake.\n\nThe modern experimental method as at first developed has proven\nwoefully inadequate when universally applied. Even the study of outward\nbehavior is very difficult, especially if the subject be human, for\nwe cannot duplicate in the laboratory the exact circumstances of real\nlife--and every variation is fatal to accuracy, especially as its\ninfluence is often unsuspected and totally unknown. We cannot control\nour own species, because we are not placed above it--though many of us\nwould like to be.\n\nThis entails another difficulty. As we are not above it in power, so\nwe are not above it in intelligence. The mind in attempting to study\nitself has the disadvantage of being both the eye and the picture.\nNo wonder the so-called social sciences have failed to duplicate the\ntriumphs of physical science. They have tried to steal a prestige which\nthey have not earned, to work with borrowed tools instead of developing\nproper tools of their own.\n\nBut since it is the habit of the age to look below for its sanctions,\nlet us look a little more intently--at the findings of the new science.\n\n\n4. THE NEW PHYSICS\n\nUnfortunately, the new physics is difficult, or at least can be made\nto seem difficult. Few lay readers have any first-hand knowledge of\nit; few lay readers have ever read a book of science in their lives,\nnew or old. In fact science does not publish itself directly in books,\nbut in short monographs, editions limited to two or three hundred\ncopies. At best these papers make their appearance in small, specialist\nmagazines. And they are couched almost entirely in mathematical symbols\ninterspersed with long words barbarously derived from the Greek and\nLatin. True scientists have not yet learned to advertise.\n\nWe are therefore at the mercy of the popularizer, and the popularizer\nis under every temptation to bolster up popular prejudices and\nmisconceptions. There is also the \u201cstory interest\u201d which he must\nconsider.\n\nThese are times when government is not by reason, by principle, by\nexpedience, or by experience. We are governed by story interest--the\nthrill such as we get from a good detective yarn. Most of us must get\nthe bulk of our information from the newspapers, magazines, and the\nmost accessible and widely distributed of books. These depend upon\nstory interest for their sales. We buy those periodicals and those\nvolumes which promise to thrill us most; it is so much more pleasant to\nbe thrilled than not to be thrilled. Thus it becomes to the interest of\neditors to see that we are thrilled as much as possible, without regard\nto ultimate consequences. Fiction tends ever more and more to become\nthe moulder of public opinion.\n\nIt is of course a better story if Voronoff\u2019s transplantations of goat\nand monkey glands result in prolonged life than if they do not so\nresult. To say that chemicals will take the place of male sperm in the\nfertilization of sea-urchins\u2019 eggs (as Loeb, a few years ago, used to\nclaim) produces a greater thrill than to say that this consummation so\ndevoutly wished by some has yet to materialize. It is even thrilling\nto be told that life is mechanical, for that gives man the flattering\nidea that some day he will be able to create life in his own workshops\nand set up an independent business as a god. We do not stop to think\nof all the implications of such a theory--and we buy the paper. We go\nfurther, and enact laws which take the truth of the articles in the\npaper for granted.\n\nSo, when the modern popularizer deigns to give his attention to modern\nphysics, he has a single eye to the \u201cstory.\u201d The difficult parts, the\nparts expressing doubt, the parts which do not fit with the pet fads of\nhis readers, he can omit. Or he can take an entire theory and stand it\non its head. The effect will be exciting--and marvelous.\n\nThere are those who are becoming tired of this childish procedure,\nthose who would really like to know what is going on without having to\nperfect their Greek and Latin or master the higher mathematics. They\nwould even like to know if it be true, as has been claimed, that the\nattempt to reconcile the omnipotence of God with human free will and\nresponsibility has always been found scientifically impossible--to know\nif belief in either will or God be in itself unscientific and contrary\nto mathematics. Probably they will go on believing in God and free-will\nanyway--for those who do not have not yet become tired of childish\nprocedures. But it will be with a certain sadness. The man who must\nhide his faith from his reason in fear of attack, is not a complete or\na happy man. Few of us realize how much depends upon our conception of\nthe fundamental truths of physics, how we lean upon what we understand\nto be the laws underlying the material world.\n\nThe Scholastics claimed that the existence of God--even the great\ntruths of Christianity--could be demonstrated by reason alone; but few\nhave sufficient philosophical training or inclination to follow such\narguments to their end. Science, while it has often claimed to be able\nto disprove religion, has never claimed to be able to establish either\nreligion in general or any one religion in particular. The most that\ncan be asked of it, I think, is the removal of those barriers which,\nsome time since, it erected in the way of belief in the supernatural.\n\nScience has always had its Mendels, its Voltas, its Galvanis, its\nAmp\u00e8res, its Pasteurs--men who believed as heartily in God as they\nbelieved in his works. But I do not wish to discuss the religion of\nscientists. It will be enough to show the bearings of recent science\nupon an antiquated but still pretendedly scientific materialism. So let\nus chose a single paper by a modern worker--a man comparatively obscure.\n\nHe will of necessity be comparatively obscure, for no one can be a\nscientist pure and simple and be widely known unless he has invented\na popular mechanical appliance, advertised a cure for some common\ndisease, wandered into a foreign province as a prophet, or had the luck\nto say something startling--such as, \u201cMan descended from a monkey,\u201d or\n\u201cEverybody can live to be a hundred years old,\u201d--and even then fame\nusually takes time to accumulate.\n\nRalph S. Lillie has as yet written no good story. But he has an\ninteresting article, entitled \u201cPhysical Indeterminism and Vital\nAction,\u201d in _Science_ for August 12, 1927.\n\nMr. Lillie, a worker in the Marine Biological Laboratory, is the author\nof \u201cProtoplasmic Action and Nervous Action,\u201d and his very occupation\nshows that he is engaged in the business of wrestling knowledge rather\nthan thrills from the phenomena of the world. What he says, however, is\nmuch more thrilling than the most incestuous dreams ever dreamed by\na Freudian, or all the discoveries ever made by dropping babies upon\npillows in the laboratories of Dr. Watson.\n\nFor he says that we are free; that there has been observed under the\nmicroscope certain actions which look much like the veritable finger of\nGod, glimpsed for an instant through the screen of matter behind which\nHis power forever works--a power that we so often fail to recognize\nbecause, from our infinitesimal observation of it, it acts according\nto laws--laws we have for the most part made ourselves and to which we\nalmost invariably give a personality and an omnipotence we would feign\ndeny to the Deity whose doings they so imperfectly record.\n\nBut how does Lillie say all this? In the most lamentable manner--in\nScientese. You will not wonder why I called him obscure after you read\nthe following sample paragraph:\n\n\u201cScience and philosophy, but especially science, have found great\ndifficulty in reconciling the apparent indeterminism of many vital\nmanifestations, particularly voluntary action, with the strict\ndeterminism of physical science. The traditional problem of freedom,\nwith all its implications, is the classical expression of the\ndifficulty.\u201d\n\nTrue, this is by no means as cloudy as Freud when Freud plays\nschoolmaster and propounds incomprehensible metaphysics intended\nto inspire our awe. It contains no confusion of thought. But it is\nsufficiently cold and forbidding. Lillie totally lacks the literary\nability of Freud, the raconteur of spicy stories. It is evident,\nhowever, that he means to point out the difficulty which science\nhas found in reconciling the doctrine of blind reaction with that\nappearance of choice which is often to be noted in the conduct of the\nhigher forms of matter. Living matter, apparently, does not respond\nto external stimuli as mechanists think it ought to. It is inclined to\nbehave as if it had some force, some will of its own. In other words,\nit seems to a certain extent to be interiorly determined.\n\nThere would, of course, never have been any controversy as to this had\nthose who took the negative been honest enough to accept a rational\ndefinition of will and of freedom. Nobody ever claimed that the will is\nfree in all respects. Nobody supposes that a man set upon by a mob can\ngo his way as if nothing had interfered with him. He may be dragged to\nthe stake or the scaffold. Physically, there are circumstances in which\nhis movements are most certainly exteriorly determined. The most that\nhe can do is to refuse his consent to those motions he is forced to\nperform, so that the resulting conduct is none of his.\n\nBut psychologists have assured us that the giving or withholding of\nthis consent is automatic; that physical forces are still at work;\nthat a man has a mob inside of his head even when there is no mob\nwithout; and that what he does seemingly of his own volition is but\nthe net result of the pullings and haulings of this interior horde of\ninstincts, desires and stimulators. Moreover, these forces themselves\ncame either from parents or environment, and the man himself is but\ntheir sum--he is his own inner mob. Nor can it be denied that the\nlaw of the Conservation of Energy gave psychologists the right of\nthe argument. Since Newton, only the very wisest of men have had any\nintellectual excuse for believing themselves either real or free.\n\n\u201cAnalysis, in tracing down the sources of [physical action],\u201d says\nLillie, \u201cseems always to restate determinism; it shows the will to be\nmotivated; motives have their natural origins; actions not consciously\nmotivated are either habitual and referable to past motivation, or are\ninstinctive and determined by heredity. In either case we seem to have\na mechanistic determination.\u201d\n\nHaving thus fairly stated the enemy\u2019s argument, he goes further and\nadmits that \u201calthough voluntary action affects mechanical change and\nseems free, the \u2018energy balance sheet\u2019 of a man shows no conflict\nwith the law of conservation, indicating that there is no creation of\nenergy within the organism.... Classical physics thus seems definitely\nincompatible with the idea of freedom. Accordingly, scientific\nmen--and somewhat curiously biologists in larger proportion than\nphysicists--have commonly regarded freedom as a delusion. In so doing\nthey have created more difficulties than they have resolved; certainly\nthe inner conviction of freedom has not been abolished in the minds of\nmost thinking men.\u201d\n\nThere are one or two points to be noted here. \u201cSomewhat curiously,\nbiologists in larger proportion than physicists\u201d have been willing to\nabandon the free-will hypothesis. He doubtless means comparatively\nrecent biologists, men who have taken their foundation physics from the\nbooks regarded as authoritative in their school days. Or perhaps there\nis another reason. Following the Idol of the Tribe, they look below\nthem for their models, and seem to feel obliged to make their subjects\nas much like the machinist\u2019s subjects as possible. And when they deal\nwith man they are shut off from the corrective influences of free\nexperiment. Mistakes in speculative biology are not at once apparent.\nThey are not immediately applied, and returns are slow in coming in.\nBut I am willing that the enemy should take what comfort he can from\nthe biologists. He may say, if he likes, that biologists are the ones\nwho call life mechanical because biologists are the ones who work\nclosest to life. Lillie happens to be a biologist himself--a biologist\nof details, not of generalities.\n\nAs to the \u201cenergy balance sheet\u201d of the individual, I think he leans\nover backward in his endeavor to be fair. Considering the exceedingly\nminute quantities of energy involved, it cannot rightly be claimed\nthat the energy balance sheet even of a wayside daisy has ever been\nexperimentally worked out with an accuracy fit to be called conclusive.\nOnly recently have we even begun to measure quantities of this order\nof magnitude. Only recently did we know how very little energy we\nneeded at our disposal in order to rid our inner conduct of external\ncompulsion--and it is inner conduct alone with which we are here\nconcerned. We do not ask to be able to shake a physical leg at will,\nbut merely to be capable of shifting our attention to legs if and when\nwe chose, or to entertain the desire to shake.\n\nBut once more let us grant the point to the adversary. Let him prove\nthe balance sheet of the individual if he can--it will avail him\nnothing. Lillie, in seeming to leave intact the Law of Conservation,\nis but planning a flank attack. For a curious reason soon to appear,\nthe law may rule and yet leave us free. It will then cease to be of\nmoral importance. Our biologist goes on: \u201cWe must regard it not as\na coincidence but as highly significant that the only region where\nphysical science gives evidence of ... externally uncontrolled, or\nindividual, action, is in the field of ultra-microscopic phenomena.\u201d\n\nNevertheless, there is a coincidence here. The field where Lillie has\nnoted externally uncontrolled individual action is his own field. As a\nworker in a marine biological laboratory, the minutest forms of life\nare objects of his daily study.\n\nIf I wanted to settle the question by authority and a show of\nerudition, I could now quote from Jordan\u2019s \u201cThe Philosophical\nFoundations of the Quantum Theory.\u201d[104] While if it depends merely\nupon famous names I could cite Einstein and Smoluchowski, who have\nfound that the second law of thermo-dynamics (according to which heat\nis said to pass from higher to lower temperatures in direct proportion\nto the energy which is extracted from it--another way of expressing our\nold friend, Conservation) does not hold true when the time and space\ninvolved are sufficiently small. And to this Svedberg, in his \u201cColloid\nChemistry,\u201d agrees by saying that in microscopic systems it is obvious\nthat \u201cfluctuations of entropy\u201d (variations in the amount of a given\nenergy which is found to be \u201cavailable\u201d) undoubtedly occur.\n\nBut there is no need to follow such a thorny path as this. Lillie\nsufficiently sums up the situation by declaring that \u201cthe universality\nof the rule of physical determination\u201d as regards very minute, or\n\u201cquantum\u201d phenomena, is now subject to question; and that \u201cin the\nhighest manifestations of life, prediction [that is, the discovery\nof a mechanical law governing conduct] is not possible at all.\u201d And\nhe adds: \u201cIt follows that the regularity of macroscopic [or large]\nphenomena, in which determinism is for all practical purposes complete\nand trustworthy, is in reality a _statistical regularity_.\u201d\n\nWhat can he possibly mean?\n\nHere is in reality a flash of light in darkness, the gist of the whole\nmatter, the way out, the explanation of a thousand riddles. And he must\nput it in such language as this!\n\nFor a statistical regularity is of course nothing but the regularity\nto be observed in averages. Individuals vary in a way which groups do\nnot. No one is compelled to commit suicide this year. If I do such a\nthing it will be because I am individually a fool. And nobody knows\nwhether my good sense is going to last another twelvemonth or not. Yet\nevery actuary in every life-insurance company\u2019s office in the world\nknows how many people are going to commit suicide this year, and next\nyear, and the year after; and the quota which each civilized country\nis going to furnish. Their knowledge may not be absolutely accurate\nas to the last digit. There is a very slight margin for mistake. But\nthey are almost as certain of the figures as they are of the figures\nfor last year, or the year before. Mass action is sufficiently regular\nto make calculations based upon a comparison of its future with its\npast exceedingly profitable. Groups, and groups alone, obey the Law\nof Conservation. It was group action observed among atoms which gave\nrise to the formulation of that law. Individuals behave capriciously,\nobeying the laws of their unique natures, laws known only to God.\n\nBut it will be objected: is not man a mass of atoms, or a mass of\nwhatever ultimate particles science finally arrives at? And the answer\nis an emphatic _no_. His body is such a mass, but it is so formed as\nto be controlled, in so far as its movements are voluntary, by an\nindividual self whose inner essence is single. The only way to make\ngroup action out of one man\u2019s conduct is to observe him over a long\nperiod of time. His average may be guessed at. But nobody can say how\nhe will act in a new and unusual circumstance.\n\n\n5. CHANCE\n\nPious people have always been prone to declare that there is no such\nthing as chance. They have been afraid that belief in chance implied\na disbelief in the omnipotence of God. Never were pious people more\nmistaken--or perhaps I should say misinformed. The doctrine of\nprobabilities is one of those things belonging to mathematics which\nthe pundits have decided it were better for us common people not\nto understand. So they have carefully refrained from stating it in\ninteresting, or even human, language, pretending that we were barred\nfrom comprehension by the inadequacy of our intelligence and education.\n\nNevertheless we all inhabit a world upon the phenomena of which the\ndoctrine of probabilities is founded. We are compelled to live every\nday surrounded by events \u201cobeying\u201d the Law of the Greatest Probability.\nAnd those of us who have made any success in life have become pretty\ngood mathematicians, though we may know no mathematical symbols beyond\nthe signs of addition, subtraction and division.\n\nIt is of course misleading to say that events _obey_ the law of the\ngreatest probability. Events do not obey any of the laws which science\nhas formulated. On the contrary, the laws were, in so far as they are\nlaws and not mere errors, formulated in obedience to the events. But\nto say that there is no such thing as chance is to say that there is\nno such thing as ignorance, which to my mind is hardly a pious idea.\nFor chance, rightly understood, is but the measure of our ignorance.\nNothing more.\n\nGiven total ignorance, the chance of guessing right is too remote to\nbe calculable and can be expressed only by the meaningless formula,\n\u201cnothing to infinity.\u201d Given total knowledge, certainty leaves no room\nfor probability. In all other circumstances, chance is the balance in\nwhich we weigh what we know against what we do not know. Gambling is\ncalled a vice because nobody ever uses the word except to describe some\nform of chance-taking which he considers vicious--the vice usually\nconsisting in a foolish attempt to get something for nothing. It is\nconsidered particularly immoral to lose. But in a broad sense, everyone\ngambles who lives. I hope I will be pardoned, then, if I take my\nillustrations from actual games.\n\nIf we know that a penny is a disk of equally weighted sides and is to\nbe tossed in the air by an unknown amount of force which will cause it\nto turn over an unknown number of times, the chance of its falling head\nup is the same as that of its falling head down. We say the odds are\neven. If we do not know what a penny is, we cannot reckon the odds. If\nwe know exactly what a penny is, know its present position in relation\nto the table-top, and know that it is going to turn over three times,\nsay, there are no odds to calculate. Ignorance has been supplanted by\nknowledge.\n\nBut why do we say that an even-sided disk, thrown at hap-hazard, is as\nlikely to fall head up as it is to fall tail up? Because observation\nin the past has taught us that such is the case. We may reason\nsubsequently about momentum, gravity, and the like, but observation\nlies at the bottom of our knowledge. Very well. The sun rose this\nmorning. I know that. What is the chance of its rising tomorrow morning?\n\nIf I know nothing but what I have stated, the chance, from my point of\nview, is as one to one. The odds are even, nothing more. It is just\nas likely not to rise as it is to rise. From the standpoint of an\nOmnipotent God, this is not the case. He knows whether it is going to\nrise or not. To God there is indeed no chance.\n\nBut to mankind at large? Surely the chances of the sun rising tomorrow\nare better than even? To be sure they are. For mankind at large knows\nnot only that the sun rose yesterday morning, but the morning before\nthat, and on ever so many other mornings. How many? Upon the answer\nto this question rests the actual chance of its rising again, for the\nanswer shows the amount of our knowledge. The more knowledge, the more\ncertain the chance.\n\nLet us say we know that the sun has risen for a billion mornings.\nTomorrow, if there be a tomorrow, will mark a billion and one. Then\nthere are a billion and one events, or sunrises, under consideration,\nand only one of them is still in doubt. The chances of the sun\u2019s rising\ntomorrow are therefore a billion to one. If we know it has already\nrisen a trillion times, they are a trillion to one. As knowledge\nincreases, certainty approaches.\n\nI have heard it objected that, according to this theory, the chance\nof a one-year-old child to live another year must be only even, while\na man of 99 has 99 chances in a hundred of rounding out his century.\nThis would indeed be true if we knew nothing about either babes or\nnonogenarians but their years. But we have a great deal of other\ninformation--statistics--bills of health. We must put all of our\nknowledge into the calculation.\n\nAlmost everybody is now willing to admit this method of reckoning\nprobability when it is applied to dawns or to life insurance. It seems\nquite natural to say that we know the sun will rise again because,\nso far as we know, it always has risen; or to say that a baby has\na longer prospect of life than has a very old man because we have\nobserved that babies generally live, while very old men generally\ndie. But when we apply the same method to the calculations of certain\nother things--the behavior of our penny, for instance--we shall meet,\nstrangely enough, with a lot of heretics. If a penny has fallen heads\nfor twenty times in succession, there are those who will say that the\nchances of heads coming on the next throw are much worse than one to\none. \u201cIt is time for a change,\u201d they will contend. And nothing can\nkeep them, if sportingly inclined, from wagering their money on tails.\nBut a mathematician will coldly bet on heads. _He knows that there is\nsomething the matter with that penny!_\n\nSo come what are known as \u201cruns of luck,\u201d--a subject apparently remote\nfrom that of free will, but not so remote as it seems. Runs of luck are\nthe result of unknown influences; for if the influences are known we do\nnot say \u201cluck,\u201d we use a harsher term. The oftener a thing has happened\nbefore, the more likely it is to happen again. Some large force must\nbe at work, or there would not have been the run. This is such an\nimportant rule that anyone who doubts it would do well to convince\nhimself of its validity. He will in that way not only improve his mind,\nhe will save money be he never so little of a \u201cgambler\u201d in the vicious\nsense of the term. Losers are always playing the stock-market and the\nworld for \u201creactions\u201d that \u201cmust come.\u201d Winners always \u201cgo with the\ntrend.\u201d They are vicious only when their prizes are evil.\n\n\u201cBut what,\u201d some will say, \u201cof the change of luck which wipes out the\nwinnings? What of those larger cycles which bring the smaller cycles\nto an end?\u201d Just this. We know nothing of the larger cycles until we,\nor somebody whose word we can trust, has begun to experience them.\nTherefore our ignorance is complete in most cases, and we have no\nchance against the larger cycles or rhythms at all--which is why\nsensible people usually keep out of the stock-market. Doubtless there\nis some larger cycle in cosmic events which will some day put out the\nsun. But unless we have somehow been able to put our finger already\nupon its pulse, we must ignore it in our calculations. We cannot bring\nit to book. When any one cycle has kept up a faithful performance as\nlong as the sun has kept on rising, it must be a rather large cycle and\nis pretty safe to depend on for our remaining days.\n\nBut I did not enter into this digression merely to give a few tips\non gambling, or the advice not to gamble at all when gambling can be\navoided. The calculation of probabilities is of vast utility in matters\ninfinitely more important than markets or games. With it mathematicians\nhave put mere telescopists to shame. Give a mathematician the past\ncourse of a planet, and he will calculate its future course without\ntaking the trouble to find out a thing about the nature of planets.\nThis is no chimera. It has been done. The vagaries of the motions of a\nheavenly body fall into series; into cycles; into cycles within cycles.\nAccuracy in prediction is determined by accuracy and amount of past\nobservations, and by nothing else.\n\nBut what has this to do with the human will? Everything. The so-called\n\u201claws\u201d of science, including the Law of Conservation, are the laws\nof chance, nothing more. They are founded upon the behavior of great\nmasses of particles, or the behavior of one or a few particles (more\naccurately, _particulars_) over long periods of time. As Lillie phrases\nit, the regularity of nature is a \u201cstatistical regularity,\u201d like the\nregularity of the statistics of suicide. It does not interfere with the\nfreedom of the individual, of the particular. Here is the answer to\nFreud\u2019s absurd statement that the attempt to reconcile human free will\nwith divine omnipotence is always a failure. The actuary calculates the\nnumber of suicides that are going to take place--does he thereby compel\nyou to kill yourself?\n\nThere is, of course, this difference between an actuary and\nOmniscience. The actuary only knows the total result. Omniscience must\nknow the individuals who will help to make up that result. Omniscience\nknows just what we are, individually. Omniscience knows every Psyche,\nand knows what it will chose. I may know that a pair of dice are so\nloaded that they will always come up sixes. Is it my knowledge which\ncompels them so to fall?\n\nBut some will say that if our human dice are loaded, it must have been\nGod who loaded them, and that beneath that load free will disappears.\n\nIt might have been that way, I will admit. Omniscience, being also\nOmnipotence, might have loaded the dice, beyond question. Omnipotence\nwas under no compulsion to grant free will to anything. But by the\nsame reasoning, Omnipotence was free to withhold Its hand, and to let\nus determine to a certain extent our actions for ourselves. Even the\nfinite mind has been able to see how this can be without interfering at\nall with that regular march of events which characterizes a cosmos in\ndistinction from a chaos. A cosmos of free particulars will still have\na \u201cstatistical regularity.\u201d\n\nAs a matter of fact, this system of delegated authority, of\nlimited grants of real power, seems to run through all nature. The\nCommander-in-Chief leaves certain details to his generals; the generals\nleave certain details to their captains, the captains to their\nlieutenants. The private soldier has his particular duty to perform.\nAnd each one is held responsible for the performance of his own duty\nwithin his own limited sphere of action--a duty which he is free to\nperform or to leave undone. Whenever an individual is rewarded or\npunished for something which he was not free to do or not to do, our\nnatures recoil from what we term an \u201cinjustice.\u201d With no free will at\nall, any reward or punishment would be unjust. And it is to this sort\nof a world our materialistic psychologists and philosophers have been\ntrying to introduce us. No wonder they shied away from the conception\nof consciousness. Sentience without freedom seems unjust. Even with\nlimited freedom, it seems unjust. Man\u2019s sense of justice, therefore,\nhas compelled him to regard this life as a fragment; to say that only\nwillfully endured or provoked pains and privations are deserved, to\nbelieve in another life beyond the grave without waiting for further\nproof of it. Thus Dante was constrained to write even over the gates of\nHell, \u201c_Giustizia mosse \u2019l mio Alto Fattore_.\u201d[105]\n\nIf we return now to the doctrine of probabilities and to Lillie we\nshall find him nodding, for he says: \u201cIt already seems clear that\nmany of the physical laws with which we are familiar in the realm of\nmicroscopic phenomena cease to apply on the scale where events are\ndetermined by the \u2018chance\u2019 fluctuations of molecular movement.\u201d\n\nChance here is clearly not the proper word. It contradicts his whole\nargument. Obviously he is using it in a very loose sense--much\nas behaviorists use it when they say that the first synapse\nbetween dendrite and axone in the brain is chance-determined. As\na mathematician he must know that these isolated phenomena of\nthe exceedingly minute are precisely those to which the law of\nprobabilities cannot be applied. As much cannot be said of the\nbehaviorists. Their attaching of the word \u201cchance\u201d to the word\n\u201csynapse\u201d is due to no slip of the pen, but rather to some regrettable\nindividual action behind the synapse itself.\n\n\u201cUltra-microscopic phenomena,\u201d Lillie goes on, in a way which quite\nconfirms the foregoing explanation of his lapse, \u201cthus give evidence\n... of control by individual action rather than by statistical or mass\naction. The laws relating to such [microscopic] action ... assuming\nsuch laws to exist ... are as yet imperfectly known. But they are\ncertainly entirely different from physical laws.\u201d\n\nThis may seem remarkable, but after all it is only what we should have\nexpected. In the ultra-microscopic world we are approaching individual\naction and leaving mass action, the average action of many individuals,\nbehind. The illusion of bondage begins to disappear.\n\nWhat makes this so important is the fact that we are so built that\nthe minutest imaginable interior events may determine our largest\nactions. I lift a pound weight, but it was the movement of the all but\nimpalpable particles of the brain which decided what the movement was\nto be. A touch upon the trigger fires the gun. And the force at the\ndisposal of will needs to be only enough to move these tiny particles\nin the vital field. The trigger-touch, the precipitating circumstance,\nis traceable, says Lillie, \u201cto ultra-microscopic events in the nerve\ncells.\u201d And it is precisely this fact, with the opportunity it offers\nfor central control, which makes a man\u2019s behavior, even as to his body,\nsomething other than the result of a struggle of blind forces. Man is\nnot a mass of particles like a dumb-bell.\n\nThere is, Lillie contends (and he is supported by Maxwell and\nBoltzman), \u201ca smoothing off, or obliteration of detail\u201d in \u201ceffects\ncontrolled by mass action.\u201d So we say that we lose ourselves in a\ncrowd. \u201cMass action\u201d represents the \u201csum of numerous fluctuating\nminuti\u00e6.\u201d What we see is like a composite picture, with individual\ntraits more or less obliterated. Excess in one unit is off-set by\ndeficiency in another, so to our sight the individual is obscured. \u201cThe\nrelation between a smoothed curve and the distribution of the points\nshowing the individual data is a relation of a similar kind,\u201d he adds\nfor the mathematically minded. And then he throws an almost literal\nbombshell into the determinist camp, with these words:\n\n\u201cEvery now and then an unexplained catastrophe occurs in stores of high\nexplosives. We know from observation ... as well as from theoretical\nconsiderations of probability, that at infrequent intervals an internal\nmolecular movement of unusual amplitude occurs. Such a movement\nmay exceed the critical minimum below which no chemical reaction\nresults,\u201d--and so blow up the whole mass.\n\nBut what we are here interested in is that unexplained molecular\nmovement of unusual amplitude. It is almost like coming upon the\ncreative spark itself, and--as is frequently the case with creative\nsparks--the immediate result is destructive to existing conditions.\n\nNot that I think that here is actually the naked finger of God. I am no\nMonist. So far as human experience, at least, is concerned, I believe\nthat however far we pursue matter, either into its minute or its starry\ndepths, it remains matter; and that spirit is separate and apart from\nit. The ultimate knot cannot be untied. The seamless veil has been\ndrawn too tightly across the face of Deity for it ever to be penetrated\nby physical science.\n\nCall matter but force, if you will. Admit that even material force is\nof a spiritual nature, that its materiality consists in what we call\nits material effects. Nevertheless there is a gulf between those locked\nforces and spirit properly so-called. Saying that everything is God is\nonly an indirect way of saying that there is no God--no God but what is\nlocked up.\n\nIf all be matter, how can we, who too must then be matter, manage to\ncontemplate the universe? We must conclude with Dr. Watson that we do\nnot contemplate it. The same thing cannot at once be both subject and\nobject. If all be spirit, then what separates us from the Great Spirit?\nWhy is not our knowledge and comprehension, our power and our duration\nof days infinite and commensurate with ourselves here and now? For in\nthe case supposed, we would ourselves be God. There would be nothing to\ncome between.\n\nSpinoza, who claimed that all is God, contradicted himself by calling\nhis philosophy a philosophy, a search for truth. Were his theory true,\nwe should not have to search. We would be already one with the All.\nNor could any of the diverse phenomena of creation exist. There could\nbe no separation between part and part, even in our sense perceptions.\nWith nothing but spirit, out of what could those shadows, those lapses,\nthose ignorances between this and that be made? Of nothing? But nothing\nis nothing. It is not even empty space, nor darkness, nor a shadow.\nEven the Vedantic philosophers had the wit to see that there must\nbe a gulf between Brahma on the one hand and Vishnu and Siva on the\nother. They had no explanation to offer. Modern would-be Brahmins\nhave assumed that there is no inexplicable. Instead of rising to the\nGospels, they have fallen below the Vedas.\n\nLillie seems not to have fallen into this error, for he says that\n\u201cmicroscopic events\u201d are determined by \u201csub-microscopic events\u201d; that\n\u201cbehind or internal to the sub-microscopic events, we must assume a\nseries of ultra-microscopic events reaching back by convergence into\nthe field where the known types of physical determination are replaced\nby another type of determination, the special conditions of which we do\nnot know.\u201d But as the action of the brain-cell determines the motion\nof the arm, so the action of something yet more minute determines the\naction of the cell, and so on until we come to the ultimate physical\nbasis of the series. In this field of the physically ultimate, events\nare self-determined. They occur through no compulsion from without.\n\n\u201cIf by free we mean externally uncontrolled, it would appear that the\nultimate local centers or units of action should be independent of\none another, i. e., a radical discontinuity should exist at the base\nof physical reality. Something of the kind seems to be indicated by\nquantum phenomena,\u201d--phenomena of an ultra-minute variety. Men have\noften spoken of the eternal loneliness of the soul. Here we see that in\nthis very loneliness lies its freedom. If it chooses to surrender this,\nfor good or for evil, its surrender is still a choice.\n\nAnd in conclusion, Lillie most rightly adds that one may \u201chesitate to\ncall [this ultimate physical field]\u201d the \u201cmetaphysical field,\u201d or the\nfield beyond matter. Our author makes no attempt to taper his matter\noff into spirit merely by subdividing it. And he goes on:\n\n\u201cIf would seem, however, that there must be some final support or\nsubstratum of the physical to which only the term metaphysical can be\napplied.\u201d Which I take to mean that he believes in a substratum which\nis not physical. And having thus shown that back of matter experimental\nscience feels that there is something else, and that we in our inner\nselves are quite free from external control, whatever compulsion may be\nput upon the actual motions of our bodies by things beyond our power,\nhe rounds out his argument by saying:\n\n\u201cThere is also the general philosophical position that the universe,\nconsidered in its totality, must be the expression of free action,\nsince an all-inclusive whole cannot be determined externally, i. e., by\nconditions outside of itself,\u201d--there being nothing outside of itself.\nIn other words, not only are we free, but God is omnipotent; and the\ntwo facts, instead of being contradictory, are found to be but the\ndifferent ends of the same chain of reasoning. Freud\u2019s dictum proves\nto be not quite so final as it seemed. Lillie has torn it to bits in a\nsingle article.\n\nAnd had we not gone to Lillie we might have gone to Cassier, LeBon,\nClaude Bernard, Lucien Poincar\u00e9, or to any of a multitude of\nclear-headed scientists, philosophers and mathematicians. They may not\ngive us all we seek, but they at least give us this. Let behaviorists\nand psychoanalysts say what they will, reason has not yet vanished from\nthe world. Neither has unreason, for that matter--as the next chapter\nwill show.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[98] \u201cThe Descent of Man,\u201d p. 780.\n\n[99] \u201cThe _Novum Organum_,\u201d i. 63.\n\n[100] _Op. cit._, i. 45.\n\n[101] _Vide Le Recueil des travaux des Pays Bas_, No. 44, pp. 281 to\n304, for the year 1925.\n\n[102] _Le Recueil des travaux des Pays Bas_, No. 44, pp. 281 to 304,\n1925.\n\n[103] In the Paris _Matin_, September 4, 1927.\n\n[104] _Nature_, vol. 119, 1927, p. 566.\n\n[105] \u201cJustice moved my High Maker,\u201d Dante\u2019s \u201c_Inferno_,\u201d canto III,\nline 4.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE FAMILY TREE\n\n\nI. ARE MONKEYS PEOPLE?\n\nNobody was ever humiliated by the seventh verse of the second chapter\nof Genesis, which says, \u201cGod formed man of the dust of the ground.\u201d\nBut when Darwin wrote,[106] \u201cThere can ... hardly be a doubt that\nman is an offshoot from the Old World simian stems; and that, under\na genealogical point of view, he must be classed with the catarrhine\ndivision,\u201d--when Darwin wrote that the offense was general. Why?\nCertainly a catarrhine ape is higher in the scale of being than is the\ndust of the ground.\n\nBut the Bible account had added, \u201cAnd [God] breathed into his nostrils\nthe breath of life.\u201d Darwin left out any saving addition. So those who\nsay today, \u201cWe came from the monkey,\u201d invariably mean that we were\ncontained in the monkey even as an oak is contained in an acorn.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the oak is not contained in the acorn. An acorn is\nmerely the means through which an oak may eventually become manifest.\nIt is an instrument which enables an oak to become. The substance of\nthe oak is still widely scattered when the acorn which is to be its\nparent falls from the tree. Some of it is in the soil; some of it is\nin the air; some of it is far off in the sun. The acorn is like a lens\nthrough which light bends to a focus. It is something which brings\ntogether parts of the earth, the air and the sun and welds them into\nthe body of a tree. That something which we call life uses the acorn\nas a business man uses a little shop, a going concern which he buys as\nthe foundation of a great department-store. But the shop could never\nbecome the store did the business man add nothing to it. The question\ntherefore is, was the catarrhine ape the lens through which the\nelements of man were brought together? And what, if anything, was added\nwhich were not added in the case of the ape itself?\n\nSo stated, Darwin\u2019s theory loses most of its religious and therefore\nits popular significance. For the public in general is not interested\nin biology, it is interested only in God and in man\u2019s relation to God.\nEven atheists are interested chiefly in God, or they would speak of\nother matters and spend less time in denying Him. Even biologists and\npsychologists are interested chiefly in God, not in their own subjects.\nOtherwise they would not be forever straining to make a theology,\nthough but a negative or devil\u2019s theology, out of what pretends to be\nscience.\n\nWhether it is orthodox to believe that we number monkeys among our\nancestors, theologians must decide. Certainly the Church would not have\nto alter a single one of its major tenets nor a line of its ritual in\norder to include Darwinism among the articles of faith. Whether the\ndust of the ground evolved into ape before it evolved into man during\nthose long periods which the laconic poetry of Genesis allows to slip\nby between the lines, or whether the change from dust to man was\nimmediate, is immaterial to the doctrine of the Fall of Man, which\nconcerns man\u2019s subsequent history alone.\n\nDarwin, himself, regarded his views of human descent as mere theories,\nuseful for biological purposes. \u201cMany of the views which have been\n[here] advanced,\u201d he wrote[107] \u201care highly speculative, and some no\ndoubt will prove erroneous.\u201d Had the modesty of the great scientist\nbeen emulated by his disciples, we would have had no Scopes trial, and\nfew of us would ever have heard of Evolution.\n\nEven now that we have heard so much, few of us seem willing to take\nthe trouble to find out what it is, or even to learn to distinguish\nbetween the theory of evolution in general and that particular theory\nof evolution which Darwin advocated. Considered broadly, evolution is\nmerely the idea that living things--and even things which we do not\nordinarily call living, including, perhaps, intangible things, like\nthoughts and feelings--appeared on earth in a certain order, the lower\nand simpler ones first. This idea is as old as the hills, and was fully\nset forth in Moses\u2019 account of creation.\n\nMoses held further that the upward climb was interrupted at a certain\npoint, and that another cycle, another upward climb, then began. But\nas neither the Fall nor Redemption are supposed to be biological, this\nline of thought does not concern us here.\n\nA more narrow view of evolution regards the resemblances to be noted\namong things as the resemblance of children to parents. According to\nthis theory, the tie which binds the universe together is the tie of\nheredity. Nebul\u00e6 give birth to suns, suns to planets, planets to the\nlower forms of life, the lower forms to the higher. The notion is\nnot so popular among astronomers as it used to be, but it is still\ndominant among scientists in general and biologists in particular.\nNor can there be any doubt that evolution in this sense has been the\nsupreme hypothesis of modern times. Curiously enough, the most extreme\nDarwinians among our literary scientists usually balk at it, holding\nthat while man certainly must have had an ape for ancestor, thoughts,\ncustoms and sentiments can be generated spontaneously. They trace their\nbrains straight back to the am\u0153ba, but claim to have minds which are\nbrand new. They scorn any philosophy which cannot prove that it was\nborn yesterday--or at least since the present period of prosperity\nbegan in the United States--and born out of nothing. \u201cMen,\u201d says Albert\nEdward Wiggam, in \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science,\u201d[108] \u201chave never been\nreally righteous because they did not know how.\u201d Meaning, of course,\nthat they didn\u2019t know how until the \u201cNew Decalogue\u201d was published,\nwhich was in 1922.\n\nDarwinism, itself, is the belief that the different species originated\nnot only one from another, but that the difference now existing\nbetween one species and another is due to the slow accumulation of\nthose minute particulars in which children do _not_ resemble their\nparents; and further that these differences were preserved and added\none to another through succeeding generations because they were useful\nfrom the first, increasing the likelihood that their possessors would\nsurvive and breed; while those not born with these variations, or had\nvariations which were useless or perhaps harmful, would be killed off\nin the struggle for existence. This selection of fortunate individuals\nin a world where there is not room enough for all is called \u201cnatural\nselection,\u201d and variations which increase the chances of survival\nare said to have a \u201csurvival-value.\u201d Darwin did not pretend to know\nwhat caused variations. Darwinism is merely the theory that species\noriginate by the accumulation of useful variations through natural\nselection, and that intermediate forms then die out, leaving gaps. Were\nnone of the links missing from the record Darwin believed that it would\nnow be impossible to tell where one species began and another left off.\n\nThe hypothesis itself was but a variation of an older one. Lamarck\nhad taught that species originated gradually, but he held that it\nwas chiefly through the inheritance of \u201cacquired characters.\u201d Now an\nacquired character is something we are not born with, as for example,\nthe ability to play the piano; and if it could have been proved that\nsuch acquirements descend from parent to child, Lamarckianism would\nhave had smoother sailing.\n\nBut great pianists persist in having children born without the ability\nto play the piano, children who have to begin at the beginning just\nas the great pianists themselves did. Every effort has been made to\ndemonstrate the contrary, but the facts are stubborn. The best that\ncan be said for the theory of the inheritance of acquired characters\nis that, in some instances, if a single character is acquired by a\nsufficient number of generations there is a slight possibility that\neventually it may begin to leave some trace of a hereditary nature.\nHundreds of generations of rats have had their tails cut off without\nproducing a natural-born tailless rat.\n\nWhat looks like the inheritance of an acquired character always turns\nout to be a phenomenon which can be accounted for by early education.\nThe Bach family was a family of wonderful musicians, but the Bach\nchildren all received the best of musical training from the moment\nthey could begin to lisp.\n\nBut Darwinism, though it would profit greatly could the heritability of\nacquired characters be proven, was especially constructed to get along\nwith the heritability of inborn characters. To be a Darwinian it is not\nnecessary to believe that the giraffe originated by the neck-stretching\nof a lot of prehistoric calves anxious to feed as high as possible\nupon the trees of the pasture. It is enough to believe that the calves\nwho happened to be born with the longest necks were the most apt to\nsurvive, and that they passed their longer necks on, minus any acquired\nstretch, so that in each generation the accidental or unaccountable\nlong-neck variations could begin at a higher level--and so on down, or\nup, to the present.\n\nThe theory works very well with the giraffe. Every fractional inch of\nadditional neck seems to have a survival value. But unfortunately for\nDarwin, this is not the case with all variations. Many are useless or\npositively harmful until their accumulation has gone on until a new\nand workable mechanism is formed, and it is beyond the imagination of\nman to devise a way in which they can have been accumulated by natural\nselection. Fabre, the great French naturalist, pointed out hundreds of\ninstincts among insects which could have had no survival value unless\nthey were complete at the start--whole chains of instincts, each link\npositively worthless in itself. We are forced to believe that all the\nlinks arrived on the scene simultaneously and in perfect working order.\n\nThe body of man, to take another example, is--in so far as it varies\nfrom an ape\u2019s body--a variation in the direction of weakness. If the\ncatarrhine, old world Simians began once upon a time to have children\na little more human in body than the catarrhines themselves, they at\nthat very moment began to have weaker and shorter-armed children, less\nwell calculated to survive in the struggle for existence. It may be\nargued that the half-human children survived because they had better\nbrains. And it may be argued further that it was the deflection of\nenergy to the brain which caused the rest of the body to shrink. This\nis at least imaginable. What is lacking is any positive evidence that\nhalf-human children ever arrived upon the worldly scene through the\ngenitals of monkeys. The theory is merely a working hypothesis which\nworks somewhat less well every day.\n\nWill Durant, writing of Bergson,[109] says that \u201call his (Bergson\u2019s)\ncriticism of Darwin has proved effective; the specifically Darwinian\nfeatures of the evolution theory are now generally abandoned.\u201d This is\ntoo sweeping a statement. Hilaire Belloc hews closer to the line of\ntruth when, in \u201cA Companion to H. G. Wells\u2019 \u2018Outline of History,\u2019\u201d[110]\nhe names 41 outstanding scientists who hold with Bateson that \u201cfor men\nof clear intellect Darwinism has long been dead.\u201d In other words, the\nold jolly row is still on, with the anti-Darwinians gaining ground but\nthe pros still flying their flag. The flag, itself, however, shows some\nsign of accumulating variations.\n\nThis makes it the more surprising that Sir Arthur Keith should\nhave seen fit, upon his election to the presidency of the British\nAssociation for the Advancement of Science, in 1927, to say in his\nInaugural Address, \u201cSo strong has his [Darwin\u2019s] position become that I\nam convinced it can never be shaken.\u201d A hypothesis which could not be\nshaken would be a unique thing in the history of science. And for his\nremark, Sir Arthur received the following congratulatory telegram: \u201cWe\nhail with joy your uncompromising championship of the ape ancestry of\nman. Your boldness and plain speaking will encourage atheists the world\nover.\u201d\n\nNo, this is not a message from a learned society. It came from The\nAmerican Association for the Advancement of Atheism, popularly known\nas \u201cThe Four A\u2019s,\u201d an incorporation parented by Charles Smith, an\nattorney of Oklahoma, and Freeman Hopwood, of New Jersey. It claims\na number of branches or chapters among the undergraduates in various\ncolleges--chapters bearing such names as \u201cThe Damned Souls,\u201d of the\nUniversity of Rochester; \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Angels,\u201d of Los Angeles, and\nthe like. From time to time gems of thought reach the world from the\nAssociation\u2019s Headquarters, such as: \u201cEdison believes in a Supreme\nIntelligence, but is a vice-president of the Thomas Paine National\nHistorical Association.\u201d \u201cAristotle was what today would be called\nan atheist.\u201d \u201cNo wonder people above the intellectual level of a\nparamecium don\u2019t take any stock in Christianity.\u201d\n\nThe reckless use of language makes strange bedfellows. Surely Sir\nArthur must have been a little intoxicated with his new honors to speak\nso much in the manner of a Grand Kleagle. He even went on and compared\nvital activity to what takes place in an automobile factory. \u201cIn ...\nthis factory,\u201d he said, \u201cthere is no apprenticeship.... Every employee\nis born, just as a hive-bee is, with his skill already developed. No\nplans or patterns are supplied; every workman has the needed design in\nhis head from birth.... There is neither manager, overseer nor foreman\nto direct and co-ordinate the activities of the vast artisan armies....\nAnd yet there must be some method of co-ordination.\u201d\n\nThis factory without patterns or overseer, co-ordinated by a \u201cmethod\u201d\nwith nothing to carry it out, must have been located in Russia in the\ndays of Lenin. Even there we have yet to see automobiles producing\nspontaneous variations of a survival value, or big trucks begetting\nlittle roadsters which grow upon gasoline till they reach the size of\ntheir ancestors. We therefore seem to be a long way from the factory\nof life. But instead of myself attempting to take Sir Arthur to\ntask, I prefer to compile a little dialogue out of extracts from his\nspeech interlarded with quotations from a review of it written by the\nbiologist, Francis P. LeBuffe.[111]\n\n_Keith_ (third paragraph of his address): \u201cOwen ... cited evidence\nwhich suggested a much earlier date for the appearance of man on earth\nthan was sanctioned by Bible records.\u201d\n\n_LeBuffe_ (who is a member of the Society of Jesus): \u201cHe [Sir Arthur]\nought to know that whatever calculations as to the age of man have been\nmade from \u2018Biblical records\u2019 are entirely problematical, and that the\n6006 years so frequently adduced as Biblical is merely the inference of\nscriptural scholars years ago.\u201d\n\n_Keith_: \u201cDarwin ... succeeded in convincing himself that, immeasurable\nas are the differences between the mentality of man and ape, they\nare of degree not of kind. Prolonged researches made by modern\npsychologists have but verified and extended Darwin\u2019s conclusions.\nHuxley\u2019s \u2018Evidence of Man\u2019s Place in Nature\u2019 ... settled for all time\nthat man\u2019s rightful position is among the primates and that ... his\nnearest living kin are the anthropoid apes.\u201d\n\n_Le Buffe_: \u201cThat man is a primate is as true in the doctrine of\nimmediate creation as it is in the theory of evolution; and while a\nnon-evolutionist would dispute the statement that the ape is man\u2019s\nnearest kin, he would admit that he is the animal that is the most like\nhim.\u201d\n\n_Keith_: \u201cThe evidence of man\u2019s evolution from an ape-like being\nobtained from the study of fossil remains is definite and irrefutable.\u201d\n\n_Le Buffe_: \u201cLet us take up the \u2018irrefutables\u2019 one by one.\u201d\n\nAnd he does, describing minutely how the hunt for the \u201cmissing link\u201d\nnow stands. For brevity\u2019s sake I paraphrase his text as follows:\n\nFirst Irrefutable: _Pithecanthropus erectus_, \u201cone time inhabitant of\nJava.\u201d Irrefutable? Then why did Dr. Moir[112] state before the Berlin\nAnthropological Society that it did not differ essentially from other\ntypes of human skulls, and that it coincided very closely with that of\nAurignacian man? Scott Elliot says, \u201cThe skull is considered a human\nskull by six ... celebrated authorities, who for the most part are\nEnglish. It is thought to be a missing link by eight, mostly French.\nIt is considered an ape\u2019s skull by six others, mostly German. Only one\nauthority makes the femur that of an ape, thirteen consider it human,\nand six make it out intermediate.\u201d\n\nSecond Irrefutable: Dawson\u2019s \u201cDawn Man.\u201d Irrefutable? What have we\nhere? A shattered, imperfect brain-case, part of the mandible and\na canine tooth. Keith says that Sir Arthur Smith Woodward rightly\nrecognized that the skull and jaw were part of the same individual.\nThen how do Waterson and Miller say that the jaw is a chimpanzee\u2019s and\ndoes not belong to that skull? and Hrdli\u010dka that it is human, but again\ndoes not belong to that skull? and Ray Lankester, who wrote to one, H.\nG. Wells: \u201cI think we are stumped, baffled?\u201d\n\nAnd so on, until we have Keith repeating with approval the words of G.\nElliot Smith, \u201cThe difference between the human and the ape brain is\nonly quantitative.\u201d\n\nAnd Le Buffe responding: \u201cThen why did Dr. Arthur S. Woodward say \u2018We\ncannot of course go by the size, for the Neanderthal man has a larger\nbrain cavity than some of us at the present day. It is quality not\nquantity that counts\u2019? That is surely true, we hope, as the heaviest\nbrain ever found (weight, 2850 grammes) was that of an epileptic idiot.\u201d\n\nHere is a true picture of the state of modern science as it relates to\nman--a few disputed bones and any quantity of disputed conjectures.\nKeith\u2019s picture is obviously false. He should visit the excavations at\nGlozel, France, where the findings are declared by some savants, \u201c_du\nm\u00e9rite le plus incontest\u00e9_,\u201d to be of the \u201c_\u00e9poque n\u00e9olithique_\u201d; and\nby other savants, \u201c_dont les travaux font authorit\u00e9 dans le monde_,\u201d to\npertain not to the neolithic but to the \u201c_\u00e9poque n\u00e9o-fumiste_.\u201d\n\nBut what if someone were actually to find the missing link? It would\nbe merely a skeleton intermediate between that of ape and man. It\nwould prove nothing; settle nothing. What is needed is the spectacle\nof a female monkey in the act of giving birth to a human child; and as\nnobody claims that well-bred monkeys do that sort of thing nowadays,\nthe prospect is not hopeful.\n\nYet Albert Edward Wiggam says in \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science\u201d[113]\nthat the \u201cDarwinian generalization,\u201d after a \u201cbattle with entrenched\nopinion, authority, prejudice and vested interests, has at last\nreceived the universal assent of practically all educated men.\u201d\n\nI do not see how a \u201cuniversal assent\u201d can include \u201cpractically all,\u201d\nif by that is meant anything different from simply all. But this is\ntabloid, pre-digested science, with the hulls of opposing opinion\ncarefully removed. The implication is that non-Darwinians, however\neminent, are _ipso facto_, ignorant. Those who do not feel themselves\nproperly brow-beaten must have thicker skulls than _Pithecanthropus\nerectus_. But I think Mr. Wiggam is here showing a variation from the\nparamecium of very doubtful survival-value.\n\nSince Darwin many efforts have been made to improve his theory by\nsupplementing it with others. Hugo DeVries, for example, believed\nthat he had solved the problem of the survival of variations which\nneed to be complete before they can be useful. He discovered a bank\nof evening primroses on an English hillside which seemed to be in the\nvery act of producing new species--not by degrees but all at once. It\nwas announced throughout the world that organic evolution had proved\nitself experimentally, though not along Darwinian lines. The variations\nhere were too marked to be called variations, so they were called\n\u201cmutations.\u201d\n\nBut the primroses were but hybrids, and what had been seen was not\nthe evolution of new species but the action of the law of mixed\nheredity long before formulated by Mendel. The new species were only\nthrow-backs, revealing hereditary traits which had been latent in their\nimmediate ancestors, as when a boy resembles not his father but his\ngrandfather.\n\nMore recently a school of biologists has risen whose members call\nthemselves \u201cEmergent Evolutionists.\u201d According to their idea, the\nfinger of God occasionally \u201cemerges\u201d so plainly that man can see it.\nHere again we have the idea of sudden mutations, where the ordinary\ncourse of events seems at certain points to be broken by the impulse of\na higher law--as when life, sensation, reason, or man first appeared.\nAlfred Russell Wallace, Darwin\u2019s co-discoverer of the \u201claw\u201d of Natural\nSelection, laid the foundation for this conception as long ago as 1889.\nMore recently men like Lloyd Morgan; General Smuts; Herbert Spencer\nJennings, of Johns Hopkins University; Sir Bertram C. A. Windel,\nprofessor of anthropology in Saint Michael\u2019s College, Toronto, and many\nothers, have sought to give Emergency its place among the recognized\nhypotheses of science.\n\nBut, as far as I am aware, it has never yet been completely stated,\nnor any logical reason given why the emergence at one point in the\nevolutionary scale differs except in degree from the emergence of any\nevent, even the most trifling. Once we accept the belief that matter\nis a mere instrument in the hands of something which is not matter,\nit seems necessary to regard all phenomena as the emergence either of\nthe direct power of God or of the will of some creature to whom has\nbeen delegated a limited freedom. If this be the underlying idea, then\na special emergence might be defined as one of so marked and rare an\nimportance that it stands out from every day happenings, forming part\nof a broader rhythm whose beat is apparent only when all the great\nemergences of which we have evidence are taken together. Or it may go\neven beyond this, and stand as an event unique in man\u2019s experience,\nconstituting what we call a miracle.\n\nThe advantage of the theory of emergent evolution is that it furnishes\nthe evolutionary process with a power capable of bringing it about,\nwhile the idea of matter evolving itself implies a universe trying to\nlift itself by its bootstraps. It also removes the difficulties of time\n(of which there is never enough for thoroughgoing Darwinians) and of\nfinding survival value for half-developed mechanisms.\n\n\u201c_Bien des choses s\u2019expliqueraient si nous pouvions conna\u00eetre notre\ngen\u00e9alogie v\u00e9ritable_,\u201d wrote Flaubert--much more wisely than he knew.\nPerhaps not only many things but nearly everything will be explained\nfrom the moment our true genealogy is recognized. But it must be our\ntrue genealogy, not a part of it. Emergent Evolution permits us to have\nour place in the natural order, and yet remain children of God. The\nsoul may be the greatest--or next to the greatest--emergence of all.\n\nIs it such a distressing idea? That should not trouble the realists,\nfor they notoriously attribute reality to things in proportion to the\namount of unpleasant odor which things exhale. Thus they unite with the\nHindus in considering life a curse. Matter taken by itself certainly\nis either painful or boresome, and if one wishes to stop with the half\nand consider only matter as real, I know of no way in which one may\nlogically escape despair.\n\nThe trouble with the idea, then, is that it is not distressing. The\nmoment we agree that something more divine may emerge through matter,\nor at least thrust up beneath it till matter rises here and there to\na glorious psychic mountain peak (\u201cemergence\u201d is not quite the right\nword, for there still remains the material covering)--from that moment\neven evolution loses its repellent features. From that moment the\ngreatest thinkers of all the ages are on our side--which is sometimes\na comfort. We develop a strange capacity for happiness. Is this an\nevidence that we are fools?\n\n\u201c_Le malheur_,\u201d says Paul Bourget in \u201c_L\u2019\u00e9tape_,\u201d \u201c_d\u00e9montre l\u2019id\u00e9e\nfausse, comme la maladie la mauvaise hygi\u00e8ne._\u201d[114]\n\nThat probably is not conclusive reasoning if you are not convinced\nbeforehand. But why is happiness any more apt to be the result of\nillusion than is misery? We do not say that the best body is the one\nwhich suffers the most pain. Have not the pessimistic philosophers\naccustomed us to some strange and monstrous inversion of thought?\n\nLet emergence, then, have its way. We are no longer contained in our\nphysical ancestors. The man is not even contained in the child. We\nchange from day to day. There is a continuity, yet it is added to--or\nsubtracted from. The soul accepts this and rejects that.\n\nSo Psyche rebuilds her house, continually tearing it down and\nreconstructing it. Sometimes the lighting system gets out of order.\nFuses blow out--and we say she is mad. Sometimes the house falls, or\nburns, or succumbs to a flood--and we say she is dead. And from the\ndead house some conclude a dead Psyche, or that there never was a\nPsyche--which is like concluding that, if the telephone line goes dead,\nit proves that there never was anybody talking at the other end except\nthe batteries and the wires.\n\nNo; monkeys are not people, no matter what kind of children they may\nhave had. Nor are people monkeys--not to the extent which Mr. Wiggam\nseems to suppose.\n\n\n2. BURBANKING THE HUMAN RACE\n\nThe effect of Darwinism has been to popularize an exaggerated idea of\nthe importance of heredity. Darwin, of course, depended quite as much\nupon environment to select his variations as he did upon heredity to\nhand them down. But it is from Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, that most\npeople have acquired their Darwinism, and it so happens that Spencer\nwas not primarily a Darwinian but a Lamarckian. \u201cThe Origin of Species\u201d\nwas not published until Spencer was a middle-aged man.\n\nTherefore an immense amount of confusion has arisen in the minds of\namateur biologists, and a tendency to believe in heredity as the\ndestiny which shapes our ends. Hence the Eugenists. Hence this Mr.\nAlbert Edward Wiggam, already referred to.\n\nThe idea of dominant heredity is flattering to parents, who like\nto think that they live again in their children; who are unwilling\nto grant that children have souls of their own. It pleases those\nscientists who still hope to prove that acquired characters are handed\ndown. It pleases determinists, who see here another way of making us\nslaves to something. It pleases those naturalists, who have acquired\ntheir ideas of man from the study of animals, plants and insects.\nAnd as animals, plants and insects form the readiest subject for\nexperiment, it pleases materialistic biologists in general.\n\nBut reasoning from lower forms of life to higher is reasoning by false\nanalogy. Luther Burbank, a great artist with plants, worked wonders in\nhis garden; and in his book, \u201cThe Harvest of the Years,\u201d he expresses\nthe regret that his methods could not at once be applied to human\nbeings. But Burbank was not a scientist, not a thinker, but merely\na super-gardener, incapable even of keeping an accurate account of\nhis innumerable experiments. So it is not remarkable that he failed\nto realize that when we say what is sauce for the goose is sauce for\nthe gander we are speaking of beings of the same order, while man and\nplants are not of the same order.\n\nIf heredity be dominant in the garden, it does not follow that it is\ndominant even in the menagerie, let alone in the street. Conclusions\narrived at in the study of insects are not necessarily true of Indians.\nIndeed, there is every reason to believe that man, because of his long\nperiod of infancy, is much less determined by heredity than is any\nother form of life. This in itself knocks the foundation from under\nnine tenths of the arguments we hear upon the subject.\n\nEven profound changes in the body may be produced by (or with the aid\nof) environment. The third generation of immigrants to America are said\nto have higher cheek-bones--that is, to be more like redmen--than the\nimmigrants themselves. The discovery of the functions of the ductless\nglands shows how food, or the manner of life, may be at work in cases\nwhere germ-plasm used to get all the credit. The notion that heredity\nis destiny has altogether broken down.\n\n[Illustration: ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM\n\nThe Devil take the hindmost!]\n\nSays Professor Herbert S. Jennings, of Johns Hopkins, in an article\nentitled \u201cHeredity and Environment\u201d in the _Scientific Monthly_ for\nSeptember, 1924: \u201cClearly it is not necessary to have a characteristic\nmerely because one inherits it. Or more properly, characteristics are\nnot inherited at all; what one inherits is certain material that under\ncertain conditions will produce a particular characteristic; if those\nconditions are not supplied, some other characteristic is produced.\u201d\nThus heredity becomes a mere capacity--and that we do inherit certain\ncapacities need not be denied.\n\nThe fundamental laws of heredity were first made known in 1866,\nwhen Gregor Mendel, a monk of the Augustinian order, read his now\nworld-famous paper upon heredity in plants before the Naturalists\u2019\nSociety of the little town of Br\u00fcnn, in Moravia. He had made more\nthan 10,000 observations upon the peas growing in the garden of his\nmonastery--wonderful observations. Their results, too complicated\nto be fully described here, may be sufficiently summarized in a few\nwords--and in order that there may be no mistake, I shall take the\nwords from Mr. Wiggam himself,[115] omitting only his running comment:\n\n\u201cIf you cross tall peas with dwarf peas the offspring will be as tall\nas the parents. The dwarfness has completely vanished. If you cross\nthese tall offspring back with a dwarf, one-half of the offspring\nof this cross will be dwarfs and one-half will be talls. However,\ninstead of crossing the talls back with dwarfs, if you place capsules\nover their blossoms so they will not get crossed, and then sow their\nseeds, one-fourth--not one-half--of their seeds will come up dwarf and\nthree-fourths will come up tall.\u201d\n\nIn this case, tallness, because it supercedes dwarfness in the first\ngeneration, is called a \u201cdominant\u201d trait, and dwarfness, because\nit disappears, is called a \u201crecessive\u201d trait. As Wiggam correctly\nsays,[116] the fundamental principle is that \u201cthe units contributed by\ntwo parents separate in the offspring without having had any influence\non each other,\u201d or practically none. A trait either shows in the\noffspring, or it does not show. And where the inheritance is hybrid,\nthe reappearance or disappearance of traits may be calculated, given a\nsufficient number of instances, by application of the law of greatest\nprobability.\n\nEverybody knows that one may inherit a Roman nose from a grandfather\neven though one\u2019s father\u2019s was a snub and one\u2019s mother\u2019s retrouss\u00e9.\nThe mathematical implications are amazing. But all that I wish to call\nattention to is the fact that we all are hybrids, and that unless our\nancestry for many generations back is known to the minutest detail\nit is utterly impossible to calculate the hereditary phenomena to be\nlooked for in our children.\n\nMendel believed in unit characters, but it has been found that unit\ncharacters, such as blue eyes, are far from being units and are made\nup of an unknown number of smaller units. This greatly increases the\ndifficulty of even guessing what hereditary possibilities the children\nof any given couple will receive. Nevertheless, twenty-three states\nhave already, at the behest of eugenists, passed laws permitting the\nsterilization of the \u201cunfit\u201d by means of enforced surgical operations.\nAnd under these laws, 6244 operations have actually been performed--and\nmy statistics are of the year 1927 and not complete at that! What is\nthe idea? I will let Mr. Wiggam explain.\n\n\u201cThe Nordic elements of our population are being forced out by other\nraces whose representatives in this country are of distinctly lower\naverage mental alertness and of less social coherence and political\ncapacity.\u201d[117]\n\n\u201cThis race has contributed a vast share of all political wisdom and\nscientific discovery to the modern world. It is probably the one race\non earth which has steadily advanced in these respects for the past\nseveral thousand years.\u201d[118]\n\n\u201cCattell has shown that in America not a single day laborer\u2019s son has\nbecome a man of scientific distinction. The wholesale rise of the\nmasses to power may be the death knell of their biological progress.\nLike a bottle of old wine, which, when uncorked, for a time sparkles\nand fumes with life but soon becomes inert and stale, so it seems that\nmen, when freed from oppression for a time, bubble with genius. But\nambition is sterilized by its own success. Indeed, without biology as\nthe basis of social processes, success spells failure and achievement\nbrings decay. Like caged animals, those who rise cease to breed.\u201d[119]\n\n\u201cThere were one hundred two Pilgrims who came over in the\n_Mayflower_.... No finer stock to found a great national breed of men\nand women ever set out to sea.\u201d[120]\n\n\u201cThe genealogy of 12,722 New England wives of the old Colonial stocks.\nIn one hundred twenty years their blood has been vanishing from the\nracial stream as follows: 1750-1799, children per family, 6.43 ...\n1870-1879, children per family, 2.77.... There is the story of the\ndecline of the old American stock.\u201d[121]\n\n\u201cIn 1920 the school-teachers of America who had had any children\nhad given birth to 2.2 children per family; the bootblacks had come\nwithin one-tenth of giving birth to four!... This crude birth rate,\nhowever, does not measure to the full the relative contributions of\nbootblacks and school-teachers to the citizenship of tomorrow. Nearly\nall bootblacks marry and have children, while scarcely half our\nschool-teachers ever marry at all.\u201d[122]\n\n\u201cIn this same year, 1920, the lawyers and judges of America who had\nfamilies had 2.2 living children, while janitors and sextons had 3.4;\nauthors, editors and reporters had 2.1, workers in stone quarries and\ngravel pits 3.6.\u201d[123]\n\n\u201cEvery school child knows that Burbank, Schull, Hanson, Davenport and\nothers achieve their triumphs solely by selecting the best specimens\nas parents. Farmers ever since Eden have done the same thing.... But,\nsuppose they bred chiefly from their worst! Well, that is precisely\nwhat America ... is doing.\u201d[124]\n\nThere is the situation. School teachers are practicing either celibacy\nor birth-control; bootblacks are not. Janitors and sextons and workers\nin gravel pits are breeding lawyers, editors, authors and reporters off\nthe map. The masses are rising, like an uncorked bottle of old wine and\nbubbling with genius. Up till now they have not produced their first\ndistinguished man of science, but there is no saying what may happen if\nthe bubbling continues. Fecundity is passing from New England wives,\nfrom the captain\u2019s lady, and descending to Mrs. O\u2019Grady. The radio,\ninvented by the \u201cNordic\u201d Marconi sends out the S.O.S. What is to be\ndone?\n\nThe remedy is very simple. Castrate as many of the masses as may be\nnecessary to enable the biologically \u201csuperior\u201d to keep up in the race\nof life with biologically (and socially) \u201cinferior.\u201d\n\nNo, Mr. Wiggam does not openly advocate any such crudely frank\nmeasure. In the first place, the operation is called asexualization,\nand leaves the subject free to uplift the morals of the community\nby sexual activity complete in every detail except the minor one of\nfruitfulness. And in the second, the choice of life-imprisonment is to\nbe offered in certain instances to the eugenically condemned.\n\nWho is to do the condemning? And what are the requirements for passing\nthe examination?\n\n\u201cUnless you can measure men you cannot select them,\u201d says Mr.\nWiggam.[125] \u201cIt is often said that eugenics is hopeless because it\ndoes not know what it wants in human nature--it has no ideal. To this\nDr. Morton Prince of Boston aptly replied: \u2018Yes it has; it wants such\nmen as William Graham Sumner and William James.\u2019 This certainly sets a\nlofty ideal.... Yet, in all soberness it is doubtful if we want a whole\nrace of such men. Men like these would doubtless clean our streets\nand remove our garbage a hundred times better than it is now done,\nbut they could not at the same time be teachers, writers, lecturers\nand philosophers, unless perchance a society of such men would be\nso perfect that the street cleaner and philosopher would willingly\ninterchange their tasks from hour to hour or from day to day. Pending\nsuch a possibility, however, eugenics is content with a much less\nbut more inclusive ideal, namely, the increase of health, sanity and\nenergy.\u201d\n\nThis is a little obscure to me. It is difficult to picture William\nJames (or Henry, for that matter) as a superlative street-cleaner. But\nthe goal of the eugenist seems clear--health, sanity and energy. These\nare excellent things. But as Mr. Wiggam estimates--by what method I do\nnot know--that we owe to heredity fully nine-tenths of what we are, it\nwould not seem advisable that the name of an invalid should be made to\nperish from the land of the living until we are able to know much more\nthan we can as yet possibly know of the quality of the \u201cgerm-plasm\u201d we\nare dealing with.\n\nEnergy presents another difficulty. The rattlesnake possesses\nconsiderable energy, and is usually in good health. Chicago\u2019s gunmen\nare energetic enough in all conscience. Obviously the direction of\nenergy will have to be taken into consideration. And here again we are\nconfronted by the question, Who is to decide what directions are right\nand what directions are wrong?\n\n\u201cLet us,\u201d says Mr. Wiggam,[126] \u201csee to it that those to whom our\nsympathies have extended the privilege of a happy life instead of\nsounding for them the death knell of the jungle, shall not have the\nhigh biological privilege, which should always run parallel with social\nprivilege and always be under social control, namely, the privilege of\nreproduction.\u201d\n\nNever before in the history of the world has the idea of special\nprivilege reached such heights as this. Through our \u201csympathies\u201d we\nhave, it appears, extended to certain persons we do not approve of the\n\u201cprivilege\u201d of a happy life instead of killing them outright as we\nperhaps should have done. But we are not to allow our sentimentality to\ncarry us so far that these persons shall have the further \u201cprivilege\u201d\nof reproduction.\n\nIn \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d[127] Mr. Wiggam, speaking to women\nvoters, says that he does not care to outline for them \u201cany complete\neugenical program.\u201d Then he continues: \u201cThe very nature of the vast\nproblems themselves ... indicate what such a program is bound to be.\nAs one first plank in her program, most assuredly, the woman voter\nshould advocate a survey of the human family.... The pedigree of every\nfamily in America should be put on record.... These family histories\nwould be among the most priceless archives of the nation, for it is\nupon the biological assets of the nation that all truly statesmanlike\nlegislation must be based.\u201d\n\nLegislation again! Mr. Wiggam does not favor the Eighteenth\nAmendment--for the curious reason that he believes alcohol dangerous\nto but a small fraction of the population and that indulgence by all\nwould tend to exterminate those weaklings who do not carry their liquor\nwell--doubly curious reasoning considering the splendid efficiency of\nprohibition liquor as an exterminator. He thinks (as I do, for that\nmatter) that Prohibition was a great mistake. Yet he is doing more\nthan any other one man in America today to further another prohibition\nmovement compared with which Volsteadism is a mere trifle. His books\nsell by the tens of thousands. He has become one of the signs of the\ntimes. And he wants legislation to make the \u201cprivilege\u201d of having\nchildren run parallel with \u201csocial privilege.\u201d Family histories\ndoubtless contain much interesting information--they have even been\nknown to contain manufactured information. When they become the _sine\nqua non_ of full citizenship the artificial growing of suitable family\ntrees will doubtless make bootlegging look like a very minor member of\nour great national industries.\n\nBut we begin to see who is to do the choosing.\n\n\u201cAnother plank in woman\u2019s eugenic platform should be the establishment\nin every state of a State Board of Heredity and Eugenics. This board\nwould work in cooperation with the State University, the Boards of\nCharities and Correction, the State Prison Board, the Department\nof Public Health and indeed with every agency of social uplift and\nadvancement. It would have on its staff expert psychologists [Freudians\nor Behaviorists?] biologists and statisticians for the direction of\nmeasures of public mental hygiene, the mental survey of schools and the\nprescription of minimum mental requirements for marriage.\u201d[128]\n\nAnd these agencies (with of course the co\u00f6peration of the Eugenic\nSociety) will measure our health, sanity and energy. The opportunities\nfor graft are so staggering that it seems impossible that the more\nenergetic among us will rest content till the whole plum is theirs--for\nas yet eugenic legislation applies only to the inmates of public\ninstitutions, like jails, poor-houses and asylums. Mr. Wiggam has shown\nthe way to a mine that ought to be worth a mountain\u2019s weight in solid\nradium.\n\nUnder such circumstances it is perhaps idle to ask what is the\nbiological warrant for this worship of heredity? We are face to face\nwith a political and social, not a scientific, movement.\n\nYet Mr. Wiggam is a good biologist--at least he is able to quote a\ngreat deal of good biology. And so long as he confines himself to\nobserved facts he is both instructive and interesting. But biology\nmingles with the bread of its facts an intolerable deal of the sack\nof deduction, guessing, theory and surmise. Mr. Wiggam seems to state\nfacts merely for the privilege of reveling in subsequent \u201creasoning.\u201d\nAnd his reasoning is of such a character that for a long time I mistook\nhim merely for one of those sprightly writers from whose mental\nequipment the handicap of logic has been happily left out. But I\nwronged him. There is method in his madness. He wishes, I believe, to\ncamouflage the strong meat of his doctrine so that we babes may not too\nabruptly recognize what sort of cuts are being offered us.\n\nThus he says,[129] \u201cEugenics is ... not killing off the weaklings. Not\na scheme for breeding supermen.... Not a scheme for breeding human\nbeings like animals.... Not a departure from the soundest ideas of sex\nmorals.\u201d\n\nThen what is it?\n\n\u201cEugenics is a method ordained of God and seated in natural law for\nsecuring better parents for our children.... Modernizing the definition\nof its great founder, Sir Francis Galton [who was a cousin of Darwin],\neugenics is the study and guidance of all those agencies that are\nwithin social control which will improve or impair the inborn qualities\nof future generations.\u201d[130]\n\n\u201cGuidance,\u201d again--i. e. legislation. But the bitter pill has been\npresented in a sugar-coating. And in another place in this same book\nhe goes so far as to say, \u201cHad Jesus been among us, he would have been\npresident of the First Eugenics Congress.\u201d[131]\n\nIf I may be permitted to extend this gratuitous blasphemy so as to\nconnect it with facts, I wish to point out that when Christ did live he\nwas crucified by precisely the healthiest, sanest and most energetic of\nhis contemporaries, measuring these qualities by eugenic standards. A\nbill declaring Him both insane and criminal could unquestionably have\nbeen put through the Jewish Sanhedrim without a dissenting vote.\n\nWhat is insanity? The sterilization of the insane is the strongest\nappearing plank in the whole eugenic platform. Yet even here troubling\nquestions arise, bidding us stay the knife. And what is crime? For\neugenists are sterilizing criminals also--and in at least one instance\nthe crime was \u201cdrunkenness.\u201d\n\nI once wrote to a prominent eugenist in hopes of finding out what makes\na crime a crime--and I did find out. He told me that the essence of\ncrime was non-conformity. He had hit the nail squarely on the head.\nThat is the essence of crime exactly, non-obedience to some law. But\nwhat law? Here my correspondent showed himself to be entirely at sea.\nHe could refer to nothing but the statute law momentarily in effect in\nthe place where the crime was committed.\n\nAre we to preserve one sort of germ-plasm in California and another in\nMassachusetts? A willingness to conform to any and every statute which\na legislature anywhere may see fit to pass is certainly a curious test\nof human virtue, of the right to leave an impress on future generations.\n\nAs to the nature of insanity, my correspondent was willing to leave\nit to the doctors--more especially as Prof. Lombroso, then quite\nprominent, had lately identified it with genius. Mr. Wiggam has a\ntheory of both crime and insanity which at least removes all vagueness\nfrom the terms. Whose germ-plasm is to be allowed to go on down the\nages? The germ-plasm of those who have been able to get named in \u201cWho\u2019s\nWho!\u201d\n\n\n3. SALVATION BY WHO\u2019S WHO\n\nI admit that this is an exaggeration--at the present moment. Eugenists\nassure us that they mean to be very temperate. But we know from\nexperience how temperate a reform movement is likely to become, once it\nis fairly launched.\n\nIn substance, the \u201cWho\u2019s Who\u201d theory of unnatural selection is actually\ndeveloped in a series of articles by Mr. Wiggam reviewing Professor\nLewis M. Terman\u2019s \u201cGenetic Studies of Genius,\u201d which appeared in _The\nWorld\u2019s Work_ during 1926. As usual, Mr. Wiggam beguiles us for a\ntime with pleasant writing. In this instance it deals with the old\nlegend of the poor country-boy and his supposed chance of becoming\ndistinguished. A formidable array of statistics is brought out to show\nthat it is not much of a chance. The advantage, it seems, all lies with\ncity-children--stimulated, as they no doubt are, by breathing the fumes\nof gasoline.\n\nThree per cent of the people (and these belong to the \u201cprofessional\nclasses\u201d) have in America produced nearly one-half of our artists,\nwe are told. One third of the population (described as being \u201cabove\nearly struggles\u201d) have been responsible for three-fourths of America\u2019s\nwriters. Something must be the matter. Too much struggle it would\nappear. Writer-bearing strata are to be pampered. Good!\n\nSome, of course, will say that what American literature is waiting for\nis a few more words from the two-thirds of the population who are not\nabove early struggles--that even some of our rich and famous authors\nwrote better when they were young and poor. But as I do not know the\npedigree of these objectors I shall pass them by and follow the Wiggam\nargument as he finds it in Terman.\n\n\u201cSuperior intelligence,\u201d says Professor Terman, himself, \u201cis\napproximately five times as common among children of superior social\nstatus as among children of inferior social status.\u201d\n\nThe flaw in the argument here is of course forgetfulness of the fact\nthat, whether intelligence descends or not, tradition undoubtedly does.\nThis same flaw emasculates the eugenic argument everywhere. It saps\nthe force from Mr. Wiggam\u2019s eulogy of the Edwards family in the first\nchapter of \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree.\u201d He himself admits that in\nDoctor Winship\u2019s study, which he makes the foundation of his own, \u201cthe\nfactor of heredity has not been completely separated from the factor of\nenvironment.\u201d[132] And he goes on:\n\n\u201cOne can readily imagine that the twelve college presidents that have\nbeen in the [Edwards] line of descent might not all have been men\nwho were really great educators or executives. Some of them may have\nattained the official position by the fact that their relatives may\nhave been trustees of the various colleges, and simply voted them into\noffice. Yet an immense part of the distinction of the Edwards family,\nbeyond question, has been due to their superior natural qualities. We\nknow this partly from the great achievements of many of the members;\nand also we know from studies of other families, where the factors of\nheredity and environment have been adequately separated.\u201d\n\nGreat achievements? Certainly. But does not family tradition, pride\nand culture play its part in great achievement? Did not Harry Leon\nWilson\u2019s immortal Bunker Bean do wonders spurred on by the mere\nillusion that he was descended from an Egyptian mummy? And who has\n\u201cadequately separated\u201d the factors of heredity and environment in the\nhistory of any family? If Freud and Watson have done nothing else, they\nhave shown the immense importance of _very early_ training. The technic\nwhich will separate the effects of blood from those of education and\nexample has yet to be devised. And tradition, or the lack of it, must\nbe taken into account before we draw conclusions from the history of\nso-called \u201cdegenerate\u201d families, the Kallikaks and the Jukses. Who can\npretend to interpret the heredity of such unfortunates when the very\npoint of the whole argument is the fact that they were prostitutes and\nthieves?\n\nFamily tradition derives from the inexhaustible springs of human shame\nand human pride. The blood even of the super-man tends to get thin,\nvery thin, through successive generations. \u201cConification\u201d doubtless\nthickens it, for conification is the tendency of like to marry with\nlike. Mr. Wiggam advocates cousin-marriages to help conification along.\nLogically he should advocate incest pure and simple. In discussing the\nPharaohs he does have a good word to say for it, but he warns us that\nit is baneful when practiced by any but the best families.\n\nBut one\u2019s chief objection to the eugenist\u2019s argument is its deficiency\nin good faith. Wiggam admits that he has presented only \u201cstar cases.\u201d\nWhat he does not admit is that he has presented them incompletely. Thus\nof Elizabeth Tuthill, first wife of Richard Edwards, the Connecticut\nlawyer who founded the distinguished branch of the Edwards clan, he\nsays only[133] that she was \u201ca marvelous girl.\u201d Horatio Haskett\nNewman, professor of Zoology in the University of Chicago, in chapter\nXLIV of his \u201cEvolution, Genetics and Eugenics,\u201d[134] adds the following\ndetails:\n\n\u201cElizabeth Tuttle [so he spells the name], grandmother of Jonathan\nEdwards ... is described as \u2018a woman of great beauty, of tall and\ncommanding appearance, striking carriage, of strong will, extreme\nintellectual vigor and mental grasp akin to rapacity, but with an\nextraordinary deficiency in moral sense.\u2019 She was divorced from her\nhusband on the ground of adultery and other immoralities. The evil\ntrait was in the blood, for one of her sisters murdered her own son\nand a brother murdered his own sister. Richard Edwards married again\nafter his divorce and had five sons and one daughter, but none of their\nnumerous progeny rose above mediocrity.\u201d\n\nMr. Wiggam agrees with this latter estimate, for he says, \u201cLater\nin life Richard Edwards married Mary Talcott. She was an ordinary,\nevery-day, commonplace woman. She had ordinary, every-day, commonplace\nchildren. The splendid heredity of Richard Edwards was swamped by the\nmating.\u201d[135]\n\nSo, if the eugenists had been in control three hundred years ago,\nMary Talcott would have been allowed to marry. But Elizabeth Tuthill\nwould have been refused a marriage license even had she escaped a\nworse fate. Crime and insanity seemed to have marked her for their\nown. And yet it was from her, not from the normal Mary Talcott, that\ndescended (I quote from \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d page 17):\n\u201cTimothy Edwards, one of the founders of Yale University. He was the\nfather of Jonathan Edwards. From Jonathan Edwards, who married also a\nwonderful woman, Sarah Pierpont, have descended 12 college presidents,\n265 college graduates, 65 college professors, 60 physicians, 100\nclergymen, 75 army officers, 60 prominent authors, 100 lawyers, 30\njudges, 80 public officers--state governors, city mayors and state\nofficials--3 congressmen, 2 United States senators and 1 vice-president\nof the United States.\u201d And he goes on to mention other notables in this\nline of the family, including Aaron Burr; Mrs. Eli Whitney; Winston\nChurchill; Edith Carow [widow of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of his\ndaughter Ethel and of his four sons]; Robert Paine: the Marchioness of\nDonegal; the Fairbanks brothers (of platform-scales fame); Melville W.\nBigelow; Morrison R. Waite (former Chief Justice of the United States);\nBishop Vincent (founder of the Chautauqua movement); George Vincent\n(head of the Rockefeller Foundation); Grover Cleveland; and U. S. Grant.\n\nThe only thing which Mr. Wiggam omitted was the trifling circumstance\nwhich shows that The Eugenics Society would, if it could, have\ninadvertently prevented each and every one of these notables from\ncoming into being.\n\nYet he thinks that he has discovered a way of distinguishing between\nthe influences of heredity and of environment--when applied to families.\n\n\u201cEnvironment,\u201d he says,[136] \u201cis important in determining character,\nbut precisely how important I doubt very much if we have any means at\npresent for determining, when it comes to one individual, whether we\nconsider one particular act or the sum total of his character.... I\ndoubt if we shall ever be able to determine whether a particular act\nby a particular individual, say whether he takes a drink of alcohol\n... or whether he commits a crime, is due to his heredity or to his\nenvironment. The causes are so hopelessly intertwined that no one so\nfar as I am aware has presented the slightest hope of measuring the\nrelative influence of the two forces _within the individual_.... For\nall we know a man may commit a particular crime or take a particular\ndrink entirely from environment.... But when it comes to the question\nas to which one of two individuals is the more likely to commit a crime\nat some time in his life or take to excessive drink, we are in reality\ndealing with a different set of scientific problems. And when we come\nto the question as to which family is likely to have more members who,\nin any one age of the world, will be unable to adjust themselves to\nsound social behavior ... we are in a field where we can measure the\nfactors involved by fairly exact methods.\u201d\n\nThat is to say, we can measure results--after they have happened. It\nmay even be granted that we can calculate roughly a family\u2019s likelihood\nof producing distinguished descendants, basing the calculation on past\nperformance. But obviously this in no way decides between the relative\nimportance of environment and heredity. The question as to whether the\nfamily\u2019s distinction came from its blood or from its traditions remains\nprecisely where it was. Mr. Wiggam\u2019s reasoning is quite of a piece with\nhis reliability. He himself exclaims[137] about \u201cthe very, very few\npeople in the world who can think ... the enormous number of people\nwho cannot think, but who think they can think, and who mistake their\nmystical half-knowledge for social wisdom and act upon it.\u201d\n\nWhat \u201cmystical half-knowledge\u201d may be I do not know. Mystical\nknowledge, being intuitive knowledge of God, is by its very definition\ncomplete knowledge or nothing. One must accept or reject it _in toto_.\nMr. Wiggam also uses this word as a term of reproach when[138] he\nsays, \u201cVitalism usually leads its adherents to mysticism.\u201d But he\ndeclares himself to be no mechanist. \u201cI have no personal objection to\na purely mechanistic description of the life process itself. I have\nbeen so far unable to see, however, how stimuli which are inconsistent\nand unrelated can build up consistent and controlled behavior.\u201d[139]\nAnd he adds: \u201cWhile I believe biology has triumphantly demonstrated\nthe mechanistic nature of the life processes themselves, it has\nhopelessly failed so far to explain to me thought and behavior. I see\nno explanation of this except some sort of dualistic conception ... a\nuniverse in which there is something which is not aimless mechanical\nforce. We can call this substance \u2018mind\u2019 or \u2018spirit\u2019 or any other\nconvenient term.\u201d[140]\n\nThis is his perfectly valid objection to Watsonian behaviorism. But he\ndoes not seem to see that the use of such convenient terms as mind or\nspirit is in its very essence mystical, nor that admitting a mystic\nvitalism puts in his hand a means for freeing himself from the tyranny\nboth of environment and heredity. If there be spirit, man may have a\nsoul. It may be the choice of this very soul which controls the strange\nselection of traits from the parental \u201cchromosomes,\u201d or carriers of\nheredity, which he so eloquently describes. That this choice follows\nin the long run the law of the greatest probability is what such a\nhypothesis would lead us to expect. Thus Psyche would not only build\nand rebuild her house, but in a measure select her building materials\nfrom the very start. Mr. Wiggam thinks that the idea of a dominant\nenvironment flatters parents, just as I think that the idea of a\ndominant heredity flatters them. Perhaps we can both unite in believing\nthat the idea of power-owning individual souls in children flatters\nnobody and appeals to something much higher than the instinct of\nself-regard.\n\nAccording to a statement prepared by Professor Irving Fisher, of\nYale,[141] the Second International Congress of Eugenics appointed as\nlong ago as 1921 a committee (of which he was chairman) to organize\nthe eugenics movement in the United States. Since then the movement\nhas been competently engineered, its avowed objects being education,\nselective immigration laws, the elimination of defectives, the\n\u201cproper direction of research,\u201d and the securing of legislative and\nadministrative aid.\n\nProfessor Fisher says, \u201cThe Eugenics Society would like to see every\nschool, college and Chautauqua give regular courses in eugenics....\nSome laws need to be passed and a eugenical code established.... This\ndepends very largely upon education of the legislators.\u201d\n\nSo \u201ceducation\u201d does not mean a campaign for human betterment through\neducation. It means a campaign to educate people to vote for human\nbetterment through eugenic means--such as \u201cthe elimination of\ndefectives,\u201d \u201cselective immigration\u201d and \u201cproper\u201d research. \u201cBy cutting\noff the defectives,\u201d says Professor Fisher, \u201cthe general average of\nour people can ... be raised.\u201d We know without telling, from memories\nof the prohibition campaign, how legislators can be \u201ceducated.\u201d\nA \u201ceugenical code\u201d would naturally provide conditions under which\nmarriage licenses would be granted. We are dealing here with no chimera\nbut with a party with plenty of power, influence and money already at\nits disposal. The question of \u201cwho is to choose\u201d seems already to have\nbeen settled. Further to determine who is to be chosen, we may go back\nfor a moment to the \u201cWho\u2019s Who\u201d method.\n\nDr. Cyril Burke, the English psychologist, devised a problem (described\nby Mr. Wiggam in his review of the Terman volume already referred to)\nwhich he put before various classes of school children. Slum children\nrequired an average of 123 seconds to arrive at a solution, while\nmerchants\u2019 children took but 91, and \u201cthe children of professors\nand bishops\u201d (presumably Anglican bishops) only 74. Nor do I wish\nto conceal the fact that \u201cin the general run of people there is one\neminent man out of every four thousand,\u201d while \u201camong the sons of\nEnglish judges there is one eminent man out of every eight.\u201d Ought we\nnot to import some germ plasm from the British Bench? Anyway, all of\nthe famous biologists and psychologists and sociologists upon whose\nfindings the Wiggam arguments are based, took their successful men\neither from \u201cWho\u2019s Who,\u201d from some dictionary of biography, or measured\nit frankly in dollars and cents.\n\nIt might be suggested that not all desirable human traits are those\nwhich lead to wealth or conspicuous position. No Lives of the Saints\nare consulted to show the effect of poverty and self-denial upon the\ngrowth of holiness--holiness, presumably, not being hereditary, perhaps\nnot even eugenic. Prof. Terman does say that nearly all gifted children\ncome from good homes. But what is a good home? One which tends to\nproduce Christians, or Mohammedans, or Methodists, or Christian\nScientists, or Poets, or Plastic Dancers?\n\nAnyway, under democracy, according to Mr. Wiggam, the poor are being\nbled white and ever whiter through the opportunity given to the best\nof them to mount the ladder to something better still, leaving the\nresidua to their poverty and shame. \u201cNothing on earth,\u201d he says in the\ncourse of the _World\u2019s Work_ articles, \u201cwould improve the condition\nof the poor as much or so permanently as decreasing their numbers....\nJust in so far as democracy works successfully in giving the masses\nopportunity, it defeats its own end, biologically.... Democracy and\nliberalism will fail and plunge men back into a social and intellectual\nDark Ages unless they have the will and vision to provide a constant\nand adequate eugenical remedy for the biological disaster brought about\nby their own success.\u201d\n\nAnd in \u201cThe New Decalogue\u201d (G. Stanley Hall says \u201cone lays it down with\nthe feeling that biology is the basis of a new decalogue as important\nand as authentic as the old one.\u201d): \u201cYour wise men are searching for\na cure for tuberculosis, insanity, etc.... Should they find such\na panacea ... every biologist would apply it without a moment\u2019s\nhesitation. But if you apply that panacea and do nothing else you will\nwreck the very race you have saved.\u201d[142]\n\nWhat else must we do, then? It appears that we must first make the\nenvironment hard, so as to kill off the unfit, and then make it easy\nfor the survivors. Do you get the point? And it is going to be made\nselectively difficult for those not approved of by the Eugenics\nSociety. An easy environment is safe only for those who have passed\ntheir examinations.[143]\n\nMr. Wiggam is planning for an army in which all are generals. Poverty,\ninconspicuousness, slummishness, are relative terms. No sooner have\nyou eliminated one grade than you are logically bound to eliminate\nanother. There will remain no hewers of wood and drawers of water--as\nif the world could exist for a day deprived of these blessed and humble\n\u201cfailures.\u201d But in the eugenic utopia no more shall it be said, \u201cif one\ncannot paint, one must grind the colors.\u201d All must paint, or become as\nthe barren fig-tree.\n\nBut if the poor are to be eliminated, why not the recalcitrant? Why\nnot those, who, in the old phrase of Grover Cleveland, show \u201coffensive\npartisanship\u201d--for some cause not approved of by the ruling party?\nGranted the principle, why should Protestants tolerate Catholics? Or\nBaptists Presbyterians? Or Old-School Baptists New-School Baptists?\nWhy, even, should Professor Terman and Mr. Wiggam tolerate J. B.\nEggen, who has written, \u201cThe long-standing problem of heredity\nversus environment has been solved in favor of environment?\u201d Or, for\nthat matter, Professor Terman Mr. Wiggam himself? If we are to have\nuniformity of this sort, let us have it. Let there be a driving from\nlife\u2019s stage of those who would presume to raise any chickens but\nPlymouth Rocks, and may the devil take the hindmost.\n\nPersonally, I have nothing to fear. I am myself descended from our\nearly English settlers--though, as I watch the antics of some of my\nremote cousins, I sometimes am anything but proud of the fact. Nor do I\nlike to think that my blood shall flow down through the generations by\nany \u201cprivilege\u201d granted by Mr. Wiggam and his ilk.\n\nHe speaks of sanity as a test for survival, and then speaks of \u201cthe\nkind of peace that came to Nietzsche, bravest soul since Jesus.\u201d[144]\nDoes he not know that the only peace that ever came to Nietzsche was\nthe peace of final mental decay? And what does he mean when he dares\nto exclaim:[145] \u201cOh, for a Socrates, a Seneca, a Pasteur, a Huxley,\na Nietzsche, a Jesus in every nursery and school-room?\u201d A Nietzsche\nand a Jesus! Has Mr. Wiggam never heard of that scourge of small cords\nwhich was once used upon the backs of those who sought to make of the\nFather\u2019s house a den of thieves?\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[106] _Vide_ \u201cThe Descent of Man,\u201d second edition, Collier and Son,\n1905, vol. I, p. 205.\n\n[107] \u201cThe Descent of Man,\u201d p. 780.\n\n[108] \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science,\u201d p. 18.\n\n[109] \u201cThe Story of Philosophy,\u201d p. 506.\n\n[110] _Vide_ the appendix, pp. 115 to 117.\n\n[111] _Vide_ _America_, September, 17, 1927.\n\n[112] Cf. _Journal of the American Association_, April 22, 1922.\n\n[113] \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science,\u201d p. 91.\n\n[114] \u201cUnhappiness indicates wrong thinking, just as ill health a bad\nregimen.\u201d\n\n[115] \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d pp. 22 and 23.\n\n[116] _Op. cit._, p. 30.\n\n[117] \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science,\u201d by Albert Edward Wiggam, p. 35.\n\n[118] _Loc. cit._\n\n[119] _Op. cit._, p. 38.\n\n[120] _Ibid._, p. 179.\n\n[121] _Ibid._, p. 180.\n\n[122] \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science,\u201d p. 172.\n\n[123] _Ibid._, p. 173.\n\n[124] _Ibid._, p. 173.\n\n[125] _Op. cit._, p. 136.\n\n[126] \u201cThe Next Age of Man,\u201d p. 126.\n\n[127] \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d p. 300.\n\n[128] \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d p. 301.\n\n[129] \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science,\u201d p. 100.\n\n[130] _Ibid._, pp. 100-101.\n\n[131] _Ibid._, p. 110.\n\n[132] \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d p. 20.\n\n[133] _Ibid._, p. 16.\n\n[134] Page 602. He is quoting in substance from \u201cHuman Conservation\nfrom Genetics,\u201d by Herbert E. Walter.\n\n[135] \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d pp. 16-17.\n\n[136] \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d pp. 332-333.\n\n[137] \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science,\u201d p. 275.\n\n[138] \u201cThe Next Age of Man,\u201d p. 133.\n\n[139] _Ibid._, p. 132.\n\n[140] _Ibid._, p. 134.\n\n[141] _Vide_ \u201cThe Fruit of the Family Tree,\u201d appendix.\n\n[142] \u201cThe New Decalogue of Science,\u201d p. 68.\n\n[143] See \u201cA parable of Wheat and Men,\u201d \u201cThe Next Age of Man,\u201d p. 21.\n\n[144] \u201cNew Decalogue of Science,\u201d p. 253.\n\n[145] _Ibid._, p. 278.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHIS UNBELIEVING WORLD\n\n\n1. DORSEY\n\nWe have now to consider some of our minor misbehaviorists, and may\nas well begin with George A. Dorsey, Ph.D., former Professor of\nAnthropology at the University of Chicago, and author of \u201cWhy We Behave\nLike Human Beings.\u201d\n\nI would hate to be asked to analyze this book or to reduce its contents\nto an understandable outline. No matter what philosophy I attributed\nto it, I could be flatly contradicted by quotations from the book\nitself. Thus in one place he says, \u201cBiologically, rape and the theft\nof a loaf of bread are natural behavior; celibacy and asceticism are\ncrimes against nature.\u201d And in another place he describes the courtship\nhabits of various mammalia, showing that rape at least is by no means\nbiologically natural even among the lower animals. The author is an\neclectic, wandering freely through the pages of Darwin, Bergson, Dr.\nWatson and many others, picking and choosing what for the moment\npleases his fancy, untroubled by the clashing of the various views\nwhich his staccato style records.\n\nDorsey, though he says nothing new, constructs a curious puzzle of\ninconsistencies, but Dr. Watson, I think, is the key. He even says\nthat Dr. Watson read the last two chapters prior to their publication,\nwhich sounds like a claim that the great behaviorist approved of them.\nIt would seem that he did not read them very carefully. Nevertheless,\nthough marked by the bar-sinister, \u201cWhy We Behave Like Human Beings\u201d is\nclearly a Watsonian child.\n\nIt begins, as do so many of our \u201cthoughtful\u201d books, with anatomy,\nphysiology, biology, a long history of the lower forms of life, of the\nprotozoa and the am\u0153ba and their kin, of the physical details of the\nhuman body, in embryo and out of it. The public thirst for facts of\nthis sort is too great not to be taken advantage of by all who have\npsychological or philosophical axes to grind.\n\nAnd having posed his facts, and duly mixed them with alleged facts, he\nproceeds in the time-honored manner to attribute to his own inferences\nthe authority due only to the facts themselves. He also makes large\nuse of the custom of speaking of alleged \u201cmechanisms\u201d in metaphorical\nterms, personifying them and thus making them \u201cgo\u201d with an energy which\nthey are not supposed to possess. Thus he lends a vividness as of life\nto what is in reality a picture of death. And having denied God in\nsubstance, he does not forget now and then to fling Him a kind word.\n\nMan, we have been told, cannot by taking thought add a single cubit to\nhis stature. Other creatures seem to be more fortunate, for we learn on\npage 66 that \u201csome Primates experimented in fingers.\u201d And on this same\npage \u201ca lemur lost his second finger.\u201d No, he did not advertise. He\nlost it on purpose, the way Freud lost the book his wife gave him when\nhe was vexed at her. But in this case the object was to \u201cgive the thumb\nmore grasping space.\u201d And \u201csome tried claws instead of nails.\u201d\n\nThus are evolutionary processes given aims and wills of their own. As a\nmode of literary expression it would, of course, be proper enough did\nit not serve to smuggle into the argument a multitude of those vital\nthings which the makers of such arguments are forever pretending to\nexclude. Could primates really \u201cexperiment\u201d with their fingers the way\na Curie can experiment with pitchblend, choosing, rejecting, moulding\nthe very substance of themselves in accordance with some \u201cpurpose,\u201d\nDarwin need not have troubled himself trying to discover how species\noriginated. We would all know.\n\nWhat Dorsey really feels behind his smoke-screen of rhetoric can be\nseen on page XIII of his Preface, where he says:\n\n\u201cAs philosophy was moonshine before it began to investigate the\nelementary properties of matter and energy, so, I suspect, religion\nwill be subject to quackery and hypocrisy until humanity itself becomes\nmore human than human nature and religion itself ceases worrying\nabout heaven and hell and devotes its energies to making this earth a\nparadise.\u201d\n\nThat is, when religion ceases to deal with the supernatural it will\ncease to be subject to quackery and hypocrisy. Very likely. It would be\ndifficult for either hypocrisy or quackery to attach itself to anything\nwhich had ceased to exist. How, then, is this earthly paradise to be\nbrought about? Dorsey does not tell us in so many words. But he says\nthat we may soon hope for the discovery of a method whereby the several\nhundred ova of the human female may be removed and fertilized outside\nof the body.\n\nThis method is already employed with fish in the modern hatchery.\nIts advantages are obvious. In the first place, we could almost do\naway with the necessity of raising males, or at least could let the\nsurgeon see to it that few of them remained males. This would solve a\ngreat many social problems and release a lot of energy for industrial\nemployment. As it is, millions of spermatozoa go to waste in every\nman. Also, the females, having furnished the ova, would no longer be\nfemales in any troublesome sense of the word. More saving. Nor should\nit be difficult to induce the Eugenics Society to superintend the\nwhole business. Of course some will object that this is not a picture\nof a terrestrial paradise, that it looks more like some particularly\nrepulsive corner of Hell which Dante forgot or forbore to describe.\nBut such malcontents can be dealt with by removing their germ-plasm\nfrom the stream of our national life and refusing it a place in the\ngovernment hatcheries. Progress of this sort need not be suffered to\nhalt on account of the existence of a few persons not socially minded.\n\nBut how about philosophy? It was moonshine until it began to\ninvestigate the elementary properties of matter and energy, and\nelementary properties are ultimate properties. And religion will be\nsubject to quackery and hypocrisy until it ceases worrying about\nultimate properties and busies itself with making earth a paradise. So\nmoonshine mixed with quackery and hypocrisy is the substance of those\nmovements having other than a narrow, earthly aim. No coins are liable\nto be counterfeited save those which are honored at some bank outside\nof our humdrum sphere. And as science is supposed to be matter of fact\nand practical, quack scientists become unthinkable.\n\nWhen, however, was it that philosophy left off being moonshine? It must\nhave been some time ago, for even the ancient Greeks--to say nothing\nof the Hindus and Chinese--were eager to investigate the elementary\nproperties of matter and energy. As they were in the habit of keeping\ntheir science a secret from the common man, we do not know how much\nscience they had. But it is evident from their philosophy that they\nwere always thinking about matter and energy. Their conclusions may\nsound quaint--though not quite so quaint today as a half-century\nago--but it is certain that moonshine was largely mixed with\nobservation until modern metaphysics, predominantly German, took the\nfield. I cannot stop to prove this, but I refer Mr. Dorsey to any Story\nof Philosophy, even Will Durant\u2019s. I also recommend that he read some\ngood history of science, for he says on page 86: \u201cScience knows nothing\nof the ultimate origin of the source of energy; it only accepts both\nfacts [what facts?] and goes on with its business of trying to find out\nwhat matter is and what energy can do. In other words, the problem of\nthe origin of life is locked up in the origin of matter and of energy.\u201d\n\nOne often hears this allegation--that science goes on with its own\nbusiness, leaving the problem of ultimate origin aside. Yet every major\nhypothesis which science has ever constructed is an attempt to account\nfor this very ultimate origin--or primal origin, if you prefer. It\ncould not be otherwise. How could science try \u201cto find out what matter\nis\u201d without at the same time trying to find out how matter originated?\nNeither matter nor energy is a fact, isolated and handed out on a plate\nfor human use. Science must needs attempt to discover the nature of\nthat with which it works. And the only way to explain a fact, let alone\nacquiring the power of producing phenomena at will, is by discovering a\npreceding or accompanying fact.\n\nIf we find the dead body of a man in the kitchen, and then find a knife\nsticking into his heart, the knife helps to explain the dead body.\nA bloody finger-print of the cook\u2019s thumb helps further. If we then\nlearn that the dead man had been the cook\u2019s lover and that he had been\nflirting with the second-parlor maid, we have taken another step. But\nif we want to know how to prevent such incidents (or to bring them\nabout, if that be our aim) we must go on and learn \u201cWhy We Behave Like\nHuman Beings.\u201d The very title of Mr. Dorsey\u2019s book shows it to be a\nsearch for the ultimate. Does he wish us to understand that it is\ntherefore unscientific moonshine?\n\nBut let him proceed with his personifications. \u201cNature,\u201d he says,[146]\n\u201ccan mean anything.\u201d Whether he is referring to the word \u201cnature\u201d or to\nthe sum of things commonly called \u201cnature\u201d I do not know. When we were\ntalking of primates, the thing nature appeared to mean a great deal,\nsince it could experiment with fingers and weigh nails in the balance\nagainst claws. Or was the primate an independent experimenter, and not\na part of nature? Dorsey goes on by speaking of a certain development\nas being \u201can amazing tribute to the persistence of nature,\u201d and of a\ntime when \u201cnature\u201d began to branch out on \u201cnew lines.\u201d Clearly nature\nhere is something with will, force and purpose.\n\nHe writes also of \u201cthe vertebrate idea,\u201d as if it were an idea\npossessed by some backbone--in the days, too, when the only backbone in\nthe world was a thread-like notochord, such as that of the amphioxus.\nSo the idea was originally the notochord\u2019s!\n\nBut through all this verbal debris something seems to shine like a\nskeleton through the dark, which it is not difficult to recognize as\nthe _\u00e9lan vital_ of Bergson--that God which nothing developed out of\nnothing, which _inheres_ in things of an origin as tenuous as its own\nand is determined to go somewhere but is by no means certain where--nor\ncan the imagination of man picture how.\n\nThe motion pictures have accustomed us to demand a continuous stream\nof action, of facts or of what look like facts. Nothing but motion\nseems any longer to interest us. Probably we have fallen into the habit\nof ignoring all comment which may be made upon it. The danger is that\nthe comment nevertheless may impress us, reaching our minds when our\nintelligence is off its guard, so that we end by mistaking comment for\nsomething else. We remember that we came upon it in company with facts;\nand are not conclusions, like men, to be judged by the company they\nkeep?\n\nUnfortunately, facts cannot choose their company, and may be mustered\nin to screen the nakedness of any theory whatsoever. To discover\nthe _non-sequitur_, the disharmony between the facts and their evil\ncompanions, requires mental effort--and against mental effort, also,\nthe movie has somewhat prejudiced us.\n\nHowever, it does not require much mental effort to sift fact from fancy\nin Dorsey. \u201cThe drive for a mate,\u201d he assures us,[147] \u201cis backed by\na sensori-motor mechanism which functions till the mate is secured.\u201d\nBut everybody knows that the mechanism in question does not continue\nto function until a mate is secured; lacking a mate (to say nothing of\nthe possibility of sublimation), its force will eventually be drained\naway through other channels. He himself admits this a few lines later\non. But first he must say (on this same page) that \u201cthe mate-impulse is\ndriven by an unconscious mechanism, and not by any desire of offspring.\u201d\n\nLet it be granted that sex will function without desire of\noffspring--even in the face of a deadly dread of offspring. If it\nwere not so, contraceptive methods would hardly have been invented to\nsterilize the sexual act. But how about this precious \u201cmechanism\u201d\nbeing unconscious? Does he mean that the mechanism itself is\nunconscious? Or that it acts without our being conscious of it? He\nleaves us in the dark, and we are driven to seek such light as our\nown experience may supply. And why does he leave us in the dark?\nBecause, regarding us as mechanisms, he sees no difference between\nunconsciousness in ourselves and unconsciousness in the sex-glands and\ntheir accompanying organs!\n\nSo he leaves us with the biologically natural raper who is unconscious\nof his rapacity, or whose body is ignorant of its biological\nnaturalness. We may take our choice of interpretations. To say that\nthe knife is ignorant of the murder committed with it, and to say\nthat the murderer is ignorant of the murder he commits with the\nknife, is therefore saying one and the same thing. Both knife and\nmurderer are mechanisms. And so, it is to be hoped, is the murdered\none. Unconsciousness on his part would certainly help murder to fall\nunnoticed into the procession of the biologically natural.\n\nAnd now we turn to page 434 and learn that \u201cas one calls the roll of\nthe men who have rendered useful social service, one is impressed by\nthe notion that most of them have succeeded not because but in spite of\ntheir training.\u201d Here is the behaviorist, who calls in Dr. Watson to\nread his manuscript, delivering us suddenly hand and foot over to the\nhereditarians, to the eugenists--whom on other pages he professes to\nabhor. For it is utterly impossible to suppose that Dorsey means that\nthe great succeed in spite of all circumstances through exercise of\nindividual will inherited from nobody, and all their own.\n\nThen, two pages further on, we come to the eternal question of woman\u2019s\nsphere. \u201cFreedom of movement is soon limited for girls. Some learn to\nskip the rope and play jackstones only under parental frowns.... And as\nfor climbing trees, playing marbles, going off swimming, who ever heard\nof such a thing!\u201d\n\nI turn at once to the date line at the end of the preface, and learn\nwith astonishment that it reads, \u201cNew York City, June 1, 1925.\u201d So New\nYork parents are frowning--at least some of them are--when their girls\nskip the rope or play jackstones. Or were in 1925. What changes must\nrecently have taken place, or how the newspapers of the world must\nhave lied about New York! But anyway, this looks like a whole-souled\nendorsement of the more modern way of bringing up girls and a\ncondemnation of the ultra-conservatism of New York--unless Dorsey was\nthinking of the girls of Thibet and forgot to mention it.\n\nHe is still modern on page 439, where he says: \u201cIt is psychologically\nsignificant that children of both sexes are born with erogenous\nzones.... The sex-mechanism is inherently perfect at birth. The\n[interior] impulse for a mate appears later, at puberty. But the\nmechanism itself is so built into our structure that inaction is\nbiologically abnormal. Yet we speak of \u2018control\u2019; and dose youth with\nendless formul\u00e6.\u201d\n\nLet us, then, cease to speak of control--at least long enough to\nenquire into the meaning of these Dorsey adjectives. Here we have\n\u201cpsychologically\u201d significant, and \u201cbiologically\u201d abnormal, with the\nadverb \u201cinherently\u201d attached to the word perfect. (I also note, on page\n103, that, \u201cbiologically,\u201d immortality is a figure of speech.)\n\nDoes he mean that the erogenous zones are insignificant when viewed,\nsay, from a social rather than a psychological standpoint? Does he mean\nto admit that their inaction is normal if we could once get away from\nwhatever is implied by this ubiquitous biology of his? And who is to\nguess what is meant by a perfection which inheres in anything at birth?\n\nTo inhere, I believe, means to be fixed or to exist in something else;\nto be an essential part of; to be innate. At least my dictionary\nsays it does. Now what is a perfection which inheres in a just-born\nerogenous zone? Does it mean that the zone is born ready to perform\nall its functions? But this is contrary to notorious fact. Or is the\nzone born imperfect, and permitted to use its inherent perfection\nonly later? But we have just been told that inaction is biologically\nabnormal. If any meaning is to be supposed to inhere in words, Dorsey\nmust here be trying to tell us that between the time of birth and the\ntime of puberty, the erogenous zones should not be subjected to the\nbiologically abnormal condition of inactivity.\n\nAnd yet, on this same page, he continues: \u201cWhat happens to the\nsex-response mechanism between birth and marriageable age? Biologically\nnothing; nothing is expected of it.\u201d That is to say, biologically\nspeaking, nothing is expected of the erogenous zones before puberty\nexcept that they shall endure the biologically abnormal condition of\ninaction. But perhaps \u201cbiologically nothing\u201d means just nothing, and\nperhaps just nothing is the meaning of the whole passage. Let us hope\nso.\n\n\u201cRaise the standard of man\u2019s morality!\u201d he next admonishes us--we are\nnow at pages 443 and 444. \u201cBut not by talk. Work will do it. Many a\nboy is so hard at work he has no further energy left. His sex-impulse\nis expended in life impulse activities.\u201d Admirable! This is evidently\nbiologically abnormal and in complete contradiction with what has gone\nbefore, but it is nevertheless good sense and capital ethics.\n\n\u201cGirls begin to find outlets for their energy in action, in sports\nand games, and in the broader affairs of life interests.\u201d Admirable\nagain. But what has become of the frowns of their jackstone-hating\nparents? And the next line reads: \u201cAll-night dances can dissipate a\nlot of energy for both sexes.\u201d Readers who doubt the existence of this\nline are referred to the book, page 444. The all-night dance has at\nlast found its place among the means recommended for curbing sexual\nprecocity.\n\nWe skip a dozen pages, and read: \u201cUntil recently it was a woman-made\nworld we lived in. The wife-mother was the center of the home.\u201d This\nis refreshing. We have heard it so often said that until recently,\nwhen universal suffrage came to the rescue, this was a man-made world.\nDorsey lays the blame on women, which is at least a change. But how\ncame woman to make the world when it was the home and not the world\nwhich she was the center of? Be that as it may, \u201cit was her interest to\nmake [the home] a real center. It became a hive of industry and a swarm\nof children.\u201d It certainly did. And we are back boosting the good old\ntimes again. Nor are they quite over yet, for \u201cwomen generally married\nfor love, as they do now if their mate-hunger is unimpaired.\u201d\n\nThat flicker of partiality for sports and games for girls seems to have\ndied out. Dorsey returns to conservatism. And the argument proceeds:\n\u201cNow women have their \u2018rights.\u2019 In obtaining \u2018rights\u2019 she abdicated\na throne: she no longer rules by divine right. The children that\n\u2018bless the home\u2019 are turned over to the nurse while mother presides at\nbridge.... All this, of course makes for \u2018progress.\u2019 But in our social\nprogress we have acquired special schools where boys may learn to be\npimps and girls to be prostitutes.\u201d\n\nThis seems to me a little severe. But at least we are sure of Dorsey\nnow. Girls used to be restrained, and he favors restraint. \u201cSocial\nconditions are changing, but the average American girl still approaches\nher majority fitted for no economically independent career. Brought up\nas a social parasite, it is her belief and the all-around understanding\nthat marriage is her career.\u201d\n\nWhat does this mean? That marriage was a girl\u2019s career was the\nall-around understanding in the days when the wife-mother was the\ncenter of a home that was a hive of industry and a swarm of children.\nAnd now we are asked to believe that girls still brought up with such\nideas are social parasites. Was woman a parasite when she occupied the\nthrone which some now have abdicated? This argument has gone insane.\nGirls must be brought up as social parasites or sent to schools for\nprostitutes. Are we in a woman-made world now, or in a man-made world?\nI confess that I do not know where we are. But I read on: \u201cMany a\nmother nearly \u2018dies of shame\u2019 when Mamie bobs her hair and marches off\nin the garb of a girl scout. \u2018Girls didn\u2019t do such outlandish things\nin my day!\u2019 They did not.\u201d The jackstone-hating mother thus comes once\nmore to the fore, and she believes that her girls are going to the\ndevil in boy scout\u2019s clothes with bobbed hair to the old swimming-hole.\nI hope those schools for prostitutes are not hard by.\n\nThe girls, too, come in for their meed of shame. For after saying\nharsh things of Freud, Dorsey first writes, \u201cIt is natural for the\nboy to pattern his reactions towards his mother after his father; for\nthe girl to prefer her father,\u201d--which seems to have been taken from\nThe Complete Freudian--and then clenches the matter by adding: \u201cThese\ninnocent tendencies may be shamed into permanent attachments, making\nit difficult for the boy or girl later to make perfect substitutions.\u201d\n\nDid Dr. Watson really read this chapter (it is the last in the book)\nand pass without remark the statement that a seeking-motion reflex\nlike the foregoing may have a substituted stimulus built into it by\n_shame_? Or do he and Dorsey consider shame a pleasant emotion? No; we\nare here plainly in the presence of mother and father fixations, of the\n\u0152dipus complex--an innocent thing made dangerous and eternal by being\ndriven into the unconscious mind by shame. And Dorsey believes in no\nunconscious mind, or in any other sort of mind. Usually he encloses the\nhateful word in quotation marks. But he says (on page 11), \u201cWe do not\nuse the brains we have.\u201d Is that the solution?\n\nThese are deep waters, so let us get back to our girl scouts. \u201cFor\nwe have to learn anew what our stone-ax ancestors knew. Girls can be\nas \u2018outlandish\u2019 as boys! The girls themselves are just beginning to\ndiscover it.\u201d Are they? Bless their hearts! Everybody else has always\nknown it. What follows, however, is news. \u201cMarriage behavior is in for\nfurther conditioning. The sex-complex may become simple again.\u201d[148]\n\nDorsey\u2019s attitude towards the woman question at last becomes clear. It\nis a return to the stone-age to which he hopefully looks forward--the\nstone age and the simple, unconditioned reflex of the erogenous zone\nstimulated by exterior contacts, with no inner-born, nonsensical,\ncomplex sentiments to render it biologically abnormal. We have finally\nre-established harmonious relations with the gut-reactions so much\nadmired by Dr. Watson.\n\nDorsey says that he does not see how the Darwinian theory of evolution\nby means of the accumulation of minor variations through natural\nselection can have worked unless the theory of the inheritance of\nacquired characters be taken for a fact. Nevertheless he informs\nus[149] that \u201cour ancestral primate was a small, warm-blooded,\nprimitive mammal with forty-four teeth, four short legs, all alike, and\nfeet with five toes armed with claws.\u201d This forbear \u201clived on insects,\nfruit and nuts. Who was _its_ ancestor? Where did it get its mamm\u00e6?\u201d he\nthen asks. And he answers himself: \u201cCircumstantial evidence points to a\ndog-toothed, low-browed, Tirassic reptile, called Cynodont.\u201d\n\nNo, Dorsey has not become a convert to the theory of the inheritance\nof acquired characters. He does not much believe in heredity. Upon\nundivulged circumstantial evidence, however, he settles the moot\nquestion of human descent. And he calls his book a bit of \u201cpropaganda\nfor _critical_ judgments.\u201d\n\nHe settles also the problem of will.\n\n\u201cAs for will, it is as free as air. And much more difficult to\ncatch.\u201d[150] The meaning here is itself a little difficult to catch.\nNor is the following quite clear: \u201cOur psychology is human, but our\nbehavior is individual.\u201d When did our psychology become human? It is\nwelcome news. Our behavior has always been individual, of course. But\nDorsey, as a behaviorist, should have said that it was the collectivity\nof our reaction-mass--which certainly cannot be either free, individual\nor human unless it is controlled by some psychic power.\n\n[Illustration: DR. GEORGE A. DORSEY\n\n\u201cWe do not use the brains we have\u201d]\n\n\u201cPsychic power?\u201d Dorsey exclaims. \u201cI know what power is; I know\nwhat psyche is; I also know that knowledge may be power. But I can\ndiscover only one way to get knowledge into my head: through my sense\nperceptions. And only one way to get any power out of that knowledge:\nby inference, by reason.... When I want magic I go see Houdini.\u201d\n\nGood! But why, if reason can turn knowledge into power, go to Houdini\nfor magic? Turning knowledge into power is real magic, glorious, white\nand true. It happens every day. Even Dorsey can lead us to the eternal\nverities, it seems. But he will not permit us long to remain even in\ntheir neighborhood. \u201cWe learn to think logically,\u201d he declares, \u201cjust\nas we learn to speak correctly or to behave decently. I may think well,\nI may shave well ... who shall say? My way of thinking and my way of\nshaving are my own ways.... I may change both tomorrow; someone is\nalways inventing new ways of adjustment, new ways of exciting human\nprotoplasm to change its shaving soap. New thought also. Why not? We\nhave new books, new scandals, new elements, new diseases, new razors,\nnew glands, new logic.\u201d[151]\n\n\u201cThe point is that there is no thought without muscular or glandular\nactivity. This is true whether the stomach thinks hunger, the dreamer\nthinks air-castles, the prisoner thinks freedom, or the maiden thinks\nof her lover. Thinking is a bodily act as coughing or scratching one\u2019s\nhead. During thinking energy is consumed, mechanism is involved.\u201d[152]\n\nDo you comprehend? The man who scratches his head has always been\nsupposed to be thinking. Now we know that the scratching is the\nthinking--thinking is a bodily act. The rumbling of the bowels is\nthinking. The stomach thinks. Everything thinks but ourselves.\n\nNo wonder we have new thoughts when so many new thinkers come forward.\nNew logic. My stomach may think that the sum of the interior angles of\na triangle is equal to twenty-three right angles, or that a bite of\nmince pie is bigger than the whole pie. It is _my_ stomach. What it\nthinks is nobody\u2019s business. And by tomorrow my stomach\u2019s protoplasm\nmay become so excited that it will think some other way.\n\nI can see how we have new scandals at the same time that we have new\nbooks. But I don\u2019t see how we are going to get back merely to the stone\nage by our new ways of thinking. They will certainly take us back much\nfurther than that. And I wonder what our physicians will say to the\nsuggestion that our glands are new? They have been offered to us as\nnew discoveries, but this Dorsey seems to hint that they may be new\ninventions. I \u201cthink\u201d we might better have gone to see Houdini after\nall. For \u201crational conduct is a dream\u201d on page 470, and on page 455 it\nis the only way of converting knowledge into power. Over this mystery I\nscratch my head in vain.\n\nThen there is the Church.\n\n\u201cAs a projector of unsocial behavior,\u201d says Dorsey, \u201cthe so-called\nChristian Church, with its endless squabbles over forms, creeds and\nrituals, and its eternal betrayal of humanity, is not far behind.\u201d[153]\nNot far behind what? Good form. For \u201cgood form is in the saddle; it\nis ruthless, it is mighty, and it does prevail. It is not founded on\nintelligence.\u201d\n\nI am glad that the Church has at least good form to keep it company.\nBut I confess that I do not know what church is the \u201cso-called\nChristian\u201d one; whether it is Protestant or Catholic; nor what the\nreal, honest-to-goodness Christian Church, if any, calls itself in\nDorsey\u2019s mind.\n\n\u201cSocially useful behavior is not more prevalent, because sociably\nfashionable behavior has a better lobby.\u201d[154] Our Dorsey is now\nturning radical, for he goes on: \u201cBy Fashion I do not mean the, or a\nFour Hundred; I mean those in power of money and of government, our\nbosses; the people who are trying to make us buy their wares, join\ntheir club, vote their ticket, think their thoughts, and help them kill\nor cripple their enemies.\u201d Radical and pacifist. But I had not heard\nthat force was being used by anybody to make people join their clubs.\n\n\u201cWhat,\u201d the now thoroughly aroused former professor of anthropology\ndemands--page 473--\u201ccan be of less consequence to you than whether I\n_believe_ in this or that kind of a God, Savior, government or society?\nWhat is of consequence to you, to society, and to me, is what I do.\u201d\n\nVery true, Mr. Dorsey. And I for one apologize. But we were under the\nimpression--seemingly mistaken--that your beliefs might, at times,\ninfluence your conduct, or even enable us to guess what, under given\ncircumstances, you were likely to do before you actually did it and it\nwas too late.\n\nI hope I have not given the impression that Dorsey is unimportant.\nHe--like the one who is to follow--is immensely important. He has a\nlarge and enthusiastic public. I have never seen the rationality of his\nargument seriously questioned in any periodical of general circulation.\nAnd that fact, perhaps, is the most important one of all.\n\n\n2. THE BRAZEN BOUGH\n\nLewis Browne\u2019s \u201cThis Believing World,\u201d which ran through four large\nprintings within the first four months of its existence, is an\ninteresting example of the sort of reasoning that passes with a\ngeneration devoted to materialism, mechanism, humanism, monism and the\nnewer psychologies, and yet is not quite ready to pay the consequences\nof its position or to abandon altogether the banner of the cause which\nit has deserted.\n\nBrowne is what may be termed an \u201cadmirer\u201d of Jesus Christ. He treats\nhim always with the utmost kindness, speaking of him[155] as \u201ca gentle,\nloving, helpless youth ... the very incarnation of perfection,\u201d--a\nperfection with which an \u201cinsistent pacifism\u201d is soon included.\n\u201cThe spirit of Jesus,\u201d it also appears, \u201cwas innately Jewish and\npuritanical.\u201d[156] Moreover, \u201cJesus, one must remember ... like every\nother great Jewish prophet ... preached only ethics.\u201d[157]\n\nThus the great fame of the Nazarene, which rests upon the idea not\nthat He was the incarnation of perfection but the Incarnation of God,\nis sought to be preserved and appropriated by an eclectic modernism\nwhich denies the very basis of His title to supreme distinction. Robert\nIngersoll and Thomas Paine are thought to have been a little crude\nin some of their anti-religious tirades. But they addressed a people\nthat was at least familiar with its Bible. They never presupposed such\nchildish ignorance of history and scripture as is everywhere taken for\ngranted in \u201cThis Believing World.\u201d\n\nBrowne, who naturally has small use for the Church of Rome, is\nsympathetic towards such leaders of the Reformation as Wycliffe,\nHuss, Luther, Zwingli and Calvin. But not even Protestantism wins his\nunqualified approval. He says[158] that \u201cProtestantism includes every\ntype of religious thought,\u201d and \u201conly slowly, and with many pangs\u201d is\n\u201cshaking off the religion about Christ. Only slowly, very slowly, is it\nbeating its way back to the religion of Jesus.\u201d\n\nThis seems like a fairly clear thesis, uttered by one who has never\nread either the New Testament or the Old, and who consequently is\nable to look upon Christianity, or \u201cthe religion of Jesus\u201d (i.e., the\nreligion which he thinks was taught by Jesus), as an excellent system\nof human morality of which he has heard good report, and holds that it\nshould not be confused with supernaturalism, or \u201cthe religion about\nChrist,\u201d of which he has heard bad and understands has been invented\nsomehow without historical warrant.\n\nWere this all, I might pass him unmentioned. One cannot stop to\ncomplain of every popular author who speaks without information. But\nthe total depravity of the Browne method of thinking, of argument, of\nlogic--to employ such words in his connection; the illimitable na\u00efvet\u00e9\nwith which he propounds mutually exclusive and antagonistic assumptions\nin that agreeable and easy-flowing style of his, positively cries out\nfor remark. How he \u201cgets by with it,\u201d is more than I can understand.\n\u201cThis Believing World\u201d is logical only in two particulars. It follows\nthe same author\u2019s short history of the Jews, entitled, \u201cStranger than\nFiction\u201d; and it is dedicated to H. G. Wells. Such substance as it has\nmarks it as a less aureate branch sprung from Fraser\u2019s \u201cThe Golden\nBough.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the beginning,\u201d it begins, after certain preliminaries--we are now\nin fact on page 27,--\u201cIn the beginning was fear; and fear was in the\nheart of man.... Boulders toppled and broke his bones; diseases ate his\nflesh; death seemed ever ready to lay him low. And he, poor gibbering\nhalf-ape nursing his wound in some draughty cave, could only tremble.\u201d\n\nIs it necessary to remark that there is no evidence whatever pointing\nto this as the early state of man? That it is merely an assumption\nassumed to help along one particular theory of evolution, and is\ncontradicted by those modern researches tending to show that savages,\nwhen actually degraded, are degenerate rather than primitive? Yet\nBrowne illustrates his text with an original pen-and-ink sketch of\nthis Missing Link. The drawing is extremely good and spirited. One\nonly wishes it were a photograph. And he continues: \u201cSince blows could\nnot subdue the hostile rocks or streams [the rocks were hostile,\nevidently, because they supplied caves, and the streams because they\nsupplied fish], our ancestor tried to subdue them with magic....\nSelf-preservation must have forced them to [the] certainty [that\nspells would work], for without it self-preservation would have been\nimpossible. Man had to have faith in himself or die--and he would\nnot die. So he had faith [in himself, you will note] and developed\nreligion.\u201d[159]\n\nThis is so vivid that it sounds like the description of an eye-witness.\nAnd he goes on in a no less certain tone: \u201cBy the word faith we mean\nthat indispensable--and therefore imperishable--illusion in the\nheart of man that, though he may seem a mere worm on the earth, he\nnevertheless can make himself the lord of the universe. By the word\nreligion, however, we mean one special technique by which man seeks to\nrealize that illusion. It was by no means the first such technique to\nbe invented by man; and it may not be the last, either. Long before man\nthought of religion, he tried to control the \u2018powers\u2019 of the universe\nby [this] magic.\u201d[160]\n\nVery well. Man, once half ape, has become, in seeming at least, a mere\nworm; but he entertains an indispensable and \u201ctherefore\u201d imperishable\nillusion that he can make himself lord of the universe--certainly a\nstrange conviction for either a worm or an ape to entertain. To support\nthis illusion, he first invents magic, which is an attempt to coerce\nthe \u201cpowers,\u201d and then invents religion--which Browne later explains\nas an attempt to \u201ccajole\u201d the powers. Religion and magic are merely\ntwo different kinds of technic, each designed to fool the technician\nuntil by dint of fooling illusion becomes reality. The \u201cpowers\u201d are not\nfooled because they are always enclosed in quotation marks, which I\nunderstand to indicate that they do not exist. What next?\n\n\u201cHe [\u2018dawn man\u2019] saw on every side of him the fell and bewildering\n\u2018powers,\u2019 and illogically but naturally his first concern was not how\nthey worked but how they could be avoided.\u201d[161]\n\nWe thus make our acquaintance with the Browne idea of \u201clogic.\u201d A\nlogical dawn man would have waited to be devoured by the fell powers,\nimaginary or not, before trying to avoid them. Logic would have\ncompelled him to understand before doing anything else. Fortunately for\nus, dawn man was illogical. He escaped extinction.\n\nAnd so we read on, up to the beginning of the fifty-ninth page,\nbecoming better and better acquainted with our ancestor all the while.\nThe conviction grows that Browne was there. Then, suddenly, he tells\nus that, though he is aware that his narrative has made it seem \u201cas\nthough the writer knew for certain just what had happened ... actually\nhe knows nothing of the sort. All he knows is what many learned\nanthropologists after much painstaking research, have _surmised_.\u201d The\nitalics are his own. \u201cOf course,\u201d thus begins page 60, \u201cthey may have\nsurmised quite badly. Their underlying theory may be entirely wrong,\nand religion, instead of having been originally created to elude or\nconquer fear, may have arisen quite independently of it. Religion may\nbe an altogether primal instinct in the human race--something just as\nold and fundamental and innate as fear itself. Who knows?\u201d\n\nAs candor, this is flawless. But it is disturbing. If learned\nanthropologists, after much painstaking research, can be entirely\nwrong (and indeed a great many other learned anthropologists, after\nequally painstaking research, have time and time again declared these\nparticular learned anthropologists to be wrong altogether) why cannot\nthe learned anthropologists and biologists who furnished the data for\nthe spirited pen-and-ink sketch of our gibbering, half-ape _a\u00efeul_ be\nwrong as well? What if this surmising about monkeys and worms be as\nbadly done as may be this surmising about religion? And what is the use\nof going on with all this if it be just a guess?\n\nShall we continue because it is stranger than fiction? But it is not in\nitself as interesting as is fiction. We were lured into reading by the\nidea that it was being presented as truth. And now we are haunted by\nthe fear that it may be a blasphemous invention--that religion rather\nthan this anthropology may have some truth in it.\n\nSo we skip \u201cWhat Happened in India,\u201d \u201cWhat Happened in China,\u201d \u201cWhat\nHappened in Persia,\u201d and \u201cWhat Happened in Israel,\u201d since, after all,\nit may never have happened; and turn to part seven, \u201cWhat Happened in\nEurope.\u201d Here, as near home as this, we ought to be on safe ground,\nwith dependable historians instead of surmising anthropologists to\nact as guides. This is the portion of the book which deals with the\nChristian religion, in itself of more interest to most than are the\nShebatum taboos, Taoism, or the heliotropisms of Zoroaster. What, then,\ndid happen in Europe in the days when Christianity was born?\n\n\u201cThe prologue of the story of that new religion opens in Galilee.\nAlmost two thousand years ago there was born in the Galilean village\nof Nazareth, a Jewish child to whom was given the name of Joshua, or\nJesus. We do not know for certain how the early years of this child\n[Browne adheres to the lower cases in all emergencies] were spent. The\nGospels recount many legends concerning his conception, birth, and\nyouth, but they are no more to be relied upon than the suspiciously\nsimilar legends told many centuries earlier about Zoroaster.\u201d[162]\n\nThe anthropologists were only possibly wrong; but the Gospels recount\nlegends, and Browne here does not say maybe. Neither does he say where\nhe gets his information concerning the birthplace of Christ. Had he\never read even the first Gospel he would have learned that Christ was\nborn in Bethlehem of Jud\u00e6a. Perhaps our author referred himself only\nto his own stranger-than-fiction history of the Jews.\n\nAnyway, he goes on to declare that this Child \u201ccherished many of the\nprimitive notions of the simple folk to whom he belonged, believing\nthat disease and sometimes even death were caused by the presence of\nfoul demons, and could be removed by prayer. He knew little if any\nGreek, and could never have even heard of Greek science or philosophy.\nAll he knew was the Bible, and probably the text of that had been\ntaught him only by rote.... Above all he must have been taught to\nprize as dearer than life the old obsession of his people that someday\nthey would be miraculously freed by the Messiah. Indeed, so well was\nthat last drilled into him that, as he matured, the hunger for the\nrealization of the hope became his all consuming passion.\u201d[163]\n\nWe now have One \u201cwho preached only ethics,\u201d and yet cherished an\nall-consuming passion for the realization of the obsessive hope of His\npeople that someday they would be miraculously freed by a Messiah.\n\nIf Browne will turn to another book with which he seems to be as\nunfamiliar as he is with the Bible, the dictionary, to wit, he will\nfind ethics defined in some such manner as follows: \u201cEthics, the\nscience that treats of the principles of human morality and duty; moral\nphilosophy; morals.\u201d An obsessive belief in miracles is something quite\nbeyond ethics, either of a puritanically Jewish or any other variety.\nNor do the cherished primitive notions of simple folk to the effect\nthat diseases may be cured by prayer savor much of ethics. I do not of\ncourse mean that Christ had no ethics; but Browne has introduced Him\nto us as one who preached ethics only. Did He, then, keep his one \u201call\nconsuming passion\u201d out of his preaching?\n\nThis attempt to distinguish between \u201cthe religion _of_ Jesus\u201d and the\n\u201creligion _about_ Jesus,\u201d is as old as modern ignorance of the subject.\nBut Browne, given all the ignorance in the world, seems unable to\nstate it without letting it sting itself to death with its own tail.\nAnd he goes on, still further to murder the dead body of his own\nphilosophy: \u201cNow ... there was in the land an evangelist ... called\nJohn the Baptizer.... Jesus was for a time a follower of John, one of a\nmultitude of young Jews and Jewesses who believed in the mission of the\nwild prophet. His gospel was much like that of his teacher. \u2018The time\nis fulfilled,\u2019 he cried, \u2018and the Kingdom of God is at hand.\u2019\u201d[164]\nThat is, the new gospel was the messianic gospel of a wild prophet--and\nthe \u201cfollower\u201d who preached it preached only ethics!\n\nAnd--\u201cwhen the stories of that young preacher\u2019s wandering [the\nreference is to Christ, not to John] were gathered together in later\nyears and set down in writing, it was said that he performed all manner\nof miracles as he went about the land. Perhaps there is a fragment\nof truth in that tradition, for if people will only believe with\nsufficient faith, miracles become not at all impossible.... And Jesus\ncould quite command implicit faith. He himself believed; with all his\nheart and soul he believed that soon would come the Great Release....\nHe spoke without the slightest flourish, using plain words and homely\nparables. He indulged in no philosophy or theology, for, after all,\nhe was an untutored toiler who knew nothing of such vanities. Nor,\nseemingly, did he preach any inordinate heresies.\u201d[165]\n\nHow does Browne know how He spoke? Surely he cannot be depending upon\nthe \u201cstories of that young preacher\u2019s wanderings\u201d that were \u201cgathered\ntogether in later years and set down in writing,\u201d for he has already\ntold us that \u201cthey are no more to be relied on than the suspiciously\nsimilar legends told many centuries earlier about Zoroaster.\u201d Again it\nseems to be suggested that Browne was there.\n\nBut this at least seems clear: Browne holds that Jesus preached \u201cThe\nKingdom of God is at hand\u201d; that it is not at all impossible that\nHe performed miracles, though only of the faith-cure sort (I have\ninsufficient space for the discussion of miracles as distinguished from\nfaith-cures); and that He did not preach \u201cany inordinate heresies\u201d\nfrom the Jewish standpoint. \u201cHe was not a heretic in the sense that\nIkhanaton or Zoroaster were heretics. Outwardly he was distinctly a\nconforming Jew.\u201d[166]\n\n\u201cYet [on the same page] for all his conformity ... Jesus was definitely\na rebel.... His whole gospel was intended but to comfort the\ndisinherited, for it declared that no matter how unlettered they might\nbe they could nevertheless be taken into the Kingdom of God when it\ncame.... Now such a gospel was literally saturated with heresy.\u201d\n\nSaturated with heresy, but not with inordinate heresy--is that it?\n\n[Illustration: RABBI LEWIS BROWNE\n\nStranger than fiction]\n\n\u201cBecause it [Christ\u2019s gospel] denounced the rich and commanded them to\ndivest themselves of all their possessions, it attacked the whole\nsacrificial cult.... A people without possessions could never possibly\nafford fat bullocks to burn or skins of oil to pour away.... Moreover,\nbecause this gospel minimized the importance of learning, and commanded\nmen to keep merely the spirit of the law, it attacked the whole\nRabbinical cult.\u201d[167]\n\nAgain I wonder where Browne obtained these details without having\nrecourse to \u201clegends.\u201d And so he goes on down to the bottom of the\npage, by which time this same gospel has become \u201ccharged with quite\ndevastating heresy.\u201d Devastating, but not inordinate!\n\nIf Browne\u2019s mind works in this way, so presumably do the minds of\nhis readers. Religion aside, not a few results may be expected from\na \u201cmodern temper\u201d of this sort--from the fact that there are in this\nRepublic a large number of people incapable of being troubled by\nequivocations, by the glaring inconsistencies of flatly contradictory\nstatements living at seeming peace in the midst of the same argument,\nor people incapable of remembering or too careless to remember more\nthan one statement at a time.\n\nThis \u201cmodern temper\u201d makes it possible for men and women who do not\naccept the supernatural character of Christ to beg His authority for\ntheir own notions, no matter how opposed those notions may be to what\nis said in the New Testament records. In interpreting a statute one\nis compelled by a rule of law to consider all its parts together. In\ninterpreting the Bible one indulges in the habit of selecting here a\njot and there a tittle. Those selected become authority. Those rejected\nbecome legendary by the very act of rejection even at the hand of\ncaprice or lack of information.\n\nBrowne speaks, on page 268, of \u201cthe stupid and silly and gross\nextravagances,\u201d the \u201cpious embellishments and patent falsehoods\nthat clog and confuse the Gospel accounts.\u201d But the method for\ndistinguishing the false from the true seems to be very simple. If a\nline of Scripture fits in with your preconceptions, it is wise and\ngenuine. If not, it is either a forgery or the author was wrong. The\nprinciple of \u201cthe economy of hypotheses\u201d is thus conserved.\n\nIt will be objected that this is what we do with any book, and that one\nwho does not attribute divine authority either to the Bible or to the\nChurch which promulgated it as canonical scripture, is guilty of no\nintellectual malpractice in using individual judgment.\n\nBut no ordinary book is treated in this way. An author whose good\nfaith is impugned in one particular becomes a doubtful author. If he\nis convicted of one inaccuracy, his reputation for accuracy suffers to\nthat extent. If his proofs have been carelessly read, one ceases to\nput much credence in individual words which possibly may be misprints.\nAnd if the book is suspected of being actually fraudulent in essential\nparticulars, it ceases altogether to be of any documentary value except\nin so far as it be confirmed by other sources of information regarded\nas more trustworthy.\n\nBut our Brownes call the Gospels stupid, silly, grossly extravagant\nlegends piously embellished with patent falsehoods--and then proceed\nto quote them (though it may be at second hand) as conclusive evidence\nwhere such quotation suits their purpose. Where quotation does not suit\ntheir purpose, they use paraphrase. If that won\u2019t do, they rewrite\nentire passages as they claim they should have been written, creating\ndoctrines out of whole cloth, which, whatever may be the nature of\nthe weave, certainly bear no evidence of having come from a scriptural\nloom. Everywhere the gospel according to Browne claims to be the Gospel\nof Jesus. It seeks protection beneath the shadow of the Cross. Why?\n\nIt would seem that many who deny Christ\u2019s divinity still regard Him\nwith a sort of reverence, even a sort of fear. They would find it\nuncomfortable to think that they were not following His precepts. So\nthey meet the admonitions of theologians with the allegation that\nsaid theologians have corrupted the intent of the sayings of this\nGreat Teacher. These \u201cindividualists\u201d are afraid to stand alone. They\nhave ceased to follow the so-called \u201chigher criticism.\u201d It is apt to\nget too high. It has even been known to give aid and comfort to the\ntheologians. The lower criticism, the no-criticism, is much easier.\n\nThus we have come to have a public which buys the books of the\nBrownes--men and women who have habituated their minds to a scorn of\nthose rational processes which would tell them that certain assumptions\nentail certain consequences. They want to hunt with the hounds, and\nalso to run with the hares. Browne\u2019s masterpiece of dual allegiance,\nhowever, relates, as we shall see, not so much to the Carpenter as to\nthe Apostle to the Gentiles. But he is not yet ready for that bit of\ndouble-dealing. He first must say:[168] \u201cWhat really marked Jesus as\none unlike any preacher who had come before him was not so much what he\nsaid, as the particular authority on which he said it.\u201d (The particular\nauthority of a preacher of ethics?) \u201cEvery other prophet had uttered\nhis heresies in the name of God.... But this carpenter from Nazareth,\nfor all his meekness and humility, spoke only in his own name. \u2018Take\n_my_ yoke upon ye,\u2019 he said. So did he speak, not as the mouthpiece of\nGod, but as one vested with an almost divine authority of his own....\nSuch a tone would have sounded blasphemous ... even in a prince or a\nlearned man.... But it ... created and sustained the impression that\nhe was a transcendent person, and bestowed upon him the power to take\ncringing serfs and make them over into towering men. Only because he\nbelieved in himself so firmly ... could he make others accept his\nwords. His tone was not that of a mere prophet, but almost that of God\nHimself.\n\n\u201cIt was not merely that he could perform what were thought to be\nmiracles.... It was more that he could carry himself with the divine\nassurance of an \u2018Anointed One.\u2019\u201d[169]\n\nStrange conduct, surely, for One who preached merely ethics; who went\nabout crying, \u201cThe Kingdom of God is at hand!\u201d and meant only that the\nKingdom of Good Moral Conduct was at hand. Why not say that He meant\n\u201cThe Kingdom of Eugenics is at hand!\u201d and be done with it? And what\ncan Browne mean by an \u201calmost\u201d divine authority, or a tone \u201calmost\u201d\nthat of God Himself? It would seem that Christ was the Son of God, or\nwas not; that He claimed to be the Messiah, or did not claim to be the\nMessiah. Browne, ignoring the law of the excluded middle term, attempts\nto insert a middle term by means of the word \u201calmost.\u201d And he adds:\n\u201cWhether Jesus himself was convinced he was the Messiah is a problem\nstill unsolved.... Charlatans and madmen, arrant knaves and driveling\nfools, had time and again been hailed by the hysterical mob as the\nAwaited One. Is it any wonder therefore that an exalted person like\nthis young carpenter, Jesus, should have been hailed likewise?\u201d[170]\n\nBut that is not the question. We are not concerned with what hysterical\nmobs may have thought about charlatans, madmen, arrant knaves and\ndriveling fools, but with what Jesus thought about Himself. We are\nalso concerned with what Jesus did when He was hailed as the Awaited\nOne. It would seem that an exalted person, not self-convinced of his\nMessiahship, would have been constrained by his own exalted character\nto enter a disclaimer in such a case.\n\nOf course, if one could quote the Gospels without fear of setting\nMr. Browne to thinking of \u201call the stupid and silly and gross\nextravagances, all the pious embellishments and patent falsehoods that\nclog and confuse the Gospel accounts,\u201d one could prove even to him that\nJesus actually claimed to be the Messiah. For in the Gospel According\nto St. John it is written,[171] \u201cJesus said unto him [Thomas], I am the\nway, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.\u201d\nAnd, \u201cHe that hath seen me hath seen the Father.\u201d\n\nDoubtless Browne considers these and similar passages as suspiciously\nsimilar to certain legends told many centuries earlier about Zoroaster.\nBut in any case his own argument should force him to conclude that\nJesus was the Messiah; or was self-deluded; or was a charlatan. Or does\nBrowne consider it possible to be a charlatan and an exalted person at\none and the same time? Out of charity we must conclude that he decides\nin favor of the delusion hypothesis. Of the other alternatives, his\ntext forbids one and his presumable sanity forbids the other. So it\nwas the victim of a delusion which we are not even certain that he\nentertained who took cringing serfs and made them over into towering\nmen.\n\n\u201cThis Believing World\u201d continues: \u201cBy the time Jesus reached the\ncapital his fame had already preceded him. A great mob rushed out ...\nwildly throwing their cloaks to the ground beneath the feet of the colt\non which he rode. They hailed him as their Messiah.... \u2018Hosanna!\u2019 they\ncried, ecstatically, \u2018Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the\nLord!\u2019\u201d\n\nBrowne quotes the Gospels! But what makes him think that this\ntriumphant entrance into Jerusalem is not a pious embellishment, or\neven a patent falsehood? He only tells us that \u201cOne wonders whether\nthose poor wretches out of the alleys and dunghills of old Jerusalem\nunderstood who the man Jesus really was. One wonders whether even his\nown disciples understood--or whether even his most pious devotees\ntoday understand. To that frantic mob, at least, he was simply an\narch-zealot, a martial hero who had come to lead them in bloody\nrebellion against Rome.\u201d[172]\n\nIf this meant anything to the author it would mean that he himself was\na believer in the divinity of Christ. He seems here to be chiding the\nJerusalem mob, to say nothing of Christ\u2019s pious devotees of today, for\nnot being sufficiently aware of the spiritual nature of the miraculous\nMessiah\u2019s mission. But no. Browne is thinking of a \u201cgentle, loving,\nhelpless youth\u201d; of a spirit \u201cinnately puritanical,\u201d a heretic who was\noutwardly \u201cdistinctly a conforming Jew\u201d with an insistent pacificism,\nwho adopted a tone that would have \u201csounded blasphemous even in a\nprince,\u201d and surely was astonishing in a teacher of ethics.\n\n\u201cThe priests,\u201d Browne goes on, \u201c... were afraid of Jesus ... not\nmerely because his heresies endangered their own position.\u201d[173] \u201cHad\nhe been stronger in body no doubt he would never have joined the school\nof John the Baptist and become a saver of souls. Instead, he would have\njoined the Zealots, fighting with the sword against Rome.... From the\nbeginning his strength must have been not the strength of the body but\nof the soul; and towards the end even that strength must have ebbed low\nin him.\u201d[174]\n\n\u201cAnd then he died. But he died only to come to life again, to come\nto a life more enduring, more wondrously potent than had ever been\nvouchsafed to him in the days before his shameful death. Indeed, he\nliterally came to life again ... according to those who had most\nearnestly followed him.\u201d[175]\n\n\u201cIt was enormously difficult to prove that he had really been the\nPromised One. No doubt that was why the disciples began to piece\ntogether those genealogies we find in the Gospels. No doubt that, too,\nwas why those extravagant legends concerning the conception, birth,\nchildhood, and ministry of Jesus began to be devised. Uncharitable\ncritics may say the disciples resorted to fraud in these matters--but\nit was all intensely pious and well-intentioned fraud. Before the\nordinary Jew could be made to accept Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus simply\nhad to be proved a descendant of David.... The disciples may not\nhave been even remotely conscious that they were departing from the\ntruth.\u201d[176]\n\nThus Browne seeks to destroy all reason for admiring, and at the\nsame time pretends to continue to admire. Such passages need no\ncomment. Being no uncharitable critic myself, I will merely remark\nthat the world now learns for the first time that the ordinary Jew\ncan apparently be made to accept Jesus as the Messiah by means of the\ngenealogies which are a part of the gospel story as it has come down to\nus. And what happened in Europe after this?\n\n\n3. ST. PAUL AS SCAPEGOAT\n\n\u201cOn a sudden--at least, so it seemed to those who had not marked the\nmounting of its steady ground swell,\u201d Browne proceeds, \u201cthat little\nNazarene sect,\u201d the followers of Christ after the Crucifixion, \u201cbecame\na high sea that broke and rolled across the whole Roman Empire ...\nsweeping over one land after another until finally it had inundated the\nwhole face of the West and half the face of the East.\n\n\u201cTo explain how that could have happened, one must remember what was\ngoing on just then in the Roman Empire. A great hunger was gnawing at\nits vitals, a desperate hunger for salvation.\u201d[177]\n\nNow what does Browne mean by salvation in this instance? Ethical\nsalvation? Salvation by law and order? Or salvation in the miraculous\nChristian sense, i.e., salvation from the macula of original sin? He is\nevidently writing from vague memories of what he has read and heard,\nfrom a host of facts, fancies and prejudices which he has uncritically\nallowed to find lodgment in his mind. It is not likely that he means\nanything in particular. But he tells us that--\n\n\u201cThe whole Roman world seemed to be writhing in the throes of death,\nand the fear of that death drove it to a frantic and panicky clutching\nafter any and every chance of life. As a result, the mysteries, those\nsecret cults [of Greece and Rome] which whipped men into orgies of\nhopefulness, flourished everywhere.... Those mysteries ... in origin\n... were largely Oriental, and in essence they grew out of the belief\nthat by certain magic rites a man could take on the nature of an\nimmortal god.... That same legend was told--with variations--concerning\nDionysus, Osiris, Orpheus, Attis, Adonis, and heaven knows how many\nother such gods. Arising out of the common desire for an explanation of\nthe annual death and rebirth of vegetation, that legend was common to\nmany parts of the world.\u201d[178]\n\nIt seems that what so agitated the Romans was a desire to explain the\nannual death and rebirth of vegetation--a phenomenon almost unknown\nin the climate of Rome. Anyway, they ran to these explanations in the\nmidst of their panicky fear. But surely those mad pagan orgies which\nwhipped men into hopefulness were not puritanical, ethical orgies.\n\nNor were early Christian orgies, according to Browne. For \u201cBy the\nfirst century of this era, the legend [of Christ] had spread to every\ncivilized province of the Roman Empire ... and had everywhere made the\npeople drunk with the heady liquor of its mystery salvation.\u201d[179]\n\nSo Browne now admits that Christianity, even in the first century\nof its era, had ceased to be a mere ethic and become a \u201cmystery\nsalvation.\u201d Granting for the sake of an argument which is no argument\nthat, coming from One whose \u201call consuming passion\u201d was the obsessive\nhope of His people that some day they would be \u201cmiraculously freed\u201d\nby the Messiah it could ever have been anything else--granting this\nself-contradictory assumption, where are we to suppose the heady liquor\ncame from? Answer, \u201cFrom more learned folk.\u201d For--\n\n\u201cSide by side with these religious cults flourishing among the lower\nelements ... different schools of philosophic thought flourished among\nthe more learned folk. One of these was the philosophy developed in the\ncity of Alexandria by an Egyptian Jew named Philo. According to this\nphilosophy, God, the Father of All, manifested himself only through\nan intermediary called the Logos, the Word. This Logos, which was\nsometimes called the \u2018Son of God,\u2019 or the \u2018Holy Ghost,\u2019 had created the\nearth and was the sole mediator between it and heaven.\u201d[180]\n\nSo--\u201cIf in later years the Nazarene faith began to take on the color\nand shape of those heathen cults and strange philosophies, these\nPalestinian Nazarenes were not in the least responsible. It was one\nfrom outside the original brotherhood, a Jew from beyond the borders\nof Palestine, who was responsible. It was Saul of Tarsus [later called\nPaul] who brought on that change.\u201d[181]\n\nYou will note that St. Paul was responsible for coloring Christianity\nnot only with the strange philosophy of learned folk but with the color\nof mystery cults which, originating in a desire to explain the annual\ndeath and rebirth of vegetation, whipped men among the lower elements\nof society into orgies of hopefulness. And he did this notwithstanding\nthe fact that before his own conversion Christianity, originating with\nOne who was a transcendant person who spoke in a tone \u201calmost\u201d that of\nGod himself, and yet was but an ethical teacher, an insistent pacifist\nwho but for bodily weakness would have taken up arms against the Roman\nEmpire and perished by the sword--Christianity had already become drunk\nwith the heady liquor of mystery salvation.\n\nThere seems to be some idea floating around in Browne\u2019s head. He seems\nvaguely aware that since the Crucifixion there had come a change.\nIndeed, there had. But it was not a change from ethics to religion,\nnor a change from a belief in a non-miraculous Messiah to a belief in\na Messiah who was miraculous. Nobody ever believed in a non-miraculous\nMessiah. A non-miraculous Messiah is a contradiction in terms. But\nsince the Crucifixion it had become evident even to charlatans, madmen,\narrant knaves and driveling fools that Jesus was not to found a\ntemporal, national kingdom of the Jews. Even the people were beginning\nto understand that Christ\u2019s Kingdom was spiritual and at least as broad\nas the earth. And if the Palestinian Nazarenes were not responsible,\nit must have been because their own belief and their own preaching\nsignally failed of effect.\n\nBut let us get back to this Saul of Tarsus, who \u201cmust have had rather\nmore than a passing acquaintance with Greek and Alexandrian philosophy.\u201d\n\n\u201cMost important of all, he must very early have learnt from slaves\nin the household or from Gentile playmates, of the mystery cults\n... and of the savior-gods in whom the masses put their impassioned\ntrust.\u201d[182] And Christianity was already one of these mystery cults,\na heady liquor that was to become a high sea and break over all the\nWest and half of the East by the end of the first century--or as soon\nas the disciples, who were not in the least responsible, had invented\na sufficiency of legends to make up a technic capable of fooling the\npeople. Or are we to understand that St. Paul wrote the Gospels?\n\n\u201cNow Saul was a person of very violent likes and dislikes. He is said\nto have been an epileptic, and certainly he was a man of strange\ntemperament. Whatever he did, he did with an intensity and extravagance\nthat were distinctly abnormal.\u201d[183] The Eugenics Society should take\nnote of this, in case another St. Paul arises among us. \u201cBut on his way\nto Damascus [to persecute the Nazarenes] a queer thing happened.... He\nwas suddenly overcome by a seizure of some sort.\u201d\n\nBrowne does not attempt to name it, but a \u201cseizure\u201d in an epileptic\nsubject is usually called an epileptic fit. Why does he not name it?\nBecause he wants to help folks believe that they may continue to call\nthemselves Christians while assuming that everything which marks\nChristianity is a disease. But the disease must be a polite one.\n\n\u201cAnd when, trembling and astonished, Saul came to himself, behold\nhe was a changed man.... When he got to Damascus he ... had become\na complete convert ... believing in the Messiahship of Jesus and in\nhis resurrection.... He was but little interested in the gospel of\nthe man Jesus,\u201d--the ethics which cried, \u201cBehold, the Kingdom of God\nis at Hand!\u201d--he was interested only in the death and rebirth of the\nsavior-god, Christ.... \u201cSaul [under the name of Paul] became the great\npreacher of \u2018Christ crucified.\u2019\u201d[184]\n\n\u201cJesus ... was not the founder of Christianity, but its foundling....\nNor had his immediate disciples created the new faith.\u201d[185] \u201cThe\nMessiah put forward by them had all along been the Jewish Messiah.\u201d\nThus once more Browne confuses the idea of a Jewish Messiah with\nnon-miraculous morality. \u201cNor was it Saul, the studious young Pharisee,\nwho founded the new faith, but his other self, Paul, the citizen of\nRome.... It is unfair to compare Paul to Jesus, for the two belonged\nspiritually and intellectually to entirely different orders of men....\nThe one was a prophet and a dreamer of dreams; the other was an\norganizer and a builder of churches.\u201d[186]\n\nAccording to this, it was a prophet and a dreamer who inspired the\nearly disciples with the idea that he was the Jewish Messiah--those\nsame disciples who saw in him a teacher of ethics only, yet corrupted\nthe Gospels in the attempt to prove that he was something more--those\nsame disciples who were not in the least responsible for the belief in\nChrist as divine that afterward crept into the Church through the door\nof epilepsy. And this ethical teacher is the same Being who believed\nwith all His soul in the Promised One and permitted Himself to be\ngreeted as the Promised One!\n\nThis amazing series of contradictions does not come from confronting\nBrowne with other authorities, but merely from confronting Browne with\nBrowne and without going outside of one chapter of one single book.\nStrange indeed is the behavior of those who seek to eat their cake and\nat the same time to throw it away.\n\nFor Browne would have it that Jesus, the prophet, dreamer and inspirer\nof belief in His Messiahship, was made a foundling in his own\nspiritual house by His antithesis, Paul--who accomplished this feat of\ndispossession by winning general acceptance for the very belief in\nquestion. Or does Browne think that when the Jewish Messiah came to be\nunderstood as the Savior of the World, the idea was less dreamlike and\nprophetic?\n\nPaul is evidently now drunk with the heady liquor of mystery-salvation.\nHe has had a seizure. But Browne has been telling us how Paul\u2019s other\nself, Saul, the studious young Pharisee, has been listening all his\nlife to tales of mystery-cults and savior-gods from the lips of\nhousehold slaves and Gentile playmates; how he has acquired more than\na passing acquaintance with the Logos philosophy of a Jew residing in\nAlexandria. All this is heady liquor. Jew and Gentile, high and low,\nslaves and playmates--none of them are exactly Puritans or ethical\nrationalists. And the new religion, most heady of all, appeals--not to\nthe youthful Saul, who might supposedly be the dreamer of the pair,\nbut to the more mature Paul, the Roman citizen, organizer and man of\naffairs.\n\nOf course it is historically correct to say that the new religion did\nappeal to Paul rather than to Saul. But what happened on the road\nto Damascus was not, even on Browne\u2019s own showing, a change from a\ndisbelief to belief in miracle religion, but a change from disbelief to\nbelief in Jesus as the Son of God. An epileptic fit, we are about to be\ntold, makes a common man over into a moral and intellectual giant. It\ntransforms a listener to tales and mystical philosophies into a cold\nthinker. And this cold thinking leads to the acceptance of Christianity\nin its original form. I am not questioning that cold thinking might not\nlead to such a result; am not trying to intimate that there is anything\nantagonistic between a cold brain and a warm heart. Browne\u2019s fallacy\nhere is historical--the attempt to prove that Paul was a cold thinker\nand pretended to be nothing else.\n\nAs to a touching belief in the efficacy of disease, we may find it in\nminds much less confused than Browne\u2019s. It runs through such books as\n\u201cThe Psychology of Religious Mysticism,\u201d by James H. Leuba, professor\nof psychology at Bryn Mawr. According to Browne, mental unbalance\nproduces indomitable courage and inflexible will. According to\nProfessor Leuba, the hysterical saints lived lives of \u201cjoyful activity,\nbroken only by transports of surpassing love and peaceful rest.\u201d[187]\nNot a very comprehensive description of the lives of saints. But if\nthere be such hysteria as this, such epilepsy as Browne describes,\nit is a pity that the germs cannot be isolated, propagated, and sown\nbroadcast.\n\nThese authors are among those who ruin their hypotheses by\ninadvertently accounting for too much. Their hysteria and epilepsy,\nstretched to meet all demands, lose the quality of disease and take on\nthe quality of genius. Would it not be well at least to distinguish two\ntypes of hysteria (some writers make even epilepsy hysterical), the\nmalignant and the benign? Or if the word hysteria merely means emotion,\nwhy not recognize the fact that an emotion may indicate conditions as\ncategorically opposite as those reflected in the sensations of pleasure\nand of pain? It is grossly irrational to narrow it down to a single\nsinister meaning if it is to be put forward as the \u201ccause\u201d and the\n\u201cexplanation\u201d of such diverse effects as those which are clothed in\nthe willing garb of a Sister of Charity and those which lead to the\nunwilling wearing of a straight-jacket.\n\nNor is it any less absurd to say that St. Paul, having partaken of\nheady salvation-liquor such as was drunken of aforetime only by\ncharlatans, madmen, arrant knaves and driveling fools, and adding to\nits potency by insisting upon its universal applicability--to say all\nthis even by implication, and then to add as Browne does[188] that \u201cin\nhis own class, Paul was one of the stupendously great men of the earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe was,\u201d the narrative continues, \u201ca superb statesman. And he was\npossessed of an energy, a courage, and an indomitable will, the like of\nwhich have rarely been known in all the history of great men.... Again\nand again he was scourged and imprisoned.... And yet he persisted,\nnever resting from his grueling labor of carrying his Christ to the\nGentiles, incessantly running to and fro, preaching, writing, arguing\nand comforting, until at last, a tired and broken man, he died a\nmartyr\u2019s death in the city of Rome.... It was in the year 67, according\nto tradition, that Paul was beheaded.\u201d\n\nOnce again Browne considers himself privileged to repudiate all that\na man stands for, his sole claim to distinction, and yet to put him\non a pedestal of insincere rhetoric. When he speaks of Paul\u2019s \u201cown\nclass\u201d does he mean the class of \u201ccharlatans, madmen, arrant knaves and\ndriveling fools\u201d? Indeed, St. Paul himself is reported to have said,\n\u201cIf in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most\nmiserable.\u201d\n\nBut Browne has yet stranger things in store. He proceeds to write the\nhistory of the Church.\n\n\n4. THE CHURCH AS SCAPEGOAT\n\nPaul, says Browne, \u201chad spent perhaps thirty years in the labor of\nspreading the idea of Christ, and by the time of his death that idea\nhad already struck root far and wide in the Empire. It had divorced\nitself from Judaism, taking over the Sunday of the Mithraists in place\nof the Jewish Sabbath, and substituting Mithraist ritual for the Temple\nsacrifice.\u201d[189] [The Mithraist ritual centered in the slaughter of a\nbull!]\n\n\u201cThrough Judaism, the religion of Persia left its mark also on\nChristianity; and not merely through Judaism, but also through\nMithraism.\u201d[190] [Mithra is personified diffused sunshine!]\n\n\u201cIn most of the cities there were already thriving christian\nbrotherhoods, little secret societies much like those of the\nmysteries.... With the passing of the years, the pagan element\ngrew.... The life-story of Jesus was embellished with a whole new\narray of marvels and miracles, and the man himself was made over into\na veritable mystery savior-god. His character and nature fell into the\nmaw of an alien philosophy, and then came drooling out in sodden and\nswollen distortion. He became the Lamb whose blood washed away all sin.\nHe became the Son of God supernaturally conceived by the Virgin.... He\nbecame the Logos and the Avatar and the Savior.\u201d[191]\n\nBrowne here is complaining of alleged corruptions from Persian and\nother sources, all largely Oriental; as were in their origin the Greek\nand Roman \u201cmysteries,\u201d of which he has complained hitherto. But he\ngoes on to allege that \u201cAlthough the religion of Jesus and of the first\ndisciples was distinctly Oriental, although the whole Messiah idea was\nmarkedly a thing of the East, the religion about a Savior Christ was\nlargely European.... Indeed, one gravely doubts whether Jesus, the\nsimple peasant teacher in hilly Galilee, would have known who in the\nworld that Savior Christ was.\u201d\n\nGeography is evidently too much for Browne. Persia has suddenly become\nEuropean. And St. Paul, with his \u201cmore than passing acquaintance\u201d with\nthe Logos philosophy of Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, and his subsequent\nconversion to the \u201cdistinctly Oriental ... Messiah idea,\u201d is of the\nWest. Perhaps Alexandria was not in Africa in the early days of the\nChristian era, and maybe Persia was then in the extreme Occident.\n\n\u201cIt was inevitable for that change to come about. Christianity ... was\ngaining too many converts too rapidly.... It would not have been so\nbad had they been converts from a world of ignorance.... But they were\nconverts instead from a world of what we would call stupidity.\u201d[192]\n\nSo preaching founded upon the epistles of St. Paul, a man \u201cwho was one\nof the stupendously great men of the earth,\u201d and \u201ca superb statesman,\u201d\nappealed chiefly not to the ignorant but to the naturally stupid! \u201cNo\nsuch testaments [as the stupid epistles of St. Paul and the silly\nlegends and pious frauds called the Gospels] could be offered by the\npriests of Mithra, Cybele or Attis. For their deities were after all\nmythical. Only the Christians had a real man to worship; a unique\nand divine man, it is true, but nevertheless a person who had known\nhuman woe and pain, who had suffered, and who had for at least\nthree days been dead. That element of naturalism, of closeness to\nhuman reality, must have made Christianity a faith of extraordinary\nattractiveness.\u201d[193]\n\nSurely Browne does not believe that a simple teacher of ethics, who,\nwith good health, would have been a soldier, was actually dead and rose\nagain, for he has told us that such a legend arose from pious frauds\nsuspiciously like the frauds practiced long before in the case of\nZoroaster. He must be meaning to say that the stupid followers of St.\nPaul and later preachers of miracle religion _believed_ Christ to have\nbeen a Divine Man who was once dead. They must, then, have believed in\nthe Resurrection. Is that to be regarded as an element of naturalism?\n\n\u201cThere was a wondrous comfort in that religion\u201d--of the stupid; \u201ca\nmighty zeal that made it possible for the martyrs to go to their death\nactually with a smile on their lips. It took vile slaves out of the\nslums where they rotted, and somehow breathed supernal heroism into\nthem. It told them that ... death for the truth would mean only life\neverlasting.\u201d[194]\n\n\u201cThen came Constantine, and, in the year 313, an end to the\npersecutions.\u201d[195] An end to the persecution of a corrupt yet\nwonder-working Christianity originated by the abnormal St. Paul, you\nwill observe, which must have worked through the powers of hysteria,\nepilepsy and suggestion. One would think that there was little harm\nleft for Constantine to do. Nevertheless, \u201cIt was a costly triumph for\nChristianity, as every other such triumph has been in all history.\nWhat happened to Buddhism when it set out to conquer the Far East, now\nhappened also to Christianity in the West.\u201d What, did it lose its\npower? No. \u201cIt became an official and successful institution--and so\ndegenerate.\u201d[196]\n\nA Mithraist ritual, draped in the rags of dying pagan mysteries and\nPhilo-Pauline doctrines from an European Africa, manages to degenerate!\nIt staggers on its downward way, growing more and more drunken with the\nheady liquor of mystery salvation drawn from a Europe located in the\nOrient.\n\n\u201cA faith cannot be institutionalized,\u201d Browne informs us, \u201cfor it is a\nthing of the spirit.\u201d\n\nAn institution, then, is something which subsists in matter. Men with\nfaith in anything cannot be drawn together into an institution. Only\nmen who believe in nothing can belong to institutions.\n\n\u201cEven dogmas or rites, which are things almost of the flesh, cannot be\norganized beyond certain bounds.\u201d[197]\n\nWhat bounds? And within or without what bounds is it possible for a\nrite not to be organized? And to what extent is a dogma, like that\nof the Logos, for example, \u201calmost of the flesh\u201d? Anyway, \u201ceven\nafter Christianity became primarily a thing of dogmas and rites, it\nnevertheless began to crack and crumble.\u201d[198]\n\nWhy \u201cnevertheless\u201d? After what he has said of dogmas and rites he\nshould have said \u201cbecause of.\u201d And does he say \u201cbegan\u201d to crack and\ncrumble when it had already suffered the corruptions of St. Paul and\nConstantine?\n\nYes; and it begins to crack and crumble just as it is setting out as\na tidal wave to overwhelm the West and half of the East! And as faith\ncannot be institutionalized, a sufficient lack of faith might have kept\nit from cracking and crumbling, also from \u201cdrooling out in sodden and\nswollen distortions.\u201d\n\n\u201cPaul,\u201d continues our author, \u201chad used his theological terms rather\nloosely.\u201d[199] His stupendous greatness, then, was not as a teacher of\nreligion. \u201cPaul [same page] had spoken of Jesus as a savior.\u201d\n\nBrowne then tells of the controversies which arose over the doctrine\nof the Trinity and other matters, adding: \u201cScores of such questions\narose.... Jesus had not been conscious of even the most ponderous of\nsuch questions. That dear, fervent young preacher, who had lived and\ndied in the sublimity of a simple faith could never possibly have been\nconscious of them. Had he heard them posed, he would probably have\nshaken his head in mute bewilderment.... When one puts beside the\nGospel accounts of the preaching of Jesus the official records of the\nwrangling and bickering of those church fathers, one feels that here\nis to be found the most tragic and sordid epic of frustration that the\nwhole history of mankind can tell.\u201d[200]\n\nBrowne omits to name the church fathers he has in mind. But why put\nbeside records, which are at least official, the silly legendary\ngospels which unconscious zealots corrupted into drooling distortions\nto suit their fancy?\n\nAnd if Jesus could not have been conscious of even the most ponderous\nof theological questions, what is he supposed to have thought of the\nmultitudes who greeted his entrance into Jerusalem, shouting, \u201cHosanna!\nBlessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!\u201d That would seem to\npose a rather ponderous theological question.\n\nMoreover, all histories of the Jews which are not stranger than fiction\ngive the impression that the Scribes and Pharisees of Christ\u2019s day\nwere somewhat given to discussing theological questions, ponderous and\nother. One living in their midst and not being conscious of at least\nsome of the questions that were to be debated later by the Church\nfathers must have been unconscious at all points.\n\n\u201cMore than sixteen hundred years have passed since Christianity was\nmade the state religion in the decadent Roman Empire. Throughout\nall those years [notwithstanding its cracking and its crumbling]\nit has been extending its borders.... It is estimated that at the\npresent time about one third of the entire population of the world is\nChristian--approximately five hundred and sixty-five million souls. And\nof course, it is to the spirit of Paul regnant in Christendom that one\nmust credit that enormous expansion.... It is because countless monks\nand healers and warriors and saints have felt Paul\u2019s call [sic!] to go\nout and win the heathen to Christ, that today more souls are turned to\nChrist than to any other deity on earth.\u201d\n\nI do not know if Browne attributes the Pauline triumph to the Apostle\u2019s\nloose handling of theological terms, but he says, \u201cthese wholesale\nincreases in numbers were not made save at a high price.... Just as\nBuddha had to be idolized before he could conquer the East, so Jesus\nhad to be idolized, too, for pagan Europe.\u201d[201]\n\nYet--\u201cdespite all these compromises, the new religion remained always\nheavens above the old [paganism]. By assimilating pagan rites and\nmyths ... Christianity became at last almost completely pagan in\nsemblance; but it never became quite pagan in character. The Old\nTestament puritanism which had so marked the life of Jesus was never\nrouted.... If the spirit of Paul insisted that Cybele be taken over\nas the Mother of Christ, the spirit of Jesus insisted that her wild\nCorybantes with their lustful rites, and her holy eunuchs with their\nrevolting perversions, be left severely behind. If the spirit of Paul\ndemanded that the wild Celtic goddess named Bridget be accepted into\nChristianity, the Spirit of Jesus demanded that first she be made\nlily-white and a saint.... It [the Spirit of Christ] set its face hard\nagainst sacred prostitution and against all those other loosenesses\nand obscenities which arose out of the pagan\u2019s free attitude towards\nsex.\u201d[202]\n\nSo it was the spirit of a man who was \u201cin his own class\u201d one of the\n\u201cstupendously great men of the earth,\u201d who favored prostitution,\ninsisted upon taking Cybele into his loosely-worded theology,\nand--having failed to secure the lustful Corybantes and the holy\neunuchs who still had a capacity for perversions--demanded and obtained\nthe acceptance of a wild Celtic goddess named Bridget.\n\nBrowne describes this Spirit-of-Paul\u2019s Bridget. She was, it appears,\none of three deities who \u201chad already [2000 years ago] been\nsufficiently detached from their physical bodies to be thought of as\nremote gods and goddesses.\u201d The other two were Ogmius and Maponus.\n\nAt their festivals, \u201cmen and women lay together in the fields,\nand behaved as did all other primitive peoples in their religious\nfestivals.... Not until the Christian idea of morality was brought to\nthem did the Celts grow conscious of any wickedness in their old rites.\nAnd even then they did not give them up at once. Indeed, to this day\ntheir descendants have not given them up entirely.\u201d[203]\n\n\u201cThe difference between [the] Babylonian cult of Ishtar and the\nprimitive Celtic cult of Bridget was entirely one of degree.... Both\nwere inspired by dread of the same evil, sterility: and both sought\nto attain one end, fecundity. But one, the Babylonian, was far less\nprimitive ... far less wildly promiscuous and bestial. The Babylonian\nrites were conducted within the confines of stone temples, not out in\nthe furroughs of the torch-lit fields.\u201d[204]\n\nThis undoubtedly gave the Babylonians the ethical advantage. And it\nseems that the Celtic gods and goddesses were not only primitive, but\ncontinually kept their followers alarmed lest they (the goddesses)\nshould forget how to become fecund. The ritual in the furrows of the\ntorch-lit fields, \u201cto this day not given up entirely,\u201d was for the\npurpose of overcoming the deities\u2019 \u201cbashfulness,\u201d Browne tells us, and\nto set them an example of what was desired. And if the spirit of Paul\ncould have had its way, such a ritual, though perhaps conducted within\nstone temples, would have been established in Rome! And there it would\ndoubtless have been practiced today--as it is, I gather from Browne, in\npresent-day Ireland!\n\n\u201cThe spirit of Jesus flickering in Christianity made it at least\nnominally a religion of ethics,\u201d Browne goes on. \u201cFor Jesus, one must\nremember, had not been in the least concerned with ritual. Like every\nother great Jewish prophet, he had preached only ethics. And despite\nall the compromises of the world-conquering Pauls, that ethical\nemphasis of the teaching of Jesus persisted as a mighty leaven in the\nchurch. It gave to the early Christians that gentle nobility which\nhistory tells us graced their faith.\u201d[205]\n\nWhen was this? Brown says that \u201cof the life of the first Nazarenes we\nknow exceedingly little.\u201d[206] He gives the year 67 as the date of St.\nPaul\u2019s martyrdom. Can it be that the early Christians were gentle and\nnoble even after the loose sex ideas and loose theological terms of the\ngreat Apostle had been given a chance to begin their deadly work?\n\n\u201cThe church itself, with its foul record of crusades and inquisitions\nand pogroms, cannot be said to have ever been really civilized. But\nthat admission does not at all discredit the potency of the spirit of\nJesus.... True, there were indeed Dark Ages in Europe when the power of\nthe Church was at its height. But who knows how far darker they might\nhave been, and how much longer they might have endured, had the Church\nnot existed?\u201d[207] \u201cOne must remember that Christianity came into a\nworld that was sinking.... It alone sought to keep civilization going.\nIt failed. It could not keep from failing. But be it said to its glory\nthat at least it tried.\u201d[208]\n\n\u201cThe glory of trying to save the world from bestiality belongs\nprimarily to but one element alone in Christianity; the original\nNazerene element. And that element, one must remember, was never\ndominant in the faith save during those years before it was really\nChristian. Once Paul came on the scene, the light of the religion of\nJesus began to fade, and the glare of the religion about Christ [that\nis, the doctrine that Christ was the Son of God and the Redeemer of the\nWorld] blazed over all.\u201d[209]\n\n\u201cYet though the light from Galilee [the light of One who \u2018like every\nother great Jewish prophet\u2019 taught only ethics, yet believed with all\nhis soul in the Messianic idea] faded ... it never was quite snuffed\nout.... For long centuries it smouldered.... And then slowly that\nforgotten spark began to brighten once more. A devastating incursion\nof Huns and Saracens blew the spark to a flame. As never before in\nfull six hundred years, the Christians began to think again of their\nsuffering Savior.\u201d[210]\n\nThis certainly is what Browne writes, incredible as it may seem. The\nPauline doctrine \u201cabout Jesus\u201d has been overshadowing the world,\nthreatening to extinguish the spark of the merely ethical religion\npreached by Jesus himself. And now the spark blows into a flame--and\nlo! it, too, is a religion about Jesus! Men begin to think again of\ntheir suffering \u201c_Savior_!\u201d Moreover, Jesus was a pacifist, and all\nthat was needed to fan the spirit of his teaching into a flame was a\ndevastating incursion of Huns and Saracens. Was it the ethics of the\ninvaders which did the trick?\n\n\u201cLike a mad fire the hope spread over Europe that the year 1000 would\nsee the return of the Redeemer.\u201d Yes, the word is \u201cRedeemer.\u201d So Brown\ndoes know what \u201cSavior\u201d means. And we were right in thinking that he\nintends to say that the spark so long all but quenched by a religion\nabout Jesus proved, when it revived, to be itself a religion about\nJesus, a belief in Him as a supernatural Being, able, if he liked,\nto return--in short, the Logos, as had been taught by the \u201cabnormal\u201d\nSt. Paul. And Browne appears to be utterly unconscious that he has\nstultified his whole argument. The fact that he has in effect said\nthat the world expected a helpless teacher of ethics to return after a\nthousand years; and has also said that belief in this helpless ethical\nteacher constituted a belief in a miraculous Savior and Redeemer, which\nbelief had been for hundreds of years all but stifled by the doctrine\nthat he was indeed a miraculous Savior and Redeemer--all this troubles\nthe Browne mind not at all.\n\n\u201cThe year 1000 passed, and no Redeemer came--but Europe was a little\nredeemed nevertheless.\u201d By the ethical Huns and Saracens, apparently.\n\u201cMen turned from what the Church of Christ insisted on offering them,\nand instead began to grope after the gospel of Jesus for themselves.\nThey took to reading the Scriptures in their original tongues.\u201d (The\npeople did? Or does he mean in the vernacular? In either case it must\nhave exposed them to what Browne gives us to understand is a mass of\nsilly fables.) \u201cAnd reading them they began to see at last how far the\nChurch had wandered from the pristine truth.\u201d (A truly wonderful feat\nof discriminating literary criticism. Were the people so familiar with\nZoroastrian tales that they were able at once to discard all passages\nhaving a suspicious resemblance to them?) \u201cThey discovered at last how\nshamelessly the priests had substituted rite for right, how flagrantly\nthey had ritualized all morality.... The clerical authorities took\nalarm. Despotically they issued proclamations prohibiting the laity\nfrom even glancing at the bible.\u201d\n\nBrowne owes it to the world to publish those despotic proclamations, so\nthat we may know their authors. I have myself seen the Bible in chains\nin Italian churches, and I understand that chains were much more common\nin the middle ages than now. But if the object was not to keep the\nbooks from being stolen but to keep them from being read, the riveters\nof the chains were indeed stupid people. For they chained the books by\nthe backs and in a manner which permitted them always to lie open.\n\nSo--\u201cthe Bible was read nevertheless.... The flame of heresy burned\non.\u201d But why, if the Church was so opposed to it, did it gather the\nBible together in the first place? Browne does not say. What he does\nsay is that \u201cIn the fourteenth century, Wycliffe did godly mischief\nin England; in the fifteenth John Huss carried on in Bohemia; in the\nsixteenth Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin led the Protestant revolt.\u201d[211]\n\n\u201cBut one must not imagine that Protestantism was ever purely\nNazarene in spirit--any more than Catholicism was ever unrelievedly\nPauline.\u201d (True enough. I have even heard it said that Catholicism\nis to a certain extent Petrine.) \u201cProtestantism includes every type\nof religious thought. Only slowly and with many pangs, is even\nProtestantism shaking off the religion about Christ.\u201d (Then that\nrevival of belief in a supernatural Savior and Redeemer, instituted by\nthe Saracens and Huns, was not a flash in the pan, but carried over to\na certain extent into the godly mischief of Wycliffe, Huss, Luther,\nZwingli and Calvin!) \u201cOnly slowly, very slowly is it [Protestantism]\nbeating its way back to the religion of Jesus.\u201d[212] That is, to ethics.\n\n\u201cThough the Church of Christ may stand guilty of untold and untellable\nevil, the religion of Jesus, ... has accomplished good sufficient to\noutweigh that evil tenfold.\u201d\n\nIf the evil referred to expressed itself in facts, why is it\nuntellable? Browne, I think, should tell it, and in detail. He ought\nnot to emulate St. Paul in the loose use of words. As the page stands,\nwe cannot be sure that he does not refer to the Church of England\nand the hanging, drawing and quartering of Catholic priests during\nthe reigns of Elizabeth and James I. But the \u201creligion of Jesus,\u201d i.\ne. ethics, \u201cHas made life liveable for countless millions of harried\nsouls. It has taken rich and poor, learned and ignorant, white, red,\nyellow, and black--it has taken them all and tried to show them a way\nto salvation. To all pain it has held out a balm; to all in distress it\nhas offered peace. To every man without distinction it has said: Jesus\ndied for you! To every human creature on earth it has said: You too can\nbe saved! And therein lies Christianity\u2019s highest virtue. It has helped\nmake the weak strong and the dejected happy. It has stilled the fear\nthat howls in man\u2019s breast and crushed the unrest that gnaws at his\nsoul. In a word it has worked--in a measure.\u201d[213]\n\nI wish I might let this eloquent passage stand without comment. Taken\nby itself, it sounds almost like the words of a sincere believer in\nChrist as the supernatural Savior of Men. But, taken in connection\nwith what has gone before, it seems to me abominable. Here is a man\nwho has denied the supernatural nature of Christ time after time in\nthe preceding 300 pages. And now he is using words which imply such\na miraculous nature, or else mean nothing at all. Yes, they mean\nsomething. They mean that this light, this balm, this peace, this\nsalvation which is Christianity\u2019s highest virtue, is an illusion. To\nevery man this Christianity has said: Jesus died for you! Here the\ndoctrine of the Vicarious Atonement is indicated. And St. Paul, in\npreaching that doctrine, that \u201creligion about Jesus,\u201d founded a new\nfaith and made Christ the mere foundling of Christianity! True, Browne\nhas also said a great deal on the other side. That is precisely the\ntrouble. He thinks it is possible to stand both with the sheep and with\nthe goats.\n\nBut the final chapter of \u201cThis Believing World\u201d (for Christianity\nis not its climax) is consistent. It is entitled, \u201cWhat Happened in\nArabia.\u201d And it thus concludes:\n\n\u201cIslam ... has been one of the most effective civilizing forces in\nthe history of Africa and Asia, and in a measure also in that of\nEurope.... The supreme gift of Islam was the idea of unity which it\nsomehow drilled into the heads of a hundred races--not merely the\nunity of God, but even more the unity of mankind.... Every other great\nreligion taught more or less the same doctrine [in regard to submitting\nto Allah], but none with such fierceness and unrestraint.... Islam\nexcluded no man from the army of Allah.... And that is why to this day\nIslam can still win converts with twice the ease of any other religion.\nThat is why to this day Islam is one of the mightiest institutions\non earth for the ordering and beautifying of life in at least the\n\u2018backward\u2019 lands.\u201d\n\nIn the beginning there was fear. In the end there is no God but Allah,\nand Mohammed is his prophet!\n\n\n5. THE STORIES OF DURANT\n\nIt is with regret that I include Will Durant among the Misbehaviorists.\nHe is no crude mechanist, and his popularity is so great that, like\nSinclair Lewis, he has almost ceased to be a mere individual and\nbecome an institution. And in some respects his success is a most\ngratifying and hopeful sign of the times.\n\n[Illustration: DR. WILL DURANT\n\nAlmost an institution]\n\nSome say that it was Durant who showed us that we were fond of serious\nreading and not of the light novels which the publishers for so many\nyears fancied that we craved. But in reality it was \u201cThe Education of\nHenry Adams\u201d which showed us that. And I am not so certain that a mere\nlove of heavy reading is such a good sign. By the time reading becomes\nsubstantial it begins to make some difference what it is weighted with.\n\nI like to think that \u201cThe Story of Philosophy\u201d has been bought in such\nquantities because it is, to a very great and very charming extent, The\nStory of the Philosophers. Durant\u2019s ability as a writer of biography\namounts almost to genius. Nor are his accounts of the philosophers\u2019\nphilosophies often other than good bits of skillful summing-up\ninterspersed with apt quotations. My only misgivings revolve around the\nstories of Durant--those paragraphs of criticism and seemingly personal\nopinion with which he usually ends his chapters--around those and\ncertain omissions. What have we here, the story of philosophy, or only\nthe story of a certain bias purporting to be the story of philosophy?\n\nAs was to be expected of a born biographer, Durant follows the method\nof using environment to explain belief. The pessimism of Schopenhauer\nis due to the fact that he lived in the first half of the nineteenth\ncentury, the age of the Holy Alliance, when Waterloo had been fought,\nthe Revolution was dead, and the Son of the Revolution rotting on\na rock in a distant sea. \u201cSomething of [Schopenhauer\u2019s] despair\ncame from the pathetic distance of St. Helena.\u201d[214] And when \u201cMme.\nClotilde de Vaux (whose husband was spending his life in jail) took\ncharge of Comte\u2019s heart, his affection for her warmed and colored his\nintelligence.\u201d So Comte\u2019s later Religion of Humanity was due to the\nhappiness of his illegitimate union, just as his earlier Positivism had\nbeen due to the marital infelicity which led him to attempt suicide in\nthe Seine.\n\nIt is the method by which Taine years ago sought to explain all English\nliterature. Durant is an environmentalist--which, after all, is better\nthan being a mad hereditarian. One is tempted to enquire into his own\nenvironment, his college, his religious and philosophical surroundings,\nand to read dates and geography between his lines. But I cannot bring\nmyself to apply either the environment or the heredity hypothesis to\nthe exclusion of that entity which comes from neither, that ego which\nlearns or does not learn from its contact with that which is not itself.\n\nThat Durant is not himself a philosopher, is evident--and in his\nfavor. We really do not need another philosopher just now--of the sort\nwe would be likely to get. He has no system of his own, no universal\ntouch-stone, no central thesis giving unity to his several beliefs. In\nhis mind Kant, Darwin and Bergson meet, but no more mingle than do oil\nand water. An emulsifying _tertium quid_ is lacking. This lack should\nhave made him an ideal historian of other men\u2019s theories. And it almost\ndid.\n\nBut there is another lack. The complete historian should have a\ncomplete experience. He should have been submerged in the main stream\nof thought, even if he has failed to sound all its dead-waters to the\nbottom. And if environment and the accident of birth do not offer him\nsuch experience, he should have that thirst for knowledge which leads\nto exploration and discovery.\n\nThe Durant ego lacks precisely that. It was born in a lake, and it has\nno thirst for the sea. Like certain aquatic creatures, it takes what\nfloats into its mouth, but makes no explorations. What Durant has given\nus is simply not the story of philosophy. It is merely a series of\ninteresting comments upon the curriculum of a certain type of college\nwhich does not even belong to the University of World Thought. This\nprovincialism is unfortunate, for it is certain to deceive provincial\nreaders with the idea that they have listened to the whole story.\n\nIt is difficult, after the reading of a book which is an avowed\nrecapitulation of many foreign opinions, to say what an author\u2019s own\nopinions may be. It is evident that Durant is no Catholic; not quite\nso evident whether or no he is a believing Protestant. He seems to\nhave little sympathy with Protestantism as a whole, and less yet with\nFundamentalism. It may be safe to say that his personal bias takes the\ndirection of a vague Humanism.\n\nTo quote, without taking the greatest precaution not to pass off some\nmere explanatory paraphrase as the author\u2019s own, would be so unfair\nthat I hesitate to quote at all in proof of anything. There are,\nhowever, certain passages which are clearly Durant, and not Plato,\nAristotle or Nietzsche boiled down--though even here we must be on\nguard lest what we see is Durant under the momentary influence of his\nsubject, not Durant in his daily habit. It is the wind which does not\nblow, the things which he does not say, that speak most eloquently and\nsurely of the man.\n\nChapters, and most of them long chapters, are given to Plato,\nAristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer,\nHerbert Spencer, Nietzsche; a chapter to three contemporary\nEuropeans--Henri Bergson, Benedetto Croce and Bertrand Russell; and a\nfinal chapter to the three American moderns, George Santayana, William\nJames and John Dewey. There are adequate pages devoted to Rousseau,\nLocke, Hegel, and many a lesser light. Some, you will note, are\npre-Christian; some are atheistic; some deistic, monistic, or agnostic.\nIt is a chorus which is irreligious with a vast predominance, with\nhere and there a tolerant voice for modernistic Protestantism. Bishop\nBerkeley, represented by a few paragraphs, stands practically alone as\nthe exponent of a particular faith.\n\nIt will be said that this is the story of philosophy, not of theology.\nBut I cannot see the force of the explanation. Theology is certainly\nphilosophy; and why should one man be barred because he begins with the\nassumption that God has revealed Himself in an Incarnation, and another\nadmitted who begins with the assumption that God has revealed himself\nin the human will of a super-man devoted satanically to selfish ends,\nor is in the process of revealing himself in an _\u00e9lan vital_, or begins\nwith the assumption that there is no God? Surely the historian is not\nbound to believe every philosophy he outlines. And surely the Christian\nassumption is no more of a foregone conclusion than are the others.\n\nNor even if it be granted that the story of philosophy, because of the\ncurrent use of the word, is naturally a story of secular philosophy,\ndoes Durant come off any better. The Chinese philosophers and the\nVedantic philosophers of India may be said to be so widely separated\nfrom us in time and space that they do not belong in a history of our\nculture. That was more true in the days when Durant was a boy than it\nis today. But let it pass. What about the Scholastics?\n\nThe Scholastics were not only theologians, but philosophers and\nscientists; they dominated the thought of Christendom for a thousand\nyears, and still dominate a large section of Christendom, not counting\ntheir influence in quarters where it is felt rather than recognized.\n\nDurant admits that his treatment of Scholasticism is \u201cinadequate,\u201d\nbut excuses himself with the plea that the inadequacy was due to lack\nof space. But he finds space for ten and a half pages about Benedetto\nCroce--and no page at all for St. Augustine, Albertus Magnus, or St.\nThomas Aquinas.\n\nThe Angelic Doctor\u2019s name, however, is mentioned. It appears in a\npictorial table of \u201cphilosophic affiliations,\u201d constructed in the\nmanner of a family tree. According to this table, Aquinas stems from\nAristotle, who stems from Plato, who stems from Socrates, who stems\nfrom the Sophists. There is also a branch line of affiliation extending\nto the left like a bar sinister, connecting the great scholastic with\nChristian Theology followed by a question mark. I do not fathom the\nmeaning of the question mark. But Christian Theology (?) itself stems\nfrom Zeno the Stoic, and he from Diogenes, and he from Antisthenes,\nand he from Heraclitus. There is yet another branch line leading from\nAntisthenes, touching Socrates, and ending in Aristippus, of the house\nof Democritus and Leucippus.\n\nSo Aquinas appears to be quite free from any unquestioned philosophic\naffiliation with St. Augustine, Albertus Magnus, St. Paul, or even\nJesus Christ. We begin to be glad that Durant had no room for an\n\u201cadequate\u201d treatment of the Scholastics.\n\nUnfortunately, he does not quite drop them with the chart. In a note\n\u201cTo the Reader\u201d he refers to them as \u201chalf-legendary.\u201d It is odd that\na school which included the leading thinker, secular or sacred, of the\nThirteenth Century, the age of Dante, should have become legendary in\nthe New York of 1926, from which Durant dates his book.\n\nTurning from legends, we come to Benedetto Croce, who, writes\nDurant[215] \u201cis a sceptic with an almost German gift for obscurity ...\nan anti-clerical who writes like an American Hegelian ... an Italian\nCatholic who has kept nothing of his religion except its scholasticism\nand its devotion to beauty.\u201d And lo, we are back to legend again!\n\u201cPerhaps the comparative infertility of Italy in the philosophy of\nthe last hundred years,\u201d Durant goes on, \u201cis due in some part to the\nretention of scholastic attitudes and methods even by thinkers who have\nabandoned the old theology.\u201d Adding,[216] \u201cHe [Croce] is, after all, a\nproduct of the scholastic tradition ... he is a germanized Italian.\u201d\n\nNow it is quite true that, though Thomas Aquinas was a native\nof the Kingdom of Naples, he studied under Albertus Magnus at\nCologne--probably during the year 1244; returned to Cologne in 1284;\nand perhaps visited it several times thereafter. But both he and his\nillustrious master were scholastics of the school of St. Augustine, who\ndied in the year 430. The one German thing about St. Augustine is that\nEucken, the German philosopher, says of him: \u201cIf our age wishes to take\nup and treat in an independent way the problems of religion, it is not\nso much to Schleiermacher or Kant or even Luther or St. Thomas that it\nmust refer as to Augustine, and outside of religion, there are points\nupon which Augustine is more modern than Hegel or Schopenhauer.\u201d\n\nDurant surely cannot mean that a living Italian has been \u201cGermanized\u201d\nthrough having absorbed the teachings of a master who died in 1280\nand was the follower of another master, in Hippo, who died in 430. As\none of the chief tenets of Scholasticism is that the Christian creed\ncan be proven by reason alone without recourse to Revelation, Croce\nof course had to repudiate his scholasticism, German or not, along\nwith his religion. All that can remain to him, if anything remains,\nis a certain training of the mind. Whether he has shown the effects\nof such training, or made good use of it, is a matter of opinion.\nWhat Durant shows here is total unfamiliarity with his subject. He is\nmerely applying certain notions which he picked up uncritically from\nunauthorative sources. But having mentioned this Scholasticism which\nhe seems not to have read, he goes on, _re_ Croce, to ask: \u201cHow could\nan Italian be unkind to a Church that had brought all the world to\nCanossa, and had levied imperial tribute on every land to make Italy\nthe art-gallery of the world?\u201d\n\nMy own rather extended acquaintance of the art-galleries of the world\nhas heretofore inclined me to believe that Italy has been more sinned\nagainst than sinning in this regard--and that in Italy, itself,\nsuch stolen masterpieces as are to be seen were largely stolen from\nthe Church and placed in galleries belonging to an anti-clerical\nstate. But perhaps I am mistaken--and mistaken also in thinking that\nsince 1870 the Pope has been self-imprisoned in the Vatican when in\nreality he has been roaming for the (until very recently) irreligious\nItalian Government abroad, stealing pictures. Or was it before 1870\nthat the thieving from foreigners was done--during the days when\nItaly was overrun with foreign armies, and the term Italy was a mere\n\u201cgeographical expression?\u201d Does he refer to the marble treasures of\nthe Vatican rescued from war and neglect in Greece and elsewhere?\nOr were the thefts of a still earlier date, when most of Europe was\ncomparatively barbarian? I can think of one such instance. Some of\nthe decorations for St. Mark\u2019s, Venice, were brought by the Venetian\nmerchants from the Orient--as was the body of their patron saint.\n\nBut Durant continues: \u201cSo Italy remained loyal to the old faith, and\ncontented itself with the \u2018Summa\u2019 of Aquinas for philosophy.\u201d\n\nWhen? Why, until Giambatista Vico came. He \u201cstirred the Italian mind\nagain; but Vico went, and philosophy seemed to die with him. Rosmini\nthought for a time that he would rebel; but he yielded. Throughout\nItaly men became more and more irreligious, and more and more loyal to\nthe Church. Benedetto Croce (born in 1866) is an exception.\u201d[217]\n\nWhat Durant must mean is that the more irreligious one becomes the\nmore loyal one naturally is to the Catholic Church. If that be true,\nthe Italian _Risorgimento_ (the political movement which led to the\nunion of Italy under an anti-clerical government) was certainly most\nloyal--and it expressed its loyalty by taking the Church\u2019s temporal\nempire away from it! But in what respect was Croce an exception to this\ndevotion and this irreligion?\n\nFor one thing, he was nearly killed beneath the ruins of a house at\nCasamicciola during the earthquake of 1883. For another, he was \u201cgiven\nso thorough a training in Catholic theology that at last, to restore\nthe balance, he became atheist.\u201d\n\nBut this, apart from the training, was precisely what the\n_Risorgimento_ did, so there is no exception here. The exception,\nthen, must lie in the fact that he did not remain loyal. He could not\nget enough of the Catholic theology out of his system to be loyal to\nthe Catholic Church--though he could be loyal enough to imitate the\n_Risorgimento_ in repudiating it! This, as Durant himself says[218] of\nCroce\u2019s philosophy in general, \u201cis as clear as a starless night.\u201d\n\nI wish to record my entire agreement with this final verdict as to the\nCroce philosophy. From the most absurd premises in the world, Durant\nhas somehow arrived at a correct and satisfactory conclusion.\n\nBut he does not stop here. He goes on to say that Croce \u201cslides easily\ninto logical casuistry and refutes more readily than he can conclude.\u201d\nIt is easy to see that Scholasticism is being held to blame here.\nDurant does not like Scholasticism, and he does not like Croce. Not\nthat there is the slightest evidence that Durant ever read a single\nscholastic author. I am merely assuming that he has. And he would like\nto derive the cause of one dislike from the source of the other. So he\npermits himself to use the word \u201ccasuistry\u201d as loosely as Browne would\nhave us believe St. Paul used theological terms--that is, he uses it\nas an old lady sitting by the fire might use it, to denote sophistry,\nand sophistry to denote an unsound argument. A philosopher could never\nhave so forgotten the original meaning of casuistry as the art of\ndealing with cases of conscience, especially when writing of Croce with\nthe idea that he was a scholastic. But perhaps it was the \u201cGerman\u201d\nscholasticism of his subject which fogged the Durant mind at this point.\n\nBut how explain the following? He tells of Croce becoming Minister of\nPublic Education and a Senator, and denouncing the World War. Then he\nadds: \u201cBut Italy has forgiven him now; and all the youth of the land\nlook up to him as their unbiased guide, philosopher and friend.\u201d[219]\n\nHad Durant but said, \u201cThe anti-fascist wing of the _Intelligencia_,\nmost of whom are far from young and cling to the atheistic French\nRevolutionary philosophy of the _Risorgimento_, look up to Croce,\u201d\nthe statement would have been true--in so far as a member of the\n_Intelligencia_ may be said to look up to anybody. Every unbiased\nperson who has spent much time in Italy of late knows that most of the\nyouth of that country today look upon Mussolini, and not Croce, as\ntheir guide, philosopher and friend. And Mussolini is a Catholic. Has\nDurant never heard of the Black Shirts or of the March on Rome?\n\nBut perhaps I am wrong in finding fault with Durant\u2019s fondness for\ncatering to popular misconceptions which no doubt he shares. He\nquotes his favorite Bergson as saying, \u201cThe time given to refutation\nin philosophy is usually time lost. Of the many attacks directed by\nthe many thinkers against each other, what now remains? Nothing, or\nassuredly very little. That which counts and endures is the modicum of\npositive truth which each contributes.\u201d\n\nOne wonders how this modicum is to be discovered without criticism, and\nis informed (still by Bergson) that \u201cthe true statement is of itself\nable to displace the erroneous idea, and becomes, without our having\ntaken the trouble of refuting anyone, the best of refutations.\u201d Is\nthis not saying that a garden will grow more flowers if one does not\ncriticise it by trying to pull up the weeds? Is it not sheer nonsense\nto talk of erroneous ideas displacing themselves without anybody taking\nthe trouble to refute anything, when there was never a time in the\nhistory of man when ideas, true and false, did not have to meet the\nobjections of the fault-finder? No; Durant assures us that Bergson\nspeaks with \u201cthe voice of wisdom herself,\u201d and that when we \u201c\u2018prove\u2019 or\n\u2018disprove\u2019 a philosophy we are merely offering another one.\u201d\n\nMerely, you understand. Then all philosophies are indifferent mixtures,\none as good as another. Here is pragmatism mixed with _laissez-faire_.\nAnd like pragmatism (which at one and the same time holds that whatever\nyou think is true is indeed true for the moment and as far as you are\nconcerned, and that nevertheless the test of truth is the fruit it\nbears), it does not understand itself.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[146] _Op. cit._, p. 83.\n\n[147] _Ibid._, p. 429.\n\n[148] _Op. cit._, p. 446.\n\n[149] _Op. cit._, page 71.\n\n[150] _Ibid._, p. 454.\n\n[151] _Ibid._, p. 155.\n\n[152] _Ibid._, p. 456.\n\n[153] _Op. cit._, p. 437.\n\n[154] _Ibid._, p. 473.\n\n[155] \u201cThis Believing World,\u201d p. 298.\n\n[156] _Ibid._, p. 296.\n\n[157] _Ibid._, p. 297.\n\n[158] _Op. cit._, p. 300.\n\n[159] _Op. cit._, p. 29.\n\n[160] _Ibid._, pp. 29-30.\n\n[161] _Ibid._, p. 30.\n\n[162] _Op. cit._, p. 259.\n\n[163] _Op. cit._, pp. 259-260.\n\n[164] _Ibid._, p. 261.\n\n[165] _Op. cit._, p. 263.\n\n[166] _Ibid._, p. 264.\n\n[167] _Ibid._, p. 265.\n\n[168] _Op. cit._, p. 266.\n\n[169] _Op. cit._, p. 267.\n\n[170] _Ibid._, p. 267.\n\n[171] St. John, XIV.\n\n[172] \u201cThis Believing World,\u201d p. 269.\n\n[173] _Ibid._, p. 271.\n\n[174] _Ibid._, p. 272.\n\n[175] _Ibid._, p. 273.\n\n[176] _Ibid._, p. 276.\n\n[177] \u201cThis Believing World,\u201d p. 277.\n\n[178] _Loc. cit._\n\n[179] _Ibid._\n\n[180] _Op. cit._, p. 278.\n\n[181] _Ibid._, p. 279.\n\n[182] _Ibid._, p. 280.\n\n[183] _Op. cit._, p. 280.\n\n[184] _Ibid._, p. 281.\n\n[185] _Ibid._, p. 282.\n\n[186] _Ibid._, p. 284.\n\n[187] \u201cThe Psychology of Religious Mysticism,\u201d p. 189.\n\n[188] \u201cThis Believing World,\u201d p. 284.\n\n[189] \u201cThis Believing World,\u201d p. 285.\n\n[190] _Op. cit._, p. 218.\n\n[191] _Ibid._, p. 285.\n\n[192] _Op. cit._, p. 287.\n\n[193] _Ibid._, p. 288.\n\n[194] _Ibid._, p. 289.\n\n[195] _Ibid._, p. 290.\n\n[196] _Op. cit._, p. 292.\n\n[197] _Ibid._, p. 292.\n\n[198] _Loc. cit._\n\n[199] _Loc. cit._\n\n[200] _Op. cit._, pp. 292-293.\n\n[201] _Loc. cit._\n\n[202] _Op. cit._, p. 296.\n\n[203] _Op. cit._, p. 64.\n\n[204] _Ibid._, p. 70.\n\n[205] _Ibid._, p. 279.\n\n[206] _Ibid._, p. 274.\n\n[207] _Ibid._, p. 277.\n\n[208] _Ibid._, p. 298.\n\n[209] _Ibid._, pp. 298-299.\n\n[210] _Op. cit._, p. 299.\n\n[211] _Op. cit._, p. 300.\n\n[212] _Ibid._, p. 300.\n\n[213] _Ibid._, p. 301.\n\n[214] \u201cThe Story of Philosophy,\u201d p. 326.\n\n[215] _Op. cit._, p. 507.\n\n[216] _Ibid._, p. 511.\n\n[217] _Op. cit._, p. 509.\n\n[218] _Ibid._, p. 316.\n\n[219] _Op. cit._, p. 509.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE ANCIENT TEMPER\n\n\nWhat now about that \u201cmodern temper,\u201d which seeks to do away with the\nromantic ideal of a world well lost for love and with the classic\nideal of austere dignity? We have followed it through many channels of\nexpression, and have discovered that it was well described. Of either\ndignity or love it has not a shred.\n\nBut we have discovered another thing. It is not being driven from the\nold ideals by science. Or rather there are two sciences, one modern,\nscientific and inspiring. The other not quite so modern in anything but\nthe names which it applies to itself, not quite so scientific--indeed,\nno longer scientific at all.\n\nIts chariot comes thundering down Main street, and all are bidden to\nthrow themselves before it and let its wheels pass over them. One would\nthink it was the car of Juggernaut. But its license, when we come to\nlook it up, proves to have been taken out by Propaganda.\n\nSometimes these propagandists descend and try to persuade us with\npleasant words. More often they prefer to threaten. Those who stand\nupright before them or try to block their passage are termed morons,\nor ignoramuses. To be snubbed by this new snobbery is almost like not\nbeing in society. Yet after all, a university professor is sometimes\nonly a school-teacher, and not necessarily a good one. The letters\nPH.D. after a man\u2019s name do not turn him necessarily either into a\nscientist or a Venerable Don Bosco. Beyond question, some of our\nMisbehaviorists would have constructed better theories had they come\nmore in contact with other than diseased or adolescent minds.\n\nBut why the propaganda? Why this endeavor to make man out a machine or\nworse? The ancient hypothesis was that such teachings emanated from\nthe devil. To discuss that ancient hypothesis would take us beyond the\nlimits of the present volume, but it cannot be denied that it seems\nrather to fit the case. Certainly the temper of these gentleman is no\nnewer than is the temperament of Lucifer. Among the many things which\ndistinguish man from the animals is this strange perversity, this\nability to sink beneath himself.\n\nThe \u201cmodern temper\u201d then is but the ancient temper, and like the\nancient it is of two sorts. This division also is old--as old as the\ndistinction between good and evil.\n\nFundamentally, man never changes. I do not mean the individual man. He\nmay change immensely, and from having chosen to turn to the left may\nturn and choose the right. But this choice has always been open before\nhim.\n\nNot even our fashions, our methods, our ways of doing things are quite\nas novel as we sometimes like to think. Albertus Magnus, though he\ndied in 1280, laid down the principles of our cherished \u201cexperimental\nmethod,\u201d--and they were already old. Says Fenelon, \u201cIf an enlightened\nman were to gather from the books of St. Augustine the sublime\ntruths which this great man has scattered at random therein, such a\ncomposition ... would be far superior to Descartes\u2019 \u2018Meditations.\u2019\u201d\nThat takes us back to before the year 430--and wisdom then was far from\nbeing a child. There is going on about us all the while a systematic\nfalsification of history so that the present may seem to stand upon an\nisolated pedestal, or rest like a tumbleweed upon a heap of sand, or\nlike a thistledown to float seemingly upon nothing. Probably this sort\nof thing, too, is coeval with the dawn of human life.\n\nPyrrho, the Greek philosopher, who attained fame from having made the\nremark that \u201cnothing is more one thing than it is another,\u201d--in other\nwords that black is no blacker than is white nor white whiter than\nblack--Pyrrho died 270 years before Christ. He voiced the \u201cmodern\ntemper\u201d of his day as Watson and Freud voice it in ours. For we have\nseen that Psycho-Analysis and Behaviorism spring from the same root. It\nmakes little difference to what we are slaves, whether to reflexes or\npassions. If there be but one stuff, it is the same stuff whether we\ncall it spirit or matter. No man ever yet succeeded in thinking of an\nabstract triangle, let alone an impersonal God.\n\nSo, of old time as today, reason was Psyche\u2019s good servant but a sorry\nmaster. Then, as now, reason died with the fool who said in his heart,\n\u201cThere is no God.\u201d Then as now Wisdom cried, not in the class-room but\nin the streets, and had its being in that Love--\u201c_che muove il sole e\nl\u2019altre stelle_\u201d--which moves the sun in heaven and all the stars.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\n - Italics represented by _underscores_.\n\n - Small caps converted to ALL CAPS.\n\n - Footnotes renumbered consecutively and relocated to the end of each\n   chapter.\n\n - Obvious typographic and grammatical errors silently corrected.\n\n - Variations in hyphenation and spelling kept as in the original.","title":"The misbehaviorists : $b Pseudo-science and the modern temper","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":82025}