{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8077/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8077","id":"gutenberg_8077","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8077","summary":null,"tags":["Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Civilization -- History","Social problems","Social psychology"],"text":"Produced by Tiffany Vergon, Marc D'Hooghe, Charles Franks\nand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MIND IN THE MAKING\n\nThe Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform\n\nBy JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON\n\n_Author of_ \"PETRARCH, THE FIRST MODERN SCHOLAR\"\n            \"MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN TIMES\"\n            \"THE NEW HISTORY\", ETC.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nI\n\nPREFACE\n\n1. ON THE PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME\n\n2. THREE DISAPPOINTED METHODS OF REFORM\n\nII\n\n3. ON VARIOUS KINDS OF THINKING\n\n4. RATIONALIZING\n\n5. HOW CREATIVE THOUGHT TRANSFORMS THE WORLD\n\nIII\n\n6. OUR ANIMAL HERITAGE. THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATION\n\n7. OUR SAVAGE MIND\n\nIV\n\n8. BEGINNING OF CRITICAL THINKING\n\n9. INFLUENCE OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE\n\nV\n\n10. ORIGIN OF MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION\n\n11. OUR MEDIAEVAL INTELLECTUAL INHERITANCE\n\n\nVI\n\n12. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION\n\n13. HOW SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE HAS THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE\n\nVII\n\n14. \"THE SICKNESS OF AN ACQUISITIVE SOCIETY\"\n\n15. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SAFETY AND SANITY\n\nVIII\n\n16. SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF REPRESSION\n\n17. WHAT OF IT?\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nI.\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThis is an essay--not a treatise--on the most important of all matters\nof human concern. Although it has cost its author a great deal more\nthought and labor than will be apparent, it falls, in his estimation,\nfar below the demands of its implacably urgent theme. Each page could\nreadily be expanded into a volume. It suggests but the beginning of\nthe beginning now being made to raise men's thinking onto a plain\nwhich may perhaps enable them to fend off or reduce some of the\ndangers which lurk on every hand.\n\nJ. H. R.\n\nNEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH, NEW YORK CITY, _August, 1921._\n\n\n\n\nTHE MIND IN THE MAKING\n\n\n\n\n1. ON THE PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME\n\n\nIf some magical transformation could be produced in men's ways of\nlooking at themselves and their fellows, no inconsiderable part of the\nevils which now afflict society would vanish away or remedy themselves\nautomatically. If the majority of influential persons held the opinions\nand occupied the point of view that a few rather uninfluential people\nnow do, there would, for instance, be no likelihood of another great\nwar; the whole problem of \"labor and capital\" would be transformed and\nattenuated; national arrogance, race animosity, political corruption,\nand inefficiency would all be reduced below the danger point. As an old\nStoic proverb has it, men are tormented by the opinions they have of\nthings, rather than by the things themselves. This is eminently true of\nmany of our worst problems to-day. We have available knowledge and\ningenuity and material resources to make a far fairer world than that\nin which we find ourselves, but various obstacles prevent our\nintelligently availing ourselves of them. The object of this book is to\nsubstantiate this proposition, to exhibit with entire frankness the\ntremendous difficulties that stand in the way of such a beneficent change\nof mind, and to point out as clearly as may be some of the measures to be\ntaken in order to overcome them.\n\nWhen we contemplate the shocking derangement of human affairs which\nnow prevails in most civilized countries, including our own, even the\nbest minds are puzzled and uncertain in their attempts to grasp the\nsituation. The world seems to demand a moral and economic regeneration\nwhich it is dangerous to postpone, but as yet impossible to imagine,\nlet alone direct. The preliminary intellectual regeneration which\nwould put our leaders in a position to determine and control the\ncourse of affairs has not taken place. We have unprecedented conditions\nto deal with and novel adjustments to make--there can be no doubt of that.\nWe also have a great stock of scientific knowledge unknown to our\ngrandfathers with which to operate. So novel are the conditions, so\ncopious the knowledge, that we must undertake the arduous task of\nreconsidering a great part of the opinions about man and his relations\nto his fellow-men which have been handed down to us by previous\ngenerations who lived in far other conditions and possessed far less\ninformation about the world and themselves. We have, however, first to\ncreate an _unprecedented attitude of mind to cope with unprecedented\nconditions, and to utilize unprecedented knowledge_ This is the\npreliminary, and most difficult, step to be taken--far more difficult\nthan one would suspect who fails to realize that in order to take it we\nmust overcome inveterate natural tendencies and artificial habits of long\nstanding. How are we to put ourselves in a position to come to think of\nthings that we not only never thought of before, but are most reluctant\nto question? In short, how are we to rid ourselves of our fond prejudices\nand _open our minds_?\n\nAs a historical student who for a good many years has been especially\nengaged in inquiring how man happens to have the ideas and convictions\nabout himself and human relations which now prevail, the writer has\nreached the conclusion that history can at least shed a great deal of\nlight on our present predicaments and confusion. I do not mean by\nhistory that conventional chronicle of remote and irrelevant events\nwhich embittered the youthful years of many of us, but rather a study\nof how man has come to be as he is and to believe as he does.\n\nNo historian has so far been able to make the whole story very plain\nor popular, but a number of considerations are obvious enough, and it\nought not to be impossible some day to popularize them. I venture to\nthink that if certain seemingly indisputable historical facts were\ngenerally known and accepted and permitted to play a daily part in our\nthought, the world would forthwith become a very different place from\nwhat it now is. We could then neither delude ourselves in the\nsimple-minded way we now do, nor could we take advantage of the\nprimitive ignorance of others. All our discussions of social,\nindustrial, and political reform would be raised to a higher plane of\ninsight and fruitfulness.\n\nIn one of those brilliant divagations with which Mr. H. G. Wells is\nwont to enrich his novels he says:\n\n    When the intellectual history of this time comes to be written,\n    nothing, I think, will stand out more strikingly than the empty\n    gulf in quality between the superb and richly fruitful scientific\n    investigations that are going on, and the general thought of other\n    educated sections of the community. I do not mean that scientific\n    men are, as a whole, a class of supermen, dealing with and thinking\n    about everything in a way altogether better than the common run of\n    humanity, but in their field they think and work with an intensity,\n    an integrity, a breadth, boldness, patience, thoroughness, and\n    faithfulness--excepting only a few artists--which puts their work\n    out of all comparison with any other human activity.... In these\n    particular directions the human mind has achieved a new and higher\n    quality of attitude and gesture, a veracity, a self-detachment,\n    and self-abnegating vigor of criticism that tend to spread out and\n    must ultimately spread out to every other human affair.\n\nNo one who is even most superficially acquainted with the achievements\nof students of nature during the past few centuries can fail to see\nthat their thought has been astoundingly effective in constantly adding\nto our knowledge of the universe, from the hugest nebula to the tiniest\natom; moreover, this knowledge has been so applied as to well-nigh\nrevolutionize human affairs, and both the knowledge and its applications\nappear to be no more than hopeful beginnings, with indefinite revelations\nahead, if only the same kind of thought be continued in the same patient\nand scrupulous manner.\n\nBut the knowledge of man, of the springs of his conduct, of his\nrelation to his fellow-men singly or in groups, and the felicitous\nregulation of human intercourse in the interest of harmony and\nfairness, have made no such advance. Aristotle's treatises on\nastronomy and physics, and his notions of \"generation and decay\" and\nof chemical processes, have long gone by the board, but his politics\nand ethics are still revered. Does this mean that his penetration in\nthe sciences of man exceeded so greatly his grasp of natural science,\nor does it mean that the progress of mankind in the scientific\nknowledge and regulation of human affairs has remained almost\nstationary for over two thousand years? I think that we may safely\nconclude that the latter is the case.\n\nIt has required three centuries of scientific thought and of subtle\ninventions for its promotion to enable a modern chemist or physicist\nto center his attention on electrons and their relation to the\nmysterious nucleus of the atom, or to permit an embryologist to study\nthe early stirrings of the fertilized egg. As yet relatively little of\nthe same kind of thought has been brought to bear on human affairs.\n\nWhen we compare the discussions in the United States Senate in regard\nto the League of Nations with the consideration of a broken-down car\nin a roadside garage the contrast is shocking. The rural mechanic\nthinks scientifically; his only aim is to avail himself of his\nknowledge of the nature and workings of the car, with a view to making\nit run once more. The Senator, on the other hand, appears too often to\nhave little idea of the nature and workings of nations, and he relies\non rhetoric and appeals to vague fears and hopes or mere partisan\nanimosity. The scientists have been busy for a century in revolutionizing\nthe _practical_ relation of nations. The ocean is no longer a barrier,\nas it was in Washington's day, but to all intents and purposes a smooth\navenue closely connecting, rather than safely separating, the eastern\nand western continents. The Senator will nevertheless unblushingly appeal\nto policies of a century back, suitable, mayhap, in their day, but now\nbecome a warning rather than a guide. The garage man, on the contrary,\ntakes his mechanism as he finds it, and does not allow any mystic respect\nfor the earlier forms of the gas engine to interfere with the needed\nadjustments.\n\nThose who have dealt with natural phenomena, as distinguished from\npurely human concerns, did not, however, quickly or easily gain\npopular approbation and respect. The process of emancipating natural\nscience from current prejudices, both of the learned and of the\nunlearned, has been long and painful, and is not wholly completed yet.\nIf we go back to the opening of the seventeenth century we find three\nmen whose business it was, above all, to present and defend common\nsense in the natural sciences. The most eloquent and variedly\npersuasive of these was Lord Bacon. Then there was the young Descartes\ntrying to shake himself loose from his training in a Jesuit seminary\nby going into the Thirty Years' War, and starting his intellectual\nlife all over by giving up for the moment all he had been taught.\nGalileo had committed an offense of a grave character by discussing in\nthe mother tongue the problems of physics. In his old age he was\nimprisoned and sentenced to repeat the seven penitential psalms for\ndiffering from Aristotle and Moses and the teachings of the theologians.\nOn hearing Galileo's fate. Descartes burned a book he had written, _On\nThe World_, lest he, too, get into trouble.\n\nFrom that time down to the days of Huxley and John Fiske the struggle\nhas continued, and still continues--the Three Hundred Years' War for\nintellectual freedom in dealing with natural phenomena. It has been a\nconflict against ignorance, tradition, and vested interests in church\nand university, with all that preposterous invective and cruel\nmisrepresentation which characterize the fight against new and\ncritical ideas. Those who cried out against scientific discoveries did\nso in the name of God, of man's dignity, and of holy religion and\nmorality. Finally, however, it has come about that our instruction in\nthe natural sciences is tolerably free; although there are still large\nbodies of organized religious believers who are hotly opposed to some\nof the more fundamental findings of biology. Hundreds of thousands of\nreaders can be found for Pastor Russell's exegesis of Ezekiel and the\nApocalypse to hundreds who read Conklin's _Heredity and Environment_\nor Slosson's _Creative Chemistry_. No publisher would accept a\nhistorical textbook based on an explicit statement of the knowledge we\nnow have of man's animal ancestry. In general, however, our scientific\nmen carry on their work and report their results with little or no\neffective hostility on the part of the clergy or the schools. The\nsocial body has become tolerant of their virus.\n\nThis is not the case, however, with the social sciences. One cannot\nbut feel a little queasy when he uses the expression \"social science\",\nbecause it seems as if we had not as yet got anywhere near a real\nscience of man. I mean by social science our feeble efforts to study\nman, his natural equipment and impulses, and his relations to his\nfellows in the light of his origin and the history of the race.\n\nThis enterprise has hitherto been opposed by a large number of\nobstacles essentially more hampering and far more numerous than those\nwhich for three hundred years hindered the advance of the natural\nsciences. Human affairs are in themselves far more intricate and\nperplexing than molecules and chromosomes. But this is only the more\nreason for bringing to bear on human affairs that critical type of\nthought and calculation for which the remunerative thought about\nmolecules and chromosomes has prepared the way.\n\nI do not for a moment suggest that we can use precisely the same kind\nof thinking in dealing with the quandaries of mankind that we use in\nproblems of chemical reaction and mechanical adjustment. Exact\nscientific results, such as might be formulated in mechanics, are, of\ncourse, out of the question. It would be unscientific to expect to\napply them. I am not advocating any particular method of treating\nhuman affairs, but rather such a _general frame of mind, such a\ncritical open-minded attitude_, as has hitherto been but sparsely\ndeveloped among those who aspire to be men's guides, whether\nreligious, political, economic, or academic. Most human progress has\nbeen, as Wells expresses it, a mere \"muddling through\". It has been\nman's wont to explain and sanctify his ways, with little regard to\ntheir fundamental and permanent expediency. An arresting example of\nwhat this muddling may mean we have seen during these recent years in\nthe slaying or maiming of fifteen million of our young men, resulting\nin incalculable loss, continued disorder, and bewilderment. Yet men\nseem blindly driven to defend and perpetuate the conditions which\nproduced the last disaster.\n\nUnless we wish to see a recurrence of this or some similar calamity,\nwe must, as I have already suggested, create a new and unprecedented\nattitude of mind to meet the new and unprecedented conditions which\nconfront us. _We should proceed to the thorough reconstruction of our\nmind, with a view to understanding actual human conduct and\norganization_. We must examine the facts freshly, critically, and\ndispassionately, and then allow our philosophy to formulate itself as\na result of this examination, instead of permitting our observations\nto be distorted by archaic philosophy, political economy, and ethics.\nAs it is, we are taught our philosophy first, and in its light we try\nto justify the facts. We must reverse this process, as did those who\nbegan the great work in experimental science; we must first face the\nfacts, and patiently await the emergence of a new philosophy.\n\nA willingness to examine the very foundations of society does not mean\na desire to encourage or engage in any hasty readjustment, but certainly\nno wise or needed readjustment _can_ be made unless such an examination\nis undertaken.\n\nI come back, then, to my original point that in this examination of\nexisting facts history, by revealing the origin of many of our current\nfundamental beliefs, will tend to free our minds so as to permit\nhonest thinking. Also, that the historical facts which I propose to\nrecall would, if permitted to play a constant part in our thinking,\nautomatically eliminate a very considerable portion of the gross\nstupidity and blindness which characterize our present thought and\nconduct in public affairs, and would contribute greatly to developing\nthe needed scientific attitude toward human concerns--in other words,\nto _bringing the mind up to date_.\n\n\n\n\n2. THREE DISAPPOINTED METHODS OF REFORM\n\n\nPlans for social betterment and the cure of public ills have in the\npast taken three general forms: (I) changes in the rules of the game,\n(II) spiritual exhortation, and (III) education. Had all these not\nlargely failed, the world would not be in the plight in which it now\nconfessedly is.\n\nI. Many reformers concede that they are suspicious of what they call\n\"ideas\". They are confident that our troubles result from defective\norganization, which should be remedied by more expedient legislation\nand wise ordinances. Abuses should be abolished or checked by\nforbidding them, or by some ingenious reordering of procedure.\nResponsibility should be concentrated or dispersed. The term of office\nof government officials should be lengthened or shortened; the number\nof members in governing bodies should be increased or decreased; there\nshould be direct primaries, referendum, recall, government by\ncommission; powers should be shifted here and there with a hope of\nmeeting obvious mischances all too familiar in the past. In industry\nand education administrative reform is constantly going on, with the\nhope of reducing friction and increasing efficiency. The House of\nCommons not long ago came to new terms with the peers. The League of\nNations has already had to adjust the functions and influence of the\nCouncil and the Assembly, respectively.\n\nNo one will question that organization is absolutely essential in\nhuman affairs, but reorganization, while it sometimes produces\nassignable benefit, often fails to meet existing evils, and not\nuncommonly engenders new and unexpected ones. Our confidence in\nrestriction and regimentation is exaggerated. What we usually need is\na _change of attitude_, and without this our new regulations often\nleave the old situation unaltered. So long as we allow our government\nto be run by politicians and business lobbies it makes little\ndifference how many aldermen or assemblymen we have or how long the\nmayor or governor holds office. In a university the fundamental drift\nof affairs cannot be greatly modified by creating a new dean, or a\nuniversity council, or by enhancing or decreasing the nominal\nauthority of the president or faculty. We now turn to the second\nsanctified method of reform, moral uplift.\n\nII. Those who are impatient with mere administrative reform, or who\nlack faith in it, declare that what we need is brotherly love.\nThousands of pulpits admonish us to remember that we are all children\nof one Heavenly Father and that we should bear one another's burdens\nwith fraternal patience. Capital is too selfish; Labor is bent on its\nown narrow interests regardless of the risks Capital takes. We are all\ndependent on one another, and a recognition of this should beget\nmutual forbearance and glad co-operation. Let us forget ourselves in\nothers. \"Little children, love one another.\"\n\nThe fatherhood of God has been preached by Christians for over\neighteen centuries, and the brotherhood of man by the Stoics long\nbefore them. The doctrine has proved compatible with slavery and\nserfdom, with wars blessed, and not infrequently instigated, by\nreligious leaders, and with industrial oppression which it requires a\nbrave clergyman or teacher to denounce to-day. True, we sometimes have\nmoments of sympathy when our fellow-creatures become objects of tender\nsolicitude. Some rare souls may honestly flatter themselves that they\nlove mankind in general, but it would surely be a very rare soul\nindeed who dared profess that he loved his personal enemies--much less\nthe enemies of his country or institutions. We still worship a tribal\ngod, and the \"foe\" is not to be reckoned among his children. Suspicion\nand hate are much more congenial to our natures than love, for very\nobvious reasons in this world of rivalry and common failure. There is,\nbeyond doubt, a natural kindliness in mankind which will show itself\nunder favorable auspices. But experience would seem to teach that it\nis little promoted by moral exhortation. This is the only point that\nneed be urged here. Whether there is another way of forwarding the\nbrotherhood of man will be considered in the sequel.\n\nIII. One disappointed in the effects of mere reorganization, and\ndistrusting the power of moral exhortation, will urge that what we\nneed above all is _education_. It is quite true that what we need is\neducation, but something so different from what now passes as such\nthat it needs a new name.\n\nEducation has more various aims than we usually recognize, and should\nof course be judged in relation to the importance of its several\nintentions, and of its success in gaining them. The arts of reading\nand writing and figuring all would concede are basal in a world of\nnewspapers and business. Then there is technical information and the\ntraining that prepares one to earn a livelihood in some more or less\nstandardized guild or profession. Both these aims are reached fairly\nwell by our present educational system, subject to various economies\nand improvements in detail. Then there are the studies which it is\nassumed contribute to general culture and to \"training the mind\", with\nthe hope of cultivating our tastes, stimulating the imagination, and\nmayhap improving our reasoning powers.\n\nThis branch of education is regarded by the few as very precious and\nindispensable; by the many as at best an amenity which has little\nrelation to the real purposes and success of life. It is highly\ntraditional and retrospective in the main, concerned with ancient\ntongues, old and revered books, higher mathematics, somewhat archaic\nphilosophy and history, and the fruitless form of logic which has\nuntil recently been prized as man's best guide in the fastnesses of\nerror. To these has been added in recent decades a choice of the\nvarious branches of natural science.\n\nThe results, however, of our present scheme of liberal education are\ndisappointing. One who, like myself, firmly agrees with its objects\nand is personally so addicted to old books, so pleased with such\nknowledge as he has of the ancient and modern languages, so envious of\nthose who can think mathematically, and so interested in natural\nscience--such a person must resent the fact that those who have had a\nliberal education rarely care for old books, rarely read for pleasure\nany foreign language, think mathematically, love philosophy or\nhistory, or care for the beasts, birds, plants, and rocks with any\nintelligent insight, or even real curiosity. This arouses the\nsuspicion that our so-called \"liberal education\" miscarries and does\nnot attain its ostensible aims.\n\nThe three educational aims enumerated above have one thing in common.\nThey are all directed toward an enhancement of the chances of\n_personal_ worldly success, or to the increase of our _personal_\nculture and intellectual and literary enjoyment. Their purpose is not\nprimarily to fit us to play a part in social or political betterment.\nBut of late a fourth element has been added to the older ambitions,\nnamely the hope of preparing boys and girls to become intelligent\nvoters. This need has been forced upon us by the coming of political\ndemocracy, which makes one person's vote exactly as good as another's.\n\nNow education for citizenship would seem to consist in gaining a\nknowledge of the actual workings of our social organization, with some\nilluminating notions of its origin, together with a full realization\nof its defects and their apparent sources. But here we encounter an\nobstacle that is unimportant in the older types of education, but\nwhich may prove altogether fatal to any good results in our efforts to\nmake better citizens. Subjects of instruction like reading and\nwriting, mathematics, Latin and Greek, chemistry and physics, medicine\nand the law are fairly well standardized and retrospective. Doubtless\nthere is a good deal of internal change in method and content going\non, but this takes place unobtrusively and does not attract the\nattention of outside critics. Political and social questions, on the\nother hand, and matters relating to prevailing business methods, race\nanimosities, public elections, and governmental policy are, if they\nare vital, necessarily \"controversial\". School boards and\nsuperintendents, trustees and presidents of colleges and universities,\nare sensitive to this fact. They eagerly deprecate in their public\nmanifestos any suspicion that pupils and students are being awakened\nin any way to the truth that our institutions can possibly be\nfundamentally defective, or that the present generation of citizens\nhas not conducted our affairs with exemplary success, guided by the\nimmutable principles of justice.\n\nHow indeed can a teacher be expected to explain to the sons and\ndaughters of businessmen, politicians, doctors, lawyers, and\nclergymen--all pledged to the maintenance of the sources of their\nlivelihood--the actual nature of business enterprise as now practiced,\nthe prevailing methods of legislative bodies and courts, and the\nconduct of foreign affairs? Think of a teacher in the public schools\nrecounting the more illuminating facts about the municipal government\nunder which he lives, with due attention to graft and jobs! So,\ncourses in government, political economy, sociology, and ethics\nconfine themselves to inoffensive generalizations, harmless details of\norganization, and the commonplaces of routine morality, for only in\nthat way can they escape being controversial. Teachers are rarely able\nor inclined to explain our social life and its presuppositions with\nsufficient insight and honesty to produce any very important results.\nEven if they are tempted to tell the essential facts they dare not do\nso, for fear of losing their places, amid the applause of all the\nrighteously minded.\n\nHowever we may feel on this important matter, we must all agree that\nthe aim of education for citizenship as now conceived is a preparation\nfor the same old citizenship which has so far failed to eliminate the\nshocking hazards and crying injustices of our social and political\nlife. For we sedulously inculcate in the coming generation exactly the\nsame illusions and the same ill-placed confidence in existing\ninstitutions and prevailing notions that have brought the world to the\npass in which we find it. Since we do all we can to corroborate the\nbeneficence of what we have, we can hardly hope to raise up a more\nintelligent generation bent on achieving what we have not. We all know\nthis to be true; it has been forcibly impressed on our minds of late.\nMost of us agree that it is right and best that it should be so; some\nof us do not like to think about it at all, but a few will be glad to\nspend a little time weighing certain suggestions in this volume which\nmay indicate a way out of this _impasse_.[1]\n\nWe have now considered briefly the three main hopes that have been\nhitherto entertained of bettering things (I) by changing the rules of\nthe game, (II) by urging men to be good, and to love their neighbor as\nthemselves, and (III) by education for citizenship. It may be that\nthese hopes are not wholly unfounded, but it must be admitted that so\nfar they have been grievously disappointed. Doubtless they will\ncontinue to be cherished on account of their assured respectability.\n\nMere lack of success does not discredit a method, for there are many\nthings that determine and perpetuate our sanctified ways of doing\nthings besides their success in reaching their proposed ends. Had this\nnot always been so, our life to-day would be far less stupidly\nconducted than it is. But let us agree to assume for the moment that\nthe approved schemes of reform enumerated above have, to say the\nleast, shown themselves inadequate to meet the crisis in which\ncivilized society now finds itself. Have we any other hope?\n\nYes, there is Intelligence. That is as yet an untested hope in its\napplication to the regulation of human relations. It is not\ndiscredited because it has not been tried on any large scale outside\nthe realm of natural science. There, everyone will confess, it has\nproduced marvelous results. Employed in regard to stars, rocks,\nplants, and animals, and in the investigation of mechanical and\nchemical processes, it has completely revolutionized men's notions of\nthe world in which they live, and of its inhabitants, _with the\nnotable exception of man himself_. These discoveries have been used to\nchange our habits and to supply us with everyday necessities which a\nhundred years ago were not dreamed of as luxuries accessible even to\nkings and millionaires.\n\nBut most of us know too little of the past to realize the penalty that\nhad to be paid for this application of intelligence. In order that\nthese discoveries should be made and ingeniously applied to the\nconveniences of life, _it was necessary to discard practically all the\nconsecrated notions of the world and its workings which had been held\nby the best and wisest and purest of mankind down to three hundred\nyears ago_--indeed, until much more recently. Intelligence, in a\ncreature of routine like man and in a universe so ill understood as\nours, must often break valiantly with the past in order to get ahead.\nIt would be pleasant to assume that all we had to do was to build on\nwell-designed foundations, firmly laid by the wisdom of the ages. But\nthose who have studied the history of natural science would agree that\nBacon, Galileo, and Descartes found no such foundation, but had to\nbegin their construction from the ground up.\n\nThe several hopes of reform mentioned above all assume that the now\ngenerally accepted notions of righteous human conduct are not to be\nquestioned. Our churches and universities defend this assumption. Our\neditors and lawyers and the more vocal of our business men adhere to\nit. Even those who pretend to study society and its origin seem often\nto believe that our present ideals and standards of property, the\nstate, industrial organization, the relations of the sexes, and\neducation are practically final and must necessarily be the basis of\nany possible betterment in detail. But if this be so Intelligence has\nalready done its perfect work, and we can only lament that the outcome\nin the way of peace, decency, and fairness, judged even by existing\nstandards, has been so disappointing.\n\nThere are, of course, a few here and there who suspect and even\nrepudiate current ideals and standards. But at present their\nresentment against existing evils takes the form of more or less\ndogmatic plans of reconstruction, like those of the socialists and\ncommunists, or exhausts itself in the vague protest and faultfinding\nof the average \"Intellectual\". Neither the socialist nor the common\nrun of Intellectual appears to me to be on the right track. The former\nis more precise in his doctrines and confident in his prophecies than\na scientific examination of mankind and its ways would at all justify;\nthe other, more indefinite than he need be.\n\nIf Intelligence is to have the freedom of action necessary to\naccumulate new and valuable knowledge about man's nature and\npossibilities which may ultimately be applied to reforming our ways,\nit must loose itself from the bonds that now confine it. The primeval\ncurse still holds: \"Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely\neat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not\neat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely\ndie.\" Few people confess that they are afraid of knowledge, but the\nuniversity presidents, ministers, and editors who most often and\npublicly laud what they are wont to call \"the fearless pursuit of\ntruth\", feel compelled, in the interest of public morals and order, to\ndiscourage any reckless indulgence in the fruit of the forbidden tree,\nfor the inexperienced may select an unripe apple and suffer from the\ncolic in consequence. \"Just look at Russia!\" Better always, instead of\ntaking the risk on what the church calls \"science falsely so called\",\nfall back on ignorance rightly so called. No one denies that\nIntelligence is the light of the world and the chief glory of man,\nbut, as Bertrand Russell says, we dread its indifference to\nrespectable opinions and what we deem the well-tried wisdom of the\nages. \"It is,\" as he truly says, \"fear that holds men back; fear that\ntheir cherished beliefs should prove harmful, fear lest they\nthemselves should prove less worthy of respect than they have supposed\nthemselves to be. 'Should the workingman think freely about property?\nWhat then will become of us, the rich? Should young men and women\nthink freely about sex? What then will become of morality? Should\nsoldiers think freely about war? What then will become of military\ndiscipline?'\"\n\nThis fear is natural and inevitable, but it is none the less dangerous\nand discreditable. Human arrangements are no longer so foolproof as\nthey may once have been when the world moved far more slowly than it\nnow does. It should therefore be a good deed to remove or lighten any\nof the various restraints on thought. I believe that there is an easy\nand relatively painless way in which our respect for the past can be\nlessened so that we shall no longer feel compelled to take the wisdom\nof the ages as the basis of our reforms. My own confidence in what\nPresident Butler calls \"the findings of mankind\" is gone, and the\nprocess by which it was lost will become obvious as we proceed. I have\nno reforms to recommend, except the liberation of Intelligence, which\nis the first and most essential one. I propose to review by way of\nintroduction some of the new ideas which have been emerging during the\npast few years in regard to our minds and their operations. Then we\nshall proceed to the main theme of the book, a sketch of the manner in\nwhich our human intelligence appears to have come about. If anyone\nwill follow the story with a fair degree of sympathy and patience he\nmay, by merely putting together well-substantiated facts, many of\nwhich he doubtless knows in other connections, hope better to\nunderstand the perilous quandary in which mankind is now placed and\nthe ways of escape that offer themselves.\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n[1] George Bernard Shaw reaches a similar conclusion when he\ncontemplates education in the British Isles. \"We must teach\ncitizenship and political science at school. But must we? There is no\nmust about it, the hard fact being that we must not teach political\nscience or citizenship at school. The schoolmaster who attempted it\nwould soon find himself penniless in the streets without pupils, if\nnot in the dock pleading to a pompously worded indictment for sedition\nagainst the exploiters. Our schools teach the morality of feudalism\ncorrupted by commercialism, and hold up the military conqueror, the\nrobber baron, and the profiteer, as models of the illustrious and\nsuccessful.\"--_Back to Methuselah_, xii.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nII\n\n\n    Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed;\n    for everyone thinks himself so abundantly provided with it that those\n    even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else do not\n    usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already\n    possess.--DESCARTES.\n\n    We see man to-day, instead of the frank and courageous recognition of\n    his status, the docile attention to his biological history, the\n    determination to let nothing stand in the way of the security and\n    permanence of his future, which alone can establish the safety and\n    happiness of the race, substituting blind confidence in his destiny,\n    unclouded faith in the essentially respectful attitude of the universe\n    toward his moral code, and a belief no less firm that his traditions\n    and laws and institutions necessarily contain permanent qualities of\n    reality.--WILLIAM TROTTER.\n\n\n\n\n3. ON VARIOUS KINDS OF THINKING\n\n\nThe truest and most profound observations on Intelligence have in the\npast been made by the poets and, in recent times, by story-writers.\nThey have been keen observers and recorders and reckoned freely with\nthe emotions and sentiments. Most philosophers, on the other hand,\nhave exhibited a grotesque ignorance of man's life and have built up\nsystems that are elaborate and imposing, but quite unrelated to actual\nhuman affairs. They have almost consistently neglected the actual\nprocess of thought and have set the mind off as something apart to be\nstudied by itself. _But no such mind, exempt from bodily processes,\nanimal impulses, savage traditions, infantile impressions, conventional\nreactions, and traditional knowledge, ever existed_, even in the case\nof the most abstract of metaphysicians. Kant entitled his great work\n_A Critique of Pure Reason_. But to the modern student of mind pure\nreason seems as mythical as the pure gold, transparent as glass, with\nwhich the celestial city is paved.\n\nFormerly philosophers thought of mind as having to do exclusively with\nconscious thought. It was that within man which perceived, remembered,\njudged, reasoned, understood, believed, willed. But of late it has\nbeen shown that we are unaware of a great part of what we perceive,\nremember, will, and infer; and that a great part of the thinking of\nwhich we are aware is determined by that of which we are not conscious.\nIt has indeed been demonstrated that our unconscious psychic life far\noutruns our conscious. This seems perfectly natural to anyone who\nconsiders the following facts:\n\nThe sharp distinction between the mind and the body is, as we shall\nfind, a very ancient and spontaneous uncritical savage prepossession.\nWhat we think of as \"mind\" is so intimately associated with what we\ncall \"body\" that we are coming to realize that the one cannot be\nunderstood without the other. Every thought reverberates through the\nbody, and, on the other hand, alterations in our physical condition\naffect our whole attitude of mind. The insufficient elimination of the\nfoul and decaying products of digestion may plunge us into deep\nmelancholy, whereas a few whiffs of nitrous monoxide may exalt us to\nthe seventh heaven of supernal knowledge and godlike complacency. And\nvice versa, a sudden word or thought may cause our heart to jump,\ncheck our breathing, or make our knees as water. There is a whole new\nliterature growing up which studies the effects of our bodily\nsecretions and our muscular tensions and their relation to our\nemotions and our thinking.\n\nThen there are hidden impulses and desires and secret longings of\nwhich we can only with the greatest difficulty take account. They\ninfluence our conscious thought in the most bewildering fashion. Many\nof these unconscious influences appear to originate in our very early\nyears. The older philosophers seem to have forgotten that even they\nwere infants and children at their most impressionable age and never\ncould by any possibility get over it.\n\nThe term \"unconscious\", now so familiar to all readers of modern works\non psychology, gives offense to some adherents of the past. There\nshould, however, be no special mystery about it. It is not a new\nanimistic abstraction, but simply a collective word to include all the\nphysiological changes which escape our notice, all the forgotten\nexperiences and impressions of the past which continue to influence\nour desires and reflections and conduct, even if we cannot remember\nthem. What we can remember at any time is indeed an infinitesimal part\nof what has happened to us. We could not remember anything unless we\nforgot almost everything. As Bergson says, the brain is the organ of\nforgetfulness as well as of memory. Moreover, we tend, of course, to\nbecome oblivious to things to which we are thoroughly accustomed, for\nhabit blinds us to their existence. So the forgotten and the habitual\nmake up a great part of the so-called \"unconscious\".\n\nIf we are ever to understand man, his conduct and reasoning, and if we\naspire to learn to guide his life and his relations with his fellows\nmore happily than heretofore, we cannot neglect the great discoveries\nbriefly noted above. We must reconcile ourselves to novel and\nrevolutionary conceptions of the mind, for it is clear that the older\nphilosophers, whose works still determine our current views, had a\nvery superficial notion of the subject with which they dealt. But for\nour purposes, with due regard to what has just been said and to much\nthat has necessarily been left unsaid (and with the indulgence of\nthose who will at first be inclined to dissent), _we shall consider\nmind chiefly as conscious knowledge and intelligence, as what we know\nand our attitude toward it--our disposition to increase our\ninformation, classify it, criticize it and apply it_.\n\nWe do not think enough about thinking, and much of our confusion is\nthe result of current illusions in regard to it. Let us forget for the\nmoment any impressions we may have derived from the philosophers, and\nsee what seems to happen in ourselves. The first thing that we notice\nis that our thought moves with such incredible rapidity that it is\nalmost impossible to arrest any specimen of it long enough to have a\nlook at it. When we are offered a penny for our thoughts we always\nfind that we have recently had so many things in mind that we can\neasily make a selection which will not compromise us too nakedly. On\ninspection we shall find that even if we are not downright ashamed of\na great part of our spontaneous thinking it is far too intimate,\npersonal, ignoble or trivial to permit us to reveal more than a small\npart of it. I believe this must be true of everyone. We do not, of\ncourse, know what goes on in other people's heads. They tell us very\nlittle and we tell them very little. The spigot of speech, rarely\nfully opened, could never emit more than driblets of the ever renewed\nhogshead of thought--_noch gr\u00f6sser wie's Heidelberger Fass_. We\nfind it hard to believe that other people's thoughts are as silly as\nour own, but they probably are.\n\nWe all appear to ourselves to be thinking all the time during our\nwaking hours, and most of us are aware that we go on thinking while we\nare asleep, even more foolishly than when awake. When uninterrupted by\nsome practical issue we are engaged in what is now known as a _reverie_.\nThis is our spontaneous and favorite kind of thinking. We allow our\nideas to take their own course and this course is determined by our\nhopes and fears, our spontaneous desires, their fulfillment or\nfrustration; by our likes and dislikes, our loves and hates and\nresentments. There is nothing else anything like so interesting to\nourselves as ourselves. All thought that is not more or less\nlaboriously controlled and directed will inevitably circle about the\nbeloved Ego. It is amusing and pathetic to observe this tendency in\nourselves and in others. We learn politely and generously to overlook\nthis truth, but if we dare to think of it, it blazes forth like the\nnoontide sun.\n\nThe reverie or \"free association of ideas\" has of late become the\nsubject of scientific research. While investigators are not yet agreed\non the results, or at least on the proper interpretation to be given\nto them, there can be no doubt that our reveries form the chief index\nto our fundamental character. They are a reflection of our nature as\nmodified by often hidden and forgotten experiences. We need not go\ninto the matter further here, for it is only necessary to observe that\nthe reverie is at all times a potent and in many cases an omnipotent\nrival to every other kind of thinking. It doubtless influences all our\nspeculations in its persistent tendency to self-magnification and\nself-justification, which are its chief preoccupations, but it is the\nlast thing to make directly or indirectly for honest increase of\nknowledge.[2] Philosophers usually talk as if such thinking did not\nexist or were in some way negligible. This is what makes their\nspeculations so unreal and often worthless. The reverie, as any of us\ncan see for himself, is frequently broken and interrupted by the\nnecessity of a second kind of thinking. We have to make practical\ndecisions. Shall we write a letter or no? Shall we take the subway or\na bus? Shall we have dinner at seven or half past? Shall we buy U. S.\nRubber or a Liberty Bond? Decisions are easily distinguishable from\nthe free flow of the reverie. Sometimes they demand a good deal of\ncareful pondering and the recollection of pertinent facts; often,\nhowever, they are made impulsively. They are a more difficult and\nlaborious thing than the reverie, and we resent having to \"make up our\nmind\" when we are tired, or absorbed in a congenial reverie. Weighing\na decision, it should be noted, does not necessarily add anything to\nour knowledge, although we may, of course, seek further information\nbefore making it.\n\n\n\n\n4. RATIONALIZING\n\n\nA third kind of thinking is stimulated when anyone questions our\nbelief and opinions. We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds\nwithout any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told that we\nare wrong we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are\nincredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find\nourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes\nto rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas\nthemselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem, which is\nthreatened. We are by nature stubbornly pledged to defend our own from\nattack, whether it be our person, our family, our property, or our\nopinion. A United States Senator once remarked to a friend of mine\nthat God Almighty could not make him change his mind on our\nLatin-America policy. We may surrender, but rarely confess ourselves\nvanquished. In the intellectual world at least peace is without\nvictory.\n\nFew of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished\nconvictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to so doing. We like\nto continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true,\nand the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our\nassumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to\nthem. _The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in\nfinding arguments for going on believing as we already do_.\n\nI remember years ago attending a public dinner to which the Governor\nof the state was bidden. The chairman explained that His Excellency\ncould not be present for certain \"good\" reasons; what the \"real\"\nreasons were the presiding officer said he would leave us to\nconjecture. This distinction between \"good\" and \"real\" reasons is one\nof the most clarifying and essential in the whole realm of thought. We\ncan readily give what seem to us \"good\" reasons for being a Catholic\nor a Mason, a Republican or a Democrat, an adherent or opponent of the\nLeague of Nations. But the \"real\" reasons are usually on quite a\ndifferent plane. Of course the importance of this distinction is\npopularly, if somewhat obscurely, recognized. The Baptist missionary\nis ready enough to see that the Buddhist is not such because his\ndoctrines would bear careful inspection, but because he happened to be\nborn in a Buddhist family in Tokio. But it would be treason to his\nfaith to acknowledge that his own partiality for certain doctrines is\ndue to the fact that his mother was a member of the First Baptist\nchurch of Oak Ridge. A savage can give all sorts of reasons for his\nbelief that it is dangerous to step on a man's shadow, and a newspaper\neditor can advance plenty of arguments against the Bolsheviki. But\nneither of them may realize why he happens to be defending his\nparticular opinion.\n\nThe \"real\" reasons for our beliefs are concealed from ourselves as\nwell as from others. As we grow up we simply adopt the ideas presented\nto us in regard to such matters as religion, family relations,\nproperty, business, our country, and the state. We unconsciously\nabsorb them from our environment. They are persistently whispered in\nour ear by the group in which we happen to live. Moreover, as Mr.\nTrotter has pointed out, these judgments, being the product of\nsuggestion and not of reasoning, have the quality of perfect\nobviousness, so that to question them\n\n    ... is to the believer to carry skepticism to an insane degree, and\n    will be met by contempt, disapproval, or condemnation, according to\n    the nature of the belief in question. When, therefore, we find\n    ourselves entertaining an opinion about the basis of which there is\n    a quality of feeling which tells us that to inquire into it would be\n    absurd, obviously unnecessary, unprofitable, undesirable, bad form,\n    or wicked, we may know that that opinion is a nonrational one, and\n    probably, therefore, founded upon inadequate evidence.[3]\n\nOpinions, on the other hand, which are the result of experience or of\nhonest reasoning do not have this quality of \"primary certitude\". I\nremember when as a youth I heard a group of business men discussing\nthe question of the immortality of the soul, I was outraged by the\nsentiment of doubt expressed by one of the party. As I look back now I\nsee that I had at the time no interest in the matter, and certainly no\nleast argument to urge in favor of the belief in which I had been\nreared. But neither my personal indifference to the issue, nor the\nfact that I had previously given it no attention, served to prevent an\nangry resentment when I heard _my_ ideas questioned.\n\nThis spontaneous and loyal support of our preconceptions--this process\nof finding \"good\" reasons to justify our routine beliefs--is known to\nmodern psychologists as \"rationalizing\"--clearly only a new name for a\nvery ancient thing. Our \"good\" reasons ordinarily have no value in\npromoting honest enlightenment, because, no matter how solemnly they\nmay be marshaled, they are at bottom the result of personal preference\nor prejudice, and not of an honest desire to seek or accept new\nknowledge.\n\nIn our reveries we are frequently engaged in self-justification, for\nwe cannot bear to think ourselves wrong, and yet have constant\nillustrations of our weaknesses and mistakes. So we spend much time\nfinding fault with circumstances and the conduct of others, and\nshifting on to them with great ingenuity the on us of our own failures\nand disappointments. _Rationalizing is the self-exculpation which\noccurs when we feel ourselves, or our group, accused of\nmisapprehension or error._\n\nThe little word _my_ is the most important one in all human affairs,\nand properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has the\nsame force whether it is _my_ dinner, _my_ dog, and _my_ house,\nor _my_ faith, _my_ country, and _my God_. We not only resent the\nimputation that our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our\nconception of the canals of Mars, of the pronunciation of \"Epictetus\",\nof the medicinal value of salicine, or the date of Sargon I, are\nsubject to revision.\n\nPhilosophers, scholars, and men of science exhibit a common\nsensitiveness in all decisions in which their _amour propre_ is\ninvolved. Thousands of argumentative works have been written to vent a\ngrudge. However stately their reasoning, it may be nothing but\nrationalizing, stimulated by the most commonplace of all motives.\nA history of philosophy and theology could be written in terms of\ngrouches, wounded pride, and aversions, and it would be far more\ninstructive than the usual treatments of these themes. Sometimes,\nunder Providence, the lowly impulse of resentment leads to great\nachievements. Milton wrote his treatise on divorce as a result of his\ntroubles with his seventeen-year-old wife, and when he was accused of\nbeing the leading spirit in a new sect, the Divorcers, he wrote his\nnoble _Areopagitica_ to prove his right to say what he thought fit,\nand incidentally to establish the advantage of a free press in the\npromotion of Truth.\n\nAll mankind, high and low, thinks in all the ways which have been\ndescribed. The reverie goes on all the time not only in the mind of\nthe mill hand and the Broadway flapper, but equally in weighty judges\nand godly bishops. It has gone on in all the philosophers, scientists,\npoets, and theologians that have ever lived. Aristotle's most abstruse\nspeculations were doubtless tempered by highly irrelevant reflections.\nHe is reported to have had very thin legs and small eyes, for which he\ndoubtless had to find excuses, and he was wont to indulge in very\nconspicuous dress and rings and was accustomed to arrange his hair\ncarefully.[4] Diogenes the Cynic exhibited the impudence of a touchy\nsoul. His tub was his distinction. Tennyson in beginning his \"Maud\"\ncould not forget his chagrin over losing his patrimony years before as\nthe result of an unhappy investment in the Patent Decorative Carving\nCompany. These facts are not recalled here as a gratuitous\ndisparagement of the truly great, but to insure a full realization of\nthe tremendous competition which all really exacting thought has to\nface, even in the minds of the most highly endowed mortals.\n\nAnd now the astonishing and perturbing suspicion emerges that perhaps\nalmost all that had passed for social science, political economy,\npolitics, and ethics in the past may be brushed aside by future\ngenerations as mainly rationalizing. John Dewey has already reached\nthis conclusion in regard to philosophy.[5] Veblen[6] and other\nwriters have revealed the various unperceived presuppositions of the\ntraditional political economy, and now comes an Italian sociologist,\nVilfredo Pareto, who, in his huge treatise on general sociology,\ndevotes hundreds of pages to substantiating a similar thesis affecting\nall the social sciences.[7] This conclusion may be ranked by students\nof a hundred years hence as one of the several great discoveries of\nour age. It is by no means fully worked out, and it is so opposed to\nnature that it will be very slowly accepted by the great mass of those\nwho consider themselves thoughtful. As a historical student I am\npersonally fully reconciled to this newer view. Indeed, it seems to me\ninevitable that just as the various sciences of nature were, before\nthe opening of the seventeenth century, largely masses of\nrationalizations to suit the religious sentiments of the period, so\nthe social sciences have continued even to our own day to be\nrationalizations of uncritically accepted beliefs and customs.\n\n_It will become apparent as we proceed that the fact that an idea is\nancient and that it has been widely received is no argument in its\nfavor, but should immediately suggest the necessity of carefully\ntesting it as a probable instance of rationalization_.\n\n\n\n\n5. HOW CREATIVE THOUGHT TRANSFORMS THE WORLD\n\n\nThis brings us to another kind of thought which can fairly easily be\ndistinguished from the three kinds described above. It has not the\nusual qualities of the reverie, for it does not hover about our\npersonal complacencies and humiliations. It is not made up of the\nhomely decisions forced upon us by everyday needs, when we review our\nlittle stock of existing information, consult our conventional\npreferences and obligations, and make a choice of action. It is not\nthe defense of our own cherished beliefs and prejudices just because\nthey are our own--mere plausible excuses for remaining of the same\nmind. On the contrary, it is that peculiar species of thought which\nleads us to _change_ our mind.\n\nIt is this kind of thought that has raised man from his pristine,\nsubsavage ignorance and squalor to the degree of knowledge and comfort\nwhich he now possesses. On his capacity to continue and greatly extend\nthis kind of thinking depends his chance of groping his way out of the\nplight in which the most highly civilized peoples of the world now\nfind themselves. In the past this type of thinking has been called\nReason. But so many misapprehensions have grown up around the word\nthat some of us have become very suspicious of it. I suggest,\ntherefore, that we substitute a recent name and speak of \"creative\nthought\" rather than of Reason. _For this kind of meditation begets\nknowledge, and knowledge is really creative inasmuch as it makes\nthings look different from what they seemed before and may indeed work\nfor their reconstruction_.\n\nIn certain moods some of us realize that we are observing things or\nmaking reflections with a seeming disregard of our personal\npreoccupations. We are not preening or defending ourselves; we are not\nfaced by the necessity of any practical decision, nor are we\napologizing for believing this or that. We are just wondering and\nlooking and mayhap seeing what we never perceived before.\n\nCuriosity is as clear and definite as any of our urges. We wonder what\nis in a sealed telegram or in a letter in which some one else is\nabsorbed, or what is being said in the telephone booth or in low\nconversation. This inquisitiveness is vastly stimulated by jealousy,\nsuspicion, or any hint that we ourselves are directly or indirectly\ninvolved. But there appears to be a fair amount of personal interest\nin other people's affairs even when they do not concern us except as a\nmystery to be unraveled or a tale to be told. The reports of a divorce\nsuit will have \"news value\" for many weeks. They constitute a story,\nlike a novel or play or moving picture. This is not an example of pure\ncuriosity, however, since we readily identify ourselves with others,\nand their joys and despair then become our own.\n\nWe also take note of, or \"observe\", as Sherlock Holmes says, things\nwhich have nothing to do with our personal interests and make no\npersonal appeal either direct or by way of sympathy. This is what\nVeblen so well calls \"idle curiosity\". And it is usually idle enough.\nSome of us when we face the line of people opposite us in a subway\ntrain impulsively consider them in detail and engage in rapid\ninferences and form theories in regard to them. On entering a room\nthere are those who will perceive at a glance the degree of\npreciousness of the rugs, the character of the pictures, and the\npersonality revealed by the books. But there are many, it would seem,\nwho are so absorbed in their personal reverie or in some definite\npurpose that they have no bright-eyed energy for idle curiosity. The\ntendency to miscellaneous observation we come by honestly enough, for\nwe note it in many of our animal relatives.\n\nVeblen, however, uses the term \"idle curiosity\" somewhat ironically,\nas is his wont. It is idle only to those who fail to realize that it\nmay be a very rare and indispensable thing from which almost all\ndistinguished human achievement proceeds. Since it may lead to\nsystematic examination and seeking for things hitherto undiscovered.\nFor research is but diligent search which enjoys the high flavor of\nprimitive hunting. Occasionally and fitfully idle curiosity thus leads\nto creative thought, which alters and broadens our own views and\naspirations and may in turn, under highly favorable circumstances,\naffect the views and lives of others, even for generations to follow.\nAn example or two will make this unique human process clear.\n\nGalileo was a thoughtful youth and doubtless carried on a rich and\nvaried reverie. He had artistic ability and might have turned out to\nbe a musician or painter. When he had dwelt among the monks at\nValambrosa he had been tempted to lead the life of a religious. As a\nboy he busied himself with toy machines and he inherited a fondness\nfor mathematics. All these facts are of record. We may safely assume\nalso that, along with many other subjects of contemplation, the Pisan\nmaidens found a vivid place in his thoughts.\n\nOne day when seventeen years old he wandered into the cathedral of his\nnative town. In the midst of his reverie he looked up at the lamps\nhanging by long chains from the high ceiling of the church. Then\nsomething very difficult to explain occurred. He found himself no\nlonger thinking of the building, worshipers, or the services; of his\nartistic or religious interests; of his reluctance to become a\nphysician as his father wished. He forgot the question of a career and\neven the _graziosissime donne_. As he watched the swinging lamps he\nwas suddenly wondering if mayhap their oscillations, whether long or\nshort, did not occupy the same time. Then he tested this hypothesis by\ncounting his pulse, for that was the only timepiece he had with him.\n\nThis observation, however remarkable in itself, was not enough to\nproduce a really creative thought. Others may have noticed the same\nthing and yet nothing came of it. Most of our observations have no\nassignable results. Galileo may have seen that the warts on a\npeasant's face formed a perfect isosceles triangle, or he may have\nnoticed with boyish glee that just as the officiating priest was\nuttering the solemn words, _ecce agnus Dei_, a fly lit on the end of\nhis nose. To be really creative, ideas have to be worked up and then\n\"put over\", so that they become a part of man's social heritage. The\nhighly accurate pendulum clock was one of the later results of\nGalileo's discovery. He himself was led to reconsider and successfully\nto refute the old notions of falling bodies. It remained for Newton to\nprove that the moon was falling, and presumably all the heavenly\nbodies. This quite upset all the consecrated views of the heavens as\nmanaged by angelic engineers. The universality of the laws of\ngravitation stimulated the attempt to seek other and equally important\nnatural laws and cast grave doubts on the miracles in which mankind\nhad hitherto believed. In short, those who dared to include in their\nthought the discoveries of Galileo and his successors found themselves\nin a new earth surrounded by new heavens.\n\nOn the 28th of October, 1831, three hundred and fifty years after\nGalileo had noticed the isochronous vibrations of the lamps, creative\nthought and its currency had so far increased that Faraday was\nwondering what would happen if he mounted a disk of copper between the\npoles of a horseshoe magnet. As the disk revolved an electric current\nwas produced. This would doubtless have seemed the idlest kind of an\nexperiment to the stanch business men of the time, who, it happened,\nwere just then denouncing the child-labor bills in their anxiety to\navail themselves to the full of the results of earlier idle curiosity.\nBut should the dynamos and motors which have come into being as the\noutcome of Faraday's experiment be stopped this evening, the business\nman of to-day, agitated over labor troubles, might, as he trudged home\npast lines of \"dead\" cars, through dark streets to an unlighted house,\nengage in a little creative thought of his own and perceive that he\nand his laborers would have no modern factories and mines to quarrel\nabout had it not been for the strange practical effects of the idle\ncuriosity of scientists, inventors, and engineers.\n\nThe examples of creative intelligence given above belong to the realm\nof modern scientific achievement, which furnishes the most striking\ninstances of the effects of scrupulous, objective thinking. But there\nare, of course, other great realms in which the recording and\nembodiment of acute observation and insight have wrought themselves\ninto the higher life of man. The great poets and dramatists and our\nmodern story-tellers have found themselves engaged in productive\nreveries, noting and artistically presenting their discoveries for the\ndelight and instruction of those who have the ability to appreciate\nthem.\n\nThe process by which a fresh and original poem or drama comes into\nbeing is doubtless analogous to that which originates and elaborates\nso-called scientific discoveries; but there is clearly a temperamental\ndifference. The genesis and advance of painting, sculpture, and music\noffer still other problems. We really as yet know shockingly little\nabout these matters, and indeed very few people have the least\ncuriosity about them.[8] Nevertheless, creative intelligence in its\nvarious forms and activities is what makes man. Were it not for its\nslow, painful, and constantly discouraged operations through the ages\nman would be no more than a species of primate living on seeds, fruit,\nroots, and uncooked flesh, and wandering naked through the woods and\nover the plains like a chimpanzee.\n\nThe origin and progress and future promotion of civilization are ill\nunderstood and misconceived. These should be made the chief theme of\neducation, but much hard work is necessary before we can reconstruct\nour ideas of man and his capacities and free ourselves from\ninnumerable persistent misapprehensions. There have been\nobstructionists in all times, not merely the lethargic masses, but\nthe moralists, the rationalizing theologians, and most of the\nphilosophers, all busily if unconsciously engaged in ratifying\nexisting ignorance and mistakes and discouraging creative thought.\nNaturally, those who reassure us seem worthy of honor and respect.\nEqually naturally those who puzzle us with disturbing criticisms and\ninvite us to change our ways are objects of suspicion and readily\ndiscredited. Our personal discontent does not ordinarily extend to any\ncritical questioning of the general situation in which we find\nourselves. In every age the prevailing conditions of civilization have\nappeared quite natural and inevitable to those who grew up in them.\nThe cow asks no questions as to how it happens to have a dry stall and\na supply of hay. The kitten laps its warm milk from a china saucer,\nwithout knowing anything about porcelain; the dog nestles in the\ncorner of a divan with no sense of obligation to the inventors of\nupholstery and the manufacturers of down pillows. So we humans accept\nour breakfasts, our trains and telephones and orchestras and movies,\nour national Constitution, or moral code and standards of manners,\nwith the simplicity and innocence of a pet rabbit. We have absolutely\ninexhaustible capacities for appropriating what others do for us with\nno thought of a \"thank you\". We do not feel called upon to make any\nleast contribution to the merry game ourselves. Indeed, we are usually\nquite unaware that a game is being played at all.\n\nWe have now examined the various classes of thinking which we can\nreadily observe in ourselves and which we have plenty of reasons to\nbelieve go on, and always have been going on, in our fellow-men. We\ncan sometimes get quite pure and sparkling examples of all four kinds,\nbut commonly they are so confused and intermingled in our reverie as\nnot to be readily distinguishable. The reverie is a reflection of our\nlongings, exultations, and complacencies, our fears, suspicions, and\ndisappointments. We are chiefly engaged in struggling to maintain our\nself-respect and in asserting that supremacy which we all crave and\nwhich seems to us our natural prerogative. It is not strange, but\nrather quite inevitable, that our beliefs about what is true and\nfalse, good and bad, right and wrong, should be mixed up with the\nreverie and be influenced by the same considerations which determine\nits character and course. We resent criticisms of our views exactly as\nwe do of anything else connected with ourselves. Our notions of life\nand its ideals seem to us to be _our own_ and as such necessarily true\nand right, to be defended at all costs.\n\n_We very rarely consider, however, the process by which we gained our\nconvictions_. If we did so, we could hardly fail to see that there was\nusually little ground for our confidence in them. Here and there, in\nthis department of knowledge or that, some one of us might make a fair\nclaim to have taken some trouble to get correct ideas of, let us say,\nthe situation in Russia, the sources of our food supply, the origin of\nthe Constitution, the revision of the tariff, the policy of the Holy\nRoman Apostolic Church, modern business organization, trade unions,\nbirth control, socialism, the League of Nations, the excess-profits\ntax, preparedness, advertising in its social bearings; but only a very\nexceptional person would be entitled to opinions on all of even these\nfew matters. And yet most of us have opinions on all these, and on\nmany other questions of equal importance, of which we may know even\nless. We feel compelled, as self-respecting persons, to take sides\nwhen they come up for discussion. We even surprise ourselves by our\nomniscience. Without taking thought we see in a flash that it is most\nrighteous and expedient to discourage birth control by legislative\nenactment, or that one who decries intervention in Mexico is clearly\nwrong, or that big advertising is essential to big business and that\nbig business is the pride of the land. As godlike beings why should we\nnot rejoice in our omniscience?\n\nIt is clear, in any case, that our convictions on important matters\nare not the result of knowledge or critical thought, nor, it may be\nadded, are they often dictated by supposed self-interest. Most of them\nare _pure prejudices_ in the proper sense of that word. We do not form\nthem ourselves. They are the whisperings of \"the voice of the herd\".\nWe have in the last analysis no responsibility for them and need\nassume none. They are not really our own ideas, but those of others no\nmore well informed or inspired than ourselves, who have got them in\nthe same careless and humiliating manner as we. It should be our pride\nto revise our ideas and not to adhere to what passes for respectable\nopinion, for such opinion can frequently be shown to be not respectable\nat all. We should, in view of the considerations that have been\nmentioned, resent our supine credulity. As an English writer has\nremarked:\n\n\"If we feared the entertaining of an unverifiable opinion with the\nwarmth with which we fear using the wrong implement at the dinner\ntable, if the thought of holding a prejudice disgusted us as does a\nfoul disease, then the dangers of man's suggestibility would be turned\ninto advantages.\"[9]\n\nThe purpose of this essay is to set forth briefly the way in which the\nnotions of the herd have been accumulated. This seems to me the best,\neasiest, and least invidious educational device for cultivating a\nproper distrust for the older notions on which we still continue to\nrely.\n\nThe \"real\" reasons, which explain how it is we happen to hold a\nparticular belief, are chiefly historical. Our most important\nopinions--those, for example, having to do with traditional,\nreligious, and moral convictions, property rights, patriotism,\nnational honor, the state, and indeed all the assumed foundations of\nsociety--are, as I have already suggested, rarely the result of\nreasoned consideration, but of unthinking absorption from the social\nenvironment in which we live. Consequently, they have about them a\nquality of \"elemental certitude\", and we especially resent doubt or\ncriticism cast upon them. So long, however, as we revere the\nwhisperings of the herd, we are obviously unable to examine them\ndispassionately and to consider to what extent they are suited to the\nnovel conditions and social exigencies in which we find ourselves\nto-day.\n\nThe \"real\" reasons for our beliefs, by making clear their origins and\nhistory, can do much to dissipate this emotional blockade and rid us\nof our prejudices and preconceptions. Once this is done and we come\ncritically to examine our traditional beliefs, we may well find some\nof them sustained by experience and honest reasoning, while others\nmust be revised to meet new conditions and our more extended\nknowledge. But only after we have undertaken such a critical\nexamination in the light of experience and modern knowledge, freed\nfrom any feeling of \"primary certitude\", can we claim that the \"good\"\nare also the \"real\" reasons for our opinions.\n\nI do not flatter myself that this general show-up of man's thought\nthrough the ages will cure myself or others of carelessness in\nadopting ideas, or of unseemly heat in defending them just because we\nhave adopted them. But if the considerations which I propose to recall\nare really incorporated into our thinking and are permitted to\nestablish our general outlook on human affairs, they will do much to\nrelieve the imaginary obligation we feel in regard to traditional\nsentiments and ideals. Few of us are capable of engaging in creative\nthought, but some of us can at least come to distinguish it from other\nand inferior kinds of thought and accord to it the esteem that it\nmerits as the greatest treasure of the past and the only hope of the\nfuture.\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n[2] The poet-clergyman, John Donne, who lived in the time of James I,\nhas given a beautifully honest picture of the doings of a saint's\nmind: \"I throw myself down in my chamber and call in and invite God\nand His angels thither, and when they are there I neglect God and His\nangels for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the\nwhining of a door. I talk on in the same posture of praying, eyes\nlifted up, knees bowed down, as though I prayed to God, and if God or\nHis angels should ask me when I thought last of God in that prayer I\ncannot tell. Sometimes I find that I had forgot what I was about, but\nwhen I began to forget it I cannot tell. A memory of yesterday's\npleasures, a fear of to-morrow's dangers, a straw under my knee, a\nnoise in mine ear, a light in mine eye, an anything, a nothing, a\nfancy, a chimera in my brain troubles me in my prayer.\"--Quoted by\nROBERT LYND, _The Art of Letters_, pp. 46-47.\n\n[3] Instincts of the Herd, p. 44.\n\n[4] Diogenes Laertius, book v.\n\n[5] _Reconstruction in Philosophy_.\n\n[6] _The Place of Science in Modern Civilization._\n\n[7] _Trait\u00e9 de Sociologie G\u00e9n\u00e9rale, passim._ The author's term\n\"_derivations_\" seems to be his precise way of expressing what we have\ncalled the \"good\" reasons, and his \"_residus_\" correspond to the\n\"real\" reasons. He well says, _\"L'homme \u00e9prouve le besoin de\nraisonner, et en outre d'\u00e9tendre un voile sur ses instincts et sur ses\nsentiments\"_--hence, rationalization. (P. 788.) His aim is to reduce\nsociology to the \"real\" reasons. (P. 791.)\n\n[8] Recently a re-examination of creative thought has begun as a\nresult of new knowledge which discredits many of the notions formerly\nheld about \"reason\". See, for example, _Creative Intelligence_, by a\ngroup of American philosophic thinkers; John Dewey, _Essays in\nExperimental Logic_ (both pretty hard books); and Veblen, _The Place\nof Science in Modern Civilization_. Easier than these and very\nstimulating are Dewey, _Reconstruction in Philosophy_, and Woodworth,\n_Dynamic Psychology_.\n\n[9] Trotter, _op. cit._, p. 45. The first part of this little volume\nis excellent.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nIII\n\n\n    Nous \u00e9tions d\u00e9j\u00e0 si vieux quand nous sommes n\u00e9s.--ANATOLE FRANCE.\n\n    Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia, nobis?--ENNIUS.\n\n    Tous les homines se ressemblent si fort qu'il n'y a point de peuple\n    dont les sottises ne nous doivent faire trembler.--FONTENELLE.\n\n    The savage is very close to us indeed, both in his physical and\n    mental make-up and in the forms of his social life. Tribal society\n    is virtually delayed civilization, and the savages are a sort of\n    contemporaneous ancestry.--WILLIAM I. THOMAS.\n\n\n\n\n6. OUR ANIMAL HERITAGE. THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATION\n\n\nThere are four historical layers underlying the minds of civilized\nmen--the animal mind, the child mind, the savage mind, and the\ntraditional civilized mind. We are all animals and never can cease to\nbe; we were all children at our most impressionable age and can never\nget over the effects of that; our human ancestors have lived in\nsavagery during practically the whole existence of the race, say five\nhundred thousand or a million years, and the primitive human mind is\never with us; finally, we are all born into an elaborate civilization,\nthe constant pressure of which we can by no means escape.\n\nEach of these underlying minds has its special sciences and\nappropriate literatures. The new discipline of animal or comparative\npsychology deals with the first; genetic and analytical psychology\nwith the second;[10] anthropology, ethnology, and comparative religion\nwith the third; and the history of philosophy, science, theology, and\nliterature with the fourth.\n\nWe may grow beyond these underlying minds and in the light of new\nknowledge we may criticize their findings and even persuade ourselves\nthat we have successfully transcended them. But if we are fair with\nourselves we shall find that their hold on us is really inexorable. We\ncan only transcend them artificially and precariously and in certain\nhighly favorable conditions. Depression, anger, fear, or ordinary\nirritation will speedily prove the insecurity of any structure that we\nmanage to rear on our fourfold foundation. Such fundamental and vital\npreoccupations as religion, love, war, and the chase stir impulses\nthat lie far back in human history and which effectually repudiate the\ncavilings of ratiocination.\n\nIn all our reveries and speculations, even the most exacting,\nsophisticated, and disillusioned, we have three unsympathetic\ncompanions sticking closer than a brother and looking on with jealous\nimpatience--our wild apish progenitor, a playful or peevish baby, and\na savage. We may at any moment find ourselves overtaken with a warm\nsense of camaraderie for any or all of these ancient pals of ours, and\nexperience infinite relief in once more disporting ourselves with them\nas of yore. Some of us have in addition a Greek philosopher or man of\nletters in us; some a neoplatonic mystic, some a mediaeval monk, all\nof whom have learned to make terms with their older playfellows.\n\nBefore retracing the way in which the mind as we now find it in\nso-called intelligent people has been accumulated, we may take time to\ntry to see what civilization is and why man alone can become\ncivilized. For the mind has expanded _pari passu_ with civilization,\nand without civilization there would, I venture to conjecture, have\nbeen no human mind in the commonly accepted sense of that term.\n\nIt is now generally conceded by all who have studied the varied\nevidence and have freed themselves from ancient prejudice that, if we\ntraced back our human lineage far enough we should come to a point\nwhere our human ancestors had no civilization and lived a speechless,\nnaked, houseless, fireless, and toolless life, similar to that of the\nexisting primates with which we are zoologically closely connected.\n\nThis is one of the most fully substantiated of historical facts and\none which we can never neglect in our attempts to explain man as he\nnow is. We are all descended from the lower animals. We are\nfurthermore still animals with not only an animal body, but with an\nanimal mind. And this animal body and animal mind are the original\nfoundations on which even the most subtle and refined intellectual\nlife must perforce rest.\n\nWe are ready to classify certain of our most essential desires as\nbrutish--hunger and thirst, the urgence of sleep, and especially\nsexual longing. We know of blind animal rage, of striking, biting,\nscratching, howling, and snarling, of irrational fears and ignominious\nflight. We share our senses with the higher animals, have eyes and\nears, noses and tongues much like theirs; heart, lungs, and other\nviscera, and four limbs. They have brains which stand them in good\nstead, although their heads are not so good as ours. But when one\nspeaks of the animal mind he should think of still other resemblances\nbetween the brute and man.\n\nAll animals learn--even the most humble among them may gain something\nfrom experience. All the higher animals exhibit curiosity under\ncertain circumstances, and it is this impulse which underlies all\nhuman science.\n\nMoreover, some of the higher animals, especially the apes and monkeys,\nare much given to fumbling and groping. They are restless, easily\nbored, and spontaneously experimental. They therefore make discoveries\nquite unconsciously, and form new and sometimes profitable habits of\naction. If, by mere fumbling, a monkey, cat, or dog happens on a way\nto secure food, this remunerative line of conduct will \"occur\" to the\ncreature when he feels hungry. This is what Thorndike has named\nlearning by \"trial and error\". It might better be called \"fumbling and\nsuccess\", for it is the success that establishes the association. The\ninnate curiosity which man shares with his uncivilized zoological\nrelatives is the native impulse that leads to scientific and\nphilosophical speculation, and the original fumbling of a restless ape\nhas become the ordered experimental investigation of modern times. A\ncreature which lacked curiosity and had no tendency to fumble could\nnever have developed civilization and human intelligence.[l0]\n\nBut why did man alone of all the animals become civilized? The reason\nis not far to seek, although it has often escaped writers[11] on the\nsubject. All animals gain a certain wisdom with age and experience,\nbut the experience of one ape does not profit another. Learning among\nanimals below man is _individual_, not _co-operative_ and _cumulative_.\nOne dog does not seem to learn from another, nor one ape from another,\nin spite of the widespread misapprehension in this regard. Many\nexperiments have been patiently tried in recent years and it seems to\nbe pretty well established that the monkey learns by _monkeying_, but\nthat he rarely or never appears to _ape_. He does not learn by imitation,\nbecause he does not imitate. There may be minor exceptions, but the fact\nthat apes never, in spite of a bodily equipment nearly human, become in\nthe least degree civilized, would seem to show that the accumulation of\nknowledge or dexterity through imitation is impossible for them.\n\nMan has the various sense organs of the apes and their extraordinary\npower of manipulation. To these essentials he adds a brain\nsufficiently more elaborate than that of the chimpanzee to enable him\nto do something that the ape cannot do--namely, \"see\" things clearly\nenough to form associations through imitation.[12]\n\nWe can imagine the manner in which man unwittingly took one of his\nmomentous and unprecedented first steps in civilization. Some restless\nprimeval savage might find himself scraping the bark off a stick with\nthe edge of a stone or shell and finally cutting into the wood and\nbringing the thing to a point. He might then spy an animal and, quite\nwithout reasoning, impulsively make a thrust with the stick and\ndiscover that it pierced the creature. If he could hold these various\nelements in the situation, sharpening the stick and using it, he would\nhave made an invention--a rude spear. A particularly acute bystander\nmight comprehend and imitate the process. If others did so and the\nhabit was established in the tribe so that it became traditional and\nwas transmitted to following generations, the process of civilization\nwould have begun--also the process of human learning, which is\nnoticing distinctions and analyzing situations. This simple process of\nsharpening a stick would involve the \"concepts\", as the philosophers\nsay, of a tool and bark and a point and an artificial weapon. But ages\nand ages were to elapse before the botanist would distinguish the\nvarious layers which constitute the bark, or successive experimenters\ncome upon the idea of a bayonet to take the place of the spear.\n\nOf late, considerable attention has been given to the question of\nman's original, uneducated, animal nature; what resources has he as a\nmere creature independent of any training that results from being\nbrought up in some sort of civilized community? The question is\ndifficult to formulate satisfactorily and still more difficult to\nanswer. But without attempting to list man's supposed natural\n\"instincts\" we must assume that civilization is built up on his\noriginal propensities and impulses, whatever they may be. These\nprobably remain nearly the same from generation to generation. The\nidea formerly held that the civilization of our ancestors affects our\noriginal nature is almost completely surrendered. _We are all born\nwholly uncivilized._\n\nIf a group of infants from the \"best\" families of to-day could be\nreared by apes they would find themselves with no civilization. How\nlong it would take them and their children to gain what now passes for\neven a low savage culture it is impossible to say. The whole arduous\ntask would have to be performed anew and it might not take place at\nall, unless conditions were favorable, for man is not naturally a\n\"progressive\" animal. He shares the tendency of all other animal\ntribes just to pull through and reproduce his kind.\n\nMost of us do not stop to think of the conditions of an animal\nexistence. When we read the descriptions of our nature as given by\nWilliam James, McDougall, or even Thorndike, with all his reservations,\nwe get a rather impressive idea of our possibilities, not a picture of\nuncivilized life. When we go camping we think that we are deserting\ncivilization, forgetting the sophisticated guides, and the pack horses\nladen with the most artificial luxuries, many of which would not have\nbeen available even a hundred years ago. We lead the simple life with\nSwedish matches, Brazilian coffee, Canadian bacon, California canned\npeaches, magazine rifles, jointed fishing rods, and electric\nflashlights. We are elaborately clothed and can discuss Bergson's\nviews or D. H. Lawrence's last story. We na\u00efvely imagine we are\nreturning to \"primitive\" conditions because we are living out of doors\nor sheltered in a less solid abode than usual, and have to go to\nthe brook for water.\n\nBut man's original estate was, as Hobbes reflected, \"poor, nasty,\nbrutish, and short\". To live like an animal is to rely upon one's own\nquite naked equipment and efforts, and not to mind getting wet or cold\nor scratching one's bare legs in the underbrush. One would have to eat\nhis roots and seeds quite raw, and gnaw a bird as a cat does. To get\nthe feel of uncivilized life, let us recall how savages with the\ncomparatively advanced degree of culture reached by our native Indian\ntribes may fall to when really hungry. In the journal of the Lewis and\nClark expedition there is an account of the killing of a deer by the\nwhite men. Hearing of this, the Shoshones raced wildly to the spot\nwhere the warm and bloody entrails had been thrown out\n\n    ... and ran tumbling over one another like famished dogs. Each tore\n    away whatever part he could, and instantly began to eat it; some\n    had the liver, some the kidneys, and, in short, no part on which we\n    are accustomed to look with disgust escaped them. One of them who\n    had seized about nine feet of the entrails was chewing at one end,\n    while with his hand he was diligently clearing his way by\n    discharging the contents at the other.\n\nAnother striking example of simple animal procedure is given in the\nsame journal:\n\n    One of the women, who had been leading two of our pack horses,\n    halted at a rivulet about a mile behind and sent on the two horses\n    by a female friend. On inquiring of Cameahwait the cause of her\n    detention, he answered, with great apparent unconcern, that she\n    had just stopped to lie in, but would soon overtake us. In fact,\n    we were astonished to see her in about an hour's time come on with\n    her new-born infant, and pass us on her way to the camp, seemingly\n    in perfect health.\n\nThis is the simple life and it was the life of our ancestors before\ncivilization began. It had been the best kind of life possible in all\nthe preceding aeons of the world's history. Without civilization it\nwould be the existence to which all human beings now on the earth\nwould forthwith revert. It is man's starting point.[13]\n\nBut what about the mind? What was going on in the heads of our\nuntutored forbears? We are apt to fall into the error of supposing\nthat because they had human brains they must have had somewhat the\nsame kinds of ideas and made the same kind of judgments that we do.\nEven distinguished philosophers like Descartes and Rousseau made this\nmistake. This assumption will not stand inspection. To reach back in\nimagination to the really primitive mind we should of course have to\ndeduct at the start all the knowledge and all the discriminations and\nclassifications that have grown up as a result of our education and\nour immersion from infancy in a highly artificial environment. Then we\nmust recollect that our primitive ancestor had no words with which to\nname and tell about things. He was speechless. His fellows knew no\nmore than he did. Each one learned during his lifetime according to\nhis capacity, but no instruction in our sense of the word was\npossible. What he saw and heard was not what we should have called\nseeing and hearing. He responded to situations in a blind and\nimpulsive manner, with no clear idea of them. In short, he must have\n_thought_ much as a wolf or bear does, just as he _lived_ much like\nthem.\n\nWe must be on our guard against accepting the prevalent notions of\neven the animal intellect. An owl may look quite as wise as a judge. A\nmonkey, canary, or collie has bright eyes and seems far more alert\nthan most of the people we see on the street car. A squirrel in the\npark appears to be looking at us much as we look at him. But he cannot\nbe seeing the same things that we do. We can be scarcely more to him\nthan a vague suggestion of peanuts. And even the peanut has little of\nthe meaning for him that it has for us. A dog perceives a motor-car\nand may be induced to ride in it, but his idea of it would not differ\nfrom that of an ancient carryall, except, mayhap, in an appreciative\ndistinction between the odor of gasoline and that of the stable. Only\nin times of sickness, drunkenness, or great excitement can we get some\nhint in ourselves of the impulsive responses in animals free from\nhuman sophistication and analysis.\n\nLocke thought that we first got simple ideas and then combined them\ninto more complex conceptions and finally into generalizations or\nabstract ideas. But this is not the way that man's knowledge arose. He\nstarted with mere impressions of general situations, and gradually by\nhis ability to handle things he came upon distinctions, which in time\nhe made clearer by attaching names to them.\n\nWe keep repeating this process when we learn about anything. The\ntypewriter is at first a mere mass impression, and only gradually and\nimperfectly do most of us distinguish certain of its parts; only the\nmen who made it are likely to realize its full complexity by noting\nand assigning names to all the levers, wheels, gears, bearings,\ncontrols, and adjustments. John Stuart Mill thought that the chief\nfunction of the mind was making inferences. But making distinctions is\nequally fundamental--seeing that there are really many things where\nonly one was at first apparent. This process of analysis has been\nman's supreme accomplishment. This is what has made his mind grow.\n\nThe human mind has then been built up through hundreds of thousands of\nyears by gradual accretions and laborious accumulations. Man started\nat a cultural zero and had to find out everything for himself; or\nrather a very small number of peculiarly restless and adventurous\nspirits did the work. The great mass of humanity has never had\nanything to do with the increase of intelligence except to act as its\nmedium of transfusion and perpetuation. Creative intelligence is\nconfined to the very few, but the many can thoughtlessly avail\nthemselves of the more obvious achievements of those who are\nexceptionally highly endowed.\n\nEven an ape will fit himself into a civilized environment. A\nchimpanzee can be taught to relish bicycles, roller skates, and\ncigarettes which he could never have devised, cannot understand, and\ncould not reproduce. Even so with mankind. Most of us could not have\ndevised, do not understand, and consequently could not reproduce any\nof the everyday conveniences and luxuries which surround us. Few of us\ncould make an electric light, or write a good novel to read by it, or\npaint a picture for it to shine upon.\n\nProfessor Giddings has recently asked the question, Why has there been\nany history?[14] Why, indeed, considering that the \"good\" and\n\"respectable\" is usually synonymous with the ancient routine, and the\nold have always been there to repress the young? Such heavy words of\napproval as \"venerable\", \"sanctified\", and \"revered\" all suggest great\nage rather than fresh discoveries. As it was in the beginning, is now\nand ever shall be, is our protest against being disturbed, forced to\nthink or to change our habits. So history, _namely change_, has been\nmainly due to a small number of \"seers\",--really gropers and\nmonkeyers--whose native curiosity outran that of their fellows and led\nthem to escape here and there from the sanctified blindness of their\ntime.\n\nThe seer is simply an example of a _variation_ biologically, such as\noccurs in all species of living things, both animal and vegetable. But\nthe unusually large roses in our gardens, the swifter horses of the\nherd, and the cleverer wolf in the pack have no means of influencing\ntheir fellows as a result of their peculiar superiority. Their\noffspring has some chance of sharing to some degree this pre-eminence,\nbut otherwise things will go on as before. Whereas the singular\nvariation represented by a St. Francis, a Dante, a Voltaire, or a\nDarwin may permanently, and for ages to follow change somewhat the\ncharacter and ambitions of innumerable inferior members of the species\nwho could by no possibility have originated anything for themselves,\nbut who can, nevertheless, suffer some modification as a result of the\nteachings of others. This illustrates the magical and unique workings\nof culture and creative intelligence in mankind.[15]\n\nWe have no means of knowing when or where the first contribution to\ncivilization was made, and with it a start on the arduous building of\nthe mind. There is some reason to think that the men who first\ntranscended the animal mind were of inferior mental capacity to our\nown, but even if man, emerging from his animal estate, had had on the\naverage quite as good a brain as those with which we are now familiar,\nI suspect that the extraordinarily slow and hazardous process of\naccumulating modern civilization would not have been greatly\nshortened. Mankind is lethargic, easily pledged to routine, timid,\nsuspicious of innovation. That is his nature. He is only artificially,\npartially, and very recently \"progressive\". He has spent almost his\nwhole existence as a savage hunter, and in that state of ignorance he\nillustrated on a magnificent scale all the inherent weaknesses of the\nhuman mind.\n\n\n\n\n7. OUR SAVAGE MIND\n\n\nShould we arrange our present beliefs and opinions on the basis of\ntheir age, we should find that some of them were very, very old, going\nback to primitive man; others were derived from the Greeks; many more\nof them would prove to come directly from the Middle Ages; while\ncertain others in our stock were unknown until natural science began\nto develop in a new form about three hundred years ago. The idea that\nman has a soul or double which survives the death of the body is very\nancient indeed and is accepted by most savages. Such confidence as we\nhave in the liberal arts, metaphysics, and formal logic goes back to\nthe Greek thinkers; our religious ideas and our standards of sexual\nconduct are predominantly mediaeval in their presuppositions; our\nnotions of electricity and disease germs are, of course, recent in\norigin, the result of painful and prolonged research which involved\nthe rejection of a vast number of older notions sanctioned by\nimmemorial acceptance.\n\n_In general, those ideas which are still almost universally accepted\nin regard to man's nature, his proper conduct, and his relations to\nGod and his fellows are far more ancient and far less critical than\nthose which have to do with the movement of the stars, the\nstratification of the rocks and the life of plants and animals_.\n\nNothing is more essential in our attempt to escape from the bondage of\nconsecrated ideas than to get a vivid notion of human achievement in\nits proper historical perspective. In order to do this let us imagine\nthe whole gradual and laborious attainments of mankind compressed into\nthe compass of a single lifetime. Let us assume that a single\ngeneration of men have in fifty years managed to accumulate all that\nnow passes for civilization. They would have to start, as all\nindividuals do, absolutely uncivilized, and their task would be to\nrecapitulate what has occupied the race for, let us guess, at least\nfive hundred thousand years. Each year in the life of a generation\nwould therefore correspond to ten thousand years in the progress of\nthe race.\n\nOn this scale it would require forty-nine years to reach a point of\nintelligence which would enable our self-taught generation to give up\ntheir ancient and inveterate habits of wandering hunters and settle\ndown here and there to till the ground, harvest their crops,\ndomesticate animals, and weave their rough garments. Six months later,\nor half through the fiftieth year, some of them, in a particularly\nfavorable situation, would have invented writing and thus established\na new and wonderful means of spreading and perpetuating civilization.\nThree months later another group would have carried literature, art,\nand philosophy to a high degree of refinement and set standards for\nthe succeeding weeks. For two months our generation would have been\nliving under the blessings of Christianity; the printing press would\nbe but a fortnight old and they would not have had the steam engine\nfor quite a week. For two or three days they would have been hastening\nabout the globe in steamships and railroad trains, and only yesterday\nwould they have come upon the magical possibilities of electricity.\nWithin the last few hours they would have learned to sail in the air\nand beneath the waters, and have forthwith applied their newest\ndiscoveries to the prosecution of a magnificent war on the scale\nbefitting their high ideals and new resources. This is not so strange,\nfor only a week ago they were burning and burying alive those who\ndiffered from the ruling party in regard to salvation, eviscerating in\npublic those who had new ideas of government, and hanging old women\nwho were accused of traffic with the devil. All of them had been no\nbetter than vagrant savages a year before. Their fuller knowledge was\naltogether too recent to have gone very deep, and they had many\ninstitutions and many leaders dedicated to the perpetuation of outworn\nnotions which would otherwise have disappeared. Until recently changes\nhad taken place so slowly and so insensibly that only a very few\npersons could be expected to realize that not a few of the beliefs\nthat were accepted as eternal verities were due to the inevitable\nmisunderstandings of a savage.\n\nIn speaking of the \"savage\" or \"primitive mind\", we are, of course,\nusing a very clumsy expression. We shall employ the term, nevertheless,\nto indicate the characteristics of the human mind when there was as yet\nno writing, no organized industry or mechanical arts, no money, no\nimportant specialization of function except between the sexes, no\nsettled life in large communities. The period so described covers all\nbut about five or six thousand of the half million to a million years\nthat man has existed on the earth.\n\nThere are no chronicles to tell us the story of those long centuries.\nSome inferences can be made from the increasing artfulness and variety\nof the flint weapons and tools which we find. But the stone weapons\nwhich have come down to us, even in their crudest forms (eoliths), are\nvery far from representing the earliest achievements of man in the\naccumulation of culture. Those dim, remote cycles must have been full\nof great, but inconspicuous, originators who laid the foundations of\ncivilization in discoveries and achievements so long taken for granted\nthat we do not realize that they ever had to be made at all.\n\nSince man is descended from less highly endowed animals, there must\nhave been a time when the man-animal was in a state of animal\nignorance. He started with no more than an ape is able to know. He had\nto learn everything for himself, as he had no one to teach him the\ntricks that apes and children can be taught by sophisticated human\nbeings. He was necessarily self-taught, and began, as we have seen, in\na state of ignorance beyond anything we can readily conceive. He lived\nnaked and speechless in the woods, or wandered over the plains without\nartificial shelter or any way of cooking his food. He subsisted on raw\nfruit, berries, roots, insects, and such animals as he could strike\ndown or pick up dead. His mind must have corresponded with his brutish\nstate. He must at the first have learned just as his animal relatives\nlearn--by fumbling and by forming accidental associations. He had\nimpulses and such sagacity as he individually derived from experience,\nbut no heritage of knowledge accumulated by the group and transmitted\nby education. This heritage had to be constructed on man's\npotentialities.\n\nOf mankind in this extremely primitive condition we have no traces.\nThere could indeed be no traces. All savages of the present day or of\nwhom we have any record represent a relatively highly developed\ntraditional culture, with elaborate languages, myths, and\nwell-established artificial customs, which it probably took hundreds\nof thousands of years to accumulate. Man in \"a state of nature\" is\nonly a presupposition, but a presupposition which is forced upon us by\ncompelling evidence, conjectural and inferential though it is.\n\nOn a geological time scale we are still close to savagery, and it is\ninevitable that the ideas and customs and sentiments of savagery\nshould have become so ingrained that they may have actually affected\nman's nature by natural selection through the survival of those who\nmost completely adjusted themselves to the uncritical culture which\nprevailed. But in any case it is certain, as many anthropologists have\npointed out, that customs, savage ideas, and primitive sentiments have\ncontinued to form an important part of our own culture down even to\nthe present day. We are met thus with the necessity of reckoning with\nthis inveterate element in our present thought and customs. Much of\nthe data that we have regarding primitive man has been accumulated in\nrecent times, for the most part as a result of the study of simple\npeoples. These differ greatly in their habits and myths, but some\nsalient common traits emerge which cast light on the spontaneous\nworkings of the human mind when unaffected by the sophistications of a\nhighly elaborate civilization.\n\nAt the start man had to distinguish himself from the group to which he\nbelonged and say, \"I am I.\" This is not an idea given by nature.[16]\nThere are evidences that the earlier religious notions were not based\non individuality, but rather on the \"virtue\" which objects had--that\nis, their potency to do things. Only later did the animistic belief in\nthe personalities of men, animals, and the forces of nature appear.\nWhen man discovered his own individuality he spontaneously ascribed\nthe same type of individuality and purpose to animals and plants, to\nthe wind and the thunder.\n\nThis exhibits one of the most noxious tendencies of the mind--namely,\npersonification. It is one of the most virulent enemies of clear\nthinking. We speak of the Spirit of the Reformation or the Spirit of\nRevolt or the Spirit of Disorder and Anarchy. The papers tell us that,\n\"Berlin says\", \"London says\", \"Uncle Sam so decides\", \"John Bull is\ndisgruntled\". Now, whether or no there are such things as spirits,\nBerlin and London have no souls, and Uncle Sam is as mythical as the\ngreat god Pan. Sometimes this regression to the savage is harmless,\nbut when a newspaper states that \"Germany is as militaristic as ever\",\non the ground that some insolent Prussian lieutenant says that German\narmies will occupy Paris within five years, we have an example of\nanimism which in a society farther removed from savagery than ours\nmight be deemed a high crime and misdemeanor. Chemists and physicians\nhave given up talking of spirits, but in discussing social and\neconomic questions we are still victimized by the primitive animistic\ntendencies of the mind.\n\nThe dream has had a great influence in the building up of the mind.\nOur ideas, especially our religious beliefs, would have had quite\nanother history had men been dreamless. For it was not merely his\nshadow and his reflection in the water that led man to imagine souls\nand doubles, but pre-eminently the visions of the night. As his body\nlay quiet in sleep he found himself wandering in distant places.\n\nSometimes he was visited by the dead. So it was clear that the body\nhad an inhabitant who was not necessarily bound to it, who could\ndesert it from time to time during life, and who continued to exist\nand interest itself in human affairs after death.\n\nWhole civilizations and religions and vast theological speculations\nhave been dominated by this savage inference. It is true that in very\nrecent times, since Plato, let us say, other reasons have been urged\nfor believing in the soul and its immortality, but the idea appears to\nhave got its firm footing in savage logic. It is a primitive inference,\nhowever it may later have been revised, rationalized, and ennobled.\n\nThe taboo--the forbidden thing--of savage life is another thing very\nelementary in man's make-up. He had tendencies to fall into habits and\nestablish inhibitions for reasons that he either did not discover or\neasily forgot. These became fixed and sacred to him and any departure\nfrom them filled him with dread. Sometimes the prohibition might have\nsome reasonable justification, sometimes it might seem wholly absurd\nand even a great nuisance, but that made no difference in its binding\nforce. For example, pork was taboo among the ancient Hebrews--no one\ncan say why, but none of the modern justifications for abstaining from\nthat particular kind of meat would have counted in early Jewish times.\nIt is not improbable that it was the original veneration for the boar\nand not an abhorrence of him that led to the prohibition.\n\nThe modern \"principle\" is too often only a new form of the ancient\ntaboo, rather than an enlightened rule of conduct. The person who\njustifies himself by saying that he holds certain beliefs, or acts in\na certain manner \"on principle\", and yet refuses to examine the basis\nand expediency of his principle, introduces into his thinking and\nconduct an irrational, mystical element similar to that which\ncharacterized savage prohibitions. Principles unintelligently urged\nmake a great deal of trouble in the free consideration of social\nreadjustment, for they are frequently as recalcitrant and obscurantist\nas the primitive taboo, and are really scarcely more than an excuse\nfor refusing to reconsider one's convictions and conduct. The\npsychological conditions lying back of both taboo and this sort of\nprinciple are essentially the same.\n\nWe find in savage thought a sort of intensified and generalized taboo\nin the classification of things as clean and unclean and in the\nconceptions of the sacred. These are really expressions of profound\nand persistent traits in the uncritical mind and can only be overcome\nby carefully cultivated criticism. They are the result of our natural\ntimidity and the constant dread lest we find ourselves treading on\nholy (_i. e._, dangerous) ground.[17] When they are intrenched in the\nmind we cannot expect to think freely and fairly, for they effectually\nstop argument. If a thing is held to be sacred it is the center of\nwhat may be called a defense complex, and a reasonable consideration\nof the merits of the case will not be tolerated. When an issue is\ndeclared to be a \"moral\" one--for example, the prohibition of strong\ndrink--an emotional state is implied which makes reasonable compromise\nand adjustment impossible; for \"moral\" is a word on somewhat the same\nplane as \"sacred\", and has much the same qualities and similar effects\non thinking. In dealing with the relations of the sexes the terms\n\"pure\" and \"impure\" introduce mystic and irrational moods alien to\nclear analysis and reasonable readjustments. Those who have studied\nthe characteristics of savage life are always struck by its deadly\nconservatism, its needless restraints on the freedom of the\nindividual, and its hopeless routine. Man, like plants and animals in\ngeneral, tends to go on from generation to generation, living as\nnearly as may be the life of his forbears. Changes have to be forced\nupon him by hard experience, and he is ever prone to find excuses for\nslipping back into older habits, for these are likely to be simpler,\nless critical, more spontaneous--more closely akin, in short, to his\nanimal and primitive promptings. One who prides himself to-day on his\nconservatism, on the ground that man is naturally an anarchic and\ndisorderly creature who is held in check by the far-seeing Tory, is\nalmost exactly reversing the truth. Mankind is conservative by nature\nand readily generates restraints on himself and obstacles to change\nwhich have served to keep him in a state of savagery during almost his\nwhole existence on the earth, and which still perpetuate all sorts of\nprimitive barbarism in modern society. The conservative \"on principle\"\nis therefore a most unmistakably primitive person in his attitude. His\nonly advance beyond the savage mood lies in the specious reasons he is\nable to advance for remaining of the same mind. What we vaguely call a\n\"radical\" is a very recent product due to altogether exceptional and\nunprecedented circumstances.\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n[10] It is impossible to discuss here the results which a really\nhonest study of child psychology promises. The relations of the child\nto his parents and elders in general and to the highly artificial\nsystem of censorship and restraints which they impose in their own\ninterests on his natural impulses must surely have a permanent\ninfluence on the notions he continues to have as an adult in regard to\nhis \"superiors\" and the institutions and _mores_ under which he is\ncalled to live. Attempts in later life to gain intellectual freedom\ncan only be successful if one comes to think of the childish origin of\na great part of his \"real\" reasons.\n\n[11] Clarence Day in _Our Simian World_ discusses with delightful\nhumor the effects of our underlying simian temperament on the conduct\nof life.\n\n[12] The word \"imitation\" is commonly used very loosely. The real\nquestion is does an animal, or even man himself, tend to make\nmovements or sounds made by their fellow-creatures in their presence\nIt seems to be made out now that even monkeys are not imitative in\nthat sense and that man himself has no general inclination to do over\nwhat he sees being done. Pray, if you doubt this, note how many things\nyou see others doing that you have no inclination to imitate! For an\nadmirable summary see Thorndike, E. L., _The Original Nature of Man_,\n1913, pp. 108 ff.\n\n[13] \"If the earth were struck by one of Mr. Wells's comets, and if,\nin consequence, every human being now alive were to lose all the\nknowledge and habits which he had acquired from preceding generations\n(though retaining unchanged all his own powers of invention and memory\nand habituation) nine tenths of the inhabitants of London or New York\nwould be dead in a month, and 99 per cent of the remaining tenth would\nbe dead in six months. They would have no language to express their\nthoughts, and no thoughts but vague reverie. They could not read\nnotices, or drive motors or horses. They would wander about, led by\nthe inarticulate cries of a few naturally dominant individuals,\ndrowning themselves, as thirst came on, in hundreds at the riverside\nlanding places, looting those shops where the smell of decaying food\nattracted them, and perhaps at the end stumbling on the expedient of\ncannibalism. Even in the country districts men could not invent, in\ntime to preserve their lives, methods of growing food, or taming\nanimals, or making fire, or so clothing themselves as to endure a\nNorthern winter.\"--GRAHAM WALLAS, _Our Social Heritage_, p. 16. Only\nthe very lowest of savages might possibly pull through if culture\nshould disappear.\n\n[14] \"A Theory of History\", Political Science Quarterly, December,\n1920. He attributes history to the adventurers.\n\n[15] Count Korzybski in his _Manhood of Humanity_ is so impressed by\nthe uniqueness and undreamed possibilities of human civilization and\nman's \"time-binding\" capacity that he declares that it is a gross and\nmisleading error to regard man as an animal at all. Yet he is forced\nsadly to confess that man continues all too often to operate on an\nanimal or \"space-binding\" plan of life. His aim and outlook are,\nhowever, essentially the same as those of the present writer. His\nmethod of approach will appeal especially to those who are wont to\ndeal with affairs in the spirit of the mathematician and engineer. He\nis quite right in thinking that man has hitherto had little conception\nof his peculiar prerogatives and unlimited opportunities for\nbetterment.\n\n[16] In the beginning, too, man did not know how children came about,\nfor it was not easy to connect a common impulsive act with the event\nof birth so far removed in time. The tales told to children still are\nreminiscences of the mythical explanations which our savage ancestors\nadvanced to explain the arrival of the infant. Consequently, all\npopular theories of the origin of marriage and the family based on the\nassumption of conscious paternity are outlawed.\n\n[17] Lucretius warns the reader not to be deterred from considering\nthe evils wrought by religion by the fear of treading on \"the unholy\ngrounds of reason and in the path of sin\".--_De Rer. Nat_. i, 80 ff.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nIV\n\n    Thereupon one of the Egyptian priests, who was of a very great\n    age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and\n    there was never an old man who was a Hellene. Solon in return\n    asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind\n    you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you\n    by ancient tradition; nor any science which is hoary with age.\n    --PLATO'S _Timaeus_, 22 (Jowett's translation).\n\n    The truth is that we are far more likely to underrate the originality\n    of the Greeks than to exaggerate it, and we do not always remember the\n    very short time they took to lay down the lines scientific inquiry has\n    followed ever since.--JOHN BURNET.\n\n\n\n\n8. BEGINNING OF CRITICAL THINKING\n\n\nThe Egyptians were the first people, so far as we know, who invented a\nhighly artificial method of writing, about five thousand years ago,\nand began to devise new arts beyond those of their barbarous\npredecessors. They developed painting and architecture, navigation,\nand various ingenious industries; they worked in glass and enamels and\nbegan the use of copper, and so introduced metal into human affairs.\nBut in spite of their extraordinary advance in practical,\nmatter-of-fact knowledge they remained very primitive in their\nbeliefs. The same may be said of the peoples of Mesopotamia and of the\nwestern Asiatic nations in general--just as in our own day the\npractical arts have got a long start compared with the revision of\nbeliefs in regard to man and the gods. The peculiar opinions of the\nEgyptians do not enter directly into our intellectual heritage, but\nsome of the fundamental religious ideas which developed in western\nAsia have, through the veneration for the Hebrew Scriptures, become\npart and parcel of our ways of thinking. To the Greeks, however, we\nare intellectually under heavy obligation. The literature of the\nGreeks, in such fragments as escaped destruction, was destined, along\nwith the Hebrew Scriptures, to exercise an incalculable influence in\nthe formation of our modern civilized minds. These two dominating\nliterary heritages originated about the same time--day before\nyesterday--viewed in the perspective of our race's history. Previous\nto the Greek civilization books had played no great part in the\ndevelopment, dissemination, and transmission of culture from\ngeneration to generation. Now they were to become a cardinal force in\nadvancing and retarding the mind's expansion.\n\nIt required about a thousand years for the Greek shepherds from the\npastures of the Danube to assimilate the culture of the highly\ncivilized regions in which they first appeared as barbarian\ndestroyers. They accepted the industrial arts of the eastern\nMediterranean, adopted the Phoenician alphabet, and emulated the\nPhoenician merchant. By the seventh century before our era they had\ntowns, colonies, and commerce, with much stimulating running hither\nand thither. We get our first traces of new intellectual enterprise in\nthe Ionian cities, especially Miletus, and in the Italian colonies of\nthe Greeks. Only later did Athens become the unrivaled center in a\nmarvelous outflowering of the human intelligence.\n\nIt is a delicate task to summarize what we owe to the Greeks. Leaving\naside their supreme achievements in literature and art, we can\nconsider only very briefly the general scope and nature of their\nthinking as it relates most closely to our theme.\n\nThe chief strength of the Greeks lay in their freedom from hampering\nintellectual tradition. They had no venerated classics, no holy books,\nno dead languages to master, no authorities to check their free\nspeculation. As Lord Bacon reminds us, they had no antiquity of\nknowledge and no knowledge of antiquity. A modern classicist would\nhave been a forlorn outlander in ancient Athens, with no books in a\nforgotten tongue, no obsolete inflections to impose upon reluctant\nyouth. He would have had to use the everyday speech of the\nsandal-maker and fuller.\n\nFor a long time no technical words were invented to give aloofness and\nseeming precision to philosophic and scientific discussion. Aristotle\nwas the first to use words incomprehensible to the average citizen. It\nwas in these conditions that the possibilities of human criticism\nfirst showed themselves. The primitive notions of man, of the gods,\nand of the workings of natural forces began to be overhauled on an\nentirely new scale. Intelligence developed rapidly as exceptionally\nbold individuals came to have their suspicions of simple, spontaneous,\nand ancient ways of looking at things. Ultimately there came men who\nprofessed to doubt everything.\n\nAs Abelard long after put it, \"By doubting we come to question, and by\nseeking we may come upon the truth.\" But man is by nature credulous.\nHe is victimized by first impressions, from which he can only escape\nwith great difficulty. He resents criticism of accepted and familiar\nideas as he resents any unwelcome disturbance of routine. So criticism\nis against nature, for it conflicts with the smooth workings of our\nmore primitive minds, those of the child and the savage.\n\nIt should not be forgotten that the Greek people were no exception in\nthis matter. Anaxagoras and Aristotle were banished for thinking as\nthey did; Euripides was an object of abhorrence to the conservative of\nhis day, and Socrates was actually executed for his godless teachings.\nThe Greek thinkers furnish the first instance of intellectual freedom,\nof the \"self-detachment and self-abnegating vigor of criticism\" which\nis most touchingly illustrated in the honest \"know-nothingism\" of\nSocrates. _They discovered skepticism in the higher and proper\nsignificance of the word, and this was their supreme contribution to\nhuman thought_.\n\nOne of the finest examples of early Greek skepticism was the discovery\nof Xenophanes that man created the gods in his own image. He looked\nabout him, observed the current conceptions of the gods, compared\nthose of different peoples, and reached the conclusion that the way in\nwhich a tribe pictured its gods was not the outcome of any knowledge\nof how they really looked and whether they had black eyes or blue, but\nwas a reflection of the familiarly human. If the lions had gods they\nwould have the shape of their worshipers.\n\nNo more fundamentally shocking revelation was ever made than this, for\nit shook the very foundations of religious belief. The home life on\nOlympus as described in Homer was too scandalous to escape the\nattention of the thoughtful, and no later Christian could have\ndenounced the demoralizing influence of the current religious beliefs\nin hotter indignation than did Plato. To judge from the reflection of\nGreek thought which we find in Lucretius and Cicero, none of the\nprimitive religious beliefs escaped mordant criticism.\n\nThe second great discovery of the Greek thinkers was _metaphysics_.\nThey did not have the name, which originated long after in quite an\nabsurd fashion,[18] but they reveled in the thing. Nowadays\nmetaphysics is revered by some as our noblest effort to reach the\nhighest truth, and scorned by others as the silliest of wild-goose\nchases. I am inclined to rate it, like smoking, as a highly gratifying\nindulgence to those who like it, and, as indulgences go, relatively\ninnocent. The Greeks found that the mind could carry on an absorbing\ngame with itself. We all engage in reveries and fantasies of a homely,\neveryday type, concerned with our desires or resentments, but the\nfantasy of the metaphysician busies itself with conceptions,\nabstractions, distinctions, hypotheses, postulates, and logical\ninferences. Having made certain postulates or hypotheses, he finds new\nconclusions, which he follows in a seemingly convincing manner. This\ngives him the delightful emotion of pursuing Truth, something as the\nsimple man pursues a maiden. Only Truth is more elusive than the\nmaiden and may continue to beckon her follower for long years, no\nmatter how gray and doddering he may become.\n\nLet me give two examples of metaphysical reasoning.[19] We have an\nidea of an omnipotent, all-good, and perfect being. We are incapable,\nknowing as we do only imperfect things, of framing such an idea for\nourselves, so it must have been given us by the being himself. And\nperfection must include existence, so God must exist. This was good\nenough for Anselm and for Descartes, who went on to build a whole\nclosely concatenated philosophical system on this foundation. To them\nthe logic seemed irrefragable; to the modern student of comparative\nreligion, even to Kant, himself a metaphysician, there was nothing\nwhatsoever in it but an illustration of the native operations of a\nmind that has made a wholly gratuitous hypothesis and is victimized by\nan orderly series of spontaneous associations.\n\nA second example of metaphysics may be found in the doctrines of the\nEleatic philosophers, who early appeared in the Greek colonies on the\ncoast of Italy, and thought hard about space and motion. Empty space\nseemed as good as nothing, and, as nothing could not be said to exist,\nspace must be an illusion; and as motion implied space in which to\ntake place, there could be no motion. So all things were really\nperfectly compact and at rest, and all our impressions of change were\nthe illusions of the thoughtless and the simple-minded. Since one of\nthe chief satisfactions of the metaphysicians is to get away from the\nwelter of our mutable world into a realm of assurance, this doctrine\nexercised a great fascination over many minds. The Eleatic conviction\nof unchanging stability received a new form in Plato's doctrine of\neternal \"ideas\", and later developed into the comforting conception of\nthe \"Absolute\", in which logical and world-weary souls have sought\nrefuge from the times of Plotinus to those of Josiah Royce.\n\nBut there was one group of Greek thinkers whose general notions of\nnatural operations correspond in a striking manner to the conclusions\nof the most recent science. These were the Epicureans. Democritus was\nin no way a modern experimental scientist, but he met the Eleatic\nmetaphysics with another set of speculative considerations which\nhappened to be nearer what is now regarded as the truth than theirs.\nHe rejected the Eleatic decisions against the reality of space and\nmotion on the ground that, since motion obviously took place, the void\nmust be a reality, even if the metaphysician could not conceive it. He\nhit upon the notion that all things were composed of minute,\nindestructible particles (or atoms) of fixed kinds. Given motion and\nsufficient time, these might by fortuitous concourse make all possible\ncombinations. And it was one of these combinations which we call the\nworld as we find it. For the atoms of various shapes were inherently\ncapable of making up all material things, even the soul of man and the\ngods themselves. There was no permanence anywhere; all was no more\nthan the shifting accidental and fleeting combinations of the\npermanent atoms of which the cosmos was composed. This doctrine was\naccepted by the noble Epicurus and his school and is delivered to us\nin the immortal poem of Lucretius \"On the Nature of Things\".\n\nThe Epicureans believed the gods to exist because, like Anselm and\nDescartes, they thought we had an innate idea of them. But the divine\nbeings led a life of elegant ease and took no account of man; neither\nhis supplications, nor his sweet-smelling sacrifices, nor his\nblasphemies, ever disturbed their calm. Moreover, the human soul was\ndissipated at death. So the Epicureans flattered themselves that they\nhad delivered man from his two chief apprehensions, the fear of the\ngods and the fear of death. For, as Lucretius says, he who understands\nthe real nature of things will see that both are the illusions of\nignorance. Thus one school of Greek thinkers attained to a complete\nrejection of religious beliefs in the name of natural science.\n\n\n\n\n9. INFLUENCE OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE\n\n\nIn Plato we have at once the skepticism and the metaphysics of his\ncontemporaries. He has had his followers down through the ages, some\nof whom carried his skepticism to its utmost bounds, while others\navailed themselves of his metaphysics to rear a system of arrogant\nmystical dogmatism. He put his speculations in the form of dialogues\n--ostensible discussions in the market place or the houses of\nphilosophic Athenians. The Greek word for logic is dialectic, which\nreally means \"discussion\". argumentation in the interest of fuller\nanalysis, with the hope of more critical conclusions. The dialogues\nare the drama of his day, employed in Plato's magical hand as a\nvehicle of discursive reason. Of late we have in Ibsen, Shaw, Brieux,\nand Galsworthy the old expedient applied to the consideration of\nsocial perplexities and contradictions. The dialogue is indecisive in\nits outcome. It does not lend itself to dogmatic conclusions and\nsystematic presentation, but exposes the intricacy of all important\nquestions and the inevitable conflict of views, which may seem\naltogether irreconcilable. We much need to encourage and elaborate\nopportunities for profitable discussion to-day. We should revert to\nthe dialectic of the Athenian agora and make it a chosen instrument\nfor clarifying, co-ordinating and directing our co-operative thinking.\n\nPlato's indecision and urbane fair-mindedness is called irony. Now\nirony is seriousness without solemnity. It assumes that man is a\nserio-comic animal, and that no treatment of his affairs can be\nappropriate which gives him a consistency and dignity which he does\nnot possess. He is always a child and a savage. He is the victim of\nconflicting desires and hidden yearnings. He may talk like a\nsentimental idealist and act like a brute. The same person will devote\nanxious years to the invention of high explosives and then give his\nfortune to the promotion of peace. We devise the most exquisite\nmachinery for blowing our neighbors to pieces and then display our\nhighest skill and organization in trying to patch together such as\noffer hope of being mended. Our nature forbids us to make a definite\nchoice between the machine gun and the Red Cross nurse. So we use the\none to keep the other busy. Human thought and conduct can only be\ntreated broadly and truly in a mood of tolerant irony. It belies the\nlogical precision of the long-faced, humorless writer on politics and\nethics, whose works rarely deal with man at all, but are a stupid form\nof metaphysics.\n\nPlato made terms with the welter of things, but sought relief in the\nconception of supernal models, eternal in the heavens, after which all\nthings were imperfectly fashioned. He confessed that he could not bear\nto accept a world which was like a leaky pot or a man running at the\nnose. In short, he ascribed the highest form of existence to ideals\nand abstractions. This was a new and sophisticated republication of\nsavage animism. It invited lesser minds than his to indulge in all\nsorts of noble vagueness and impertinent jargon which continue to\ncurse our popular discussions of human affairs. He consecrated one of\nthe chief foibles of the human mind and elevated it to a religion.\n\nEver since his time men have discussed the import of names. Are there\nsuch things as love, friendship, and honor, or are there only lovely\nthings, friendly emotions in this individual and that, deeds which we\nmay, according to our standards, pronounce honorable or dishonorable?\nIf you believe in beauty, truth, and love _as such_ you are a\nPlatonist. If you believe that there are only individual instances and\nillustrations of various classified emotions and desires and acts, and\nthat abstractions are only the inevitable categories of thought, you\nwould in the Middle Ages have been called a \"nominalist\".\n\nThis matter merits a long discussion, but one can test any book or\nnewspaper editorial at his leisure and see whether the writer puts you\noff with abstractions--Americanism, Bolshevism, public welfare,\nliberty, national honor, religion, morality, good taste, rights of\nman, science, reason, error--or, on the other hand, casts some light\non actual human complications. I do not mean, of course, that we can\nget along without the use of abstract and general terms in our\nthinking and speaking, but we should be on our constant guard against\nviewing them as forces and attributing to them the vigor of\npersonality. Animism is, as already explained, a pitfall which is\nalways yawning before us and into which we are sure to plunge unless\nwe are ever watchful. Platonism is its most amiable and complete\ndisguise.\n\nPrevious to Aristotle, Greek thought had been wonderfully free and\nelastic. It had not settled into compartments or assumed an\neducational form which would secure its unrevised transmission from\nteacher to student. It was not gathered together in systematic\ntreatises. Aristotle combined the supreme powers of an original and\ncreative thinker with the impulses of a textbook writer. He loved\norder and classification. He supplied manuals of Ethics, Politics,\nLogic, Psychology, Physics, Metaphysics, Economics, Poetics, Zo\u00f6logy,\nMeteorology, Constitutional Law, and God only knows what not, for we\ndo not have by any means all the things he wrote. And he was equally\ninterested, and perhaps equally capable, in all the widely scattered\nfields in which he labored. And some of his manuals were so\noverwhelming in the conclusiveness of their reasoning, so\nall-embracing in their scope, that the mediaeval universities may be\nforgiven for having made them the sole basis of a liberal education\nand for imposing fines on those who ventured to differ from \"The\nPhilosopher\". He seemed to know everything that could be known and to\nhave ordered all earthly knowledge in an inspired codification which\nwould stand the professors in good stead down to the day of judgment.\n\nAristotle combined an essentially metaphysical taste with a\npreternatural power of observation in dealing with the workings of\nnature. In spite of his inevitable mistakes, which became the curse of\nlater docile generations, no other thinker of whom we have record can\nreally compare with him in the distinction and variety of his\nachievements. It is not his fault that posterity used his works to\nhamper further progress and clarification. He is the father of book\nknowledge and the grandfather of the commentator.\n\nAfter two or three hundred years of talking in the market place and of\nphilosophic discussions prolonged until morning, such of the Greeks as\nwere predisposed to speculation had thought all the thoughts and\nuttered all the criticisms of commonly accepted beliefs and of one\nanother that could by any possibility occur to those who had little\ninclination to fare forth and extend their knowledge of the so-called\nrealities of nature by painful and specialized research and\nexamination. This is to me the chief reason why, except for some\nadvances in mathematics, astronomy, geography, and the refinements of\nscholarship, the glorious period of the Greek mind is commonly and\nrightfully assumed to have come to an end about the time of\nAristotle's death. Why did the Greeks not go on, as modern scientists\nhave gone on, with vistas of the unachieved still ahead of them?\n\nIn the first place, Greek civilization was founded on slavery and a\nfixed condition of the industrial arts. The philosopher and scholar\nwas estopped from fumbling with those everyday processes that were\nassociated with the mean life of the slave and servant. Consequently\nthere was no one to devise the practical apparatus by which alone\nprofound and ever-increasing knowledge of natural operations is\npossible. The mechanical inventiveness of the Greeks was slight, and\nhence they never came upon the lens; they had no microscope to reveal\nthe minute, no telescope to attract the remote; they never devised a\nmechanical timepiece, a thermometer, nor a barometer, to say nothing\nof cameras and spectroscopes. Archimedes, it is reported, disdained to\nmake any record of his ingenious devices, for they were unworthy the\nnoble profession of a philosopher. Such inventions as were made were\nusually either toys or of a heavy practical character. So the next\ngreat step forward in the extension of the human mind awaited the\ndisappearance of slavery and the slowly dawning suspicion, and final\nrepudiation, of the older metaphysics, which first became marked some\nthree hundred years ago.\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n[18] When in the time of Cicero the long-hidden works of Aristotle\nwere recovered and put into the hands of Andronicus of Rhodes to edit,\nhe found certain fragments of highly abstruse speculation which he did\nnot know what to do with. So he called them \"addenda to the\nPhysics\"--_Ta meta ta physica_. These fragments, under the caption\n\"Metaphysica\", became the most revered of Aristotle's productions, his\n\"First Philosophy\", as the Scholastics were wont to call it.\n\n[19] John Dewey deduces metaphysics from man's original reverie and\nthen shows how in time it became a solemn form of rationalizing\ncurrent habits and standards. _Reconstruction in Philosophy_, lectures\ni-ii. It is certainly surprising how few philosophical writers have\never reached other than perfectly commonplace conclusions in regard to\npractical \"morality\".\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nV\n\n    And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the\n    day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.\n    And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the\n    earth.\n\n    And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after\n    its kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after\n    its kind: and it was so.\n\n    And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and\n    let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl\n    of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over\n    every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.--Gen. i.\n\n\n    Ibi vacabimus et videbimus, videbimus et amabimus, amabimus et\n    laudabimus. Ecce quod erit in fine sine fine. Nam quis alius noster\n    est finis nisi pervenire ad regnum, cuius nullus est finis?--AUGUSTINE.\n\n\n\n\n10. ORIGIN OF THE MEDIAEVAL CIVILIZATION\n\n\nIn the formation of what we may call our historical mind--namely, that\nmodification of our animal and primitive outlook which has been\nproduced by men of exceptional intellectual venturesomeness--the\nGreeks played a great part. We have seen how the Greek thinkers\nintroduced for the first time highly subtle and critical ways of\nscrutinizing old beliefs, and, how they disabused their minds of many\nan ancient and na\u00efve mistake. But our current ways of thinking are not\nderived directly from the Greeks; we are separated from them by the\nRoman Empire and the Middle Ages. When we think of Athens we think of\nthe Parthenon and its frieze, of Sophocles and Euripides, of Socrates\nand Plato and Aristotle, of urbanity and clarity and moderation in all\nthings. When we think of the Middle Ages we find ourselves in a world\nof monks, martyrs, and miracles, of popes and emperors, of knights and\nladies; we remember Gregory the Great, Ab\u00e9lard, and Thomas Aquinas\n--and very little do these reminiscences have in common with those of\nHellas.\n\nIt was indeed a different world, with quite different fundamental\npresuppositions. Marvelous as were the achievements of the Greeks in\nart and literature, and ingenious as they were in new and varied\ncombinations of ideas, they paid too little attention to the common\nthings of the world to devise the necessary means of penetrating its\nmysteries. They failed to come upon the lynx-eyed lens, or other\ninstruments of modern investigation, and thus never gained a godlike\nvision of the remote and the minute. Their critical thought was\nconsequently not grounded in experimental or applied science, and\nwithout that the western world was unable to advance or even long\nmaintain their high standards of criticism.\n\nAfter the Hellenes were absorbed into the vast Roman Empire critical\nthought and creative intelligence--rare and precarious things at\nbest--began to decline, at first slowly and then with fatal rapidity\nand completeness. Moreover, new and highly uncritical beliefs and\nmodes of thought became popular. They came from the Near East\n--Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor--and largely supplanted\nthe critical traditions of the great schools of Greek philosophy.\nThe Stoic and Epicurean dogmas had lost their freshness. The Greek\nthinkers had all agreed in looking for salvation through intelligence\nand knowledge. But eloquent leaders arose to reveal a new salvation,\nand over the portal of truth they erased the word \"Reason\" and wrote\n\"Faith\" in its stead; and the people listened gladly to the new\nprophets, for it was necessary only _to believe_ to be saved, and\nbelieving is far easier than thinking.\n\nIt was religious and mystical thought which, in contrast to the\nsecular philosophy of the Greeks and the scientific thought of our own\nday, dominated the intellectual life of the Middle Ages.\n\nBefore considering this new phase through which the human mind was to\npass it is necessary to guard against a common misapprehension in the\nuse of the term \"Middle Ages\". Our historical textbooks usually\ninclude in that period the happenings between the dissolution of the\nRoman Empire and the voyages of Columbus or the opening of the\nProtestant revolt. To the student of intellectual history this is\nunfortunate, for the simple reason that almost all the ideas and even\ninstitutions of the Middle Ages, such as the church and monasticism\nand organized religious intolerance, really originated in the late\nRoman Empire. Moreover, the intellectual revolution which has ushered\nin the thought of our day did not get well under way until the\nseventeenth century. So one may say that medieval thought began long\nbefore the accepted beginning of the Middle Ages and persisted a\ncentury or so after they are ordinarily esteemed to have come to an\nend. We have to continue to employ the old expression for convenience'\nsake, but from the standpoint of the history of the European mind\nthree periods should be distinguished, lying between ancient Greek\nthought as it was flourishing in Athens, Alexandria, Rhodes, Rome, and\nelsewhere at the opening of the Christian era, and the birth of modern\nscience some sixteen hundred years later.\n\nThe first of these is the period of the Christian Fathers, culminating\nin the authoritative writings of Augustine, who died in 430. By this\ntime a great part of the critical Greek books had disappeared in\nwestern Europe. As for pagan writers, one has difficulty in thinking\nof a single name (except that of Lucian) later than Juvenal, who had\ndied nearly three hundred years before Augustine. Worldly knowledge\nwas reduced to pitiful compendiums on which the mediaeval students\nwere later to place great reliance. Scientific, literary, and\nhistorical information was scarcely to be had. The western world, so\nfar as it thought at all, devoted its attention to religion and all\nmanner of mystical ideas, old and new. As Harnack has so well said,\nthe world was already intellectually bankrupt before the German\ninvasions and their accompanying disorders plunged it into still\ndeeper ignorance and mental obscurity.\n\nThe second, or \"Dark Age\", lasted with only slight improvement from\nAugustine to Ab\u00e9lard, about seven hundred years. The prosperous\n_villas_ disappeared; towns vanished or shriveled up; libraries were\nburned or rotted away from neglect; schools were closed, to be\nreopened later here and there, after Charlemagne's educational edict,\nin an especially enterprising monastery or by some exceptional bishop\nwho did not spend his whole time in fighting.\n\nFrom about the year 1100 conditions began to be more and more\nfavorable to the revival of intellectual ambition, a recovery of\nforgotten knowledge, and a gradual accumulation of new information and\ninventions unknown to the Greeks, or indeed to any previous\ncivilization. The main presuppositions of this third period of the\nlater Middle Ages go back, however, to the Roman Empire. They had been\nformulated by the Church Fathers, transmitted through the Dark Age,\nand were now elaborated by the professors in the newly established\nuniversities under the influence of Aristotle's recovered works and\nbuilt up into a majestic intellectual structure known as\nScholasticism. On these mediaeval university professors--the\nschoolmen--Lord Bacon long ago pronounced a judgment that may well\nstand to-day. \"Having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure,\nand small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the\ncells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle, their dictator), as their\npersons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and\nknowing little history, either of nature or time [they], did out of no\ngreat quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto\nus those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books.\"\n\nOur civilization and the human mind, critical and uncritical, as we\nnow find it in our western world, is a direct and uninterrupted\noutgrowth of the civilization and thought of the later Middle Ages.\nVery gradually only did peculiarly free and audacious individual\nthinkers escape from this or that mediaeval belief, until in our own\nday some few have come to reject practically all the presuppositions\non which the Scholastic system was reared. But the great mass of\nChristian believers, whether Catholic or Protestant, still professedly\nor implicitly adhere to the assumptions of the Middle Ages, at least\nin all matters in which religious or moral sanctions are concerned. It\nis true that outside the Catholic clergy the term \"mediaeval\" is often\nused in a sense of disparagement, but that should not blind us to the\nfact that mediaeval presumptions, whether for better or worse, are\nstill common. A few of the most fundamental of these presuppositions\nespecially germane to our theme may be pointed out here.\n\n\n\n\n11. OUR MEDIAEVAL INTELLECTUAL INHERITANCE\n\n\nThe Greeks and Romans had various theories of the origin of things,\nall vague and admittedly conjectural. But the Christians, relying upon\nthe inspired account in the Bible, built their theories on information\nwhich they believed vouchsafed to them by God himself. Their whole\nconception of human history was based upon a far more fundamental and\nthorough supernaturalism than we find among the Greeks and Romans. The\npagan philosophers reckoned with the gods, to be sure, but they never\nassumed that man's earthly life should turn entirely on what was to\nhappen after death. This was in theory the sole preoccupation of the\nmediaeval Christian. Life here below was but a brief, if decisive,\npreliminary to the real life to come.\n\nThe mediaeval Christian was essentially more polytheistic than his\npagan predecessors, for he pictured hierarchies of good and evil\nspirits who were ever aiding him to reach heaven or seducing him into\nthe paths of sin and error. Miracles were of common occurrence and\nmight be attributed either to God or the devil; the direct\nintervention of both good and evil spirits played a conspicuous part\nin the explanation of daily acts and motives.[20]\n\nAs a distinguished church historian has said, the God of the Middle\nAges was a God of arbitrariness--the more arbitrary the more Godlike.\nBy frequent interferences with the regular course of events he made\nhis existence clear, reassured his children of his continued\nsolicitude, and frustrated the plots of the Evil One. Not until the\neighteenth century did any considerable number of thinkers revolt\nagainst this conception of the Deity and come to worship a God of\norderliness who abode by his own laws.\n\nThe mediaeval thinkers all accepted without question what Santayana\nhas strikingly described as the \"Christian Epic\". This included the\ngeneral historical conceptions of how man came about, and how, in view\nof his origin and his past, he should conduct his life. The universe\nhad come into being in less than a week, and man had originally been\ncreated in a state of perfection along with all other things--sun,\nmoon, and stars, plants and animals. After a time the first human pair\nhad yielded to temptation, transgressed God's commands, and been\ndriven from the lovely garden in which he had placed them. So sin came\ninto the world, and the offspring of the guilty pair were thereby\ncontaminated and defiled from the womb.\n\nIn time the wickedness became such on the newly created earth that God\nresolved to blot out mankind, excepting only Noah's family, which was\nspared to repeople the earth after the Flood, but the unity of\nlanguage that man had formerly possessed was lost. At the appointed\ntime, preceded by many prophetic visions among the chosen people, God\nsent his Son to live the life of men on earth and become their Saviour\nby submitting to death. Thereafter, with the spread of the gospel, the\nstruggle between the kingdom of God and that of the devil became the\nsupreme conflict of history. It was to culminate in the Last Judgment,\nwhen the final separation of good and evil should take place and the\nblessed should ascend into the heavens to dwell with God forever,\nwhile the wicked sank to hell to writhe in endless torment.\n\nThis general account of man, his origin and fate, embraced in the\nChristian Epic, was notable for its precision, its divine\nauthenticity, and the obstacles which its authority consequently\npresented to any revision in the light of increasing knowledge. The\nfundamental truths in regard to man were assumed to be established\nonce and for all. The Greek thinkers had had little in the way of\nauthority on which to build, and no inconsiderable number of them\nfrankly confessed that they did not believe that such a thing could\nexist for the thoroughly sophisticated intelligence. But mediaeval\nphilosophy and science _were grounded wholly in authority_. The\nmediaeval schoolmen turned aside from the hard path of skepticism,\nlong searchings and investigation of actual phenomena, and confidently\nbelieved that they could find truth by the easy way of revelation and\nthe elaboration of unquestioned dogmas.\n\nThis reliance on authority is a fundamental primitive trait. We have\ninherited it not only from our mediaeval forefathers, but, like them\nand through them, from long generations of prehistoric men. We all\nhave a natural tendency to rely upon established beliefs and fixed\ninstitutions. This is an expression of our spontaneous confidence in\neverything that comes to us in an unquestioned form. As children we\nare subject to authority and cannot escape the control of existing\nopinion. We unconsciously absorb our ideas and views from the group in\nwhich we happen to live. What we see about us, what we are told, and\nwhat we read has to be received at its face value so long as there are\nno conflicts to arouse skepticism.\n\nWe are tremendously suggestible. Our mechanism is much better adapted\nto credulity than to questioning. All of us believe nearly all the\ntime. Few doubt, and only now and then. The past exercises an almost\nirresistible fascination over us. As children we learn to look up to\nthe old, and when we grow up we do not permit our poignant realization\nof elderly incapacity among our contemporaries to rouse suspicions of\nMoses, Isaiah, Confucius, or Aristotle. Their sayings come to us\nunquestioned; their remoteness makes inquiry into their competence\nimpossible. We readily assume that they had sources of information and\nwisdom superior to the prophets of our own day.\n\nDuring the Middle Ages reverence for authority, and for that\nparticular form of authority which we may call the tyranny of the\npast, was dominant, but probably not more so than it had been in other\nsocieties and ages--in ancient Egypt, in China and India. Of the great\nsources of mediaeval authority, the Bible and the Church Fathers, the\nRoman and Church law, and the encyclopaedic writings of Aristotle,\nnone continues nowadays to hold us in its old grip. Even the Bible,\nalthough nominally unquestioned among Roman Catholics and all the more\northodox Protestant sects, is rarely appealed to, as of old, in\nparliamentary debate or in discussions of social and economic\nquestions. It is still a religious authority, but it no longer forms\nthe basis of secular decisions.\n\nThe findings of modern science have shaken the hold of the sources of\nmediaeval authority, but they have done little as yet to loosen our\ninveterate habit of relying on the more insidious authority of current\npractice and belief. We still assume that received dogmas represent\nthe secure conclusions of mankind, and that current institutions\nrepresent the approved results of much experiment in the past, which\nit would be worse than futile to repeat. One solemn remembrancer will\ncite as a warning the discreditable experience of the Greek cities in\ndemocracy; another, how the decline of \"morality\" and the\ndisintegration of the family heralded the fall of Rome; another, the\nconstant menace of mob rule as exemplified in the Reign of Terror. But\nto the student of history these alleged illustrations have little\nbearing on present conditions. He is struck, moreover, with the ease\nwith which ancient misapprehensions are transmitted from generation to\ngeneration and with the difficulty of launching a newer and clearer\nand truer idea of anything. Bacon warns us that the multitude, \"or the\nwisest for the multitude's sake\", is in reality \"ready to give passage\nrather to that which is popular and superficial than to that which is\nsubstantial and profound; for the truth is that time seemeth to be of\nthe nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which\nis light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty\nand solid\".\n\nIt is very painful to most minds to admit that the past does not\nfurnish us with reliable, permanent standards of conduct and of public\npolicy. We resent the imputation that things are not going, on the\nwhole, pretty well, and find excuses for turning our backs on\ndisconcerting and puzzling facts. We are full of respectable fears and\na general timidity in the face of conditions which we vaguely feel are\nescaping control in spite of our best efforts to prevent any\nthoroughgoing readjustment. We instinctively try to show that Mr.\nKeynes must surely be wrong about the Treaty of Versailles; that Mr.\nGibbs must be perversely exaggerating the horrors of modern war; that\nMr. Hobson certainly views the industrial crisis with unjustifiable\npessimism; that \"business as usual\" cannot be that socially perverse\nand incredibly inexpedient thing Mr. Veblen shows it to be; that Mr.\nRobin's picture of Lenin can only be explained by a disguised sympathy\nfor Bolshevism.\n\nYet, even if we could assume that traditional opinion is a fairly\nclear and reliable reflection of hard-earned experience, surely it\nshould have less weight in our day and generation than in the past.\nFor changes have overtaken mankind which have fundamentally altered\nthe conditions in which we live, and which are revolutionizing the\nrelations between individuals and classes and nations. Moreover, we\nmust remember that knowledge has widened and deepened, so that, could\nany of us really catch up with the information of our own time, he\nwould have little temptation to indulge the mediaeval habit of\nappealing to the authority of the past.\n\nThe Christian Epic did not have to rely for its perpetuation either on\nits intellectual plausibility or its traditional authority. During the\nMiddle Ages there developed a vast and powerful religious State, the\nmediaeval Church, the real successor, as Hobbes pointed out, to the\nRoman Empire; and the Church with all its resources, including its\ncontrol over \"the secular arm\" of kings and princes, was ready to\ndefend the Christian beliefs against question and revision. To doubt\nthe teachings of the Church was the supreme crime; it was treason\nagainst God himself, in comparison with which--to judge from mediaeval\nexperts on heresy--murder was a minor offense.\n\nWe do not, however, inherit our present disposition to intolerance\nsolely from the Middle Ages. As animals and children and savages, we\nare naively and unquestioningly intolerant. All divergence from the\ncustomary is suspicious and repugnant. It seems perverse, and readily\nsuggests evil intentions. Indeed, so natural and spontaneous is\nintolerance that the question of freedom of speech and writing\nscarcely became a real issue before the seventeenth century. We have\nseen that some of the Greek thinkers were banished, or even executed,\nfor their new ideas. The Roman officials, as well as the populace,\npestered the early Christians, not so much for the substance of their\nviews as because they were puritanical, refused the routine reverence\nto the gods, and prophesied the downfall of the State.\n\nBut with the firm establishment of Christianity edicts began to be\nissued by the Roman emperors making orthodox Christian belief the test\nof good citizenship. One who disagreed with the emperor and his\nreligious advisers in regard to the relation of the three members of\nthe Trinity was subject to prosecution. Heretical books were burned,\nthe houses of heretics destroyed. So, organized mediaeval religious\nintolerance was, like so many other things, a heritage of the later\nRoman Empire, and was duly sanctioned in both the Theodosian and\nJustinian Codes. It was, however, with the Inquisition, beginning in\nthe thirteenth century, that the intolerance of the Middle Ages\nreached its most perfect organization.\n\nHeresy was looked upon as a contagious disease that must be checked at\nall costs. It did not matter that the heretic usually led a\nconspicuously blameless life, that he was arduous, did not swear, was\nemaciated with fasting and refused to participate in the vain\nrecreations of his fellows. He was, indeed, overserious and took his\nreligion too hard. This offensive parading as an angel of light was\nexplained as the devil's camouflage. No one tried to find out what the\nheretic really thought or what were the merits of his divergent\nbeliefs. Because he insisted on expressing his conception of God in\nslightly unfamiliar terms, the heretic was often branded as an\natheist, just as to-day the Socialist is so often accused of being\nopposed to all government, when the real objection to him is that he\nbelieves in too much government. It was sufficient to classify a\nsuspected heretic as an Albigensian, or Waldensian, or a member of\nsome other heretical sect. There was no use in his trying to explain\nor justify; it was enough that he diverged.\n\nThere have been various explanations of mediaeval religious\nintolerance. Lecky, for example, thought that it was due to the theory\nof exclusive salvation; that, since there was only one way of getting\nto heaven, all should obviously be compelled to adopt it, for the\nsaving of their souls from eternal torment. But one finds little\nsolicitude for the damned in mediaeval writings. The public at large\nthought hell none too bad for one who revolted against God and Holy\nChurch. No, the heretics were persecuted because heresy was, according\nto the notions of the time, a monstrous and unutterably wicked thing,\nand because their beliefs threatened the vested interests of that day.\n\nWe now realize more clearly than did Lecky that the Church was really\na State in the Middle Ages, with its own laws and courts and prisons\nand regular taxation to which all were subject. It had all the\ninterests and all the touchiness of a State, and more. The heretic was\na traitor and a rebel. He thought that he could get along without the\npope and bishops, and that he could well spare the ministrations of\nthe orthodox priests and escape their exactions. He was the\n\"anarchist\", the \"Red\" of his time, who was undermining established\nauthority, and, with the approval of all right-minded citizens, he was\ntreated accordingly. For the mediaeval citizen no more conceived of a\nState in which the Church was not the dominating authority than we can\nconceive of a society in which the present political State may have\nbeen superseded by some other form of organization.\n\nYet the inconceivable has come to pass. Secular authority has\nsuperseded in nearly all matters the old ecclesiastical regime. What\nwas the supreme issue of the Middle Ages--the distinction between the\nreligious heretic and the orthodox--is the least of public questions\nnow.\n\nWhat, then, we may ask, has been the outcome of the old religious\npersecutions, of the trials, tortures, imprisonings, burnings, and\nmassacres, culminating with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes?\nWhat did the Inquisition and the censorship, both so long\nunquestioned, accomplish? Did they succeed in defending the truth or\n\"safeguarding\" society? At any rate, conformity was not established.\nNor did the Holy Roman Church maintain its monopoly, although it has\nsurvived, purified and freed from many an ancient abuse. In most\ncountries of western Europe and in our own land one may now believe as\nhe wishes, teach such religious views as appeal to him, and join with\nothers who share his sympathies. \"Atheism\" is still a shocking charge\nin many ears, but the atheist is no longer an outlaw. _It has been\ndemonstrated, in short, that religious dogma can be neglected in\nmatters of public concern and reduced to a question of private taste\nand preference_.\n\nThis is an incredible revolution. But we have many reasons for\nsuspecting that in a much shorter time than that which has elapsed\nsince the Inquisition was founded, the present attempt to eliminate by\nforce those who contemplate a fundamental reordering of social and\neconomic relations will seem quite as inexpedient and hopeless as the\nInquisition's effort to defend the monopoly of the mediaeval Church.\n\nWe can learn much from the past in regard to wrong ways of dealing\nwith new ideas. As yet we have only old-fashioned and highly expensive\nmodes of meeting the inevitable changes which are bound to take place.\nRepression has now and then enjoyed some temporary success, it is\ntrue, but in the main it has failed lamentably and produced only\nsuffering and confusion. Much will depend on whether our purpose is to\nkeep things as they are or to bring about readjustments designed to\ncorrect abuses and injustice in the present order. Do we believe, in\nother words, that truth is finally established and that we have only\nto defend it, or that it is still in the making? Do we believe in what\nis commonly called progress, or do we think of that as belonging only\nto the past? Have we, on the whole, arrived, or are we only on the\nway, or mayhap just starting?\n\nIn the Middle Ages, even in the times of the Greeks and Romans, there\nwas little or no conception of progress as the word is now used. There\ncould doubtless be improvement in detail. Men could be wiser and\nbetter or more ignorant and perverse. But the assumption was that in\ngeneral the social, economic, and religious order was fairly\nstandardized.\n\nThis was especially true in the Middle Ages. During these centuries\nmen's single objective was the assurance of heaven and escape from\nhell. Life was an angry river into which men were cast. Demons were on\nevery hand to drag them down. The only aim could be, with God's help,\nto reach the celestial shore. There was no time to consider whether\nthe river might be made less dangerous by concerted effort, through\nthe deflection of its torrents and the removal of its sharpest rocks.\nNo one thought that human efforts should be directed to making the lot\nof humanity progressively better by intelligent reforms in the light\nof advancing knowledge.\n\nThe world was a place to escape from on the best terms possible. In\nour own day this mediaeval idea of a static society yields only\ngrudgingly, and the notion of inevitable vital change is as yet far\nfrom assimilated. We confess it with our lips, but resist it in our\nhearts. We have learned as yet to respect only one class of\nfundamental innovators, those dedicated to natural science and its\napplications. The social innovator is still generally suspect.\n\nTo the mediaeval theologian, man was by nature vile. We have seen\nthat, according to the Christian Epic, he was assoiled from birth with\nthe primeval sin of his first parents, and began to darken his score\nwith fresh offenses of his own as soon as he became intelligent enough\nto do so. An elaborate mechanism was supplied by the Church for washing\naway the original pollution and securing forgiveness for later sins.\nIndeed, this was ostensibly its main business.\n\nWe may still well ask, Is man by nature bad? And accordingly as we\nanswer the question we either frame appropriate means for frustrating\nhis evil tendencies or, if we see some promise in him, work for his\nfreedom and bid him take advantage of it to make himself and others\nhappy. So far as I know, Charron, a friend of Montaigne, was one of\nthe first to say a good word for man's animal nature, and a hundred\nyears later the amiable Shaftesbury pointed out some honestly\ngentlemanly traits in the species. To the modern student of biology\nand anthropology man is neither good nor bad. There is no longer any\n\"mystery of evil\". But the mediaeval notion of _sin_--a term heavy\nwith mysticism and deserving of careful scrutiny by every thoughtful\nperson--still confuses us.\n\nOf man's impulses, the one which played the greatest part in mediaeval\nthoughts of sin and in the monastic ordering of life was the sexual.\nThe presuppositions of the Middle Ages in the matter of the relations\nof men and women have been carried over to our own day. As compared\nwith many of the ideas which we have inherited from the past, they are\nof comparatively recent origin. The Greeks and Romans were, on the\nwhole, primitive and uncritical in their view of sex. The philosophers\ndo not seem to have speculated on sex, although there was evidently\nsome talk in Athens of women's rights. The movement is satirized by\nAristophanes, and later Plato showed a willingness in _The Republic_\nto impeach the current notions of the family and women's position in\ngeneral.\n\nBut there are few traces of our ideas of sexual \"purity\" in the\nclassical writers. To the Stoic philosopher, and to other thoughtful\nelderly people, sexual indulgence was deemed a low order of pleasure\nand one best carefully controlled in the interests of peace of mind.\nBut with the incoming of Christianity an essentially new attitude\ndeveloped, which is still, consciously or unconsciously, that of most\npeople to-day.\n\nSt. Augustine, who had led a free life as a teacher of rhetoric in\nCarthage and Rome, came in his later years to believe, as he struggled\nto overcome his youthful temptations, that sexual desire was the most\ndevilish of man's enemies and the chief sign of his degradation. He\ncould imagine no such unruly urgence in man's perfect estate, when\nAdam and Eve still dwelt in Paradise. But with man's fall sexual\ndesire appeared as the sign and seal of human debasement. This theory\nis poignantly set forth in Augustine's _City of God_. He furnished\ntherein a philosophy for the monks, and doubtless his fourteenth book\nwas well thumbed by those who were wont to ponder somewhat wistfully\non one of the sins they had fled the world to escape.\n\nChristian monasticism was spreading in western Europe in Augustine's\ntime, and the monkist vows included \"chastity\". There followed a long\nstruggle to force the whole priesthood to adopt a celibate life, and\nthis finally succeeded so far as repeated decrees of the Church could\neffect it. Marriage was proper for the laity, but both the monastic\nand secular clergy aspired to a superior holiness which should banish\nall thoughts of fervent earthly love. Thus a highly unnatural life was\naccepted by men and women of the most varied temperament and often\nwith slight success.\n\nThe result of Augustine's theories and of the efforts to frustrate one\nof man's most vehement impulses was to give sex a conscious importance\nit had never possessed before. The devil was thrust out of the door\nonly to come in at all the windows. In due time the Protestant sects\nabolished monasteries, and the Catholic countries later followed their\nexample. The Protestant clergy were permitted to marry, and the old\nasceticism has visibly declined. But it has done much to determine our\nwhole attitude toward sex, and there is no class of questions still so\ndifficult to discuss with full honesty or to deal with critically and\nwith an open mind as those relating to the intimate relations of men\nand women.\n\nNo one familiar with mediaeval literature will, however, be inclined\nto accuse its authors of prudishness. Nevertheless, modern\nprudishness, as it prevails especially in England and the United\nStates--our squeamish and shamefaced reluctance to recognize and deal\nfrankly with the facts and problems of sex--is clearly an outgrowth of\nthe mediaeval attitude which looked on sexual impulse as of evil\norigin and a sign of man's degradation. Modern psychologists have\nshown that prudishness is not always an indication of exceptional\npurity, but rather the reverse. It is often a disguise thrown over\nrepressed sexual interest and sexual preoccupations. It appears to be\ndecreasing among the better educated of the younger generation. The\nstudy of biology, and especially of embryology, is an easy and simple\nway of disintegrating the \"impurity complex\". \"Purity\" in the sense of\nignorance and suppressed curiosity is a highly dangerous state of\nmind. And such purity in alliance with prudery and defensive hypocrisy\nmakes any honest discussion or essential readjustment of our\ninstitutions and habits extremely difficult.\n\nOne of the greatest contrasts between mediaeval thinking and the more\ncritical thought of to-day lies in the general conception of man's\nrelation to the cosmos. To the medieval philosopher, as to the\nstupidest serf of the time, the world was made for man. All the\nheavenly bodies revolved about man's abode as their center. All\ncreatures were made to assist or to try man. God and the devil were\npreoccupied with his fate, for had not God made him in his own image\nfor his glory, and was not the devil intent on populating his own\ninfernal kingdom? It was easy for those who had a poetic turn of mind\nto think of nature's workings as symbols for man's edification. The\nhabits of the lion or the eagle yielded moral lessons or illustrated\nthe divine scheme of salvation. Even the written word was to be\nvalued, not for what it seemed to say, but for hidden allegories\ndepicting man's struggles against evil and cheering him on his way.\n\nThis is a perennially appealing conception of things. It corresponds\nto primitive and inveterate tendencies in humanity and gratifies,\nunder the guise of humility, our hungering for self-importance. The\nmediaeval thinker, however freely he might exercise his powers of\nlogical analysis in rationalizing the Christian Epic, never permitted\nhimself to question its general anthropocentric and mystical view of\nthe world. The philosophic mystic assumes the role of a docile child.\nHe feels that all vital truth transcends his powers of discovery. He\nlooks to the Infinite and Eternal Mind to reveal it to him through the\nprophets of old, or in moments of ecstatic communion with the Divine\nIntelligence. To the mystic all that concerns our deeper needs\ntranscends logic and defies analysis. In his estimate the human reason\nis a feeble rushlight which can at best cast a flickering and\nuncertain ray on the grosser concerns of life, but which only serves\nto intensify the darkness which surrounds the hidden truth of God.\n\nIn order that modern science might develop it is clear that a wholly\nnew and opposed set of fundamental convictions had to be substituted\nfor those of the Middle Ages. Man had to cultivate another kind of\nself-importance and a new and more profound humility. He had come to\nbelieve in his capacity to discover important truth through thoughtful\nexamination of things about him, and he had to recognize, on the other\nhand, that the world did not seem to be made for him, but that\nhumanity was apparently a curious incident in the universe, and its\ncareer a recent episode in cosmic history. He had to acquire a taste\nfor the simplest possible and most thoroughgoing explanation of\nthings. His whole mood had to change and impel him to reduce\neverything so far as possible to the commonplace.\n\nThis new view was inevitably fiercely attacked by the mystically\ndisposed. They misunderstood it and berated its adherents and accused\nthem of robbing man of all that was most precious in life. These, in\nturn, were goaded into bitterness and denounced their opponents as\npig-headed obscurantists.\n\nBut we must, after all, come to terms in some way with the emotions\nunderlying mysticism. They are very dear to us, and scientific\nknowledge will never form an adequate substitute for them. No one need\nfear that the supply of mystery will ever give out; but a great deal\ndepends on our taste in mystery; that certainly needs refining. What\ndisturbs the so-called rationalist in the mystic's attitude is his\npropensity to see mysteries where there are none and to fail to see\nthose that we cannot possibly escape. In declaring that one is not a\nmystic, one makes no claim to be able to explain everything, nor does\nhe maintain that all things are explicable in scientific terms.\n\nIndeed, no thoughtful person will be likely to boast that he can fully\nexplain anything. We have only to scrape the surface of our\nexperiences to find fundamental mystery. And how, indeed, as\ndescendants of an extinct race of primates, with a mind still in the\nearly stages of accumulation, should we be in the way of reaching\nultimate truth at any point? One may properly urge, however, that as\nsharp a distinction as possible be made between fictitious mysteries\nand the unavoidable ones which surround us on every side. How milk\nturned sour used to be a real mystery, now partially solved since the\ndiscovery of bacteria; how the witch flew up the chimney was a\ngratuitous mystery with which we need no longer trouble ourselves. A\n\"live\" wire would once have suggested magic; now it is at least\npartially explained by the doctrine of electrons.\n\nIt is the avowed purpose of scientific thought to reduce the number of\nmysteries, and its success has been marvelous, but it has by no means\ndone its perfect work as yet. We have carried over far too much of\nmediaeval mysticism in our views of man and his duty toward himself\nand others.\n\nWe must now recall the method adopted by students of the natural\nsciences in breaking away from the standards and limitations of the\nmediaeval philosophers and establishing new standards of their own.\nThey thus prepared the way for a revolution in human affairs in the\nmidst of which we now find ourselves. As yet their type of thinking\nhas not been applied on any considerable scale to the solution of\nsocial problems. By learning to understand and appreciate the\nscientific frame of mind as a historical victory won against\nextraordinary odds, we may be encouraged to cultivate and popularize a\nsimilar attitude toward the study of man himself.\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n[20] St. Ethelred, returning from a pious visit to Citeaux in the days\nof Henry II, encountered a great storm when he reached the Channel. He\nasked himself what _he_ had done to be thus delayed, and suddenly\nthought that he had failed to _fulfill_ a promise to write a poem on\nSt. Cuthbert. When he had completed this, \"wonderful to say, the sea\nceased to rage and became tranquil\".--_Surtees Society Publications_,\ni, p. 177.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nVI\n\n    Narrabo igitur primo opera artis et naturae miranda.... ut videatur\n    quod omnis magica potestas sit inferior his operibus et indigna.\n    --ROGER BACON.\n\n    I do not endeavor either by triumphs of confutation, or pleadings\n    of antiquity, or assumption of authority, or even, by the veil of\n    obscurity, to invest these inventions of mine with any majesty....\n    I have not sought nor do I seek either to force or ensnare men's\n    judgments, but I lead them to things themselves and the concordances\n    of things, that they may see for themselves what they have, what\n    they can dispute, what they can add and contribute to the common\n    stock.--FRANCIS BACON (_Preface to the Great Instauration_).\n\n\n\n\n12. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION\n\n\nAt the opening of the seventeenth century a man of letters, of\nsufficient genius to be suspected by some of having written the plays\nof Shakespeare, directed his distinguished literary ability to the\npromotion and exaltation of natural science. Lord Bacon was the chief\nherald of that habit of scientific and critical thought which has\nplayed so novel and all-important a part in the making of the modern\nmind. When but twenty-two years old he was already sketching out a\nwork which he planned to call _Temporis Partus Maximus (The Greatest\nThing Ever)_. He felt that he had discovered why the human mind,\nenmeshed in mediaeval metaphysics and indifferent to natural\nphenomena, had hitherto been a stunted and ineffective thing, and how\nit might be so nurtured and guided as to gain undreamed of strength\nand vigor.\n\nAnd never has there been a man better equipped with literary gifts to\npreach a new gospel than Francis Bacon. He spent years in devising\neloquent and ingenious ways of delivering learning from the\n\"discredits and disgraces\" of the past, and in exhorting man to\nexplore the realms of nature for his delight and profit. He never\nwearied of trumpeting forth the glories of the new knowledge which\nwould come with the study of common things and the profitable uses to\nwhich it might be put in relieving man's estate. He impeached the\nmediaeval schoolmen for spinning out endless cobwebs of learning,\nremarkable for their fineness, but of no substance or spirit. He urged\nthe learned to come out of their cells, study the creations of God,\nand build upon what they discovered a new and true philosophy.\n\nEven in his own day students of natural phenomena had begun to carry\nout Bacon's general program with striking effects. While he was urging\nmen to cease \"tumbling up and down in their own reason and conceits\"\nand to spell out, and so by degrees to learn to read, the volume of\nGod's works, Galileo had already begun the reading and had found out\nthat the Aristotelian physics ran counter to the facts; that a body\nonce in motion will continue to move forever in a straight line unless\nit be stopped or deflected. Studying the sky through his newly\ninvented telescope, he beheld the sun spots and noted the sun's\nrevolution on its axis, the phases of Venus, and the satellites of\nJupiter. These discoveries seemed to confirm the ideas advanced long\nbefore by Copernicus--the earth was not the center of the universe and\nthe heavens were not perfect and unchanging. He dared to discuss these\nmatters in the language of the people and was, as everyone knows,\ncondemned by the Inquisition.\n\nThis preoccupation with natural phenomena and this refusal to accept\nthe old, established theories until they had been verified by an\ninvestigation of common fact was a very novel thing. It introduced a\nfresh and momentous element into our intellectual heritage. We have\nrecalled the mysticism, supernaturalism, and intolerance of the Middle\nAges, their reliance on old books, and their indifference to everyday\nfact except as a sort of allegory for the edification of the Christian\npilgrim. In the mediaeval universities the professors, or \"schoolmen\",\ndevoted themselves to the elaborate formulation of Christian doctrine\nand the interpretation of Aristotle's works. It was a period of\nrevived Greek metaphysics, adapted to prevailing religious\npresuppositions. Into this fettered world Bacon, Galileo, Descartes,\nand others brought a new aspiration to promote investigation and\nhonest, critical thinking about everyday things.\n\n_These founders of modern natural science realized that they would\nhave to begin afresh. This was a bold resolve, but not so bold as must\nbe that of the student of mankind to-day if he expects to free himself\nfrom the trammels of the past_. Bacon pointed out that the old days\nwere not those of mature knowledge, but of youthful human ignorance.\n\"_These_ times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and\nnot those we count ancient, _ordine retrogrado_, by a computation\nbackward from ourselves.\" In his _New Atlantis_ he pictures an ideal\nState which concentrated its resources on systematic scientific\nresearch, with a view to applying new discoveries to the betterment of\nman's lot.\n\nDescartes, who was a young man when Bacon was an old one, insisted on\nthe necessity, if we proposed to seek the truth, of questioning\n_everything_ at least once in our lives. To all these leaders in the\ndevelopment of modern science doubt, not faith, was the beginning of\nwisdom. They doubted--and with good reason--what the Greeks were\nsupposed to have discovered; they doubted all the old books and all\nthe university professors' lecture notes. They did not venture to\ndoubt the Bible, but they eluded it in various ways. They set to work\nto find out exactly what happened under certain circumstances. They\nexperimented individually and reported their discoveries to the\nscientific academies which began to come into existence.\n\nAs one follows the deliberations of these bodies it is pathetic to\nobserve how little the learning of previous centuries, in spite of its\nimposing claims, had to contribute to a fruitful knowledge of common\nthings. It required a century of hard work to establish the most\nelementary facts which would now be found in a child's book. How water\nand air act, how to measure time and temperature and atmospheric\npressure, had to be discovered. The microscope revealed the complexity\nof organic tissues, the existence of minute creatures, vaguely called\ninfusoria, and the strange inhabitants of the blood, the red and white\ncorpuscles. The telescope put an end to the flattering assumption that\nthe cosmos circled around man and the little ball he lives on.\n\nWithout a certain un-Greek, practical inventive tendency which, for\nreasons not easily to be discovered, first began to manifest itself in\nthe thirteenth century, this progress would not have been possible.\nThe new thinkers descended from the magisterial chair and patiently\nfussed with lenses, tubes, pulleys, and wheels, thus weaning\nthemselves from the adoration of man's mind and understanding. They\nhad to devise the machinery of investigation as investigation itself\nprogressed.\n\nMoreover, they did not confine themselves to the conventionally noble\nand elevated subjects of speculation. They addressed themselves to\nworms and ditch water in preference to metaphysical subtleties. They\nagreed with Bacon that the mean and even filthy things deserve study.\nAll this was naturally scorned by the university professors, and the\nuniversities consequently played little or no part in the advance of\nnatural science until the nineteenth century.\n\nNor were the moral leaders of mankind behind the intellectual in\nopposing the novel tendencies. The clergy did all they could to\nperpetuate the squalid belief in witchcraft, but found no place for\nexperimental science in their scheme of learning, and judged it\noffensive to the Maker of all things. But their opposition could do no\nmore than hamper the new scientific impulse, which was far too potent\nto be seriously checked.\n\nSo in one department of human thought--the investigation of natural\nprocesses--majestic progress has been made since the opening of the\nseventeenth century, with every promise of continued and startling\nadvance. The new methods employed by students of natural science have\nresulted in the accumulation of a stupendous mass of information in\nregard to the material structure and operation of things, and the\ngradual way in which the earth and all its inhabitants have come into\nbeing. The nature and workings of atoms and molecules are being\ncleared up, and their relation to heat, light, and electricity\nestablished. The slow processes which have brought about the mountains\nand valleys, the seas and plains, have been exposed. The structure of\nthe elementary cell can be studied under powerful lenses; its\ndivisions, conjunctions, differentiation, and multiplication into the\nincredibly intricate substance of plants and animals can be traced.\n\nIn short, man is now in a position, for the first time in his history,\nto have some really clear and accurate notion of the world in which he\ndwells and of the living creatures which surround him and with which\nhe must come to terms. It would seem obvious that this fresh knowledge\nshould enable him to direct his affairs more intelligently than his\nancestors were able to do in their ignorance. He should be in a\nposition to accommodate himself more and more successfully to the\nexigencies of an existence which he can understand more fully than any\npreceding generation, and he should aspire to deal more and more\nsagaciously with himself and his fellow-men.\n\n\n\n\n13. HOW SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE HAS REVOLUTIONIZED THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE\n\n\nBut while our information in regard to man and the world is\nincalculably greater than that available a hundred, even fifty years\nago, we must frankly admit that the knowledge is still so novel, so\nimperfectly assimilated, so inadequately co-ordinated, and so feebly\nand ineffectively presented to the great mass of men, that its\n_direct_ effects upon human impulses and reasoning and outlook are as\nyet inconsiderable and disappointing. We _might_ think in terms of\nmolecules and atoms, but we rarely do. Few have any more knowledge of\ntheir own bodily operations than had their grandparents. The farmer's\nconfidence in the phases of the moon gives way but slowly before\nrecent discoveries in regard to the bacteria of the soil. Few who use\nthe telephone, ride on electric cars, and carry a camera have even the\nmildest curiosity in regard to how these things work. It is only\n_indirectly_, through _invention_, that scientific knowledge touches\nour lives on every hand, modifying our environment, altering our daily\nhabits, dislocating the anciently established order, and imposing the\nburden of constant adaptation on even the most ignorant and lethargic.\n\nUnlike a great part of man's earlier thought, modern scientific\nknowledge and theory have not remained matter merely for academic\ndiscourse and learned books, but have provoked the invention of\ninnumerable practical devices which surround us on every hand, and\nfrom which we can now scarce escape by land or sea. Thus while\nscientific knowledge has not greatly affected the thoughts of most of\nus, its influence in the promotion of modern invention has served to\nplace us in a new setting or environment, the novel features of which\nit would be no small task to explain to one's great-great-grandfather,\nshould he unexpectedly apply for up-to-date information. So even if\nmodern scientific _knowledge_ is as yet so imperfect and ill\nunderstood as to make it impossible for us to apply much of it\ndirectly and personally in our daily conduct, we nevertheless cannot\nneglect the urgent effects of scientific _inventions_, for they are\nconstantly posing new problems of adjustment to us, and sometimes\ndisposing of old ones.\n\nLet us recall a few striking examples of the astonishing way in which\nwhat seemed in the beginning to be rather trivial inventions and\ndevices have, with the improvements of modern science, profoundly\naltered the conditions of life.\n\nSome centuries before the time of Bacon and Galileo four discoveries\nwere made which, supplemented and elaborated by later insight and\ningenuity, may be said to underlie our modern civilization. A writer\nof the time of Henry II of England reports that sailors when caught in\nfog or darkness were wont to touch a needle to a bit of magnetic iron.\nThe needle would then, it had been found, whirl around in a circle and\ncome to rest pointing north. On this tiny index the vast extension of\nmodern commerce and imperialism rests.\n\nThat lentil-shaped bits of glass would magnify objects was known\nbefore the end of the thirteenth century, and from that little fact\nhave come microscopes, telescopes, spectroscopes, and cameras; and\nfrom these in turn has come a great part of our present knowledge of\nnatural processes in men, animals, and plants and our comprehension of\nthe cosmos at large.\n\nGunpowder began to be used a few decades after the lens was discovered;\nit and its terrible descendants have changed the whole problem of human\nwarfare and of the public defense.\n\nThe printing press, originally a homely scheme for saving the labor of\nthe copyist, has not only made modern democracy and nationality\npossible, but has helped by the extension of education to undermine\nthe ancient foundations upon which human industry has rested from the\nbeginnings of civilization.\n\nIn the middle of the eighteenth century the steam engine began to\nsupplant the muscular power of men and animals, which had theretofore\nbeen only feebly supplemented by windmills and water wheels. And now\nwe use steam and gas engines and water power to generate potent\nelectric currents which do their work far from the source of supply.\nMechanical ingenuity has utilized all this undreamed-of energy in\ninnumerable novel ways for producing old and new commodities in\ntremendous quantities and distributing them with incredible rapidity\nthroughout the earth.\n\nVast factories have sprung up, with their laborious multitudes engaged\non minute contributions to the finished article; overgrown cities\nsprawl over the neighboring green fields and pastures; long freight\ntrains of steel cars thunder across continents; monstrous masses of\nwealth pile up, are reinvested, and applied to making the whole system\nmore and more inconceivably intricate and interdependent; and\nincidentally there is hurry and worry and discontent and hazard beyond\nbelief for a creature who has to grasp it all and control it all with\na mind reared on that of an animal, a child, and a savage.\n\nAs if these changes were not astounding enough, now has come the\nchemist who devotes himself to making not new _commodities_ (or old\nones in new ways), but new _substances_. He juggles with the atoms of\ncarbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, and the rest, and far\noutruns the workings of nature. Up to date he has been able to produce\nartfully over two hundred thousand compounds, for some of which\nmankind formerly depended on the alchemy of animals and plants. He can\nmake foodstuffs out of sewage; he can entrap the nitrogen in the air\nand use it to raise wheat to feed, or high explosives to slaughter,\nhis fellows. He no longer relies on plants and animals for dyes and\nperfumes. In short, a chemical discovery may at any moment devastate\nan immemorial industry and leave both capital and labor in the lurch.\nThe day may not be far distant when, should the chemist learn to\ncontrol the incredible interatomic energy, the steam engine will seem\nas complete an anachronism as the treadmill.\n\nThe uttermost parts of the earth have been visited by Europeans, and\ncommerce has brought all races of the globe into close touch. We have\nnow to reckon with every nation under heaven, as was shown in the\nWorld War. At the same time steam and electrical communication have\nbeen so perfected that space has been practically annihilated as\nregards speech, and in matters of transportation reduced to perhaps a\nfifth. So all the peoples of the earth form economically a loose and,\nas yet, scarcely acknowledged federation of man, in which the fate of\nany member may affect the affairs of all the others, no matter how\nremote they may be geographically.\n\nAll these unprecedented conditions have conspired to give business for\nbusiness' sake a fascination and overwhelming importance it has never\nhad before. We no longer make things for the sake of making them, but\nfor money. The chair is not made to sit on, but for profit; the soap\nis no longer prepared for purposes of cleanliness, but to be sold for\nprofit. Practically nothing catches our eye in the way of writing that\nwas written for its own sake and not for money. Our magazines and\nnewspapers are our modern commercial travelers proclaiming the gospel\nof business competition. Formerly the laboring classes worked because\nthey were slaves, or because they were defenseless and could not\nescape from thraldom--or, mayhap, because they were natural artisans;\nbut now they are coming into a position where they can combine and\nbargain and enter into business competition with their employers. Like\ntheir employers, they are learning to give as little as possible for\nas much as possible. This is good business; and the employer should\nrealize that at last he has succeeded in teaching his employees to be\nstrictly businesslike. When houses were built to live in, and wheat\nand cattle grown to eat, these essential industries took care of\nthemselves. But now that profit is the motive for building houses and\nraising grain, if the promised returns are greater from manufacturing\nautomobiles or embroidered lingerie, one is tempted to ask if there\nare any longer compelling reasons for building houses or raising food?\n\nAlong with the new inventions and discoveries and our inordinately\npervasive commerce have come two other novel elements in our\nenvironment--what we vaguely call \"democracy\" and \"nationality\". These\nalso are to be traced to applied science and mechanical contrivances.\n\nThe printing press has made popular education possible, and it is our\naspiration to have every boy and girl learn to read and write--an\nideal that the Western World has gone far to realize in the last\nhundred years. General education, introduced first among men and then\nextended to women, has made plausible the contention that all adults\nshould have a vote, and thereby exercise some ostensible influence in\nthe choice of public officials and in the direction of the policy of\nthe government.\n\nUntil recently the mass of the people have not been invited to turn\ntheir attention to public affairs, which have been left in the control\nof the richer classes and their representatives and agents, the\nstatesmen or politicians. Doubtless our crowded cities have\ncontributed to a growing sense of the importance of the common man,\nfor all must now share the street car, the public park, the water\nsupply, and contagious diseases.\n\nBut there is a still more fundamental discovery underlying our\ndemocratic tendencies. This is the easily demonstrated scientific\ntruth that nearly all men and women, whatever their social and\neconomic status, may have much greater possibilities of activity and\nthought and emotion than they exhibit in the particular conditions in\nwhich they happen to be placed; that in all ranks may be found\nevidence of unrealized capacity; that we are living on a far lower\nscale of intelligent conduct and rational enjoyment than is necessary.\n\nOur present notions of nationality are of very recent origin, going\nback scarcely a hundred years. Formerly nations were made up of the\nsubjects of this or that gracious majesty and were regarded by their\nGod-given rulers as beasts of burden or slaves or, in more amiable\nmoods, as children. The same forces that have given rise to modern\ndemocracy have made it possible for vast groups of people, such as\nmake up France or the United States, to be held together more\nintimately than ever before by the news which reaches them daily of\nthe enterprises of their government and the deeds of their conspicuous\nfellow-countrymen.\n\nIn this way the inhabitants of an extensive territory embracing\nhundreds of thousands of square miles are brought as close together as\nthe people of Athens in former days. Man Is surely a gregarious animal\nwho dislikes solitude. He is, moreover, given to the most exaggerated\nestimate of his tribe; and on these ancient foundations modern\nnationality has been built up by means of the printing press, the\ntelegraph, and cheap postage. _So it has fallen out that just when the\nworld was becoming effectively cosmopolitan in its economic\ninterdependence, its scientific research, and its exchange of books\nand art, the ancient tribal insolence has been developed on a\nstupendous scale._\n\nThe manner in which man has revolutionized his environment, habits of\nconduct, and purposes of life by inventions is perhaps the most\nastonishing thing in human history. It is an obscure and hitherto\nrather neglected subject. But it is clear enough, from the little that\nhas been said here, that since the Middle Ages, and especially in the\npast hundred years, science has so hastened the process of change that\nit becomes increasingly difficult for man's common run of thinking to\nkeep pace with the radical alterations in his actual practices and\nconditions of living.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nVII\n\n  Peace sitting under her olive, and\n    slurring the days gone by,\n  When the poor are hovell'd and\n    hustled together, each sex, like\n    swine,\n  When only the ledger lives, and\n    when only not all men lie;\n  Peace in her vineyard--yes!--but\n    a company forges the wine.\n                          --TENNYSON.\n\n  Could great men thunder\n  As Jove himself does, Jove would\n    ne'er be quiet.\n  For every pelting, petty officer\n  Would use his heaven for thunder;\n  Nothing but thunder!\n                ... Man, proud man,\n  Drest in a little brief authority,\n  Most ignorant of what he's most\n    assured,\n  His glassy essence, like an angry\n    ape,\n  Plays such fantastic tricks before\n    high heaven\n  As make the angels weep; who, with\n    our spleens,\n  Would all themselves laugh mortal.\n                        --SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\n\n\n14. \"THE SICKNESS OF AN ACQUISITIVE SOCIETY\"\n\n\nIt is so difficult a task to form any correct estimate of one's own\nsurroundings, largely on account of our very familiarity with them,\nthat historical students have generally evaded this responsibility.\nThey have often declared that it was impossible to do so\nsatisfactorily. And yet no one will ever know more than we about what\nis going on now. Some secrets may be revealed to coming generations,\nbut plenty of our circumstances will be obscure to them. And it\ncertainly seems pusillanimous, if not hazardous, to depute to those\nyet unborn the task of comprehending the conditions under which we\nmust live and strive. I have long believed that the only unmistakable\ncontribution that the historical student can make to the progress of\nintelligence is to study the past with an eye constantly on the\npresent. For history not only furnishes us with the key to the present\nby showing how our situation came about, but at the same time supplies\na basis of comparison and a point of vantage by virtue of which the\nsalient contrasts between our days and those of old can be detected.\nWithout history the essential differences are sure to escape us. Our\ngeneration, like all preceding generations of mankind, inevitably\ntakes what it finds largely for granted, and the great mass of men who\nargue about existing conditions assume a fundamental likeness to past\nconditions as the basis of their conclusions in regard to the present\nand the still unrolled future.\n\nSuch a procedure becomes more and more dangerous, for although a\ncontinuity persists, there are more numerous, deeper and wider\nreaching contrasts between the world of to-day and that of a hundred,\nor even fifty, years ago, than have developed in any corresponding\nlapse of time since the beginning of civilization. This is not the\nplace even to sketch the novelties in our knowledge and circumstances,\nour problems and possibilities. No more can be done here than to\nillustrate in a single field of human interest the need of an\nunprecedentedly open mind in order to avail ourselves of existing\nresources in grasping and manipulating the problems forced upon us.\n\nFew people realize how novel is the almost universal preoccupation\nwith business which we can observe on every hand, but to which we are\nalready so accustomed that it easily escapes the casual observer. But\nin spite of its vastness and magnificent achievements, business, based\nupon mass production and speculative profits, has produced new evils\nand reinforced old ones which no thoughtful person can possibly\noverlook. Consequently it has become the great issue of our time, the\nchief subject of discussion, to be defended or attacked according to\none's tastes, even as religion and politics formerly had their day.\n\nBusiness men, whether conspicuous in manufacture, trade, or finance,\nare the leading figures of our age. They exercise a dominant influence\nin domestic and foreign policy; they subsidize our education and exert\nan unmistakable control over it. In other ages a military or religious\ncaste enjoyed a similar pre-eminence. But now business directs and\nequips the soldier, who is far more dependent on its support than\nformerly. Most religious institutions make easy terms with business,\nand, far from interfering with it or its teachings, on the whole\ncordially support it. Business has its philosophy, which it holds to\nbe based upon the immutable traits of human nature and as identical\nwith morality and patriotism. It is a sensitive, intolerant\nphilosophy, of which something will be said in the following section.\n\nModern business produced a sort of paradise for the luckier of\nmankind, which endured down to the war, and which many hope to see\nrestored in its former charm, and perhaps further beautified as the\nyears go on. It represents one of the most startling of human\nachievements. No doubt a great part of the population worked hard and\nlived in relative squalor, but even then they had many comforts\nunknown to the toiling masses of previous centuries, and were\napparently fairly contented.\n\n    But escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at\n    all exceeding the average, into the middle or upper classes, for\n    whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble,\n    conveniencies, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the\n    richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant\n    of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed,\n    the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he\n    might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his\n    doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure\n    his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any\n    quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble,\n    in their prospective fruits and advantages.... He could secure\n    forthwith, if he wished it, cheap and comfortable means of transit\n    to any country or climate without passport or other formality, could\n    dispatch his servant to the neighboring office of a bank for such\n    supply of the precious metals as might seem convenient, and could\n    then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their\n    religion, language, or customs, bearing coined wealth upon his\n    person, and would consider himself greatly aggrieved and much\n    surprised at the least interference.\n\nAnd most important of all, he could, before the war, regard this state\nof affairs as\n\n    ... normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of\n    further improvement, and any deviation from it as aberrant,\n    scandalous, and avoidable. The projects and politics of militarism,\n    and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies,\n    restrictions, and exclusion, which were to play the serpent in this\n    paradise, were little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper,\n    and appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary\n    course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which\n    was nearly complete in practice.[21]\n\nThis assumption of the permanence and normality of the prevailing\nbusiness system was much disturbed by the outcome of the war, but less\nso, especially in this country, than might have been expected. It was\neasy to argue that the terrible conflict merely interrupted the\ngenerally beneficent course of affairs which would speedily\nre-establish itself when given an opportunity. To those who see the\nsituation in this light, modern business has largely solved the\nage-long problem of producing and distributing the material\nnecessities and amenities of life; and nothing remains except to\nperfect the system in detail, develop its further potentialities, and\nfight tooth and nail those who are led by lack of personal success or\na maudlin sympathy for the incompetent to attack and undermine it.\n\nOn the other hand, there were many before the war, not themselves\nsuffering conspicuously from the system, who challenged its\nbeneficence and permanence, in the name of justice, economy, and the\nbest and highest interests of mankind as a whole. Since the war many\nmore have come to the conclusion that business as now conducted is not\nmerely unfair, exceedingly wasteful, and often highly inexpedient from\na social standpoint, but that from an historical standpoint it is\n\"intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, and temporary\"\n(Keynes). It may prove to be the chief eccentricity of our age; quite\nas impermanent as was the feudal and manorial system or the role of\nthe mediaeval Church or of monarchs by the grace of God; and destined\nto undergo changes which it is now quite impossible to forecast.\n\nIn any case, economic issues are the chief and bitterest of our time.\nIt is in connection with them that free thinking is most difficult and\nmost apt to be misunderstood, for they easily become confused with the\ntraditional reverences and sanctities of political fidelity,\npatriotism, morality, and even religion. There is something\nhumiliating about this situation, which subordinates all the varied\npossibilities of life to its material prerequisites, much as if we\nwere again back in a stage of impotent savagery, scratching for roots\nand looking for berries and dead animals. One of the most brilliant of\nrecent English economists says with truth:\n\n    The burden of our civilization is not merely, as many suppose, that\n    the product of industry is ill-distributed, or its conduct tyrannical,\n    or its operation interrupted by bitter disagreements. It is that\n    industry itself has come to hold a position of exclusive predominance\n    among human interests, which no single interest, and least of all the\n    provision of the material means of existence, is fit to occupy. Like\n    a hypochondriac who is so absorbed in the processes of his own\n    digestion that he goes to the grave before he has begun to live,\n    industrialized communities neglect the very objects for which it is\n    worth while to acquire riches in their feverish preoccupation with\n    the means by which riches can be acquired.\n\n    That obsession by economic issues is as local and transitory as it is\n    repulsive and disturbing. To future generations it will appear as\n    pitiable as the obsession of the seventeenth century by religious\n    quarrels appears to-day; indeed, it is less rational, since the object\n    with which it is concerned is less important. And it is a poison which\n    inflames every wound and turns each trivial scratch into a malignant\n    ulcer.[22]\n\nWhatever may be the merits of the conflicting views of our business\nsystem, there can be no doubt that it is agitating all types of\nthoughtful men and women. Poets, dramatists, and story writers turn\naside from their old _motifs_ to play the role of economists.\nPsychologists, biologists, chemists, engineers, are as never before\nstriving to discover the relation between their realms of information\nand the general problems of social and industrial organization. And\nhere is a historical student allowing the dust to collect on mediaeval\nchronicles, church histories, and even seventeenth-century\nrationalists, once fondly perused, in order to see if he can come to\nsome terms with the profit system. And why not? Are we not all\nimplicated? We all buy and many sell, and no one is left untouched by\na situation which can in two or three years halve our incomes, without\nfault of ours. But before seeking to establish the bearing of the\nprevious sections of this volume on our attitude toward the puzzles of\nour day, we must consider more carefully the \"good reasons\" commonly\nurged in defense of the existing system.\n\n\n\n\n15. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SAFETY AND SANITY\n\n\nSo far we have been mainly engaged in recalling the process by which\nman has accumulated such a mind as he now has, and the effects of this\naccumulation on his mode of life. Under former conditions (which are\nnow passing away) and in a state of ignorance about highly essential\nmatters (which are now being put in quite a new light) he established\ncertain standards and practices in his political, social, and\nindustrial life. His views of property, government, education, the\nrelations of the sexes, and various other matters he reaffirms and\nperpetuates by means of schools, colleges, churches, newspapers, and\nmagazines, which in order to be approved and succeed must concur in\nand ratify these established standards and practices and the current\nnotions of good and evil, right and wrong. This is what happened in\nthe past, and to the great majority of people this still seems to be\nthe only means of \"safeguarding society\". Before subjecting this\nattitude of mind to further criticism it will be helpful to see how\nthose argue who fail to perceive the vicious circle involved.\n\nThe war brought with it a burst of unwonted and varied animation.\nThose who had never extended their activities beyond the usual routine\nof domestic and professional life suddenly found themselves\nparticipating in a vast enterprise in which they seemed to be\nbroadening their knowledge and displaying undreamed of capacity for\nco-operation with their fellows. Expressions of high idealism exalted\nus above the petty cares of our previous existence, roused new\nambitions, and opened up an exhilarating perspective of possibility\nand endeavor. It was common talk that when the foe, whose criminal\nlust for power had precipitated the mighty tragedy, should be\nvanquished, things would \"no longer be the same\". All would then agree\nthat war was the abomination of abominations, the world would be made\nsafe for right-minded democracy, and the nations would unite in\nsmiling emulation.\n\nNever did bitterer disappointment follow high hopes. All the old\nhabits of nationalistic policy reasserted themselves at Versailles. A\nfrightened and bankrupt world could indeed hardly be expected to\nexhibit greater intelligence than the relatively happy and orderly one\nwhich had five years earlier allowed its sanctified traditions to drag\nit over the edge of the abyss. Then there emerged from the autocracy\nof the Tsars the dictatorship of the proletariat, and in Hungary and\nGermany various startling attempts to revolutionize hastily and\nexcessively that ancient order which the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern\nrulers had managed to perpetuate in spite of all modern novelties. The\nreal character of these movements was ill understood in our country,\nbut it was inevitable that with man's deep-seated animistic tendencies\nthey should appear as a sort of wicked demon or a deadly contagion\nwhich might attack even our own land unless prevented by timely\nmeasures. War had naturally produced its machinery for dealing with\ndissenters, sympathizers with the enemy, and those who deprecated or\nopposed war altogether; and it was the easiest thing in the world to\nextend the repression to those who held exceptional or unpopular\nviews, like the Socialists and members of the I.W.W. It was plausible\nto charge these associations with being under the guidance of\nforeigners, with \"pacificism\" and a general tendency to disloyalty.\nBut suspicion went further so as to embrace members of a rather small,\nthoughtful class who, while rarely socialistic, were confessedly\nskeptical in regard to the general beneficence of existing\ninstitutions, and who failed to applaud at just the right points to\nsuit the taste of the majority of their fellow-citizens. So the\ngeneral impression grew up that there was a sort of widespread\nconspiracy to overthrow the government by violence or, at least, a\ndangerous tendency to prepare the way for such a disaster, or at any\nrate a culpable indifference to its possibility.\n\nBusiness depression reinforced a natural reaction which had set in\nwith the sudden and somewhat unexpected close of the war. The unwonted\nexcitement brought on a national headache, and a sedative in the form\nof normalcy was proffered by the Republican party and thankfully\naccepted by the country at large. Under these circumstances the\nphilosophy of safety and sanity was formulated. It is familiar and\nreassuring and puts no disagreeable task of mental and emotional\nreadjustment on those who accept it. Hence its inevitable popularity\nand obvious soundness.\n\nAnd these are its presuppositions: No nation is comparable to our own\nin its wealth and promise, in its freedom and opportunity for all. It\nhas opened its gates to the peoples of the earth, who have flocked\nacross the ocean to escape the poverty and oppression of Europe. From\nthe scattered colonies of the pre-revolutionary period the United\nStates has rapidly advanced to its world ascendancy. When the European\npowers had reached a hopeless stalemate after four years of war the\nUnited States girded on the sword as the champion of liberty and\ndemocracy and in an incredibly short time brought the conflict to a\nvictorious close before she had dispatched half the troops she could\neasily have spared. She had not entered the conflict with any motives\nof aggrandizement or of territorial extension. She felt her\nself-sufficiency and could well afford proudly to refuse to join the\nLeague of Nations on the ground that she did not wish to be involved\nin European wrangles or sacrifice a tittle of her rights of\nself-determination.\n\nThe prosperity of the United States is to be attributed largely to the\nexcellence of the Federal Constitution and the soundness of her\ndemocratic institutions. Class privileges do not exist, or at least\nare not recognized. Everyone has equal opportunity to rise in the\nworld unhampered by the shackles of European caste. There is perfect\nfreedom in matters of religious belief. Liberty of speech and of the\npress is confirmed by both the Federal Constitution and the\nconstitutions of the various states. If people are not satisfied with\ntheir form of government they may at any time alter it by a peaceful\nexercise of the suffrage.\n\nIn no other country is morality more highly prized or stoutly\ndefended. Woman is held in her proper esteem and the institution of\nthe family everywhere recognized as fundamental. We are singularly\nfree from the vices which disgrace the capitals of Europe, not\nexcepting London.\n\nIn no other country is the schoolhouse so assuredly acknowledged to be\nthe corner stone of democracy and liberty. Our higher institutions of\nlearning are unrivaled; our public libraries numerous and accessible.\nOur newspapers and magazines disseminate knowledge and rational\npleasure throughout the land.\n\nWe are an ingenious people in the realm of invention and in the\nboldness of our business enterprise. We have the sturdy virtues of the\npioneer. We are an honest people, keeping our contracts and giving\nfair measure. We are a tireless people in the patient attention to\nbusiness and the laudable resolve to rise in the world. Many of our\nrichest men began on the farm or as office boys. Success depends in\nour country almost exclusively on native capacity, which is rewarded\nhere with a prompt and cheerful recognition which is rare in other\nlands.\n\nWe are a progressive people, always ready for improvements, which\nindeed we take for granted, so regularly do they make their\nappearance. No alert American can visit any foreign country without\nnoting innumerable examples of stupid adherence to outworn and\ncumbrous methods in industry, commerce, and transportation.\n\nOf course no one is so blind as not to see that here and there evils\ndevelop which should be remedied, either by legislation or by the\ngradual advance in enlightenment. Many of them will doubtless cure\nthemselves. Our democracy is right at heart and you cannot fool all\nthe people all the time. We have not escaped our fair quota of\ntroubles. It would be too much to expect that we should. The\ndifference of opinion between the Northern and Southern states\nactually led to civil war, but this only served to confirm the natural\nunity of the country and prepare the way for further advance.\nProtestants have sometimes dreaded a Catholic domination; the Mormons\nhave been a source of anxiety to timid souls. Populists and advocates\nof free silver have seemed to threaten sound finance. On the other\nhand, Wall Street and the trusts have led some to think that corporate\nbusiness enterprise may at times, if left unhampered, lead to\nover-powerful monopolies. But the evil workings of all these things\nhad before the war been peaceful, if insidious. They might rouse\napprehension in the minds of far-sighted and public-spirited\nobservers, but there had been no general fear that any of them would\noverthrow the Republic and lead to a violent destruction of society as\nnow constituted and mayhap to a reversion to barbarism.\n\nThe circumstances of our participation in the World War and the rise\nof Bolshevism convinced many for the first time that at last society\nand the Republic were actually threatened. Heretofore the socialists\nof various kinds, the communists and anarchists, had attracted\nrelatively little attention in our country. Except for the Chicago\nanarchist episode and the troubles with the I.W.W., radical reformers\nhad been left to go their way, hold their meetings, and publish their\nnewspapers and pamphlets with no great interference on the part of the\npolice or attention on the part of lawgivers. With the progress of the\nwar this situation changed; police and lawgivers began to interfere,\nand government officials and self-appointed guardians of the public\nweal began to denounce the \"reds\" and those suspected of \"radical\ntendencies\". The report of the Lusk Committee in the state of New York\nis perhaps the most imposing monument to this form of patriotic zeal.\n\nIt is not our business here to discuss the merits of Socialism or\nBolshevism either from the standpoint of their underlying theories or\ntheir promise in practice. It is only in their effects in developing\nand substantiating the philosophy of safety and sanity that they\nconcern us in this discussion.\n\nWhether the report of the so-called Lusk Committee[23] has any\nconsiderable influence or no, it well illustrates a common and\nsignificant frame of mind and an habitual method of reasoning. The\nostensible aim of the report is:\n\n    ... to give a clear, unbiased statement and history of the\n    purposes and objects, tactics and methods, of the various\n    forces now at work in the United States, and particularly\n    within the state of New York, which are seeking to undermine\n    and destroy, not only the government under which we live, but\n    also the very structure of American society. It also seeks to\n    analyze the various constructive forces which are at work\n    throughout the country counteracting these evil influences,\n    and to present the many industrial and social problems that\n    these constructive forces must meet and are meeting.\n\nThe plan is executed with laborious comprehensiveness, and one\nunacquainted with the vast and varied range of so-called \"radical\"\nutterances will be overwhelmed by the mass brought together. But our\naim here is to consider the attitude of mind and assumptions of the\neditors and their sympathizers.\n\nThey admit the existence of \"real grievances and natural demands of\nthe working classes for a larger share in the management and use of\nthe common wealth\". It is these grievances and demands which the\nagitators use as a basis of their machinations. Those bent on a social\nrevolution fall into two classes--socialists and anarchists. But while\nthe groups differ in detail, these details are not worth considering.\n\"Anyone who studies the propaganda of the various groups which we have\nnamed will learn that the arguments employed are the same; that the\ntactics advocated cannot be distinguished from one another, and that\narticles, or speeches made on the question of tactics or methods by\nanarchists, could, with propriety, be published in socialist, or\ncommunist newspapers without offending the membership of these\norganizations.\" So, fortunately for the reader, it is unnecessary to\nmake any distinctions between socialists, anarchists, communists, and\nBolsheviki. They all have the common purpose of overthrowing existing\nsociety and \"general strikes and sabotage are the direct means\nadvocated\". The object is to drive business into bankruptcy by\nreducing production and raising costs.[24]\n\nBut it would be a serious mistake to assume that the dangers are\nconfined to our industrial system. \"The very first general fact that\nmust be driven home to Americans is that the pacifist movement in this\ncountry, the growth and connections of which are an important part of\nthis report, is an absolutely integral and fundamental part of\ninternational socialism.\" European socialism, from which ours is\nderived, has had for one of its main purposes \"the creation of an\ninternational sentiment to supersede national patriotism and effort,\nand this internationalism was based upon pacificism, in the sense that\nit opposed all wars between nations and developed at the same time\nclass consciousness that was to culminate in relentless class warfare.\nIn other words, it was not really peace that was the goal, but the\nabolition of the patriotic, warlike spirit of nationalities\".\n\nIn view of the necessity of making head against this menace the\nCriminal Anarchy statute of the State of New York was invoked, search\nwarrants issued, \"large quantities of revolutionary, incendiary and\nseditious written and printed matter were seized\". After the refusal\nof Governor Smith to sign them, the so-called Lusk educational bills\nwere repassed and signed by the Republican Governor Miller. No teacher\nin the schools shall be licensed to teach who \"has advocated, either\nby word of mouth or in writing, a form of government other than the\ngovernment of the United States or of this state\". Moreover, \"No\nperson, firm, corporation, association, or society shall conduct,\nmaintain, or operate any school, institute, class, or course of\ninstruction in any subject without making application for and being\ngranted a license from the University of the State of New York [_i.\ne_. the Regents].\" The Regents shall have the right to send inspectors\nto visit classes and schools so licensed and to revoke licenses if\nthey deem that an overthrow of the existing government by violence is\nbeing taught.[25]\n\nBut the safe and sane philosophy by no means stops with the convenient\nand compendious identification of socialists of all kinds, anarchists,\npacificists and internationalists, as belonging to one threatening\ngroup united in a like-minded attempt to overthrow society as we now\nknow it. This class includes, it may be observed, such seemingly\ndistinguishable personalities as Trotzky and Miss Jane Addams, who are\nassumed to be in essential harmony upon the great issue. But there are\nmany others who are perhaps the innocent tools of the socialists.\nThese include teachers, lecturers, writers, clergymen, and editors to\nwhom the Lusk report devotes a long section on \"the spread of socialism\nin educated circles\". It is the purpose of this section\n\n    ... to show the use made by members of the Socialist Party of America\n    and other extreme radicals and revolutionaries of pacifist sentiment\n    among people of education and culture in the United States as a\n    vehicle for the promotion of revolutionary socialistic propaganda.\n    The facts here related are important because they show that these\n    socialists, playing upon the pacifist sentiment in a large body of\n    sincere persons, were able to organize their energies and capitalize\n    their prestige for the spread of their doctrines. [P. 969.]\n\nAn instance of this is an article in the _New Republic_ which:\n\n    ... includes more or less open attacks on Attorney-General Palmer,\n    Mr. Lansing, the House Immigration Committee, the New York _Times_,\n    Senator Fall, this Committee, etc. It also quotes the dissenting\n    opinions in the Abrams case of Justices Holmes and Brandeis, and\n    ends by making light of the danger of revolution in America: ...\n    This belittling of the very real danger to the institutions of this\n    country, as well as the attempted discrediting of any investigating\n    group (or individual), has become thoroughly characteristic of our\n    \"Parlor Bolshevik\" or \"Intelligentsia\". [P. 1103.]\n\nSo it comes about, as might indeed have been foreseen from the first,\nthat one finds himself, if not actually violating the criminal anarchy\nstatute, at least branded as a Bolshevik if he speaks slightingly of\nthe New York _Times_ or recalls the dissenting opinion of two judges\nof the Supreme Court.\n\nMoreover, as might have been anticipated, the issues prove to be at\nbottom not so much economic as moral and religious, for \"Materialism\nand its formidable sons, Anarchy, Bolshevism, and Unrest, have thrown\ndown the gauge of battle\" to all decency.\n\n    ... What is of the greatest importance for churchmen to understand,\n    in order that they may not be led astray by specious arguments of\n    so-called Christian Socialists and so-called liberals and\n    self-styled partisans of free speech, is that socialism as a system,\n    as well as anarchism and all its ramifications, from high-brow\n    Bolshevism to the Russian Anarchist Association, are all the\n    declared enemies of religion and all recognized moral standards\n    and restraints. [P. 1124.]\n\nWe must not be misled by \"false, specious idealism masquerading as\nprogress\". The fight is one for God as well as country, in which all\nforms of radicalism, materialism, and anarchy should be fiercely and\npromptly stamped out.[26]\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n[21] Keynes, _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_, pp. 11-12.\n\n[22] Tawney, R. H., _The Acquisitive Society_, pp. 183-184. The\noriginal title of this admirable little work, a Fabian tract, was,\n_The Sickness of an Acquisitive Society_, but the American publishers\nevidently thought it inexpedient to stress the contention of the\nauthor that modern society has anything fundamentally the matter with\nit.\n\n[23] _Revolutionary Radicalism, Its History, Purpose, and Tactics:\nwith an exposition and discussion of the steps being taken and\nrequired to curb it, being the report of the Joint Legislative\nCommittee investigating seditious activities, filed April 24, 1920, in\nthe Senate of the state of New York._ This comprises four stout\nvolumes (over 4,200 pages in all) divided into two parts, dealing,\nrespectively, with \"Revolutionary and Subversive Movements at Home and\nAbroad\" and \"Constructive Movements and Measures in America\". Albany,\n1920.\n\n[24] \"While the nature of this investigation has led the committee to\nlay its emphasis upon the activities of subversive organizations, it\nfeels that this report would not be complete if it did not state\nemphatically that it believes that those persons in business and\ncommercial enterprise and certain owners of property who seek to take\nadvantage of the situation to reap inordinate gain from the public\ncontribute in no small part to the social unrest which affords the\nradical a field of operation which otherwise would be closed to him.\"\n(P. 10.)\n\n[25] The general history throughout the United States of these and\nsimilar measures, the interference with public meetings, the trials,\nimprisonments, and censorship, are all set forth in Professor\nChaffee's _Freedom of Speech_, 1920.\n\n[26] During the summer of 1921 the Vice-President of the United States\npublished in _The Delineator_ a series of three articles on \"Enemies\nof the Republic\", in which he considers the question, \"Are the 'reds'\nstalking our college women?\" He finds some indications that they are,\nand warns his readers that, \"Adherence to radical doctrines means the\nultimate breaking down of the old, sturdy virtues of manhood and\nwomanhood, the insidious destruction of character, the weakening of\nthe moral fiber of the individual, and the destruction of the\nfoundations of society.\" It may seem anomalous to some that the\ndefenders of the old, sturdy virtues should so carelessly brand honest\nand thoughtful men and women, of whose opinions they can have no real\nknowledge, as \"enemies of the Republic\"--but there is nothing whatever\nanomalous in this. It has been the habit of defenders of the sturdy,\nold virtues from time immemorial to be careless of others'\nreputations.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nVIII\n\n\n    Dans les sciences politiques, il est un ordre de v\u00e9rit\u00e9s qui,\n    surtout chez les peuples libres ... ne peuvent \u00eatre utiles, que\n    lorsqu'elles sont g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement connues et avou\u00e9es. Ainsi,\n    l'influence du progr\u00eas de ces sciences sur la libert\u00e9, sur la\n    prosp\u00e9rit\u00e9 des nations, doivent en quelque sorts se mesurer sur\n    le nombre de ces v\u00e9rit\u00e9s qui, par l'effet d'une instruction\n    \u00e9l\u00e9mentaire, deviennent commune \u00e0 tous les esprits; ainsi les\n    progr\u00e8s toujours croissants de cette instruction \u00e9l\u00e9mentaire,\n    li\u00e9s eux m\u00eames aux progr\u00e8s n\u00e9cessaires de ces sciences, nous\n    r\u00e9pondent d'une am\u00e9lioration dans les destin\u00e9es de l'esp\u00e8ce\n    humaine qui peut \u00eatre regard\u00e9e comme ind\u00e9finie, puisqu'elle n'a\n    d'autres limites que celles de ces progr\u00e8s m\u00eames.--CONDORCET.\n\n\n\n\n16. SOME HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF REPRESSION\n\n\nOf course the kind of reasoning and the presuppositions described in\nthe previous section will appeal to many readers as an illustration of\nexcessive and unjustifiable fear lest the present order be disturbed\n--a frenzied impulse to rush to the defense of our threatened\ninstitutions. Doubtless the Lusk report may quite properly be classed\nas a mere episode in war psychology. Having armed to put down the\nGermans and succeeded in so doing, the ardor of conflict does not\nimmediately abate, but new enemies are sought and easily discovered.\nThe hysteria of repression will probably subside, but it is now a\nwell-recognized fact that in disease, whether organic or mental, the\nabnormal and excessive are but instructive exaggerations and\nperversions of the usual course of things. They do not exist by\nthemselves, but represent the temporary and exaggerated functioning of\nbodily and mental processes. The real question for us here is not\nwhether Senator Lusk is too fearful and too indiscriminate in his\ndenunciations, but whether he and his colleagues do not merely furnish\nan overcharged and perhaps somewhat grotesque instance of man's\nnatural and impulsive way of dealing with social problems. It seems to\nme that enough has already been said to lead us to suspect this.\n\nAt the outset of this volume the statement was hazarded that if only\nmen could come to look at things differently from the way they now\ngenerally do, a number of our most shocking evils would either remedy\nthemselves or show themselves subject to gradual elimination or\nhopeful reduction. Among these evils a very fundamental one is the\ndefensive attitude toward the criticism of our existing order and the\nna\u00efve tendency to class critics as enemies of society. It was argued\nthat a fuller understanding of the history of the race would\ncontribute to that essential freedom of mind which would welcome\ncriticism and permit fair judgments of its merits. Having reviewed the\narguments of those who would suppress criticism lest it lead to\nviolence and destruction, we may now properly recall in this\nconnection certain often neglected historical facts which serve to\nweaken if not to discredit most of these arguments.\n\nMan has never been able to adapt himself very perfectly to his\ncivilization, and there has always been a deal of injustice and\nmaladjustment which might conceivably have been greatly decreased by\nintelligence. But now it would seem that this chronic distress has\nbecome acute, and some careful observers express the quite honest\nconviction that unless thought be raised to a far higher plane than\nhitherto, some great setback to civilization is inevitable.\n\nYet instead of subjecting traditional ideas and rules to a\nthoroughgoing reconsideration, our impulse is, as we have seen, to\nhasten to justify existing and habitual notions of human conduct.\nThere are many who flatter themselves that by suppressing so-called\n\"radical\" thought and its diffusion, the present system can be made to\nwork satisfactorily on the basis of ideas of a hundred or a hundred\nthousand years ago.\n\nWhile we have permitted our free thought in the natural sciences to\ntransform man's old world, we allow our schools and even our\nuniversities to continue to inculcate beliefs and ideals which may or\nmay not have been appropriate to the past, but which are clearly\nanachronisms now. For, the \"social science\" taught in our schools is,\nit would appear, an orderly presentation of the conventional\nproprieties, rather than a summons to grapple with the novel and\ndisconcerting facts that surround us on every side.\n\nAt the opening of the twentieth century the so-called sciences of man,\ndespite some progress, are, as has been pointed out, in much the same\nposition that the natural sciences were some centuries earlier. Hobbes\nsays of the scholastic philosophy that it went on one brazen leg and\none of an ass. This seems to be our plight to-day. Our scientific leg\nis lusty and grows in strength daily; its fellow member--our thought\nof man and his sorry estate--is capricious and halting. We have not\nrealized the hopes of the eighteenth-century \"illumination\", when\nconfident philosophers believed that humanity was shaking off its\nancient chains; that the clouds of superstition were lifting, and that\nwith the new achievements of science man would boldly and rapidly\nadvance toward hitherto undreamed-of concord and happiness. We can no\nlonger countenance the specious precision of the English classical\nschool of economics, whose premises have been given the lie by further\nthought and experience. We have really to start anew.\n\nThe students of natural phenomena early realized the arduous path they\nhad to travel. They had to escape, above all things, from the past.\nThey perceived that they could look for no help from those whose\nspecial business it was to philosophize and moralize in terms of the\npast. They had to look for light in their own way and in the\ndirections from which they conjectured it might come. Their first\nobject was, as Bacon put it, _light_, not _fruit_. They had to learn\nbefore they could undertake changes, and Descartes is very careful to\nsay that philosophic doubt was not to be carried over to daily\nconduct. This should for the time being conform to accepted standards,\nunenlightened as they might be.\n\nSuch should be the frame of mind of one who seeks insight into human\naffairs. His subject matter is, however, far more intricate and\nunmanageable than that of the natural scientist. Experiment on which\nnatural science has reared itself is by no means so readily applicable\nin studying mankind and its problems. The student of humanity has even\nmore inveterate prejudices to overcome, more inherent and cultivated\nweaknesses of the mind to guard against, than the student of nature.\nLike the early scientists, he has a scholastic tradition to combat. He\ncan look for little help from the universities as now constituted. The\nclergy, although less sensitive in regard to what they find in the\nBible, are still stoutly opposed, on the whole, to any thoroughgoing\ncriticism of the standards of morality to which they are accustomed.\nFew lawyers can view their profession with any considerable degree of\ndetachment. Then there are the now all-potent business interests,\nbacked by the politicians and in general supported by the\necclesiastical, legal, and educational classes. Many of the newspapers\nand magazines are under their influence, since they are become the\nbusiness man's heralds and live off his bounty.\n\nBusiness indeed has almost become our religion; it is defended by the\ncivil government even as the later Roman emperors and the mediaeval\nprinces protected the Church against attack. Socialists and communists\nare the Waldensians and Albigensians of our day, heretics to be cast\nout, suppressed, and deported to Russia, if not directly to hell as of\nold.\n\nThe Secret Service seems inclined to play the part of a modern\nInquisition, which protects our new religion. Collected in its\ninnumerable files is the evidence in regard to suspected heretics who\nhave dared impugn \"business as usual\", or who have dwelt too lovingly\non peace and good will among nations. Books and pamphlets, although no\nlonger burned by the common hangman, are forbidden the mails by\nsomewhat undiscerning officials. We have a pious vocabulary of high\nresentment and noble condemnation, even as they had in the Middle\nAges, and part of it is genuine, if unintelligent, as it was then.\n\nSuch are some of the obstacles which the student of human affairs must\nsurmount. Yet we may hope that it will become increasingly clear that\nthe repression of criticism (even if such criticism becomes\nfault-finding and takes the form of a denunciation of existing habits\nand institutions) is inexpedient and inappropriate to the situation in\nwhich the world finds itself. Let us assume that such people as really\nadvocate lawlessness and disorder should be carefully watched and\nchecked if they promise to be a cause of violence and destruction. But\nis it not possible to distinguish between them and those who question\nand even arraign with some degree of heat the standardized unfairness\nand maladjustments of our times?\n\nAnd there is another class who cannot by any exaggeration be\nconsidered agitators, who have by taking thought come to see that our\nconditions have so altered in the past hundred years and our knowledge\nso increased that the older ways of doing and viewing things are not\nonly unreasonable, but actually dangerous. But so greatly has the\nhysteria of war unsettled the public mind that even this latter class\nis subject to discreditable accusations and some degree of\ninterference.\n\nWe constantly hear it charged that this or that individual or group\nadvocates the violent overthrow of government, is not loyal to the\nConstitution, or is openly or secretly working for the abolition of\nprivate property or the family, or, in general, is supposed to be\neager to \"overturn everything without having anything to put in its\nplace\".\n\nThe historical student may well recommend that we be on our guard\nagainst such accusations brought against groups and individuals. For\nthe student of history finds that it has always been the custom to\ncharge those who happened to be unpopular, with holding beliefs and\ndoing things which they neither believed nor did. Socrates was\nexecuted for corrupting youth and infidelity to the gods; Jesus for\nproposing to overthrow the government; Luther was to the officials of\nhis time one who taught \"a loose, self-willed life, severed from all\nlaws and wholly brutish\".\n\nThose who questioned the popular delusions in regard to witchcraft\nwere declared by clergymen, professors, and judges of the seventeenth\ncentury to be as good as atheists, who shed doubt on the devil's\nexistence in order to lead their godless lives without fear of future\nretribution. How is it possible, in view of this inveterate habit of\nmankind, to accept at its face value what the police or Department of\nJustice, or self-appointed investigators, choose to report of the\nteachings of people who are already condemned in their eyes?\n\nOf course the criticism of accepted ideas is offensive and will long\nremain so. After all, talk and writing are forms of conduct, and, like\nall conduct, are inevitably disagreeable when they depart from the\ncurrent standards of respectable behavior. To talk as if our\nestablished notions of religion, morality, and property, our ideas of\nstealing and killing, were defective and in need of revision, is\nindeed more shocking than to violate the current rules of action. For\nwe are accustomed to actual crimes, misdemeanors, and sins, which are\nhappening all the time, but we will not tolerate any suspected attempt\nto palliate them in theory.\n\nIt is inevitable that new views should appear to the thoughtless to be\njustifications or extenuations of evil actions and an encouragement of\nviolence and rebellion, and that they will accordingly be bitterly\ndenounced. But there is no reason why an increase of intelligence\nshould not put a growing number of us on our guard against this\nancient pitfall.\n\nIf we are courageously to meet and successfully to overcome the\ndangers with which our civilization is threatened, it is clear that we\nneed _more mind_ than ever before. It is also clear that we can have\nindefinitely more mind than we already have if we but honestly desire\nit and avail ourselves of resources already at hand. Mind, as\npreviously defined, is our \"conscious knowledge and intelligence, what\nwe know and our attitude toward it--our disposition to increase our\ninformation, classify it, criticize it, and apply it\". _It is obvious\nthat in this sense the mind is a matter of accumulation and that it\nhas been in the making ever since man took his first step in\ncivilization._ I have tried to suggest the manner in which man's long\nhistory illuminates our plight and casts light on the path to be\nfollowed. And history is beginning to take account of the knowledge of\nman's nature and origin contributed by the biologist and the\nanthropologist and the newer psychologists.\n\nFew people realize the hopeful revolution that is already beginning to\ninfluence the aims and methods of all these sciences of man. No\nprevious generation of thinkers has been so humble on the whole as is\nthat of to-day, so ready to avow their ignorance and to recognize the\ntendency of each new discovery to reveal further complexities in the\nproblem. On the other hand, we are justified in feeling that at last\nwe have the chance to start afresh. We are freer than any previous age\nfrom the various prepossessions and prejudices which we now see\nhampered the so-called \"free\" thinking of the eighteenth century.\n\nThe standards and mood of natural science are having an increasing\ninfluence in stimulating eager research into human nature, beliefs,\nand institutions. With Bacon's recommendations of the study of common\n_things_ the human mind entered a new stage of development. Now that\nhistoric forces have brought the common _man_ to the fore, we are\nsubmitting him to scientific study and gaining thereby that elementary\nknowledge of his nature which needs to be vastly increased and spread\nabroad, since it can form the only possible basis for a successful and\nreal democracy.\n\nI would not have the reader infer that I overrate the place of science\nor exact knowledge in the life of man. Science, which is but the most\naccurate information available about the world in which we live and\nthe nature of ourselves and of our fellow men, is not the whole of\nlife; and except to a few peculiar persons it can never be the most\nabsorbing and vivid of our emotional satisfactions. We are poetic and\nartistic and romantic and mystical. We resent the cold analysis and\nreduction of life to the commonplace and well substantiated--and this\nis after all is said, the aim of scientific endeavor. But we have to\nadjust ourselves to a changing world in the light of constantly\naccumulating knowledge. It is knowledge that has altered the world and\nwe must rely on knowledge and understanding to accommodate ourselves\nto our new surroundings and establish peace and order and security for\nthe pursuit of those things that to most of us are more enticing than\nscience itself.[27]\n\nNo previous generation has been so perplexed as ours, but none has\never been justified in holding higher hopes if it could but reconcile\nitself to making bold and judicious use of its growing resources,\nmaterial and intellectual. _It is fear that holds us back._ And fear\nis begotten of ignorance and uncertainty. And these mutually reinforce\none another, for we feebly try to condone our ignorance by our\nuncertainty and to excuse our uncertainty by our ignorance.\n\nOur hot defense of our ideas and beliefs does not indicate an\nestablished confidence in them but often half-distrust, which we try\nto hide from ourselves, just as one who suffers from bashfulness\noffsets his sense of inferiority and awkwardness by rude aggression.\nIf, for example, religious beliefs had been really firmly established\nthere would have been no need of \"aids to faith\"; and so with our\nbusiness system to-day, our politics and international relations. We\ndread to see things as they would appear if we thought of them\nhonestly, for it is the nature of critical thought to metamorphose our\nfamiliar and approved world into something strange and unfamiliar. It\nis undoubtedly a nervous sense of the precariousness of the existing\nsocial system which accounts for the present strenuous opposition to a\nfair and square consideration of its merits and defects.\n\nPartisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything\nhas two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other. We\nmust be defending or attacking something; only the lily-livered hide\ntheir natural cowardice by asking the impudent question, What is it\nall about? The heroic gird on the armor of the Lord, square their\nshoulders, and establish a muscular tension which serves to dispel\ndoubt and begets the voluptuousness of bigotry and fanaticism.[28] In\nthis mood questions become issues of right and wrong, not of\nexpediency and inexpediency. It has been said that the worthy people\nof Cambridge are able promptly to reduce the most complex social or\neconomic problem to a simple moral issue, and this is a wile of the\nFather of Lies, to which many of us yield readily enough.\n\nIt is, however, possible for the individual to overcome the fear of\nthought. Once I was afraid that men might think too much; now, I only\ndread lest they will think too little and far too timidly, for I now\nsee that real thinking is rare and difficult and that it needs every\nincentive in the face of innumerable ancient and inherent\ndiscouragements and impediments. We must first endeavor manfully to\nfree our own minds and then do what we can to hearten others to free\ntheirs. _Toujours de l'audace!_ As members of a race that has required\nfrom five hundred thousand to a million years to reach its present\nstate of enlightenment, there is little reason to think that anyone of\nus is likely to cultivate intelligence too assiduously or in harmful\nexcess.\n\n\n\n\n17. WHAT OF IT?\n\n\nOur age is one of unprecedented responsibility. As Mr. Lippmann has so\nwell said:\n\n    Never before have we had to rely so completely on ourselves. No\n    guardian to think for us, no precedent to follow without question,\n    no lawmaker above, only ordinary men set to deal with heartbreaking\n    perplexity. All weakness comes to the surface. We are homeless in a\n    jungle of machines and untamed powers that haunt and lure the\n    imagination. Of course our culture is confused, our thinking\n    spasmodic, and our emotion out of kilter. No mariner ever enters\n    upon a more uncharted sea than does the average human being born\n    in the twentieth century. Our ancestors thought they knew their way\n    from birth through all eternity; we are puzzled about day after\n    to-morrow.... It is with emancipation that real tasks begin, and\n    liberty is a searching challenge, for it takes away the guardianship\n    of the master and the comfort of the priest. The iconoclasts did not\n    free us. They threw us into the water, and now we have to swim.[29]\n\nWe must look forward to ever new predicaments and adventures. _Nothing\nis going to be settled in the sense in which things were once supposed\nto be settled, for the simple reason that knowledge will probably\ncontinue to increase and will inevitably alter the world with which we\nhave to make terms_. The only thing that might conceivably remain\nsomewhat stabilized is an attitude of mind and unflagging expectancy\nappropriate to the terms and the rules according to which life's game\nmust hereafter be played. We must promote a new cohesion and\nco-operation on the basis of this truth. And this means that we have\nnow to substitute purpose for tradition, and this is a concise\nstatement of the great revolution which we face.\n\n    Now, when all human institutions so slowly and laboriously evolved\n    are impugned, every consensus challenged, every creed flouted, as\n    much as and perhaps even more than by the ancient Sophists, the\n    call comes to us ... to explore, test, and, if necessary, reconstruct\n    the very bases of conviction, for all open questions are new\n    opportunities. Old beacon lights have shifted or gone out. Some of\n    the issues we lately thought to be minor have taken on cosmic\n    dimensions. We are all \"up against\" questions too big for us, so\n    that there is everywhere a sense of insufficiency which is too deep\n    to be fully deployed in the narrow field of consciousness. Hence,\n    there is a new discontent with old leaders, standards, criteria,\n    methods, and values, and a demand everywhere for new ones, a\n    realization that mankind must now reorient itself and take its\n    bearings from the eternal stars and sail no longer into the unknown\n    future by the dead reckonings of the past.[30]\n\nLife, in short, has become a solemn sporting proposition--solemn\nenough in its heavy responsibilities and the magnitude of the stakes\nto satisfy our deepest religious longings; sporty enough to tickle the\nfancy of a baseball fan or an explorer in darkest Borneo. We can play\nthe game or refuse to play it. At present most of human organization,\ngovernmental, educational, social, and religious, is directed, as it\nalways has been, to holding things down, and to perpetuating beliefs\nand policies which belong to the past and have been but too gingerly\nreadjusted to our new knowledge and new conditions. On the other hand,\nthere are various scientific associations which are bent on revising\nand amplifying our knowledge and are not pledged to keeping alive any\nbelief or method which cannot stand the criticism which comes with\nfurther information. The terrible fear of falling into mere\nrationalizing is gradually extending from the so-called natural\nsciences to psychology, anthropology, politics, and political economy.\nAll this is a cheering response to the new situation.\n\nBut, as has been pointed out, really honest discussion of our social,\neconomic, and political standards and habits readily takes on the\nsuspicion of heresy and infidelity. Just as the \"freethinker\" who, in\nthe eighteenth century, strove to discredit miracles in the name of an\nall-wise and foreseeing God (who could not be suspected of tampering\nwith his own laws), was accused of being an atheist and of really\nbelieving in no God at all; so those who would ennoble our ideals of\nsocial organization are described as \"Intellectuals\" or \"parlor\nBolshevists\" who would overthrow society and all the achievements of\nthe past in order to free themselves from moral and religious\nrestraints and mayhap \"get something for nothing\". The parallel is\nvery exact indeed.\n\nThe Church always argued that there were no new heresies. All would,\non examination, prove to be old and discredited. So the Vice-President\nof the United States has recently declared that:\n\n    Men have experimented with radical theories in great and small ways\n    times without number and always, always with complete failure.\n    They are not new; they are old. Each failure has demonstrated\n    anew that without effort there is no success. The race never gets\n    something for nothing.[31]\n\nBut is this not a complete reversal of the obvious truth? Unless we\ndefine \"radical\" as that which never does succeed, how can anyone with\nthe most elementary notions of history fail to see that almost all the\nthings that we prize to-day represent revolts against tradition, and\nwere in their beginnings what seemed to be shocking divergences from\ncurrent beliefs and practices? What about Christianity, and\nProtestantism, and constitutional government, and the rejection of old\nsuperstitions and the acceptance of modern scientific ideas? The race\nhas always been getting something for nothing, for creative thought\nis, as we have seen, confined to a very few. And it has been the\ncustom to discourage or kill those who prosecuted it too openly, not\nto reward them according to their merits.\n\nOne cannot but wonder at this constantly recurring phrase \"getting\nsomething for nothing\", as if it were the peculiar and perverse\nambition of disturbers of society. Except for our animal outfit,\npractically all we have is handed to us gratis. Can the most\ncomplacent reactionary flatter himself that he invented the art of\nwriting or the printing press, or discovered his religious, economic,\nand moral convictions, or any of the devices which supply him with\nmeat and raiment or any of the sources of such pleasure as he may\nderive from literature or the fine arts? In short, civilization is\nlittle else than getting something for nothing. Like other vested\ninterests, it is \"the legitimate right to something for nothing\".[32]\nHow much execrable reasoning and how many stupid accusations would\nfall away if this truth were accepted as a basis of discussion! Of\ncourse there is no more flagrant example of a systematic endeavor to\nget something for nothing than the present business system based on\nprofits, and absentee ownership of stocks.\n\nSince the invention of printing, and indeed long before, those fearful\nof change have attempted to check criticism by attacking books. These\nwere classified as orthodox or heterodox, moral or immoral,\ntreasonable or loyal, according to their tone. Unhappily this habit\ncontinues and shows itself in the distinction between sound and\nunsound, radical and conservative, safe and dangerous. The sensible\nquestion to ask about a book is obviously whether it makes some\ncontribution to a clearer understanding of our situation by adding or\nreaffirming important considerations and the inferences to be made\nfrom these. Such books could be set off against those that were but\nexpressions of vague discontent or emulation, or denunciations of\nthings because they are as they are or are not as they are not. I have\npersonally little confidence in those who cry lo here or lo there. It\nis premature to advocate any wide sweeping reconstruction of the\nsocial order, although experiments and suggestions should not be\ndiscouraged. What we need first is a change of heart and a chastened\nmood which will permit an ever increasing number of people to see\nthings as they are, in the light of what they have been and what they\nmight be. The dogmatic socialist with his unhistorical assumptions of\nclass struggle, his exaggerated economic interpretation of history,\nand his notion that labor is the sole producer of capital, is shedding\nscarcely more light on the actual situation than is the Lusk Committee\nand Mr. Coolidge, with their confidence in the sacredness of private\nproperty, as they conceive it, in the perennial rightness and\ninspiration of existing authority and the blessedness of the profit\nsystem. But there are plenty of writers, to mention only a few of the\nmore recent ones, like Veblen, Dewey, J. A. Hobson, Tawney, Cole,\nHavelock Ellis, Bertrand Russell, Graham Wallas, who may or may not\nhave (or ever have had) any confidence in the presuppositions and\nforecasts of socialism, whose books do make clearer to any fair-minded\nreader the painful exigencies of our own times.\n\nI often think of the economic historians of, say, two centuries hence\nwho may find time to dig up the vestiges of the economic literature of\nto-day. We may in imagination appeal to their verdicts and in some\ncases venture to forecast them. Many of our writers they will throw\naside as dominated by a desire merely to save the ill-understood\npresent at all costs; others as attempting to realize plans which were\nalready discredited in their own day. Future historians will,\nnevertheless, clearly distinguish a few who, by a sort of persistent\nand ardent detachment, were able to see things close at hand more\nfully and truly than their fellows and endeavored to do what they\ncould to lead their fellows to perceive and reckon with the facts\nwhich so deeply concerned them. Blessed be those who aspire to win\nthis glory. On the monument erected to Bruno on the site where he was\nburned for seeing more clearly than those in authority in his days, is\nthe simple inscription, \"Raised to Giordano Bruno by the generation\nwhich he foresaw.\"\n\nWe are all purblind, but some are blinder than others who use the\nvarious means available for sharpening their eyesight. As an onlooker\nit seems to me safe to say that the lenses recommended by both the\n\"radicals\" and their vivid opponents rather tend to increase than\ndiminish our natural astigmatism.\n\nThose who agree, on the whole, at least, with the _facts_ brought\ntogether in this essay and, on the whole, with the main _inferences_\nsuggested either explicitly or implicitly, will properly begin to\nwonder how our educational system and aims are to be so rearranged\nthat coming generations may be better prepared to understand the\ncondition of human life and to avail themselves of its possibilities\nmore fully and guard against its dangers more skillfully than previous\ngenerations. There is now widespread discontent with our present\neducational methods and their elaborate futility; but it seems to me\nthat we are rather rarely willing to face the fundamental difficulty,\nfor it is obviously so very hard to overcome. _We do not dare to be\nhonest enough to tell boys and girls and young men and women what\nwould be most useful to them in an age of imperative social\nreconstruction._\n\nWe have seen that the ostensible aims of education are various,[33]\nand that among them is now included the avowed attempt to prepare the\nyoung to play their part later as voting citizens. If they are to do\nbetter than preceding generations they must be brought up differently.\nThey would have to be given a different general attitude toward\ninstitutions and ideals; instead of having these represented to them\nas standardized and sacred they should be taught to view them as\nrepresenting half-solved problems. But how can we ever expect to\ncultivate the judgment of the young in matters of fundamental social,\neconomic, and political readjustment when we consider the really\ndominating forces in education? But even if these restraints were\nweakened or removed, the task would remain a very delicate one. Even\nwith teachers free and far better informed than they are, it would be\nno easy thing to cultivate in the young a justifiable admiration for\nthe achievements and traditional ideals of mankind and at the same\ntime develop the requisite knowledge of the prevailing abuses,\nculpable stupidity, common dishonesty, and empty political buncombe,\nwhich too often passes for statesmanship.\n\nBut the problem has to be tackled, and it may be tackled directly or\nindirectly. The direct way would be to describe as realistically as\nmight be the actual conditions and methods, and their workings, good\nand bad. If there were better books than are now available it would be\npossible for teachers tactfully to show not only how government is\nsupposed to run, but how it actually is run. There are plenty of\nreports of investigating committees, Federal and state, which furnish\nauthentic information in regard to political corruption, graft, waste,\nand incompetency. These have not hitherto been supposed to have\nanything to do with the _science_ of government, although they are\nobviously absolutely essential to an _understanding_ of it. Similar\nreflections suggest themselves in the matter of business,\ninternational relations, and race animosities. But so long as our\nschools depend on appropriations made by politicians, and colleges and\nuniversities are largely supported by business men or by the state,\nand are under the control of those who are bent on preserving the\nexisting system from criticism, it is hard to see any hope of a kind\nof education which would effectively question the conventional notions\nof government and business. They cannot be discussed with sufficient\nhonesty to make their consideration really medicinal. We laud the\nbrave and outspoken and those supposed to have the courage of their\nconvictions--but only when these convictions are acceptable or\nindifferent to us. Otherwise, honesty and frankness become mere\nimpudence.[34]\n\nNo doubt politics and economics could be taught, and are being taught,\nbetter as time goes on. Neither of them are so utterly unreal and\nirrelevant to human proceedings as they formerly were. There is no\nreason why a teacher of political economy should not describe the\nactual workings of the profit system of industry with its restraints\non production and its dependence on the engineer, and suggest the\npossibility of gathering together capital from functionless absentee\nstockholders on the basis of the current rate of interest rather than\nspeculative dividends. The actual conditions of the workers could be\ndescribed, their present precarious state, the inordinate and wasteful\nprevalence of hiring and firing; the policy of the unions, and their\ndefensive and offensive tactics. Every youngster might be given some\nglimmering notion that neither \"private property\" nor \"capital\" is the\nreal issue (since few question their essentiality) but rather the new\nproblem of supplying other than the traditional motives for industrial\nenterprise--namely, the slave-like docility and hard compulsion of the\ngreat masses of workers, on the one hand, and speculative profits, on\nthe other, which now dominate in our present business system. For the\nexisting organization is not only becoming more and more patently\nwasteful, heartless, and unjust, but is beginning, for various\nreasons, to break down. In short, whatever the merits of our present\nways of producing the material necessities and amenities of life, it\nlooks to many as if they could not succeed indefinitely, even as well\nas they have in the past, without some fundamental revision.\n\nAs for political life, a good deal would be accomplished if students\ncould be habituated to distinguish successfully between the empty\ndeclamations of politicians and statements of facts, between vague\nparty programs and concrete recommendations and proposals. They should\nearly learn that language is not primarily a vehicle of ideas and\ninformation, but an emotional outlet, corresponding to various\ncooings, growlings, snarls, crowings, and brayings. Their attention\ncould be invited to the rhetoric of the bitter-enders in the Senate or\nthe soothing utterances of Mr. Harding on accepting the nomination for\nPresident:\n\n\"With a Senate advising as the Constitution contemplates, I would\nhopefully approach the nations of Europe and of the earth, proposing\nthat understanding which makes us a willing participant in the\nconsecration of nations to a new relationship, to commit the moral\nforces of the world, America included, to peace and international\njustice, still leaving America free, independent, self-reliant, but\noffering friendship to all the world. If men call for more specific\ndetails, I remind them that moral committals are broad and\nall-inclusive, and we are contemplating peoples in the concord of\nhumanity's advancement.\"\n\nAfter mastering the difference between language used to express facts\nand purposes and that which amounts to no more than a pious\nejaculation, a suave and deprecating gesture, or an inferential\naccusation directed against the opposing party, the youth should be\ninstructed in the theory and practice of party fidelity and the\neffects of partisanship on the conduct of our governmental affairs. In\nfine, he should get some notion of the motives and methods of those\nwho really run our government, whether he learned anything else or\nnot.\n\nThese _direct_ attempts to produce a more intelligently critical and\nopen-minded generation are, however, likely to be far less feasible\nthan the _indirect_ methods. Partly because they will arouse strenuous\nopposition from the self-appointed defenders of society as now\nregulated, and partly because no immediate inspection of habits and\ninstitutions is so instructive as a study of their origin and progress\nand a comparison of them with other forms of social adjustment. I hope\nthat it has already become clear that we have great, and hitherto only\nvery superficially worked, resources in History, as it is now coming\nto be conceived.\n\nWe are in the midst of the greatest intellectual revolution that has\never overtaken mankind. Our whole conception of mind is undergoing a\ngreat change. We are beginning to understand its nature, and as we\nfind out more, intelligence may be raised to a recognized dignity and\neffectiveness which it has never enjoyed before. An encouraging\nbeginning has been made in the case of the natural sciences, and a\nsimilar success may await the studies which have to do with the\ncritical estimate of man's complicated nature, his fundamental\nimpulses and resources, the needless and fatal repressions which these\nhave suffered through the ignorance of the past, and the discovery of\nuntried ways of enriching our existence and improving our relations\nwith our fellow men.\n\nThere[35] is a well-known passage in Goethe's \"Faust\" where he likens\nHistory to the Book with Seven Seals described in Revelation, which no\none in heaven, or on the earth or under the earth, was able to open\nand read therein. All sorts of guesses have been hazarded as to its\ncontents by Augustine, Orosius, Otto of Freising, Bossuet,\nBolingbroke, Voltaire, Herder, Hegel, and many others, but none of\nthem were able to break the seals, and all of them were gravely misled\nby their fragmentary knowledge of the book's contents. For we now see\nthat the seven seals were seven great ignorances. No one knew much (1)\nof man's physical nature, or (2) the workings of his thoughts and\ndesires, or (3) of the world in which he lives, or (4) of how he has\ncome about as a race, or (5) of how he develops as an individual from\na tiny egg, or (6) how deeply and permanently he is affected by the\noften forgotten impressions of infancy and childhood, or (7) how his\nancestors lived for hundreds of thousands of years in the dark\nignorance of savagery.\n\nThe seals are all off now. The book at last lies open before those who\nare capable of reading it, and few they be as yet; for most of us\nstill cling to the guesses made in regard to its contents before\nanyone knew what was in it. We have become attached to the familiar\nold stories which now prove to be fictions, and we find it hard to\nreconcile ourselves to the many hard sayings which the book proves to\ncontain--its constant stress on the stupidity of \"good\" people; its\nscorn for the respectable and normal, which it often reduces to little\nmore than sanctimonious routine and indolence and pious resentment at\nbeing disturbed in one's complacent assurances. Indeed, much of its\nteaching appears downright immoral according to existing standards.\n\nOne awful thing that the Book of the Past makes plain is that with our\nanimal heritage we are singularly oblivious to the large concerns of\nlife. We are keenly sensitive to little discomforts, minor\nirritations, wounded vanity, and various danger signals; but our\ncomprehension is inherently vague and listless when it comes to\ngrasping intricate situations and establishing anything like a fair\nperspective in life's problems and possibilities. Our imagination is\nrestrained by our own timidity, constantly reinforced by the warnings\nof our fellows, who are always urging us to be safe and sane, by which\nthey mean convenient for them, predictable in our conduct and\ngraciously amenable to the prevailing standards.\n\nBut it is obvious that it is increasingly dangerous to yield to this\ninveterate tendency, however comfortable and respectable it may seem\nfor the moment.\n\nHistory, as H. G. Wells has so finely expressed it, is coming more and\nmore to be \"a race between education and catastrophe. Our internal\npolicies and our economic and social ideas are profoundly vitiated at\npresent by wrong and fantastic ideas of the origin and historical\nrelationship of social classes. A sense of history as the common\nadventure of all mankind is as necessary for peace within as it is for\npeace between the nations\". There can be no secure peace now but a\ncommon peace of the whole world; no prosperity but a general\nprosperity, and this for the simple reason that we are all now brought\nso near together and are so pathetically and intricately\ninterdependent, that the old notions of noble Isolation and national\nsovereignty are magnificently criminal.\n\nIn the bottom of their hearts, or the depths of their unconscious, do\nnot the conservatively minded realize that their whole attitude toward\nthe world and its betterment is based on an assumption that finds no\nleast support in the Great Book of the Past? Does it not make plain\nthat the \"conservative\", so far as he is consistent and lives up to\nhis professions, is fatally in the wrong? The so-called \"radical\" is\nalso almost always wrong, for no one can foresee the future. But he\nworks on a right assumption--namely, that the future has so far always\nproved different from the past and that it will continue to do so.\nSome of us, indeed, see that the future is tending to become more and\nmore rapidly and widely different from the past. The conservative\nhimself furnishes the only illustration of his theory, and even that\nis highly inconclusive. His general frame of mind appears to remain\nconstant, but he finds himself defending and rejecting very different\nthings. The great issue may, according to the period, be a primeval\ntaboo, the utterances of the Delphic oracle, the Athanasian creed, the\nInquisition, the geocentric theory, monarchy by the grace of God,\nwitchcraft, slavery, war, capitalism, private property, or noble\nisolation. All of these tend to appear to the conservative under the\naspect of eternity, but all of these things have come, many of them\nhave gone, and the remainder would seem to be subject to undreamed-of\nmodifications as time goes on. This is the teaching of the now\nunsealed book.\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n[27] Mr. James Branch Cabell has in his _Beyond Life_ defended man's\nromantic longings and inexorable craving to live part of the time at\nleast in a world far more sweetly molded to his fancy than that of\nnatural science and political economy. There is no reason why man\nshould live by bread alone. There is a time, however, for natural\nscience and political economy, for they should establish the\nconditions in which we may rejoice in our vital lies, which will then\ndo no harm and bring much joy.\n\n[28] The relation of our kinesthesia or muscular sense to fanaticism\non the one hand and freedom of mind on the other is a matter now\nbeginning to be studied with the promise of highly important results.\n\n[29] _Drift and Mastery_, pp. 196-197.\n\n[30] G. Stanley Hall, \"The Message of the Zeitgeist\", in _Scientific\nMonthly_, August, 1921--a very wonderful and eloquent appeal by one of\nour oldest and boldest truth seekers.\n\n[31] _Delineator_, August, 1921, p. II.\n\n[32] Adopting Mr. Veblen's definition of a vested interest which\ncaused some scandal in conservative circles when it was first\nreported. Doubtless the seeming offensiveness of the latter part of\nthe definition obscured its reassuring beginning.\n\n[33] See Section 2 above.\n\n[34] The wise Goethe has said, _\"Zieret St\u00e4rke den Mann und freies,\nmuthiges Wesen, O, so ziemet ihm fast tiefes Geheimniss noch mehr\"_,\n--R\u00f6mische Elegien, xx.\n\n[35] The closing reflections are borrowed from _The Leaflet_, issued\nby the students of the New School for Social Research, established in\nNew York in 1919, with a view of encouraging adults to continue their\nstudies in the general spirit and mood which permeate this essay.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nSOME SUGGESTIONS IN REGARD TO READING\n\n\nIt may happen that among the readers of this essay there will be some\nwho will ask how they can most readily get a clearer idea of the\nvarious newer ways of looking at mankind and the problems of the day.\nThe following list of titles is furnished with a view of doing\nsomething to meet this demand. It is not a bibliography in the usual\nsense of the term. It is confined to rather short and readily\nunderstandable presentations appropriate to the overcrowded schedule\nupon which most of us have to operate. All the writers mentioned\nbelong, however, to that rather small class whose opinions are worth\nconsidering, even if one reserves the imprescriptible right not to\nagree with all they say. There may well be better references than\nthose with which I happen to be acquainted, and others quite as\nuseful; but I can hardly imagine anyone, whatever his degree of\ninformation, unless he happens to be a specialist in the particular\nfield, failing to gain something of value from any one of the volumes\nmentioned.\n\nFor the astounding revelations in regard to the fundamental nature of\nmatter and the ways in which the modern chemist plays with it, see\nJohn Mills, _Within the Atom_ (D. Van Nostrand Company), and Slosson,\n_Creative Chemistry_ (The Century Company).\n\nA general account of the evolutionary process will be found in\nCrampton, _The Doctrine of Evolution_ (Columbia University Press),\nchaps, i-v. For our development as an individual from the egg see\nConklin, _Heredity and Environment_ (Princeton University Press).\n\nThe general scope of modern anthropology and the influence of this\nstudy on our notions of mankind as we now find it can be gathered from\nGoldenweiser, _Early Civilization, Introduction to Anthropology_\n(Knopf). This should be supplemented by the remarkable volume of\nessays by Franz Boas, _The Mind of Primitive Man_ (Macmillan).\n\nOf the more recent and easily available books relating to the\nreconstruction of philosophy and the newer conceptions in regard to\nmind and intelligence the following may be mentioned: Dewey,\n_Reconstruction in Philosophy_ and _Human Nature and Conduct_ (Holt);\nWoodworth, _Dynamic Psychology_ (Columbia University Press); _Trotter,\nInstincts of the Herd in Peace and War_ (Macmillan)--especially the\nfirst two sections, pp. 1-65; Bernard Hart, _The Psychology of\nInsanity_ (Putnam), an admirable little introduction to the importance\nof abnormal mental conditions in understanding our usual thoughts and\nemotions; McDougall, _Social Psychology_ (J. W. Luce); Everett D.\nMartin, _The Behavior of Crowds_ (Harpers); Edman, _Human Traits_\n(Houghton-Mifflin). For the so-called behavioristic interpretation of\nmankind, see Watson, _Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist_\n(Lippincott). Haldane, _Mechanism, Life, and Personality_ (Dutton), is\na short discussion of some of the most fundamental elements in our\nmodern conception of life itself.\n\nWhen it comes to gaining an idea of \"Freudianism\" and all the\noverwhelming discoveries, theories, and suggestions due to those who\nhave busied themselves with the lasting effects of infantile and\nchildish experiences, of hidden desires--sexual and otherwise, of \"the\nUnconscious\" and psychoanalysis, while there are many books, great and\nsmall, there would be no unanimity of opinion among those somewhat\nfamiliar with the subjects as to what should be recommended. It would\nbe well if everyone could read in Havelock Ellis, _The Philosophy of\nConflict_ (Houghton-Mifflin), the essay (XVIII) on Freud and his\ninfluence. Wilfred Lay, _Man's Unconscious Conflict_ (Dodd, Mead), is\na popular exposition of psychoanalysis, and Tansley, _The New\nPsychology_ (Dodd, Mead), likewise. Harvey O'Higgins, _The Secret\nSprings_ (Harpers), reports, in a pleasing manner, some of the actual\nmedical experiences of Dr. Edward Reede of Washington. But much of\nimportance remains unsaid in all these little books for which one\nwould have to turn to Freud himself, his present and former disciples,\nhis enemies, and the special contributions of investigators and\npractitioners in this new and essential field of psychological\nresearch and therapy.\n\nTurning to the existing industrial system, its nature, defects, and\nrecommendations for its reform, I may say that I think that relatively\nlittle is to be derived from the common run of economic textbooks. The\nfollowing compendious volumes give an analysis of the situation and a\nconsideration of the proposed remedies for existing evils and\nmaladjustments: Veblen, _The Vested Interests and the Common Man_,\nalso his _The Engineers and the Price System_ (Huebsch); J. A. Hobson,\n_Democracy after the War_ (Macmillan) and his more recent _Problems of\na New World_ (Macmillan); Tawney, _The Acquisitive Society_ (Harcourt,\nBrace); Bertrand Russell, _Why Men Fight_ (Century) and his _Proposed\nRoads to Freedom_ (Holt), in which he describes clearly the history\nand aims of the various radical leaders and parties of recent times.\n\nAs for newer views and criticism of the modern state and political\nlife in general, in addition to Mr. Hobson's books mentioned above,\nthe following are of importance: Graham Wallas, _The Great Society_\n(Macmillan); Harold Laski, _Authority in the Modern State_ and\n_Problems of Sovereignty_ (Yale University Press); Walter Lippmann,\n_Preface to Politics_ and _Drift and Mastery_ (Holt).\n\nJ. Russell Smith, _The World's Food Resources_ (Holt), is a larger and\nmore detailed discussion than most of those recommended above, but\ncontains a number of general facts and comment of first-rate\nimportance.\n\nOne who desires a highly thoughtful and scholarly review of the trend\nof religious thought in recent times should read McGiffert, _The Rise\nof Modern Religious Ideas_ (Macmillan).","title":"The Mind in the Making: The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":45737}