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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/77481-0.txt b/77481-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..29356e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8850 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77481 *** + + + + +THE MISBEHAVIORISTS + + + + + THE MISBEHAVIORISTS + + PSEUDO-SCIENCE + AND THE MODERN TEMPER + + BY + HARVEY WICKHAM + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + LINCOLN MAC VEAGH · THE DIAL PRESS + LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY + TORONTO + 1928 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY DIAL PRESS INCORPORATED + + MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. + + + + + TO ALL ENQUIRING MINDS, AND TO THOSE DISTURBED + BY THE APPARENT LOGIC IN MANY + CURRENT THEORIES HOSTILE TO THEIR + DEAREST CONVICTIONS, THIS BOOK IS + DEDICATED + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I--THE MODERN TEMPER 13 + + CHAPTER II--BEHAVIORISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A PSYCHOLOGIST 22 + 1. The Missing Mr. Mind 22 + 2. An Undecided Synapse 35 + 3. Eliza Does not Cross the Ice 43 + 4. Tinks! Tinks! Kwaks! Kwaks! 54 + + CHAPTER III--DR. MCDOUGALL’S X 67 + 1. At the Beck of Thirteen Masters 67 + 2. Psyche Wields the Broom 79 + + CHAPTER IV--A SLAVE TO DREAMS 88 + 1. The Confessions of Sigmund Freud 88 + 2. The Elaboration of a Fiction 104 + 3. Two Oft-Thwarted Passions 108 + 4. More Suppositions 117 + 5. Freud the Metaphysician 129 + + CHAPTER V--THE FAIRY HALLS OF SCIENCE 139 + 1. The Idols of the Tribe 139 + 2. Some Nebulous Matters 150 + 3. The Bed of Procrustes 159 + 4. The New Physics 164 + 5. Chance 174 + + CHAPTER VI--THE FAMILY TREE 186 + 1. Are Monkeys People? 186 + 2. Burbanking the Human Race 201 + 3. Salvation by Who’s Who 213 + + CHAPTER VII--THIS UNBELIEVING WORLD 225 + 1. Dorsey 225 + 2. The Brazen Bough 242 + 3. St. Paul as Scapegoat 258 + 4. The Church as Scapegoat 267 + 5. The Stories of Duran 280 + + CHAPTER VIII--THE ANCIENT TEMPER 292 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PORTRAIT OF TO FACE PAGE + + DR. JOHN WATSON 56 + “Give me the baby” + + PROFESSOR WILLIAM MCDOUGALL 74 + Are we trying to say something? + + DR. SIGMUND FREUD 104 + He tells us his dreams + + ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM 202 + The Devil take the hindmost! + + DR. GEORGE A. DORSEY 238 + “We do not use the brains we have” + + LEWIS BROWNE 250 + Stranger than fiction + + WILL DURANT 280 + Almost an institution + + + + +THE MISBEHAVIORISTS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE MODERN TEMPER + + +The past appears to be dead. + +“If the world of poetry, mythology and religion represents the world +as man would like to have it, while science represents the world as he +gradually comes to discover it, we need only compare the two to realize +how irreconcilable they appear,” says Joseph Wood Krutch, associate +editor of _The Nation_ and the author of a biography of Poe, writing +in _The Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1927. “The romantic ideal of +a world well lost for love, and the classic ideal of austere dignity +seem equally ridiculous, equally meaningless when referred, not to the +temper of the past, but the temper of the present.” + +Hilaire Belloc is equally insistent as to the existence of this modern +temper, for he remarks in the course of some “Cheerful Thoughts on +Christmas.”[1] + +“I think it foolish to disguise from ourselves the plain fact that, +in the societies which abandoned the Faith in the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries, the last supports of Christian doctrine are +breaking down very rapidly indeed. Of the doctrines themselves there is +little left ... while the minority, which still feel some attachment +to some few of these doctrines, feel that attachment in a decreasing +degree and more and more as a vague, dissolving sentiment; less and +less as a principle. + +“The old feeling that the doctrines were sacred and intangible, and +that attack upon them was intolerable, has so utterly passed that the +modern generation does not even understand it.... There has been hardly +any defense, hardly any resistance; the last remainder of the creed ... +has been allowed to slip away unnoticed like the last few coins of a +fortune dissipated by a man so debauched as to have lost his memory.” + +Both Belloc and Krutch, it will be observed, agree that the world has +changed--that is, that the popular idea as to what life really is, +has changed. They differ only as to the sentiment with which the mass +of the population are supposed to regard the alterations which have +taken place in the view. Belloc, who is a Catholic, believes that +Protestants at least are quite satisfied to have lost the world of +“poetry, mythology and religion”; have in fact “allowed it to slip away +unnoticed.” Krutch, the radical editor, suggests that there has been a +struggle, that science has forced man to give up the world as he would +like to have it and to accept the world as he has gradually come to +discover it--not by making the lost world undesirable, but by making it +seem ridiculous and without actuality. + +Krutch, I think, is right, in so far as the vast majority are +concerned. They have resisted, Protestants as well as Catholics, +and many who are neither Catholic nor Protestant but merely lovers +of tradition and of the classic ideal of austere dignity and of the +romantic ideal of a world well lost for love. They have struggled. +They still struggle. But there is an ever increasing demand from some +quarters that the struggle be given up in despair. + +Now if science indeed represents the world as man gradually comes to +discover it--that is, if science represents the world as it is; and if +the testimony of scientists as to the nature of this reality be fairly +uniform and uncontradictory, with a growing unanimity promising to +bring an eventual unison out of such discords as may still exist, then +the only thing for the sensible citizen to do is to let the dead past +bury its dead, turn from the grave with as little moaning as possible, +and adapt himself with all speed to changed conditions. The advice, +“Do it now!” is being hurled at him. Why should he not heed it? Nobody +wants to be a mere reactionary, still less to live in a fool’s paradise. + +But does science represent the world as the world really is? Can we +say that there is any likelihood of the scientific picture being +more photographically perfect than is, or was, the romantic picture? +Are scientists in agreement, so that there is little or no choice or +opinion offered? Are their theories themselves logically consistent? +What, precisely, is science? And finally, have its findings been +faithfully reported to us? + +These are some of the questions which this book attempts to answer. +But before plunging merrily into such a task it may be well to pause +and consider yet further the testimony of Belloc. He may be mistaken +as to people in general, but he is almost incredibly correct in regard +to a small but very influential body of conspicuous persons who may +be described as the Materialistic Philosophers. Scientists some of +them call themselves, and scientists they are--of a sort. But as +they permit themselves to be perpetually hag-ridden by questions of +eschatology--doctrines relating to that ultimate dim Thule towards +which the whole creation does or does not move--philosophy is what they +chiefly have to offer, no matter by what other name they seek to give +it a more modern and therefore presumably sweeter odor. + +The ultimate nature of things engrosses them, and just how little they +struggle against the threatened loss of a world of poetry, mythology +and religion may be seen by a quotation taken at random, or, to be +more specific, from “The Mechanist Conception of Life,” by a veritable +general in the materialistic army, Prof. Jacques Loeb, formerly of the +University of California. + +“Our wishes and hopes, disappointments and sufferings,” he says, +“have their source in the instincts which are comparable to the light +instincts of the heliotropic animals.” + +A tropism, it should perhaps be explained for the benefit of the older +generation, is a tendency to move toward or away from any external +object, the operation being carried out by means of chemical and +mechanical changes within the subject. Thus the heliotrope, which +always strives to turn towards the sun, got its name. It is said to be +positively tropic to light. Prof. Loeb, however, seems to be negatively +tropic in this regard, for he continues: + +“The need of the struggle for food, the sexual instinct with its poetry +and its chain of consequences, the maternal instincts with the felicity +and the suffering caused by them ... are the roots from which our inner +life develops. For some of these instincts, the chemical basis is at +least sufficiently indicated to arouse the hope that their analysis +from the mechanistic point of view is only a question of time.” + +“Hope,” he says. The second of the virtues, once set between Faith +and Charity, is here involved to express the author’s reaction to the +prospect that some day all the movements of the inner life may be +reduced to the level of so many warping planks exposed to variations +in humidity and to changing temperatures. The modern temper, as it +exists in the minds of those who seek to create and control it, +certainly seems to have become emotionally adjusted to an abandonment +of the classic idea of dignity. Heretofore man has based his pride +chiefly upon his intelligence, the freedom of his will, his possession +of a soul, and his conviction that he was made in the image of God. But +according to the materialists, no mind, no will, no soul exists, and +God is merely the “behavior of the universe.”[2] + +“There is no such thing as mind in the old sense of the word,” says J. +B. Eggen.[3] And what is it in the new sense of the word? “It cannot be +considered as ... separate from the body,” Mr. Eggen goes on. Is it the +brain, then--the brain in the old sense of the word? By no means. “The +mind is not a thing with which we react, it is a form of reaction. We +do not think with our brain; there is nothing inside the brain but a +lot of neurones.” + +The mind cannot be considered as separate from the body, neither do we +think without brain. With what, then, do we think? Obviously we do not +think at all in the old sense of the word. Thinking, we are about to be +told, is only a collection of motions. And he who “thinks” the theory +cannot be made plausible has yet to read Eggen’s illustrious masters. +But is this science? That same science which has transformed the +appearance of the world and given us the telegraph, the telephone, the +phonograph, the automobile, the electric light, the air-plane, radio, +and television? We shall see. + +“The Approaching Crisis” would seem to be well named, and in it Mr. +Wieman, who is also the author of “Religious Experience and the +Scientific Method,” informs us that the decline of religion has been +largely due to its “inadequate adjustment to scientific method and +discovery.” Adding, “At the present time it is research in the field +of psychology and sociology which is demanding a transformation in our +thinking,”--that is, in our notions. Psychology is unquestionably the +most popular form of that “challenge to fundamental beliefs” of which +so much is heard. And Dr. John B. Watson, editor of the _Journal of +Experimental Psychology_, and formerly Professor of Psychology at Johns +Hopkins, makes all former challenges seem weak, for he says--in the +first chapter of his “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist”: + +“Psychology, up to very recent times, has been held so rigidly under +the dominance both of traditional religion and of philosophy--the two +great bulwarks of medievalism--that it has never been able to free +itself and become a science.... In the late sixties an attempt was +made” to make it such. “The boast was voiced that psychology ... had +become a science without a soul--that is, a natural science.” But +“notwithstanding the many laboratories here and abroad, it has never +been able to substantiate this claim.... The psychology begun by Wundt +has failed to become a science,”--apparently because some remnants of +soul still cling to it. And Dr. Watson concludes, “Before progress +could be made in astronomy, it had to bury astrology; neurology had +to bury phrenology; and chemistry had to bury alchemy. But the social +sciences, psychology, sociology, political science and economics, will +not bury their medicine men.” + +He is speaking, of course, of psychology prior to Dr. Watson, of the +psychology of Wundt, which resulted in the Binet intelligence tests. +This in its day was considered a very materialistic psychology indeed, +superseding the psychology of the William James or the Herbert Spencer +type, which also in its day voiced the boast that it was a science, +tough, and without bowels of compassion. How rapidly we progress. James +lived until 1910, Spencer until 1903. It was not until 1912, when, +according to Dr. Watson, “behaviorism first showed its head,” that +the burying of the medicine men began. And two years later came the +War! The boast can now be voiced without fear of contradiction that +psychology has no soul. + +Still if it be true science, and if science be but another name for +reality, I for one am going to get at the burying of my own medicine +men without further delay. I notice a considerable amount of such +burying going on about me. Men are hurrying with the work as if afraid +of being caught with a corpse or two on their hands and undisposed of. +A sort of terror is stalking through the land, afflicting especially +the writers of books and magazine articles--the terror of not being +able to keep up with the Joneses in their employment of the undertaker. +The famous Experimental Method, but late a fugitive, hounded from hole +to corner and from corner to hole, has found influence and capital. It +wields a big stick, or at least a big stick is being wielded in its +name. + +It was once said, “Wisdom crieth in the streets, How long ye simple +ones will ye love simplicity?” And now a voice, still purporting to be +Wisdom’s, fairly yells: “Bring us your dead!” One would think that a +pestilence was abroad. Possibly there is. Formerly men bowed down to +the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up, or cast their babes +before the car of Juggernaut. Today they would rather die, some of +them, than be found obstructing the wheels of progress. Science, grown +rich, has acquired such prestige as was once accorded only to Cæsar. + +And no wonder. It has given us Copernicus, Galileo, Galvani, Volta, +Faraday, Pasteur, the Curies, Edison, Marconi, Westinghouse, Burbank, +and thousands of others--men for the most part personally poor, but +adding without measure to the material wealth of the world. If all +these men are back of the big stick; if it be they who bid us give up +our God, our souls, wills and even our minds, ordering us to become +accustomed to the idea that we are but machines--and if in doing so +they are sticking to their business and not wandering off into fields +they have failed to make their own, it might (perhaps) be folly to +disobey. + +But let us first make certain as to whose voice is on the air. We +have, all of us, a few more or less cherished beliefs. We have grown +up leaning upon--call them props and crutches if you will. Some of us +have even been riveted to moral scruples which, when we try to go in a +direction they forbid, dog us with the clanking hinderance of a ball +and chain. We doubt if we could continue to be good citizens without +them. We do not even know if good citizens, in the old sense of the +word, are any longer desired. Without our props we are likely simply to +fall--and we have never yet seen people walking upright without props +of some sort. We actually doubt the advisability of trying to progress +on all fours. + +There are new props, better than the old? Good! Let us see them. Let +us test them, and make sure that they be indeed from science’s own +workshop. And having mentioned the Watson brand of artificial limb, we +may as well begin by experimenting with that, finding out by what still +waters and into what green pastures we may wander with its aid. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _America_, December, 4, 1926. + +[2] “The Approaching Crisis,” by Henry Nelson Wieman, teacher of +philosophy at Occidental College, Los Angeles, _Century Magazine_, +November, 1926. + +[3] _Current History_, September, 1926. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +BEHAVIORISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A PSYCHOLOGIST + + +1. THE MISSING MR. MIND + +Dr. Watson practically begins his best known book, “Psychology from +the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” with the statement that he is not +concerned with problems of consciousness. And one at first understands +him to mean that in his capacity of behaviorist he is not concerned +with problems of this sort. He knows as a human being, one supposes, +that he is alive. He does not, presumably, address his books to people +in a state of coma. So it would seem that, as a man, he is concerned +not only with his own consciousness but with the consciousness of +others; that he is like the judge who knew something when off the Bench +but refused to know it when on. + +As we read, however, this kindly interpretation becomes untenable. + +“Consciousness ... is but an indefinable phrase.... Even if [objective +proofs of consciousness] existed, they would exist as isolated, +unmeasurable ‘mental curiosities.’... The behaviorist finds no +evidence for ‘mental existences’ or ‘mental processes’ of any kind.... +If behaviorism is ever to stand for anything ... it must make a +clean break with the whole concept of consciousness.” Our thinking +processes “are not different in essence from tennis-playing, swimming, +or any other activity.... Meaning ... never arises in the scientific +observation of behavior.” + +Thus far he goes in this one book. In a previous volume[4] he merely +concluded that “one can assume either the presence or absence of +consciousness ... without affecting the problems of behavior by one +jot or one tittle.” But in “The Myth of the Unconscious”[5] he throws +subterfuge to the winds and says plainly: + +“The behaviorist finds no ‘mind’ in his laboratories, sees it nowhere +in his subjects ... if the behaviorists are right, then ... _there can +be no such thing as consciousness_.” + +Why? Because “personality ... is the reaction-mass as a whole.” Can you +put marbles in a bag and shake them till the mass of their reactions +becomes aware of itself? Obviously not. Accepting for the sake of +argument the definition of personality as it appears from the Watson +“standpoint,”--there is no argument. Logic leads us straight into +nothing. This is also the conclusion of J. S. Moore, who contends +that _content_ when accented upon the first syllable signifies merely +_context_--not the thing inside (there is no thing inside) but the +things around it. Which makes it clear that I have been guilty of gross +presumption in even trying to attach meaning to “psychology from the +standpoint of a behaviorist.” + +This may sound like an attempt to be funny, to make cheap humor out of +random extracts from a book half or not at all understood, but whether +I understand psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist or not, I +was never more serious in my life. Not only Dr. Watson but many other +adult men are solemnly asking us with perfectly straight faces if we +dare to call not our souls but ourselves our own. And if we nod an +affirmative, they smile in their beards, and imply that we must have +lacked early advantages. + +But it will be urged it cannot be that so large a number of university +professors have gone mad. They must have some way of deceiving +themselves. And indeed they have. Metaphysics has been defined as +the art of befuddling one’s self methodically, and of metaphysics of +this sort none are so fond as those who decry metaphysics altogether. +“Reaction-mass as a whole” sounds like a reasonable expression, does it +not? Abstractions always do. And yet reactions can have no mass. They +are only movements, not the things which move. Try and get any meat out +of a movement and see what you have for dinner. + +But these fallacies do not usually travel alone. Watsonianism in +particular is fond of the company of facts. It mixes up Behaviorism, +as a mere study of behavior, in a vast confusion of Psychology, +Physiology, Ethics and irreligion. It seeks now to blind us with +passion, now to swamp us in detail--lest we remember what we are +talking about. + +Thus Dr. Watson’s great book bristles with facts--pages and pages of +them taken straight from physiology. He divides our bodies into three +groups of parts, according to function--receptors, conductors and +effectors. The receptors receive impressions from the outer world and +are nothing but our old friends, the five senses--eyes, ears, nose, the +taste-buds of the tongue, and those areas (chiefly of cuticle) which +are sensitive to touch. The conductors are the nerves. The effectors, +or the bringers about of effects, are the muscles and glands. Now +the glands, at least those of the endocrine or ductless variety, are +comparatively new-comers in the world of knowledge. But the other +things are as familiar as doctors’ bills. There have been changes in +nomenclature, nothing more. + +Yet these changes are significant. Receptors take the place of the +senses because (in all seriousness) the behaviorist wishes to get rid +of that hateful word “sense” and its implications. A similar motive +must have been active when it came to naming the secretions from the +ductless glands. They used to be called Hormones, meaning “I stir up.” +This no doubt was objectionable, because some of the hormones do not +stir us up; they quiet us down. Dr. Watson knows them all as autocoids, +which has the advantage of being non-committal in this regard. What is +more to the point, it implies something automatic. Let us see how they +work. + +But right here we are met by a lack of knowledge. The secretions from +only a few of the endocrines (notably andrenin and thyroxin) have as +yet been isolated and analyzed. But there is good reason for believing +that they regulate, to a certain extent at least, not only the ductless +glands among themselves but (through the sympathetic nerves) the action +of the unstriped muscles which control the stomach, intestines and +various other unconscious or vegetative processes. + +Autocoidal secretion seems to be very much at the beck and call of our +emotions, or else our emotions are very much at the beck and call of +our autocoids; but whether you hitch the cart before the horse or the +horse before the cart, the believer in human freedom need be no more +alarmed over the autocoids than he is over the fact that drugs have +certain effects when taken into the system. It was known even in the +ages of faith that a man was not quite himself after partaking too +freely even of a drug so charmingly outward mannered as is alcohol. + +The behaviorism of the autocoids is more obscure. They become +conspicuous chiefly by their absence. Thus the removal of the +parathyroids (part of the thyroid apparatus situated on either side +of the larynx and windpipe) produces convulsions. Its autocoid is +therefore believed to be of a restraining type. The removal of the +thyroids themselves produces cretinism, and thyroxin, their active +principle (it is sixty percent iodine) was isolated only recently by +E. C. Kendall, of the Mayo Foundation. Suprarenal extract (from the +suprarenal apparatus near the kidneys) aids in recovery from fatigue. + +As to the pituitary apparatus at the base of the brain, “gigantism is +supposed to be due to an overactive anterior lobe; obesity and sexual +infantilism to the lack of secretion of the posterior lobe.” (Watson.) +The thymus gland (in the neck near the thyroids) is believed by Dr. +Walter Timme to be linked with the pineal (which is a part of the brain +structure) in a related system dominating the life cycle from birth to +puberty. If the function of the pineal is disturbed in children, “there +is a rapid development of the reproductive organs, precocity, and an +increased growth of skeleton. It is thus supposed that this gland +furnishes an inhibitory autocoid.” (Watson.) + +To the absence of the puberty gland (also called the interstitial, and +endocrine not to be confounded with the gonads, or true sex cells, +to which is entrusted the reproductive function)--to the absence of +the puberty gland is attributed the observed effects of castration, +and “there is a growing tendency on the part of investigators ... +to believe that man is as old as his glands.” Therefore, “since the +remaining glands apparently cannot stay youthful in the absence of +a sufficient output from the puberty glands, it is only natural to +connect senescence or old age with the decline in the output from +this gland.” (Watson.) Hence all the experiments in rejuvenation, the +transplantation of glands from monkeys and goats, made from the days +of Brown-Sequard (famous about the year 1889) down to those made by +Steinach, Voronoff and many others of the present time. Thus the simian +becomes our “glandcestor,” so to speak, whether he be our forbear or +not. + +But let us take leave of all this physiology and observe what sort of +psychology we can get from our receptors, conductors and effectors +under experimental conditions. + +For convenience sake, the behaviorist calls whatever happens to the +victim of an experiment the “stimulus” or “situation,” and whatever +the victim does in consequence the “response.” So we will imagine +that a stimulus of some sort, say the spectacle of Eliza crossing the +ice, impinges upon a receptor--in this case the retina. Physically, +this is a light stimulus, and for a brief instant Eliza may be said +to be all in your eye. But a conductor (the optic nerve) takes the +matter up and transmits an impulse (in the form of a “wave of chemical +decomposition”) to the brain. Here it encounters a lot of cells, called +neurones. If J. B. Eggen be right in saying that “there is nothing +inside the brain but a lot of neurones,” it could not well encounter +anything else. + +A neurone under the microscope looks somewhat like a bush which +has been pulled up by the roots. The ball of earth adhering to it +represents the nucleus, or brain-cell proper. The branches are called +dendrites, and in the human body they extend from sometimes less than +a millimeter to sometimes more than a yard in length--in the latter +case becoming what the layman usually means when he says “nerves.” Each +nucleus possesses several, often a great number, and it is through +these dendrites that it receives the neural, or nervous, impulse +which it passes on through its axone to the next cell. There should +be a small tap-root to our bush, terminating in brush-like fibres, to +represent this axone. Usually there is but one to a cell, though it may +send off collaterals. + +We have many millions of these neurones, each one complicated beyond +belief if examined in detail. But let us not venture too far into that +awful tangle of vaguely definable structures where even the neurologist +gropes with difficulty, and about which he is constrained to make his +tentative conclusions with bated breath. But it may be well to note +that neurones are of three sorts. Let us call them receiving neurones, +association neurones, and sending neurones; and let us liken them to +three lines of soldiers, the receivers busily getting information from +No Man’s Land, the associators passing it on to the senders operating +the artillery. Receptors, conductors and effectors again. But out of +fairness to Dr. Watson it should be said that he calls them nothing of +the sort. In fact, he thinks that “entirely too much” has been made of +the association neurone, and “of the whole localization of function.” +The brain is not popular with behaviorists anywhere, for sometimes it +shows a tendency to upset their most cherished theories. + +Nevertheless the brain is there, and Eliza is crossing the ice. The +brain sees her. How? Through its receiving neurones. A soldier out +in No Man’s Land holds a camera (the eye) in his hand, or dendrite, +and takes her picture, which he transfers to his other hand, or axone, +ready to pass on. It is like one of these very modern pictures sent by +telegraph, for all he receives or passes on is a series of shocks, or +“waves of chemical decomposition.” The effect would be the same if the +soldiers communicated by means of hand-clasps, a Morse code of squeezes +or taps,--something like that. + +The second soldier (association neurone) having possessed himself of +the picture, relays it in turn to the third--one who is in touch with +the guns, which in this case are the muscles and glands. The truth, +of course, is not quite so simple as this. There are probably nine +billion neurones to begin with, each supplied with numerous arms. Any +association neurone appears to be able to get in touch with every other +neurone in either of the other two classes, and even the simplest +picture or bit of information must manifest itself in an unconscionable +number of waves or impulses, each one quite meaningless in itself. +What a wild tumult of activity must be taking place within us when the +battle outside waxes hot! + +Nor are all the observation posts outside. Many are within the body. +And from the data which they all transmit emotions and coördinate +actions are born--at least so behaviorists would have us believe. The +striped muscles twitch, and bones are jerked about. The unstriped +muscles are stimulated to action, and the viscera are affected. The +ductless glands increase their secretions, or suspend them. This, say +the behaviorists, is what makes us brave; or cowardly; wild with rage +or tender with love. Our bowels of compassion are moved. Perhaps we +have no stomach for a fight. If we run away the vulgar will declare +that we have no guts. + +But we cannot always be thinking of neurones individually, so we think +of them in chains. When two get in touch with each other (through the +axone of the one and the dendrite of the other) the connection is +called a synapse. When the chain includes all three sorts of neurones, +it is called a reflex arc. + +A reflex is what happens when you strike the patellar tendon of the +knee with the side of your hand, with a tack-hammer, or with what Dr. +Watson prefers to call “a percussion hammer.” The leg registers a +kick, because the blow sets up a wave of chemical decomposition in the +dendrites of the receiving neurones which are nearest concerned; the +wave passes to certain association neurones, and by them is passed to +the kicking (striped) muscle. That is, it passes through a reflex arc, +one of the several reflex arcs which are already in working order when +we are born. Which means that the association neurones here involved +have somehow already been educated to relay all despatches to the +neurones which operate the kick--and to none other. So this reflex arc +is called “unconditioned,” and the stimulus which sets it in motion is +said to be a “natural” stimulus. An unconditioned reflex is practically +a tropism. Prof. Loeb ordered it to get busy and account for all +behavior, human and other. It fell down on the job. We have not, it +seems, enough knee and similar jerks to enable us to write a Ninth +Symphony with their aid alone. Some other trifle was needed. + +Dr. Watson says he has it--in the conditioned reflex. It is possible, +we find, to get a reflex to respond to a stimulus which is not its +“natural” stimulus. Food, for example, is the natural stimulus of the +reflex arc operating the salivary glands. The mouth waters when we +begin to eat. But the Russian, Pavlov, bored holes in the cheeks of a +dog, brought the salivary ducts into the open, and discovered that not +only would the dog’s mouth water at the contact of food, but that it +would water at the mere sight of food. Then he rang a bell for several +days at feeding time, and had the satisfaction eventually of seeing +the dog’s mouth begin to water when the bell was rung and no food was +anywhere about. + +Prof. Lashley, of the Hopkins Laboratory, has since invented an +instrument which can be fastened to the inside of the cheek by means of +suction, so that the secretions may be led to a tube without a surgical +operation--which is a convenience when the victim is human. He has thus +ascertained how many drops per minute was the normal slaver, and that +chocolate in the (human) subject’s hand increased it from three to five +times; the smell of chocolate, five times; chocolate brought to the +lips, nine times. “It may be said,” observes Bertrand Russell[6] “that +modern psychology consists of the discovery by the professors of what +everybody else has always known.” + +Yet it must be confessed that we did not know the number of drops +of saliva which lay behind the licking of our chops in the presence +of something good, or that the sight and smell of chocolate were +“unnatural” or “substituted” stimuli--still less that the substitution +of unnatural for natural stimuli was both the foundation and +superstructure of “education.” + +But we know now that we can obtain the knee-jerk by blowing a whistle, +or cause the iris to contract at the smell of asafœtida. We have but +to flash a bright light every time the herb is introduced into the +vicinity; or (if I may use such old-fashioned language), associate +whistles with percussion hammers in the “mind” of the subject. + +Association is all it is. If you have learned to expect to be blinded +by radiance every time you get a whiff of asafœtida, your eyes will +begin to protect themselves even in the dark. If the sound of a whistle +leads you to anticipate a blow on the patellar tendon, your leg will +fly forward--at least theoretically. To get practical results, this +education must begin very early. + +But I have used the words “mind,” “expect,” “anticipate,” and many +expressions which imply conscious intelligence. In behaviorism all +these are barred. The new stimuli are said to be “grafted” on the old +stimuli, not upon the consciousness. All that can be said, then, is +that when two stimuli, one natural and one unnatural, happen at the +same time on a sufficient number of occasions, the reflex becomes +conditioned so that it will do its stuff when the unnatural stimulus +happens alone. + +One other item and the mechanical foundation of psychology from the +standpoint of a behaviorist will be complete. There are certain +reflexes called “emotional reflexes.” These are the things we do when +we are afraid, angry, or in love--for Dr. Watson traces all emotions +back to one of these three. Some go further, lump fear and anger +together, and give us an emotional outfit reducable to likes and +dislikes. + +The new-born babe, Dr. Watson tells us, is afraid of nothing but loud +noises and the sudden loss of physical support. These, then, are +the natural stimuli of fear. Nothing but restraint makes him angry. +Restraint, therefore, is the natural stimulus of fury. To prove it, +the behaviorist drops a baby face downwards on a pillow, and notes that +it clenches its hands as if in the attempt to grab something to prevent +itself from falling. He hammers on an iron bar behind the infant ear, +and observes that there is crying and shrinking away. He grips the +little arms, and a struggle ensues. + +As to love, Dr. Watson is not so clear. In one place he speaks of +the reaching out of the baby arms as being prophetic of the nuptial +embrace. In another he describes the natural love stimulus as a +stroking of the erogenous zones. These zones, to be blunt, are the +genitals, the breasts, the anal region and certain other portions of +the surface of the body especially sensitive to touch. Perhaps there +are two sorts of love, the active and the passive; just as there may +be two sorts of dislike, shrinking fear and self-assertive rage. The +former professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins can hardly be blamed +for not making it plain. He is not the first who has been obfuscated by +love. + +But whatever love may be, the love-reflex, like the fear-reflex, the +anger-reflex, or the unemotional motor-reflexes such as the knee-jerk, +may be conditioned by having unnatural stimuli grafted on to their +natural stimuli by bringing the natural and unnatural together in the +field of their experience. + +Albert, for example, the eleven-months old infant of a wet-nurse in the +Hopkins Laboratories, was not naturally afraid of rats, a rat being +neither a sudden loss of support nor a big noise. He reached out for +a rat as readily as he reached for anything else. But every time he +reached, an operator standing out of sight beat heavily upon an iron +bar. So the reflex arc, beginning with the ear and ending in such +glands as distill cowardice or inhibit courage, grafted itself on to +the reflex arc beginning with the rat-wave coming through the eye and +terminating in the striped muscles that jerk the hand forward. And, as +often happens, the grafter eventually won the day. + +“At the first experiment,” rat and noise being presented together, +“the infant jumped violently and fell forward, burying his face in the +mattress--he did not cry, however.” But “at the eighth experiment,” +seven days later, when the rat alone was shown, “the baby began to cry. +Almost instantly he turned sharply away, so rapidly that he was caught +with difficulty before he reached the end of the table.”[7] + +Albert is now afraid of rats, there is no least doubt of that. You may +throw your bang-bang instrument away, he will continue to recoil from +rats. And not from rats only. The fear extends to furry animals of +all sorts, to human hair, to cotton wool. In this instance it did not +extend to the nurse, but sometimes it does. The fear stimulus is apt to +graft itself on to whatever other stimuli happen to be operating. + +Thus are emotional reflexes conditioned--by a performance which has +a remarkable resemblance to the old method of punishing a child for +wrong-doing, except that wrong-doing on the child’s part is omitted as +a necessary condition precedent. + +This is psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. From the +standpoint of a psychologist it looks as if all trace of psychology had +thus far been carefully left out; for psychology is the study of the +psyche, the soul, of the conscious self, or that part of the self which +has at least the capacity of becoming conscious. Dr. Watson says not. +He thinks that psychology is the study of the reaction-mass. Anyway, he +is convinced that reaction-mass psychology is all the psychology needed +to explain everything. Mr. Mind may be missing, but he never will be +missed. “The behaviorist asks for nothing to start with in building +a human being but the squirmings everyone can see in the newborn +infant.”[8] + +It is not asking for much, so we will now let him try. + + +2. AN UNDECIDED SYNAPSE + +Eliza is still crossing the ice. The spectacle (in the form of a series +of waves of chemical decomposition) is on its way, through reflex arcs, +to striped and unstriped muscles; to ductless glands; to effectors, in +short. It is time that some action ensued, that behavior on Eliza’s +part resulted in behavior on the part of the spectator. + +Let us suppose that the spectator most interested is a bloodhound. “The +behaviorist,” we learn from Dr. Watson[9] “recognizes no dividing line +between man and brute,” save (he adds later) perhaps in the matter of +“language.” As the occasion here affords no time for talk, a bloodhound +will serve as well as Senator Borah. Now what will the bloodhound do? + +Were his reflexes unconditioned, he would do nothing of any +consequence. On the unlikely chance of Eliza throwing a stone and +hitting him on the patellar tendon, he might do a knee-jerk. Or, should +her shadow come between him and the sun, the iris of his fearful eyes +might contract. But none of these things happen. Eliza furnishes no +natural stimuli upon which an unconditioned reflex could act. Prof. +Loeb, with all his tropisms, would be able to bring no real drama about. + +This is a Watson bloodhound, however--a trained dog. All sorts of +unnatural stimuli have been grafted upon his reflexes. For one thing, +he has had the sight of little girl and the taste of little girl +brought simultaneously into his experience a great many times. So the +glands in his cheeks advance immediately from a salivary output of, +say, five drops per minute, to some forty-five. He probably snaps his +jaws, a “seeking motion” prompted by the emotion of love--for meat. Not +only that, but he bounds forward--another seeking motion, which was +once, I presume a puppy squirm. Anyway he bounds forward, and Eliza +is caught. Or else he does not bound forward, but stands and sniffs, +whines, or gives tongue, thus bridging the space between animal and +man, but flatly refusing to attempt to leap the space of open water +between dog and Eliza’s cake of ice. + +But why? Why does not the dog act automatically in obedience to +the waves of chemical decomposition faithfully transmitted to his +effectors? The villain of uncertainty lies in that intermediate set +of neurones--those association neurones which Dr. Watson thinks have +received already altogether too much attention. Some of their dendrites +have made synapse with axones laden with the fear of the cold wetness +of ice-water, and have communicated, not with the leaping but with the +sniffing, whining and baying muscles, leaving the legs merely trembling. + +What? Have the association neurones some choice as to the synapses +they shall make? Is it left to them to say which, of a multitude of +differently charged axones, their dendrites shall shake hands with? +Does not mechanics govern the connection which the association neurone +effects with a million waiting dendrites already linked with a million +different effectors? Is our soldier in the middle row permitted to suit +himself as to what listening-post he shall get in touch with, and is he +then allowed to do as he likes with the information? + +What was lately a mere relay instrument seems suddenly to have been +endowed with strange powers. If ever an arrangement was devised to +look like the physical embodiment of consciousness and free will, +this certainly is it. No wonder Dr. Watson would prefer to have us +regard these brain areas as vague “silent” ones, wherein no function +can be “localized.” A behaviorist who should lose his unconsciousness +would be more frightened than was Peter Schlemihil when he lost his +shadow to the devil. The mere suggestion that the association neurone +might be the Achilles’ heel of insensibility must have shocked many +a conditioned reflex back into infantilism. Dr. Watson remained and +remains calm and aloof in the midst of his “silent areas.” But others +bestirred themselves with considerable zeal if not discretion. The +problem was to find some purely blind and mechanistic agent capable of +regulating the resistance of the synapse. + +For that is the best way to think of it--as a resistance. A neural +impulse will go farther in a given time along a simple nerve than it +will along a route interrupted by neurones with little gulfs between +them. Not only that, but when it comes out it is found to be measurably +weaker than when it went in. Almost immediately it picks up again, and +goes on, full speed ahead, as if somebody had stepped on the gas. How +this little miracle is accomplished, nobody knows; nor whence comes +the added force. Doubtless, however, it comes from the body in some +perfectly natural and ascertainable way. Certainly it has nothing to +do with the will. + +Has the synapse? That depends upon what causes its resistance to vary. +The association neurone itself cannot possibly be the will. The very +fact that it is observable under the microscope proves that. The most +hopeful field of inquiry, therefore, is that of the resistance which +is offered the neural impulse on its way from one neurone to another. +If this resistance varies--and it does--it is possible to conceive how +the disturbances from the outside world may be sifted, some ignored +and some allowed full play in the responses which follow. Here would +be Psyche, locking and unlocking her doors. I do not say that this +is exactly what happens. Our knowledge of the brain, though vastly +more complete than it was ten years ago, is still far too fragmentary +to permit of the localization of function to this extent. I am only +offering a hypothesis to explain the workings of a belief arrived at in +quite another fashion from the one we are following here. + +The synapse offers the least resistance in what used to be called +the field of conscious attention; and by fancying that attention +moved about from one brain-area to another without constraint and in +conformity with some non-physical law, we used to, in the good old +days, be able to picture free will in action--not with much pretense to +accuracy of detail, but in a way which was at least intelligible. + +Physical scientists never liked this loose-footed field of attention. +If it moved about, they wanted to know what moved it. Even if attention +be only an area of super-“neutrition,” it could hardly move without +force--a fact which some psychologists, desperately anxious to be free +but having no force to put at the will’s disposal, have tried in vain +to get around. + +But behaviorists will have nothing to do with conscious attention, +free or bound. And as it was obviously necessary to find something to +regulate synapsial resistance, they proceeded to find it. + +It was soon discovered that the neural impulse, having once traversed a +particular route, found the way thereafter easier, just as we find it +easier to walk through snow after somebody has broken a trail. Repeated +synapses, therefore, may be left in charge of Habit. But there has to +be a first time. Habit, itself, depends upon this first time for its +own direction; for habit follows the line of least resistance which +this very first time creates. And the first time, the time of times, +which determines all other times by wearing the initial path through +the cranial snow, is--behavioristically speaking--determined by Chance! + +What behaviorists wanted was to have nothing determine the first +synapse, and not being mathematicians they fell into the error of +supposing that chance was nothing, or the next thing to it. In reality +they could not have made a worse selection. But, granting their +premises, there was really nothing else to choose. + +But let us call to the stand a distinguished witness as to the reality +of the choice having been made. Chance leads me to select Prof. C. H. +Warren, whose “A Study of Purpose” was first published in the _Journal +of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method_.[10] It chances that +I have access to certain passages from this paper. Also he happens not +to be a thoroughgoing behaviorist, as may be seen from the fact that +he speaks of “purposive action” and of “ideas.” Bertrand Russell is +of the opinion that there is only one thoroughgoing behaviorist in +the world--Dr. Watson, to wit. I even hope to show that Dr. Watson +steps out of his rôle in certain desperate pinches. But Prof. Warren +is sufficiently mechanistic to warrant his being heard. He says: +“The notion of purpose arose from a certain definite type of human +experience. The typical purposive experience consists of a thought of +some future occurrence followed by a series of actions which culminate +in the very situation which the original idea represented. A human act +is said to be purposive when it is preceded by an idea representing the +situation which the act itself brings about.” + +Not quite as clear as a crystal, but it means that I light my pipe, +not because I want to smoke but because I foresee that I will light +it. Dr. Watson says practically the same thing, only he points out +that the motions which provoke desire are small, observable only by +means of instruments. “Visceral phenomena,” for instance. And he +makes the statement thoroughly behavioristic by adding that these +visceral phenomena _are_ desire, the only kind of desire which +exists. But causes must precede effect, so Prof. Warren is trying to +make “foreknowledge” serve for the needed something to touch off the +visceral phenomena and bring desire into being. + +He goes on to describe how he turns on the electric light in his +study--not because he wants to read, but because he foresees that he +is going to press the button and that then there will be light--in a +physical sense, at least. He admits “desire” into the realm of being +only after the action has begun, and explains it as a “kinesthetic +image,”--that is, an image derived from the muscular sense. Which means +that he begins to want to read, and that I begin to want to smoke, +only after our muscles are on the way to produce smoke and light in +available quantities. And he further testifies. “If the thought of an +action leads to the production of that particular action ... rather +than to any one of the thousands of other kinesthetic experiences, +the reason is that a definite association has previously been formed +between this particular thought and this particular impulse. The origin +of such an association _may be attributed to chance occurrence_.” + +It is interesting to speculate upon what would have occurred had Prof. +Warren chanced first to associate the electric light button with +kinesthetic experiences originating in his feet instead of in his +hands. What if he had been standing on his head amusing the children on +that momentous day? Or, since he probably made his first acquaintance +with electric light early in life, what if when playing circus as a boy +he had accidentally _kicked_ the button from “Off” to “On”? Obviously +he would have obtained the fateful foresight that kicks will produce +light. And he would have been destined all his life to play the acrobat +before ever the kinesthetic experiences of his muscles could instigate +in him the desire to read after dusk. Nor is it possible that he could +have been rescued from his fate save by another chance experience yet +more kinesthetically violent. + +“The synapse,” says Professor Pillsbury, sensibly enough, “is the +point where action leaves its impress upon the nervous system.” But he +does not grow lyrical about it. For lyricism we must go to Miss Clara +Stevens, a real behaviorist. She thus deposes and sings in _The Open +Court_:[11] “Here [in the synapse] lies the basis of character and +destiny. No need of a recording angel to set down our shortcomings +against us. The mystic synapse is recorder; and avenger as well. Its +use renders it all-powerful ... its neglect bars further way for either +temptation on the one hand or profitable deeds on the other. We can +only act and think in the future as we have habituated the synapse in +the past.” + +Surely the lady has allowed her enthusiasm to carry her too far. How +can we have anything to do with the habituating of a synapse which is +governed by chance? She tries to find a way out by maintaining that +the original neural impulse may be determined “by such a material fact +... as nutrition supplied or withheld by the cell-body.” Does the +cell-body, then, have a will of its own, so that it can either issue or +withhold supplies? That were power indeed. And she speaks throughout +her article of “mystery,” “inclination,” “motives,” “ambitions,” +“tolerance,” “bigotry,” “principle,” “idealistic acts,” “clearness of +judgment,” and “firmness of purpose.” + +I have wronged her. Here we have no behaviorist, but a good woman +trying to be a behaviorist but unable to leave all her commonsense +behind her--a woman born, happily, without a trace of logic, and spared +by chance from acquiring any. Not that Miss Stevens is one whit more +illogical than is Dr. Watson. She is merely less obscure. On pages 319 +to 321 of “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist” we are +given a list of six “determiners of acts,” and told that “of course +the most important determiner is the life-history of the individual.” +And the other five are mere portions of life-history. Dr. Watson is +fond of the word Genetics, yet he carefully avoids the subject of true +beginnings. + +And Eliza still is crossing the ice. The bloodhound still is doing +something or nothing. Somehow, with all this “psychology” and with all +Dr. Watson’s mass of reactions at our disposal, we cannot get things to +move. It will be necessary to try again. + + +3. ELIZA DOES NOT CROSS THE ICE + +“The behaviorist,” Dr. Watson assures us,[12] “can take [the] +squirmings of the new-born--his unorganized finger movements, the +movements of his arms, legs, feet and toes, the squirmings in his +trunk, and weave them into highly complicated acts of sport, of +skill--such as driving a nail with a hammer, carving with a knife, +shooting with bow and arrow, or tennis-playing, climbing, crawling, +running and walking. [He] can take the squirmings of the throat +muscles, and weave them into those highly organized acts we call +talking and singing--and, yes, even thinking. [He] can take the +infantile squirmings of the gut--the unstriped muscular tissue of the +alimentary tracts, diaphragm, heart, respiration, etc.--and actually +organize them into those complicated emotional responses we call fears, +loves and rages.... Give [him] just one hundred ‘squirmings’ ... and +let [him] tie them together by [his] methods, and [he will] have more +than enough.” + +This is a comprehensive programme; if it is carried out it ought +to be able not only to get Eliza across the ice but to produce the +whole play of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Certainly one hundred squirmings are +enough--enough of squirming. Their mere combination would produce an +untold number--of squirms. And lest some might doubt as to this, Dr. +Watson calls attention to that mathematical formula known as “factorial +n.” + +By factorial n one can determine the number of ways in which a given +number of things can be put together. The calculation is accomplished +by taking the given number and multiplying it by a number one less than +itself; and then multiplying this result by a multiplier less by one +than the first multiplier; and so on, the multiplier shrinking until +it reaches zero. For instance, how many ways are there of arranging +six books upon a shelf? The answer is amazing enough. For six times +five times four times three times two, equals seven hundred and twenty, +and we have limited the combinations to arrangements along a single +straight line. One hundred squirms may be combined in enough different +ways to satisfy the most captious. Factorial one hundred would, if +worked out, look like an inter-allied debt. + +But are squirms all we are looking for? What does Dr. Watson mean by +“those complicated emotional responses we call fears, loves and rages?” +He has used such words before, and it is time he were called to an +account. There is no such thing as consciousness. Can there still be +such a thing as an emotion? Yes, says Dr. Watson. + +We are now in the presence of one of the most preposterous attempts at +hocus-pocus ever recorded in the history of the human race. William +James prepared the way by saying, “We feel sorry because we cry, +angry because we strike,” etc. But with James there was always the +possibility of assuming that an emotion is what we feel of the various +motions involved. At worst it was but the natural order of things +reversed. And in James, if one does not like his philosophy of the +moment, the totally different philosophy of some other moment is never +far to seek. But now that there is no such thing as consciousness, +there would seem to be no way of feeling even a motion. Ergo, an +emotion is merely motion. Squirms. The behaviorist asks for nothing +else. Does he not? + +“An emotion,” says Dr. Watson,[13] “is an hereditary ‘action pattern’ +involving profound changes of the bodily mechanism as a whole, but +particularly of the glandular systems.” This is at least consistent. An +emotion is a group of motions which have been somehow linked together +into a pattern by reflex arcs before we were born. He then speaks of +emotion as a raising of the “bodily tone,”--that is, a speeding up, +an increase in the general average and celerity of motions. Still +consistent, however absurd. But why did Albert, the eleven-months old +infant of that wet-nurse at the Hopkins Laboratories, “turn sharply +away” at the eighth experiment, when the rat alone was shown him? +Because he had learned to associate rats with a loud noise of which he +was afraid. But does not this imply that he _disliked_ the noise? + +By a wild stretch of the imagination, I think I can almost see what is +in the behaviorist’s mind when he bids us believe that like and dislike +can exist in a creature without consciousness. He means that there is +no like or dislike about it; that what we call likes and dislikes are +certain chemical changes which make us move either towards or away +from objects. Tropisms, in short. I do not quite see how the mechanism +for such phenomena could be arranged, but this may be merely because +the mechanism of a tropism is too complicated for my comprehension. +Likes and dislikes vary so much even when the same objects and the same +people are involved. We are not simple in the way that a mariner’s +compass is simple, its north pole always liking the south pole of a +magnet, always disliking its fellow. + +Consciousness itself is a complicated matter. For instance, we are +never directly conscious of it; we are only conscious of objects. Our +inmost self can only contemplate that which is not our inmost self. The +eye does not see the eye, though it can observe its reflection in a +mirror. + +Things also happen of which we are not centrally conscious at +all--things, for example, to which we are paying no attention. They +yet have their effect. Can likes and dislikes perform their functions, +then, without our knowing anything about it? I am for the moment quite +willing to admit it--in the case of Dr. Watson. For all I know to +the contrary, he may never be conscious. He would not be the first +epistemologist who has made such a claim. But he does not claim just +this. The behaviorist finds no consciousness “in his laboratories,” +none “in his subjects.” He implies that _I_ am never conscious, and +there I know he is wrong. + +Now since consciousness exists, in me at least (the reader must speak +for himself), it probably has a function. So far as I am concerned, it +is the one important--the only important--thing in life. Why, then, try +to leave it out of the explanation of Albert’s acquired dislike for +rats? + +It might have been well enough to leave it out of the description of +Albert’s behavior. If behaviorism were merely what its name implies, +the detailed study of the way people other than the observer behave, it +might be useful and certainly would not be ridiculous. But it seeks to +be psychology and philosophy as well. It assumes, as we soon shall see, +to instruct us in ethics and to overthrow religion. It fancies that it +has deprived us of will. + +Your consciousness and mine are of course two different phenomena, +severed by the gulf which yawns between _meum_ and _tuum_. I do not +know that you are aware in the same way that I know that I myself am +aware. I merely assume that you are. You look much like me. You behave +much as I do. Therefore, as an act of courtesy, I grant that you are +probably sentient and know what you are about--for the simple reason +that I feel sure that I am sentient and know what I am about. + +But all I am positively and subjectively certain of, as to you, is +what I observe you to do. This observation may be extended, with +your permission, to your insides. I may insert tubes which tap your +glands. I may induce you to swallow rubber balloons, which I then fill +with hot water (an experiment mentioned by Dr. Watson), and note the +resultant reactions upon your muscles, smooth and striped. Still, all +I know about you is what strikes my senses, which in the last analysis +resolves itself into motions, large or small, of your body and members. +The behaviorist’s contention that an individual is merely the sum +of his acts fits you well enough from my point of view. Were I not +conscious myself, I would never even dream that you are conscious. If I +did not reason, I would not be wise enough to suppose that you do. Did +I not feel emotion, pleasure, and pain, I would be the last person to +accuse you of feeling them. + +Now Dr. Watson, when he assumes that because he finds no consciousness +in his subjects there is therefore no such thing as consciousness, is +entirely justified--if he is himself an unconscious man. But I fancy +he is merely paying us the compliment of confusing himself with us. +He is unable to put his hands upon _our_ minds or feelings because +they are forever hidden within us, and will never, never, never +permit themselves to be isolated, taken apart and chemically analyzed. +That which is objective is conduct--it is not feeling. Certain light +waves are felt as redness--but the waves are not the redness. Outside +ourselves, everything of red exists, saving and excepting only its +redness. Now is or is not redness an important part of red? + +The brain is indeed but a few billion neurones, slightly damp. Dr. +Watson, fumbling among them, sees only certain motions of matter. +Naturally he sees no mind. But he modestly forgets that all the while +he is observing these motions of ours and attributing them to other +motions, and these to yet other motions, and so on _ad infinitum_, he +is using his own mind--and a very ingenious mind it is, thus to reason +itself out of existence. We all remember how granny used to lose her +specs and look for them everywhere--through the very specs in question, +which were all the while on the end of her nose. + +Consciousness is a fact of consciousness, the most obtrusive fact in +all the world. But it is not a fact outside of consciousness. There it +is only an inference. Should Dr. Watson get hit on the head by a brick +falling from his laboratory chimney (which God forbid!), he would not +be immediately able to observe whether a dog’s salivary secretions were +increased by the sight and smell of chocolate or not. + +Knowledge of glands can “amplify our conception,”[14] says Levine, “but +it by no means abolishes the need for a mental state.” + +“Not even by poetic license,” adds Sidney Hook,[15] “can the earth be +created through a deft masonry of its derivative effects.” Neither +can the mind. Or as J. R. Kantor, of the University of Indiana, +expresses it in his “Principles of Psychology,”--“The writers who +hold such doctrines [that psychology is a matter of neuro-muscular +or neuro-glandular responses] inevitably face the consequence of +neglecting the description of most of the actual content not only of +human but of animal psychology.” + +Says William James,[16] “Cases ... prove the existence in our mental +machinery of a sense of present reality more diffused and general than +that which our special senses yield.... Nothing would be more natural +than to connect it with the muscular sense.... But our interest lies +with the faculty rather than its organic seat.... Something in you +absolutely _knows_ that result to be truer than any logic-chopping, +rationalistic talk, however clever, that may contradict it.” + +Naturally, James H. Leuba, professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr, takes +exception to such language on the part of James. Prof. Leuba has been +attempting--in his “Psychology of Religious Mysticism”--to prove that +holiness is a form of hysteria. He uses the old method of those who +would define red without taking account of redness. That is, he leaves +holiness out of the question, and then shows that the residue and +hysteria (whatever that may be) have much in common. + +“It is fortunate for science and philosophy,” he says in a footnote +to page 293, “that this passage does not represent William James +completely. It expresses only one, or perhaps two, of the several moods +or attitudes of this gifted writer.” + +This is quite true. The passage does not represent James entirely. +I know of no passage which does. But does saying so dispose of the +attitude? The reader must judge for himself whether he has any inner +conviction, or state, which will warrant him in saying he has it. +Well may Prof. Kantor ask, “Is it not the attempt to biologize human +phenomena which has resulted in handing over to novelists [to say +nothing of novelists’ brothers] the sole guardianship of the problems +of human behavior and human personality?” + +And since we have now allowed novelists to get in, we may as well +listen to Stewart Edward White, who is not only a novelist but a +journalist to boot. And he complains that “it is the habit of science +to thrust in the background that which it is unable to weigh and +measure and understand, which is the same as saying that it is the +habit of science to be unscientific.” It is certainly the habit of Dr. +Watson. The hunting of big game seems to have given White most accurate +powers of observation. Lions have this advantage over fallacies--they +are able to kill off those who do not see them right and in time. + +George A. Dorsey, whose “Why We Behave Like Human Beings” I shall +venture to take a shot at before I finish, attempts to come to Dr. +Watson’s rescue and to save emotion for behaviorism without admitting +any of its troublesome implications. So Dorsey tells us not to be +puzzled; that emotions are like any of the other circumstances which go +to make up a situation to which our mass of reactions must react. We +“feel” them, he adds. Now as Dr. Watson’s main contention is that we +do not feel them, the admission of feeling is like permitting a wooden +horse to be carried into the mechanistic Troy. + +It may be argued (but not by behaviorists) that though Dorsey is not +talking good Watsonianism, he is at least talking sense. And of +course he is when he speaks of emotion as a feeling. But he is talking +nonsense when he claims that emotion is a factor like any other factor +in a situation. And for this reason. The other factors may be viewed +both objectively and subjectively, while if we attempt to objectify an +emotion--to drive it into the open--it ceases to exist. It becomes a +bundle of its own causes--autocoids, or what have you? Or of its own +effects--yowlings, scratchings, clenchings of fists, grittings of the +teeth, and other alterations in bodily positions, tensions, together +with such chemical changes as may accompany them. + +The fact that certain secretions from the ductless glands keep pace +with certain emotions does not even prove that secretions cause +emotion. An emotion that can be felt may cause the secretions. Still +less does it prove that the secretion is the emotion. A scolding by +your grandmother may also give you an emotion. Does that prove that the +emotion was your grandmother? Emotion tends to release adrenin from the +adrenal apparatus, which in turn acts upon the liver’s surplus supply +of sugar. This sugar gets into the blood, and the increase of sugar in +the blood is therefore evidence that you have experienced an emotion. +Even if you want to say that what you felt was sugar, need you add that +the feeling _was_ sugar? + +A cat, we will say, is sitting on the table. Can we also say that there +is an emotion sitting there beside the cat? An emotion belonging to +you or to me, and not to the cat? Let us suppose that the cat has just +upset a vase which you and I both prize. Behavioristically speaking, +our reflexes are similarly conditioned in regard to it. So we both are +grieved. + +The cat exists subjectively within us (or at least within me) in the +form of a group of ideas of cat--or as Dr. Watson would insist, in +the form of certain squirmings of particles, members, atoms, and such +things. We seem to experience cat as a group of sensations of form, +color, of cat-movements, etc. But if I shut my eyes, put cat out of my +mind (i. e., shut off cat-stimuli from my receptors), I seem to cease +to feel or think or to be aware of cat. Then, from some remark you +make, I infer that you have kept your eyes open, and are still cat-wise +_en rapport_. So I infer that your awareness of cat (no matter what +“awareness” is) does not depend upon my awareness, or even upon your +awareness of my awareness. So I assume that the cat has an objective +existence, outside of us, and is a real cat. I assume also that the cat +itself is the cause of our awareness of it; and I feel certain that +while there may be as many awarenesses as there are people who are +aware, there is only one cat in the room. + +There is also but one broken vase. And it, too, is the cause of our +being aware of it. Cat and vase are evidently of the same order of +things to the extent that they both have an existence within the +beholder (which the beholder knows through consciousness), and a +certain inferred existence of their own. But how about the emotion +awakened by the broken vase? Has that an existence independent of those +experiencing it? + +Ever since the days of ancient Greece, and probably since long before, +certain philosophers have been trying to prove that not even the cat +has such an outside existence. Things exist only in the philosopher’s +mind, and therefore the one thing which exists is the philosopher. The +only way to refute this theory is by using your brains to an extent +sufficient to arrive at the conclusion that, since some of the things +you see look amazingly like yourself, and react much as you do to yet +other things, then it is at least highly probable that these other +people and other things actually are. + +Now the behaviorist’s contention is merely the reverse of this +all-in-the-mind theory--and is equally absurd. To him there is nothing +in the mind; there is no mind. Instead of all being inside, all is +outside. + +Yet Dr. Watson considers himself privileged to speak not only of +emotions and emotion-reflexes, but of “purpose,” “failure,” and +“success.” We begin with “random” squirms, he says, and now and then +one of these “random” squirms is “successful,” it accomplishes its +“object.” Unconscious “seeking motions” are continued until they are +“satisfied.” Such expressions are to be found scattered through all his +writings. + +But a seeking motion must be a motion which seeks something. If the +babe be unconscious, how does it know when the seeking has been +successful? Does it move in hopes of finding pleasure or of avoiding +pain? It can feel neither pleasure nor pain. Does it squirm to improve +its general welfare? That is what the tropism theory assumes. But +without consciousness there can be no such thing as welfare. It makes +no slightest difference to the organism what happens to it, whether it +lives or dies. + +Our unconscious Eliza refuses to cross the ice, even when bayed at +by an unconscious bloodhound. There is no reason why she should. An +unconscious Eliza would be as comfortable inside of a bloodhound as +anywhere else. And an unconscious bloodhound is as comfortable fasting +as when fed. + +Nevertheless, Dr. Watson, who is “not concerned with problems of +consciousness,” is about to introduce us to language, morality and +reform! + + +4. TINKS! TINKS! KWAKS! KWAKS! + +“Give me the baby,” Dr. Watson begs,[17] “and I’ll make it climb and +use its hands in constructing buildings of stone or wood.... I’ll make +it a thief, a gunman, or a dope fiend. The possibilities of shaping in +any direction are almost endless. Even gross difference in anatomical +structure limit us far less than you may think.... Make him a +deaf-mute, and I will still build you a Helen Keller.... Men are built, +not born.” + +Shall we indeed give Dr. Watson the baby? Not yet. If baby is as +plastic as he would have us suppose, the choice of a teacher carries +with it momentous consequences. You see, we don’t want him to make a +thief, a gunman, or even a dope-fiend. This is just an old-fashioned +prejudice, a hang-over from the days of consciousness. But we have it. +A Helen Keller, a carpenter or a good stone-mason will do very well. +We must, however, be reassured as to teacher’s intentions. He has, no +doubt, some high principle to guide him. Let him reveal it. + +“The psychologist, having chosen human behavior as his material, feels +that he makes progress only as he can manipulate and control it.”[18] +Very good. But this is not quite the point. + +“In this work there is involved not only ability to predict situation +from response, and the probable response given the situation, but the +experimental manipulation of stimulus and the creation of response.... +Stimuli must be added to or subtracted from until appropriate response +is attained.”[19] + +The method at least is plain. Baby is helpless protoplasm in the grip +of whatever situation he finds himself. Dr. Watson does not allow even +chance to interfere with those all-important initial synapses which, +once made, will turn conduct over to habit. Baby is a mechanism, with +no ability save that of wax to receive. His only “chance” is that +the situation shall be all that could be desired. Not even the word +“probable” placed before response promises any individual initiative, +since the psychologist proposes to predict (he clearly means “work back +to”) the situation of which any given response was the answer. One +wonders where the teacher’s initiative is to come from, whether he too +is the inevitable result of a chain of situations reaching back to the +beginning of time; and if so, where the first situation came from--to +say nothing of the first baby. But, which is more to the point, what +is the meaning of that word “appropriate” preceding “response”? What +makes a response “appropriate”? Obviously an appropriate situation. And +we cannot tell whether a situation is appropriate or not until we know +what response we wish to produce. + +“Until we know more about the control of behavior during the tender +years of infancy, it seems almost a dangerous experiment to bring +up a child. The old argument that a good many millions of children +have been successfully reared in the past few millions of years has +just about broken down in the light of the now generally recognized +lack of success of most people in making satisfactory adjustments to +society.”[20] + +What has also just about broken down is the argument that it is not +a dangerous experiment to bring up a child--for the reason that no +sane parent ever thought that it was not a dangerous experiment, quite +the most dangerous and gloriously all-important experiment which life +affords. If the child has no will or say in the matter, parenthood +involves a higher responsibility even than that which a man has for +his own soul--though of course the behaviorist will plead that he has +no soul to be responsible for, and that--but there is no use going +back again to the beginning of time. We shall have to give the teacher +not only a soul but a free will, _pro tempore_, or he will stick on +our hands just as Eliza stuck on the ice, and refuse to move. Things +are not moving very rapidly as it is. What, for instance, is meant by +“satisfactory adjustments”? Is there some doubt, after all, how baby +will adjust himself to what is happening around him? No, says Dr. +Watson. + +“Without going too far beyond our facts [how far would be ‘too far’?] +it seems possible to say that the stimulus is always provided by the +environment, external to the body, or by the movements of man’s own +muscles and the secretions of his glands; finally, that response always +follows relatively immediately upon the presentation or incidence of +the stimulus.... These are really assumptions, but they seem to be +basal ones for psychology.”[21] + +[Illustration: DR. JOHN B. WATSON + +“Give me the baby”] + +Since they are basal we will have to grant them, else we will be left +relatively immediately without any psychology at all. A satisfactory +adjustment, then, must be the usual and inevitable adjustment, but to +a satisfactory situation. Those children who were successfully reared +during the past few millions of years must have had satisfactory +situations to begin with. And it is “now generally recognized” that +they were exceptions, and not “most people.” There must be some +criterion, then, by which a satisfactory situation--that is, one +producing satisfactory response, or conduct--may be recognized. Has +Dr. Watson any such criterion to offer? No. He says on page twelve +of this same book, which gives us his “standpoint”: “Psychology is +not concerned with the goodness or badness of acts, or with their +successfulness, as judged by occupational or moral standards.”[22] + +I am afraid, then, it will not be possible to let Dr. Watson have the +baby after all. Behaviorism has no ethics; no standard of conduct. +Yet behaviorists are preparing to build “infant laboratories,” and to +save children from “unscientific parents.” Dr. Watson, in particular, +calls upon us to make “systematic, long-sustained genetic studies +upon the human species, begun in infancy and continued until past +adolescence,”--an excellent idea. And he demands it because only thus +can we gain that “experimental control over human conduct so badly +needed both for general social control and for individual happiness.” +He has, then, ethical notions, though he nowhere explains how he came +by them. What are they? This question at least can be answered by +noting what sort of conditioning he wishes to give the reflexes. And of +these, love should be the most important. + +“The original situation which calls out the observable love responses +seems to be the stroking or manipulation of some erogenous zone, +tickling, shaking, gentle rocking, patting and turning upon the stomach +across the attendant’s knee,” so psychology from the standpoint +of a behaviorist would have us believe. And sex emotions, however +understood, become later on the touch-offs of the gonads and of the +interstitial glands. How are these reflexes to be conditioned so as to +act in response to something besides tickling, shaking, gentle rocking, +patting and turning upon the stomach across the attendant’s knee? They +are not to be conditioned at all. The behaviorist wants to condition +fear and rage as much as possible, but he advises that love be left +where we find it soon after birth. + +“In our opinion,” says Dr. Watson (still in this same book) +“conditioned love responses [i. e. responses awakened otherwise than +directly through the aforementioned zones], especially those directed +[towards] father and mother, breeding too great dependence upon parents +as they do, are probably the most sinister factors in the whole system +of human organization.” And he laments the fact that such conditioning +is not only tolerated by society, but actually encouraged by it. This +is a most melancholy philosophy, and seems to put masturbation above +marriage. + +And what of the future? “The research psychologists in the +infant-behavior laboratories, once they are established, will in time +learn how to remove these conditioned emotional reactions.” + +No doubt parents frequently do make their children too dependent. So +Dr. Watson advises that babies be hard-boiled; for the conditioning +which he objects to takes place, according to his own account, chiefly +during the second year. + +A certain physician in a once-notorious book, entitled “_Les +Civilisées_,” insists that another of the characters, generally +considered much debauched, is entirely normal and healthy, “_parce +qu’il ne cherche pas les femmes que par le coït_.” Our leading +behaviorist is more civilized still, for he says:[23] + +“In observing the two-year-old only child brought up by an unscientific +mother, we find that the child cries unless held in the lap of +the mother ... will sleep only when in bed with the mother.... +Verbalization [speech] begins: it clusters around the mother just as +... manual and bodily activity clusters around the mother. In a similar +way the gut reactions have their center of reference in the mother. +Manual, verbal and emotional reactions are tied together by this one, +all-exciting stimulus,”--the mother, to wit. + +Which means that the gut-reactions, or the stir of the unstriped +muscles along the intestinal tract, are what the child feels when it +loves its mother, or would be if it could feel anything; and that if +the mother be not scientific and careful, there is apt to ensue a +“conditioning” likely to depose the gut from its position of supremacy. +Unless the behaviorists can save us, our native, purely physical, +almost mechanical lust runs the danger of being swallowed up by +sentiment and affection. + +This danger has been avoided in some parts of the world. Katherine +Mayo, whose book, “Mother India,” has received deserved attention, +says that the “whole pyramid of India’s woes, material and spiritual +poverty, sickness, melancholy, ineffectiveness, not forgetting the +subconscious conviction of inferiority which [the Hindu] forever bears +and advertises by his gnawing and imaginative alertness for social +affronts,” is due to an excess of tumescence, to sex dominant and +rampant in Indian life. She is not speaking of the India of dreaming, +Vedantic philosophers, but of the real India of every-day life, which +she has studied at first hand. There sexual impulses, indulged in +upon a purely erogenous plane, are fostered and encouraged even by +religion--by the Kali belief; by the “phallic cult for females”; by +the training of girl babies so that they may become the playthings +of the carnal passions of men. I do not see where we could find a +better picture of what is likely to happen to us when Dr. Watson’s +“infant-behavior laboratories” once accomplish their task. + +And now, having measured the loveliness of sex by the degree of +excitement existing in the erogenous zones, Dr. Watson offers us +another test for the excellence of conduct in general. + +“In my opinion, one of the most important elements in the judging of +personality, character and ability is the history of the individual’s +yearly achievements. We can measure this objectively by the length +of time the individual stayed in his various positions--the yearly +increases he received in his earnings.... If the individual is a +writer, we should want to draw a curve of the prices he gets for his +stories year by year. If from our leading magazines he receives the +same average price per word for his stories at thirty that he received +at twenty-four, the chances are he is a hack writer and will never do +anything but that.” + +Bertrand Russell (upon whose authority I take this quotation) has +tried to apply this criterion to “Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, Milton and +Blake,” and confesses himself staggered by the result. + +It seems strange that Dr. Watson should have selected excellence in +writing--even excellence marked in dollars--as an instance of a +workable, objective substitute for those old and by him discredited +subjectivities, right and wrong. “A word,” he says,[24] “is just an +explosive clutter of sound made by expelling the breath over the +tongue, teeth and lips whenever we get around [near to?] objects.” It +does not appear how the clutter can be much improved when we express it +in written symbols. In neither case does it mean anything. + +“Meaning,” according to “Psychology from the Standpoint of a +Behaviorist,” “never arrives in the scientific observations of +behavior.... An animal or human being ‘means’ what he does.” That is, +he does not mean what he does. His doing is his meaning. If he makes a +clutter of sounds, that is all there is to it. “It is often said that +thinking somehow peculiarly reveals meaning. If we look upon thinking +as a form of action ... such speculations concerning meaning lose their +mystery and hence their charm.”[25] + +“To answer what the church means to men,” he continues, “it is +necessary to look upon the church as a stimulus and find out what +reactions are called out, [and] why.... This might lead us into +folklore ... into the influence of parents upon children, causing +the race to project the father and mother into a heavenly state +hereafter ... finally into the realms of the incest-complex, homosexual +tendencies, and so on.” + +I do not comprehend the “and so on.” It would seem that we had +already gone on about as far as we could go. This passage, unlike our +speculations concerning meaning in thinking, has not lost its mystery. +Its charm speaks for itself. But one thing is clear. Thinking is +speaking, and a word is an explosive clutter of sound. + +Not always audible, however. Dr. Watson reduces the greater part of +our thought to what he terms “sub-vocal speech.” And Mr. Eggen agrees. +“We do not think with our brain ... we think with our muscles,” he +says.[26] The yokel, always suspected of thinking with his feet, thus +comes into his own. + +“Thinking,” says the behaviorist,--and I now quote from David Wechsler, +“Psychology as a Practical Science in Modern Life,”[27]--“thinking +is but a sub-vocal speech--that is, it consists of certain muscular +movements of the throat and chest [like those observed in a +semi-literate man when he is attempting to read to himself] which are +not accompanied by the production of sounds.” _Id est_, they are not +_always_ accompanied by sounds, and some of them are observable only by +means of instruments. The child, we are told, begins by doing all his +thinking aloud--but some of us eventually learn to do it without noise. +Prof. Wechsler adds that the muscular theory of thinking is “not as +far-fetched as it seems.” + +Why is it not? Because these sub-vocal movements seem always to +be going on when we are thinking, and to some minds--or should I +say muscles?--it seems logical to say that an accompaniment or a +consequence is a cause. The same sort of sub-vocal speech will lead us +to conclude that the foam in the wake of a steamer is what causes the +vessel to go. I have often noticed that a little troupe of dogs usually +accompanies Mrs. Belfeather in her walks in the park. I now learn that +these dogs _are_ Mrs. Belfeather. + +That great psychologist, Eric Peters, once said to Chlorine Garnet, +“I uses my eyes to see with an’ my brains to think thoughts.”[28] +Evidently Peters is not a behaviorist. Neither was Shenute, who died +in the year 451, famous for his anti-pagan propaganda among the Copts +of Egypt. But he seems to have had some of our moderns in mind, for +he said: “They also make the sound of birds, having filled books, +for themselves and you, with vain words: Tinks! Tinks! Kwaks! Kwaks! +saying: We are making the sound of birds.” + +“What possible good does it do,” demands Dr. Watson,[29] “when +discussing brick-laying or sub-vocal arithmetic to guess at what goes +on in the synapse, in the efferent or afferent leg of the reflex arc, +or in the muscle itself?” Such problems, he adds, “belong to the realm +of physiology, and this section of physiology has not yet been written.” + +So he proceeds to write it, not as physiology, but as behaviorism. +These “Kwaks! Kwaks! Tinks! Tinks!” and explosive clutterings of ours +must be conditioned. And they begin to get conditioned the moment the +parents begin to pay some attention to them--which usually happens +without delay. Snoodlekins explodes, “Dada! Dada!” Paterfamilias is +brought into the presence. Wrong! The explosions continue. A watch is +displayed and dismembered. Wrong again! Then somebody hits upon the rag +doll in the corner. It fills the bill. Silence reigns, interrupted only +by goo-goos. And if the parents or other attendants did not afterwards +undo this conditioning by beating upon iron bars or what not, and so +insist upon the rising generation adapting its language to the usages +current among the old, “dada” would become the child’s word for doll. +This is a faithful translation into every day kwaks of what Dr. Watson +says in the more refined tinks of the scholar, and I do not wish for a +moment to deny that things happen much as he says they do. + +But the point is, Snoodlekins discovers through the trial and error +method that explosive clutterings of sound will cause things to move +around the house. He finds that if he says “doll,” slaves will hurry to +place a doll in his hands. Does this not give the word a meaning, in +the meaningful sense of the term? Does it not imply will and purpose +upon the baby’s part; consciousness, likes, dislikes; the ability to +feel pain and pleasure; the desire to eschew the one and pursue the +other? And do we not by implication admit similar intelligence and +emotional capacity on the part of the parents and attendants? Otherwise +why should they care whether a yell or a coo assaulted their ears? + +“Every time I question young children, or even college graduates,” Dr. +Watson complains,[30] “I am struck by their dumbness.” But surely they +are not as dumb as this. By dumb presumably he means unverbalized, +speechless. But of what use is speech to an unconscious, will-less +piece of protoplasm without a mind? Can the imagination of even +the least dumb among us see how or why a speech-mechanism has been +developed and an almost infinite number of reflex arcs conditioned to +respond to its innumerable demands if there be nobody anywhere in a +condition to know whether silence or bedlam reigns? + +Dr. Watson objects to the evidence of “journalists” being received +upon any matter involving human conduct, because they always make +their depositions “in terms of some phases of the original nature of +man.” But nobody can say anything otherwise. A man born deaf could +understand Beethoven’s “Choral Symphony” in terms of acoustics, because +on that side he would not be “dumb.” But could he understand what it +is which the world prizes in the melody that lifts up Schiller’s “Ode +to Joy” in the last movement? And yet acoustics explains everything in +music--except the music. Trying to describe human conduct except in +terms of the nature of man is like trying to dip a net into the sea +without getting it wet. + +“Consider for a moment what people mean, or at least should mean, +when they say they are conscious or have consciousness,” the “Myth” +proceeds. “They mean, in the words of the behaviorist, that they can +carry on some kind of brief sub-vocal talk with ‘themselves’ behind +the closed doors of the lips.” Do they, Dr. Watson? But what do you +mean, “mean”? Have you not told us that “meaning never arrives in the +scientific observations of behavior”? Have you not told us that we are +nothing but a mass of reactions? Can one reaction “mean” anything to +another reaction? + +And why tell us that we “should” do this or that? You have given us +only our “life history” as the determiner of our acts. That history +found us with certain reflexes with which we had nothing to do; certain +“situations” arose to which we automatically responded; our reflexes +became “conditioned” in a way that we could neither help nor hinder. In +“Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist” you say, “A host of +stimuli act concurrently, but the organism reacts now to one, now to +another, depending upon which group of stimuli becomes prepotent.” It +does not depend upon us, you see. The credit or the blame rests either +with our original protoplasm or with the stimuli which have made up its +life history. If slaves we were born, if in slavery we have grown up, +you cannot set us free and make us morally responsible now by letting +us talk a little sub-vocally to selves which do not exist. + +Yet this is precisely what Dr. Watson attempts to do--or at least +he warns us how helpless we will be if we don’t learn to talk. The +old Chinese philosopher, Lao Tse, once said, “Those who do not know, +talk; those who know keep silence.” Dr. Watson says, going on with his +Myth of the Unconscious--calling it mythical because he prefers the +no-conscious: “The child brought up in isolation or among taciturn +parents or in groups where verbalization is frowned upon ... can +only act when brought face to face with objects in their appropriate +settings.” That is, he cannot think. “This is typical of the behavior +of animals. It is typical of the behavior of many primitive peoples; of +men like Jack Dempsey, Calvin Coolidge, or a great many athletes and +acrobats.”[31] + +If the acrobatic, athletic, primitive, Dempsey-like Calvin Coolidge has +to be content not to think of consequences it is no great wonder that +we could not get Eliza logically and behavioristically across the ice. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] “Behavior, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology,” New York, +1914. + +[5] _Harper’s Magazine_, September, 1927. + +[6] “The Training of Young Children,” _Harper’s Magazine_, August, 1927. + +[7] From Dr. Watson’s own account of these experiments in “Psychology +from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist.” + +[8] “The Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,” _Harper’s Magazine_, July, +1927. + +[9] “Behavior, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology,” p. 1. + +[10] Vol. XIII. + +[11] September, 1926. + +[12] “The Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,” _Harper’s Magazine_, July, +1927. + +[13] “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 215. + +[14] “The Unconscious,” p. 59. + +[15] “The Metaphysics of the Instrument,” in _The Monist_, July, 1927. + +[16] “Varieties of Religious Experience,” Lecture III, “The Reality of +the Unseen.” + +[17] “The Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,” _Harper’s Magazine_, July, +1927. + +[18] “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 7. + +[19] “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 8. + +[20] _Ibid._, p. 8. + +[21] “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 10. + +[22] _Ibid._, p. 8. + +[23] “The Myth of the Unconscious,” _Harper’s Magazine_, September, +1927. + +[24] “The Myth of the Unconscious,” _Harper’s Magazine_, September, +1927. + +[25] _Op. cit._, p. 355. + +[26] _Current History_ for September, 1926. + +[27] _Ibid._, December, 1926. + +[28] “The Trained Flea,” by Octavus Roy Cohen, _Saturday Evening Post_, +December 17, 1927. + +[29] “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 372. + +[30] “The Myth of the Unconscious,” _Harper’s Magazine_, September, +1927. + +[31] _Harper’s Magazine_, September, 1927, page 104, col. 2. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DR. McDOUGALL’S X + + +1. AT THE BECK OF THIRTEEN MASTERS + +Dr. William McDougall, once of Oxford and Harvard, now of Duke +University in North Carolina, came to America as one of England’s +leading psychologists. If he is less well known to the public than some +other psychologists, it is because he is less eminently “verbalized” +along the lines of gripping, every-day speech. As an example of his +literary style, as well as of his philosophy, take his definition of +Instinct. + +“An inherited or innate psycho-physical disposition which determines +its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to, objects of a +certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular +quality upon perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in +a particular manner, or, at least, to experience an impulse to such +action.” + +McDougall is nothing if not cautious. His subtile mind foresees every +objection which can be made, and tries to forestall it. The result is a +labyrinth in which even a professor, lacking a golden thread from the +head of Ariadne to guide him, must--and does--frequently get lost. And +yet all that this famous definition actually means is that we are born +in such a way that we act in such a way. + +As to whether the way is marked by physical roads or by roads which +are something else; as to whether these roads are bequeathed to us +by our ancestors, or whether we just have them, McDougall does not +commit himself. But he implies that there is something in us which +pays attention or does not pay attention, and that this something does +not always follow a road even if it sees it. Sometimes it merely wants +to follow, but forbears. Each road, we learn as we continue to read +from this, his “Outline of Psychology,”[32] has a lure of its own--as +roads are apt to have--something which he calls the “hormic impulse,” +or “hormic faculty.” And sometimes, instead of having it always acting +from the roads themselves and moving us with a pull, he seems to +think of it as in or behind us and giving us a push. In its latter +position it can easily be mistaken for a will--even for a free will. To +experience an impulse to act, and then not to act as the impulse would +have you--is not that to be free to act as you like? + +Yes; but what determines the like? Has the slave-driver gone, or has he +merely stepped into the background? + +A hormic impulse is a “striving” impulse. We are born with these +impulses, therefore they are “instincts.” William James gave us +twenty-four--the instincts of climbing, imitation, emulation, rivalry, +pugnacity, anger, resentment, sympathy, hunting, fear, approbation, +acquisitiveness, kleptomania, constructiveness, play, curiosity, +sociability, shyness, cleanliness, modesty, shame, love, jealousy, +parental love. Dr. Watson says he has been able to find none of them. +Dr. McDougall rejects some and discovers several new ones, leaving +thirteen in all--which was for him an unlucky number. + +Instead of being free, we have now thirteen masters, always wrangling +among themselves, it is true, but never consulting us about their +decisions. If we hesitate to obey one of them it is only because +some other happens for the moment to be stronger. Or we are mastered +by a combination; by a bloc. If we decide to move from the city to +the country, it is probably a farm bloc. According to this theory, a +sufficiently knowing person could calculate your conduct in advance. + +Draw two straight lines of the same length, or of different lengths, +as you prefer, from a single point; call that point yourself; let the +direction of the lines represent the direction of the instincts, and +let the relative lengths of the lines represent the relative strength +of the instincts. If you then draw two other lines, each one parallel +to one of the first two, and if you finally draw a diagonal from the +original point to the opposite corner of the parallelogram you have +just constructed, this diagonal will represent the action you will take +when played upon by two hormic impulses at the same time. + +But is this not free will, to do as you are moved to do? It was +Schopenhauer, I think, who said that if a stone thrown through the air +could be conscious, it would imagine that it was free; would translate +gravity, momentum, resistance and the like into terms of personal +desire. And it was Will Durant who, in his “Story of Philosophy,” said +that Schopenhauer was right. This, of course, is but another way of +saying that free will is an illusion. It seems to come from within us, +but in reality comes from without. And so it must be if we are the +playthings of these hormic, instinctive impulses with which we are said +to be born. + +McDougall has specifically repudiated this interpretation of his +theory. He calls himself a “Vitalist”; a believer in an active +“life-principle,” in something which, if not an actual soul, is at +least a mind. But being an eminently fair-minded gentleman, he has +been at pains to marshal together all the objections to his own views +which he can think of, and he has proven himself to be a better enemy +propagandist than defender of his own territory. + +Thus C. E. M. Joad, a British writer, author of “The Babbitt Warren,” +in his essay, “The End of Ethics,”[33] compared McDougall to Watson +and to Freud, and finds that one and all “preclude free will.” And he +adds: “Whether ... the conscious will overcomes the unconscious desire, +or whether the unconscious desire overcomes the conscious will, is a +matter which appears to lie outside our control.” + +Mr. Joad does not go half far enough. Under the McDougall hypothesis, +the conscious will overcoming the unconscious desire is a matter +which can never happen. Will is merely the conscious result of a war +of unconscious impulses. But he is quite right in believing that it +makes no difference whether a striving be called an “instinct,” as by +McDougall; an “emotion-reflex,” as by Watson; or a “libido,” with or +without a “complex,” as by Freud. If we were born with it, or found +it innate within us, or acquired it through circumstances not of our +making, then we are its puppets or the puppets of its fellows. So Mr. +Joad quite logically groups McDougall, Watson and Freud together as +determinists, all the protests of the eminent English professor to the +contrary notwithstanding. + +McDougall nevertheless is possessed by an idea which negatives such a +conclusion, negatives his whole philosophy; but he has never let it +possess him wholly. That is why he has become so subtile, so difficult +to read. Among those objects “of a certain class” which his thirteen +innate or inherited instincts have moved him to pay attention to, is +the materialistic physical science of the nineteenth century. And the +conclusions of that science emphatically forbid the conclusion which he +longs to arrive at in his own particular sphere. He wants to be free; +to have a soul. And this old science tells him that he can’t be free, +nor have anything of the sort. + +The trouble, of course, comes from the “law” of the Conservation of +Energy--the idea that force is incapable of being either increased or +diminished; that the amount of power which enters into anything is the +amount of power which eventually issues from it, no more and no less. +If will be anything but the net result of a group of pushes and pulls, +it obviously contravenes this law by “creating” enough force to upset +the balance--that is, unless we interpret the law very liberally and +take it to mean that the sum total of the force of the entire universe +alone is constant. In that case, if the will can smuggle in a little +energy without having to pay for it, so to speak, it could be free to +that extent. + +The nineteenth century provided against this catastrophe by making +matter indestructible. No particle of it was to be permitted to give +up the ghost--a ghost which might be snatched by the will and used to +wreck the materialistic machine. So even if matter had some energy +locked up in it somehow, it was going to stay locked up. Those were +the days of a static universe; of a world completely finished, set +going and deserted by a God who had gone out of business and was never +expected to return. And to prove it, scientists devised instruments, +measured the energy--income and output, found that the two balanced, +and boldly announced that they always “must” balance. + +Naturally, McDougall is not so crude as to accept either those +experiments or those theories today. It takes a popular author to +do that--one whose reading stopped or was curtailed many years ago. +After saying that the only ground for doubting the freedom of the +will is that offered by the strict determinists who contend for the +universality of the Law of Causation--a dependent brother of the Law of +Conservation,--after saying this, he boldly adds that this law “is not +susceptible of being proved”; has “had its day”; and “is merely a clog +on speculation.” + +Nothing could be more hopeful. We seem to be setting out on a +magnificent, unincumbered highway. But McDougall is a born reconciler +of irreconcilables. He can not abandon Conservation even after having +repudiated it. Earlier predilections, no doubt, bar the way. So he +seeks to retain both his Will and the Law which forbids it. Fit +successor to James and to Santayana, he presents the spectacle of a +house divided against itself. Yet he lacks the wistful melancholy of +the unbelieving Catholic, who found the intellect so hard and dry and +useless when made supreme over all, but strove faithfully to worship it +nevertheless. Nor has he the reckless inconsistency of the unbelieving +Protestant, James, who could say one thing heartily, and then, in +another mood, say something quite the opposite--no less heartily. + +McDougall is neither hearty nor melancholy. He has partially +accepted Freud, and has worked in the same clinic with Jung. He is +a psychiatrist. His important contributions to knowledge all deal +with the abnormal. He has studied insects and animals. But such +thirst for the human as he owns to has been largely satisfied by his +practical ministrations to the sick and semi-demented. Therefore he is +able to weave his intricate patterns of words about the incompatible +presumptions of his argument with a certain appearance of enjoyment, +and seems to fancy that when the thread of the discourse has become +sufficiently tangled it will have brought the incompatibles together. + +“Resolutions of the will are not bolts from the blue,” he asserts.[34] +And he does not see that this commits him hopelessly to the mechanistic +camp. For resolutions of the will must be bolts from the blue--just +that, exactly--or they do not transcend the law of the Conservation of +Energy. And if they do not add a jot or tittle by way of effect to what +is already found in the cause, they are not free. + +“Shall we say that Divine [clearly he means ‘human’] Reason sits at the +head, controlling the fierce passions that reside in the belly as a +charioteer controlls a team of savage steeds?” asks McDougall.[35] + +“Aye!” cried the great Aristotle, centuries ago. + +“Hardly!” exclaims our Carolina professor. “Reason is not a conative +[i. e. striving] energy that may be thrown on this side or that in our +moral conflicts.”[36] “Reason is not that X of which we are in search, +though it plays an important part in bringing that X to bear.”[37] + +It begins to have the interest of a detective story. X marks the spot +where the Will is to be found--and if X is something superior to +Reason, all the better. But it is clearly asserted here that the Will +is not the Reason; that Reason merely plays a part in bringing the +Will to bear. That is, Reason guides, directs, aims the Will? No; for +in such a case Reason would be the master, the mysterious Mr. X after +all--which is contrary to the hypothesis. Is Reason, then, a channel of +information, an open book where the Will reads the latest returns from +the environment, so that there may be no action without knowledge? It +looks that way for the moment. But McDougall goes on: “The X of which +we are in search is always an impulse awakened within the sentiment +of self-regard. It is the desire that I, the precious self ... shall +realize in action the ideal of conduct which it has formulated and +accepted.”[38] + +So X is an impulse wakened within a sentiment, which[39] he tells us is +the “most general term to denote all acquired conative (i. e. striving) +trends.” This makes X an impulse wakened within an acquired striving +trend. And if we turn back to the definition of instinct we are +reminded that a disposition to experience an impulse is an instinct, +and therefore not acquired. So the impulse must have slumbered in +a disposition before the sentiment within which it eventually woke +had been acquired. X is also a desire belonging to an “I” which has +formulated and accepted an ideal of conduct. Are we ringing the changes +upon an octave of bells, or are we trying to say something? + +[Illustration: PROFESSOR WILLIAM MCDOUGALL + +Are we trying to say something?] + +Here we have Reason, Desire, Impulse, Instinct and Sentiment, not to +mention Trend, all getting together and trying to make a Will with the +help of an X and an I. We were out fishing, and just when the prospect +seemed encouraging for a bite of something edible, we catch a wad +of verbal flounces, beneath which if anything be concealed it looks +strangely like a gudgeon in the shape of Nietzsche’s “Will to Power” +rechristened as the Sentiment of Self-Regard. Or it may be the “libido” +of Freud, or the “egotistic impulse” of Dr. Alfred Adler, of Vienna, +which even Freud has denounced as “founded entirely upon the impulse of +aggression,” leaving “no place at all for love.” It is a Will such as +Dr. Watson might have made, had he been making one. But at least, you +will say, it is a Will. Yet is it? + +A Will must have power, else it cannot move at all. And it must have +the direction of that power, else it has no choice as to the way in +which it shall move. X, being an impulse and a desire, may be said to +have power. But McDougall puts it within an acquired striving trend, +and my dictionary tells me that a trend is an inclination to move in +a particular direction--which is precisely what an instinct is. The +channel, you will note, has already been dug. Whatever was acquired +was foredoomed to be acquired. The ideal of conduct which the “I” +formulated and accepted lay hidden from the first, with no possibility +of its being rejected in favor of some other ideal. The “balance sheet” +of the Law of Conservation has been retained, all protestations to the +contrary notwithstanding. + +McDougall has also attempted to make a Will out of attention. + +Now attention is probably the slightest piece of luggage of all our +inner impedimenta. It is such a little thing. It weighs almost nothing. +Can’t we get at least “attention” past the old-fashioned scientific +custom-house without paying duty under the Conservation law? This looks +at first like a feasible scheme. But the customsmen are lynx-eyed. +Once we submit to their jurisdiction they will let nothing pass, though +it weigh less than the tiniest bit of fuzz off the end of a feather +boa. Thus far McDougall has been held up as an undesirable citizen by +these hoary custodians, and not allowed to land in Mechanistia. They +have been alarmed by the suspicious manner of the traveler. But in +thinking that he has any free will hidden in his theoretical baggage +they are deceived. + +This “interest” or “attention” with which we have to deal, is +“conative.”[40] And conation is “a convenient Latin word ... to denote +the striving aspect of the mental processes.”[41] I am afraid that it +is all it is, a convenient Latin word. For “instinct” too is a “direct +conative trend.”[42] Here we have two kinds of striving, only one of +which is said to be direct, that is to have a direction. But this +directed striving comes first; it is in-born, instinctive. Naturally so +is instinct, “a disposition which determines its possessor to perceive, +and to pay attention to, objects of a certain class.” But in trying to +find a Will it is precisely this determining which we are interested +in. We don’t care what makes the water run in the ditch, we want to +know what digs the ditch. In McDougall it is always instinct. He has +studied insects too much. He has seen too many lunatics whose wills +were paralyzed. “Instinctively” he gives us only the mechanisms which +he thinks he finds in grasshoppers. + +Once, indeed, he does get up to the level of birds. On page 255 of the +book[43] which contains the most complete expression of his theories, +he says: “The only instance of pure cognition, as distinct from +recognition, are those in which a creature is confronted for the first +time with an object of the kind that evokes an instinctive reaction.... +As when the hen nightingale hears for the first time the song of the +male.” + +We are back to a first time, so for the moment are freed from habit. +But “instinctive reaction” evoked by an object in the environment +promptly takes us in charge. If the hen nightingale has no X, neither +have we. She is merely a concrete example of the class “creature,” +to which we unquestionably belong. And obviously the hen can pay no +attention to objects in which she has no instinctive interest, since it +is instinct which “determines” the disposition to attend. + +But what if the hen sees a snake as well as hears a song? Can reason +dig a channel for her striving which will lead her to make a detour on +her way past snake towards song? Is Reason the X? Impossible. “Reason +is not a conative [striving] energy.” Then it has no power, it cannot +dig ditches. + +It cannot even control attention, since that is the yes-man of +instinct, the only thing having power which we have yet encountered. +So if the hen nightingale decides to risk the possibility of laying +unfertilized eggs rather than the possibility of making a snake’s +dinner--if she turns a deaf ear to the song of the male and simply goes +away from there, it will be because her instinct of self-preservation +proved a stronger and a quicker ditch-digger and trend-giver for her +hormic impulses than did her sexual or maternal instincts. Or perhaps +it was her instinct of self-regard which led her to take wing. + +No doubt it will be argued that it was Reason which put before her +the probable consequences of coming too close to a snake, reason +based on experience or observation. Let us suppose that Reason did +have this information--though I don’t see how a powerless reason could +acquire anything,--what is it going to do with it? Call it to the hen’s +attention? It cannot. Her attention wears the shackles of instinct. She +moves without waiting to know. Moving without knowing why is the very +core of instinctive behavior. + +And yet McDougall assures us[44] that “conative [striving] behavior is +indicative of an energy that works teleologically [i. e. purposefully] +and which is therefore radically different from the energies which +physical science conceives as working always mechanistically.” He +loves to console himself with sentences like this one. We grow more +rational and less instinctive as we grow older. How perfectly true. But +McDougall brings it about by having Reason “waken” in a world where no +energy is required to amass and classify data and then bring them to +the attention of an X in the face of thirteen instincts which among +them possess all the power there is. + +If Reason only were a bolt from the blue! Or if X were such a bolt and +could lend Reason a little current! But X itself wakens in a particular +instinct, self-regard, and it is wakened by nothing. X does not mark +the place where the will is to be found, it marks the place where the +_body_ is to be found. And what is McDougall’s conclusion of the whole +matter? What one might expect. “The stallion arches his thick neck ... +the bull bellows; the lion roars; the cat caterwauls; and the young man +curls his mustache.” + + +2. PSYCHE WIELDS THE BROOM + +In an unclaimed desert anyone may erect fences, but it is difficult +to see how fences, especially when they are only imaginary, can +earn dividends if they enclose no cattle. McDougall introduces us +to a region where there is not even sand--only words. And nothing +is required of these words, whether they be conveniently Latin or +less conveniently English, except that they follow one another in +grammatical order. He makes distinction after distinction; and as they +are verbal distinctions merely, all that ensues when they contradict +each other is a conflict like that of several contending currents of +air. + +We see now why Dr. Watson so much objected to the introspective method. +In truth, “introspective” is an unhappy term. We may note what goes on +inside of our bodies, and even of our brains to a certain extent; and +give names to various thoughts, feelings and sensations, or to what +we take to be such. We can tell in what order they occur. But this is +not introspection in any literal sense, it is simply paying attention +to things which are intimate and near. Actually to try to look inside +of “ourselves,” implies that “we” are standing outside and looking +in--an impossible situation. Its physical counterpart is the attempt to +roll the eyeballs so as to get a view of the interior of the skull--a +performance not to be recommended. + +The outer world, physicists tells us, is a “continuum,” something all +of a piece. A chair and the air around it are not so separate as one +might suppose. It is the sense of touch and the sense of sight which +distinguish so sharply between one and the other. Make the chair of +glass, and the eye is not so certain. Lenses and mirrors can be so +arranged as to project a visible chair which the hand cannot feel. +Make the chair of aromatic wood and the sense of smell will perceive it +as pervasively emanating from a vague center yet permeating the whole +room. + +But in dividing such a continuum we have at least the warrant of our +senses. We remain practical. When we attempt to divide up the continuum +perceived only by the inner self, such guides are lacking. We have +to depend upon psychologists. And if we try to go further and cut +the inner self, itself doing the cutting, we only commit subjective +_hari-kari_, the sensation of which is very uncomfortable. This is the +sort of metaphysics which is indeed but methodical befuddlement. Yet +it is practiced, not by metaphysicians but by men calling themselves +scientists; men who profess for the most part to despise both +metaphysics and philosophy--dogmatic men, who never lose an opportunity +for expressing their horror of dogma. Such misbehavior entitles anyone +to the title “misbehaviorist,” whether he be a Watsonian or a Freudian, +and McDougall, for all his agreeable manners, will have to be convicted. + +R. H. Hingley, B.A., who signs himself a “research student in +psychology, Edinburgh University,” picking and choosing such +verbalization as pleases him, even attempts to reconcile McDougall +with the impalpable Boris Sidis. Hingley writes as a friend of the +accused, and in his book, “Psycho-Analysis,” proves it by defining +“self-consciousness” as “a recognized and acknowledged synthesis of +... impulses.”[45] If that is all self-consciousness is, it is this +same familiar nothing with which we have already had so much to do. +Can you imagine a “synthesis” as existing by itself? In the case of +gin, perhaps, for the atoms in synthetic gin are real atoms in good +standing in their several communities brought together by no fault +of their own. Nor even yet do they exist as gin except as there is +something outside of themselves capable of conceiving of them as gin. +They belong to the physical continuum--and generally it is safer to +leave them where they belong. + +I won’t ask what is to be expected of a synthesis of McDougallian +hormic impulses. Another verbal whirlwind threatens to blow, and it +will be better to keep out of it. But let us make a synthesis of +matches. + +Arrange a number of matches on the table before you so that they form +a cross, a star, or any other geometrical figure. Then sweep them up +in your hand and forget all about it. Where is the figure now? What +has become of it? Have you at last succeeded in defying “natural +law,” and annihilated something? No; the figure did not exist, as a +figure, except in you. And if some trace of it be not in you now, as an +“unconscious idea” or what not, it can be nowhere. It was only a form, +and form is an entity only by grace of the perceiver of form. + +It was you who perceived certain relations among the matches. The +relations were not in the matches. Unless the matches managed somehow +to get outside of themselves, they had no idea that they were parts +of a cross, a star, or a triangle. And when this form is “destroyed” +they are conscious of no loss. Now a self, or a self-consciousness +which is only a form made out of the things which constitute it and not +perceived by anything else, is less a self than a piece of bread rubbed +on the outside of an empty closet door is a cheese sandwich. + +This habit of playing with words signifying a multitude of things +conceived of as a unit, is evident in all the literature of mechanist +thinking. As soon as such a word is found, the group of things is +treated as if it were a force, an entity, or even an intelligent +creature standing on its own legs. And usually the things in the groups +are also but words. + +Dr. McDougall, for instance, says that a man in the presence of a great +work of art is being played upon by a “fusion” of the “instincts” of +“curiosity” and “wonder,” fused in their turn with the instinct of +“submission.” It is a predicament in which no one should lightly wish +to find even an art critic. + +But if we have thirteen instincts, why not fourteen? Why not the whole +twenty-four listed by James? Why not twenty-five? If I can be played +upon by a fusion of curiosity, wonder and submission, all instinctive, +why cannot I be played upon by the instinct to light my pipe at three +o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, the Thirteenth of January? Think of +a self-conscious synthesis of unconscious impulses being played upon +by a fusion of unconscious determining impulses wakened in an innate +psycho-physical disposition to pay attention! + +But let us abandon the materialistic hypothesis, however disguised. +Let us say that it was Psyche who built her house, not the house which +built Psyche--and how the situation changes! She cannot have built it +out of nothing, it is true. So let Dr. Watson give her a dwelling with +only the foundation reflex courses laid, or let Dr. McDougall escort +her into a completely and instinctively furnished apartment. In either +case, she begins at once to make alterations, for she is a “choosy” +woman, this Psyche of ours. She has power in her right arm, and does +not care a tinker’s dam about the conservation of energy. + +So she proceeds in her disposition to pay attention to objects “of +a certain class,” and totally to ignore others. Things progress +from a “predominantly mechanical to a predominantly teleological +determination.” Pure instincts, the original furnishings of the flat, +become modified by experience and rational reflection. Dr. Watson[46] +says “there is no mystery in building the human being into as +complicated an organism as he is.” Avowed mechanists are never tired of +telling us this, and they are right. There is no mystery at all--save +in Psyche herself. And she is all mystery. I would no sooner think of +trying to explain her than I would think of explaining myself. For she +_is_ myself. And she and I, like Drs. Watson and McDougall, are totally +inexplicable. Not even we understand in the least. + +What is explanation? Let us explain a sunset. It is caused, we will +say, by the earth turning upon its axis, so that the sun, which at +noon was overhead, seems to sink to the horizon. Actually, it is the +horizon which rises and obscures the sun--no matter. The rays which +were perpendicular, become slant. They encounter drops of water in the +atmosphere--encounter too the laws of refraction, and break up into +gorgeous yellows and purples. Follow the rays in one direction, and +you come to the “rods” in the eye; the optic nerve; the brain; and to +Something which translates the result into the color sensations, and +these, perhaps, into a fusion of wonder, curiosity and submission--and +these into a lot of theories. + +Follow the rays in the other direction, and you arrive at the sun, +and are tempted to construct various theories of light. Whence came +the sun? Whence came these primal particles or protons of which it +is theoretically composed? We know of the sun’s existence only from +what Psyche perceives--through her senses or otherwise. Imagine +that neither Psyche nor the sun exists. Start now and try to imagine +yourself creating either or both. Why, you cannot even make a +beginning. You have nothing to imagine with. You are lost between the +impossibility of existence and the impossibility of non-existence. Did +you ever stop to think how utterly impossible is either of these two +opposite impossibilities? And yet--here we are! + +Explanation, then, consists in nothing but the addition to one +mysterious experience of Psyche certain other mysterious experiences +which precede, accompany or follow it. And as they usually precede, +accompany or follow in much the same order, we call them causes, +controlling circumstances, and effects. But instead of explaining the +mystery away, we have merely heaped Pelions and Ossas of mystery all +about it. And so we often manage to hide it, and to fancy that there +is no mystery at all. Would it not be wholesome exercise occasionally +to admit openly that we do not know what we are talking about? Why not +for once exclaim with Dr. Bertry, in “_L’évasion_,” by Brieux, “_On ’s +imagine savoir des millions de choses!--on veut formuler les lois de la +vie--et l’on assiste impuissant à sa propre agonie!--Nous ne comprenons +rien à tout ce qui se passe autour de nous, rien à ce que se passe en +nous_”? + +So far as the mind is concerned, this is undoubtedly true. The mind +can know nothing of the proper essence of that which surrounds us. The +mind, says Newman, cannot comprehend even its own activities to the +full. So we “do but assist at our own agony.... Why is it that I die? +The scelerose invades the arteries. Why? What is the scelerose?” And +Dr. Bertry continues: “Do you wish me to tell you? We know nothing +about it--nothing! We have found nothing about it--but words.” + +That is no reason, however, why we should use yet other words to create +mysteries of our own--like the unconscious emotions of Dr. Watson, or +the enslaved freedom of Dr. McDougall. And this is my answer to those +who will object that my explanation, too, is incomprehensible. Its +incomprehensibility comes from the facts, not from my contrivance. The +metaphor of Psyche grants the natural mystery by making our inner self +a human being, which, after all, is what it is. And with this for a +start, the reason can work--at the only job for which it is fitted. + +It does not follow that Psyche discovers nothing which is of any use. +Knowledge is relative, but Truth is not--Pragmatism or no Pragmatism. +And she soon discovers, let William James have said what he may have +said, that it makes a great difference whether her approximations are +more or less wide of the mark. Which is to say that she profits by +experience. Her original house does not suit her. She makes certain +rearrangements. They suit her better, but not to perfection. She +continues to rearrange and to build, with such material as life affords +her. That, I fancy, is what she is here for--to learn how to keep +house. For though the house be not Psyche, any more than your house +or your body is you, do not think for a moment that it is useless. As +well say that the parallel bars in the gymnasium are of no use to the +athlete for whom they afford the opportunity of exercise. + +Scientists at one time used to exercise--not their powers of +observation, but their verbal ingenuity--upon a set of bars of their +own which they called the psycho-neural parallel, saying that inasmuch +as two parallel lines can never touch, so neurology and psychology, +nerves and mind, matter and the immaterial, can never influence one +another. According to this theory, there were two eternally separate +twins dancing along, each on its own line of the parallel, forever +aping each other as our reflections ape us in a mirror. And it was +strictly forbidden to cross the track! + +The materialists have repealed this “law,” on the ground that there is +no psychic rail out of which to make the right hand parallel. Others +would repeal it, saying that there is no left-hand rail. The rails are +there, nevertheless. What is not there nor anywhere is the prohibition +against crossing. The idea that the immaterial cannot influence the +material because spirit and matter are things of different orders comes +from the same sort of logic as would maintain that waves cannot rock a +boat because wood and water, too, are of different orders of things. + +But, think you, this is merely human experience and common sense, not +science? That there is no Scientific Psyche? That the idea of there +being somebody at home within us is a sweet but forbidden doctrine; +something forever outlawed by the experimental method? On the contrary, +it was the experimental method which first made us aware of this state +of things. And the experimental method in its most modern, scientific +form, politely lifts its hat to the Housekeeper whenever she appears. +It was only during a decade or two--the decade or two when most of +our psychologists were young and learned all they ever did learn of +physics--that science forgot her manners. If you want to be in style, +do not continue to wear your hat in the house. In the best circles it +is no longer done. + +We are not ready yet, however, to enter the best circles. We have first +to pass through the fires of passion, of madness and dreams. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[32] My quotations are from the edition of 1925. + +[33] _Harper’s Magazine_, August, 1927. + +[34] “Outline of Psychology,” p. 446. + +[35] _Ibid._, p. 439. + +[36] _Ibid._, p. 446. + +[37] _Ibid._, p. 440. + +[38] “Outline of Psychology,” pp. 140 and 141. + +[39] _Ibid._, p. 418. + +[40] “Outline of Psychology,” p. 274. + +[41] _Ibid._, p. 418. + +[42] _Ibid._, p. 418. + +[43] _Op. cit._ + +[44] “Outline of Psychology,” p. 317. + +[45] “Outline of Psychology,” p. 18. + +[46] “The Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,” _Harper’s Magazine_, July, +1927. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A SLAVE TO DREAMS + + +1. THE CONFESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD + +Psycho-analysis, we are told by Hingley[47] began with a “very +interesting case of hysteria” suffered by a patient of Dr. J. Breuer, +of Vienna. Sigmund Freud, then a young man, was in Paris, studying +with Charcot at the Salpêtrière. The patient lost the use of the right +arm, lost the power to drink; but recovered both when Dr. Breuer, +resorting to hypnotism, revived the memory of a painful experience in +the patient’s childhood. + +Mesmer, with his magnetic fluid and his “passes,” had almost been +forgotten, but in France the hypnotists of the Salpêtrière were still +battling against the “suggestion” school of Nancy--as in deed they are +today. Here, therefore, was a case after Freud’s own heart. He hurried +back home. + +The two doctors worked for a while in harmony, and soon arrived at the +conclusion that to cure hysteria it was not sufficient to revive the +past. Patients must re-live the painful experience in all its original +emotional intensity. Thus the ground was prepared for the later +Naturopaths, who insist that one must have all one’s diseases over +again in inverse order, avoiding remedies as these merely “suppress the +symptoms.” + +But some people have had diseases which they do not care to have over +again, and prefer suppressed symptoms to almost any other kind. So +Naturopathy has had a hard row to hoe. At first there was the same +reluctance on the part of the public in regard to painful emotional +experiences. Not until Freud, abandoned by Breuer but accompanied by +a disciple named Jung, visited America in 1919, was sales-resistance +finally overcome. By this time it was generally known that, though the +method was called the “cathartic method,” no cathartics were used; +and that the “painful experiences” to be re-lived were all sexual +experiences, painful only in a Pickwickian sense. + +For he came with the announcement that there was within each one of us +a bogie, or endo-psychic censor, which prevented us from dwelling with +any real enjoyment upon the more unsavory episodes of the past; that +it was this spoil-sport which made us ill; and that it could be put to +rout by “Psycho-Analysis.” + +Soon it was discovered that an outer censor, familiarly known as +Anthony Comstock--a rather ignorant gentleman with the annoying habit +of sending policemen after those who published what was, in those days, +quaintly termed “pornographic literature,”--could be floored by the +same means. Psychology was not “literature.” Therefore it could not be +“pornographic literature,” within the meaning of the law. The Venusburg +_motif_ shivered with joy. The Pilgrim’s Chorus sank to a gruff base. +So the Austrian became a best-seller, out-vending even Havelock Ellis, +who had previously had our perversions pretty much in his politer +charge. Dr. Breuer, on the contrary, clinging to hypnotism, which Freud +had discarded, and more or less discarding the eroticism to which +Freud had nailed his colors, sank back straightway into his native +oblivion, a warning to all. + +It need not be thought that the cathartic method did us no good. The +United States, just emerging from the taboos of Queen Victoria, was +in need of hyssop. Some of us, brought up among tables and chairs +having limbs in lieu of legs, were really in a bad way. But Freud has +become much more than a physician. Through books which sell in hundreds +of thousands, he seeks to officiate as a pedagogue, a scientist, a +philosopher and a priest. + +Therefore it may not be amiss to enquire into his antecedents and his +character, and then to ask ourselves what his teachings amount to as +theory and how they influence our lives if put into practice. + +In order to be perfectly fair, I shall confine myself almost +exclusively to the analysis of a single book, the master-piece into +which he has put his most fully elaborated and carefully worked out +speculations, “The Interpretation of Dreams,” using the third edition +of the authoritative English translation of A. A. Brill. + +This work, whatever it may be as psychology, is certainly one of the +greatest autobiographies in existence; for in it Freud not only tells +us his dreams--which alone would tell us nothing--but the incidents +from which he deems the dreams to have sprung, and the thoughts and +memories which his study of the dreams have brought to mind. It is a +method to be recommended for those who wish to stand quite naked before +the world. By the time he has done, not even Rousseau or Benvenuto +Cellini are better revealed. + +“When I was six years old,” he writes,[48] “and was receiving my first +instructions from my mother, I was asked to believe that we are made +of earth, and that therefore we must return to earth. But this did not +suit me, and I doubted her teaching. Thereupon my mother rubbed the +palms of her hands together--just as in making dumplings, except that +there was no dough between them--and showed me the blackish scales of +epidermis which were thus rubbed off as a proof that it is earth of +which we are made. My astonishment at this demonstration _ad oculos_ +was without limit, and I acquiesced in the idea.” + +And so, in maturer years, when he came to dream of a woman rubbing her +hands together, the incident was recalled, and he identifies the dream +woman as one of the Fates! + +For once his conclusion is not far-fetched. One of the Fates, indeed! +To speak his own jargon, it may have been from those blackish scales +of epidermis that he received the psychic blow which resulted in his +life-long anti-religious mania. His love of God (he once used to +read Philippson’s Bible, and to dream of the illustrations) was made +ashamed by this ridiculous demonstration _ad oculos_, and forced out +of consciousness. The course of history was turned on a certain famous +occasion by the cackling of a flock of geese. It might have been turned +again by the timely use of a cake of soap upon a maternal epidermis. + +Freud describes the inability of a child to detach its “libido” from +the parent whom he asserts first awakens it, as a “mother-fixation.” +His own mother-fixation takes the following startling form:[49] “It is +only of late that I have learned to value the significance of fancies +and unconscious thoughts about life in the womb. They contain the +explanation of the curious fear felt by so many people of being buried +alive, as well as the profoundest unconscious reason for the belief in +a life after death, which represents nothing but a projection into the +future of this mysterious life before birth. The act of birth [he means +the act of being born] is the first experience with fear, and is thus +the source and model of the emotion of fear.” + +Here emerges his marvelous gift for the enunciation of inconsistent +formulas. Birth, the “first experience with fear,” is the “source and +the model of all fear.” Yet it is the pre-natal life, which knew no +fear, which is the source of the fear of being buried alive. Moreover, +unconscious thoughts about this happy life _in ventro_ have but to be +projected into the future to become the source of a belief in a life +after death--a belief which is fraught both with fear and hope to all +those who entertain it. + +Then, to make his inconsistency complete, he maintains (in his essay +on “The Anxiety Neurosis,” and in many other places) that “neurotic +fear has its origin in the sexual life and corresponds to a libido +which has been turned from its object.” From what object? One of the +erogenous zones. Birth thus ceases to be the source of fear--at least +of “neurotic” fear--unless we assumed that it was a the moment of birth +that erotic passion was first awakened. + +Dr. Ernest Jones, in “_Zur Psycho-analyse der Kriegsneurosen_,” says +that all fear is due to suppressed libidinousness, but adds that +fear consists in anxiety lest the suppression be overcome and the +erotic demon escape control. The natural hero, then, would be the +man who either had no erotic impulses or was indifferent as to when +and where and how they manifested themselves. Freud, perhaps, agrees +with this. Yet evidently, like Hamlet (to whom also he attributes a +mother-fixation) he still carries with him another fear--a “fear of +something after death,” an apprehension of such “dreams” as may come +in such a “sleep,” baffling all psycho-analysis and worse than the +delusions of a suppressed libido--and this notwithstanding the blackish +scales in the demonstration _ad ocolus_ and the incredible reasons +which he gives for his “symptom.” + +Freud hates to abandon anything altogether. He likes to keep a little +fear, a little shame--not enough to control conduct, but just enough to +lend a thrill to transgression. “The original situation which calls out +the observable love-responses ... the stroking or manipulation of some +erogenous zone, tickling, shaking, gentle rocking, patting and turning +upon the stomach across the attendant’s knee,” would become intolerably +monotonous if sought to be prolonged for a lifetime. Anatole France’s +penguins were not “excessively occupied” by it even after they became +human, before they learned to wear clothes. Dr. Watson, could he +really prevent other stimuli from being “built in” or “grafted upon” +this unconditioned reflex, would reduce all love-interest to that +seasonal intermittance owned to by the beasts of the field--with +what consequences to the film industry, who can say? Freud, though +he prefers the words “mother-fixation” to “gut-reaction,” and +“polymorphous perverse” to “unconditioned reflexes,”--to say nothing of +“original sin”--agrees perfectly with the behaviorist as to what the +natural stimuli are and that they should be spared all interference. +But he can never quite get over the idea that, though natural, they +are wrong. He speaks sometimes of “pollution” and of “filth.” The +love-adventure thus becomes as exciting as a pact with the devil. At +the same time he drives us to it with the threat of psycho-neurosis and +possible paralysis if we refrain. In his hands, psychology becomes an +aphrodisiac. + +From this same autobiography we learn that he was once actually in a +grave, though only “an empty Etruscan grave near Orvieto.” And when he +dreams of death, it is, he sometimes thinks, from a wish that _if_ he +must go (“if” is the word he uses!) it may be to a grave something like +this “pleasant one.” + +For a moment one thinks that the uterine obsession has abated. Yet I +remember that somewhere he explains that the fondness of youths for +flinging themselves down in the open is due to the fact that the ground +is “the womb of mother earth,” and to a longing for return--whether in +a fœtal or other capacity I do not recall. The Etruscan tomb-dream is +not so pastoral as it seems. + +“Dreams which are conspicuously innocent,” he warns us,[50] “invariably +(sic!) embody coarse erotic wishes.” Note the word “coarse,” a term of +condemnation. And yet if we refine them we go mad! + +He can look forwards at times, for he asks,[51] “Is not the having of +children the only access to immortality for us all?” Which is certainly +an inadequate--no man really “lives again” in his children--yet a +better explanation for the general belief in immortality than the +extremely psycho-analytic idea that it comes from thoughts and memories +of the unborn state. But the mother hypothesis seizes him again when +he comes to interpret dreams “about landscapes and localities in which +emphasis is ... laid upon the assurance” that one has “been there +before.” For he adds, “the locality [indicated] is always the genital +organ of the mother.” + +Freud was born in a little village of Moravia, “inhabited by Slavs,” +and “must have understood the Czech language during the first three +years of childhood.” Until the end of his third year, his “inseparable” +companion was his nephew, John, a boy about a twelvemonth older than +himself. John occasionally took advantage of signority, treating the +future psychiatrist “very badly”; and the memory of this association +has, in his own opinion, “colored” Freud’s relationships with people of +his own age ever since. + +He had, when he was fourteen, the pleasure of playing Brutus to the +hated and beloved playmate’s Cæsar--not in Shakespeare’s drama but +in Schiller’s poem--the audience being composed of children. Long +afterwards he dreams of the event, and connects up the “associations” +in characteristic style. The dream-month, it seems, was July--named +after the mighty Cæsar himself. Which leads him at once to Brutus’ +speech in Shakespeare: “As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was +fortunate, I rejoiced at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he +was ambitious, I slew him.” So old scores are evened, if only in that +thing less than a dream--dream-analysis. Freud’s favorite method of +taking revenge is in his sleep. + +Yet there is a certain truculence in his waking character too, a +_Schlagerfertigkeit_ which he acknowledges to be his. This seems to owe +its origin not so much to the teasing John as to a conversation which +took place when Freud was ten or twelve. His father was telling him +how, in his own youth, he was walking on a Saturday through a street in +the village where Freud was born. + +“Along comes a Christian,” says the father to the boy, “knocks my cap +into the mud with one blow, and shouts, ‘Jew, get off the sidewalk!’” +Sigmund asks, “And what did _you_ do?” his eyes big with wonder and the +hope for some happy issue. But the father answers simply, “I went into +the street and picked up the cap.” + +Here was born another complex--this time an inferiority complex--with +which all right-minded persons must sympathize. Stoutly has he sought +to fight it off, to assert himself. But it is easy to see how he has +been hurt by the anti-Semitic feeling which from time to time has +disgraced Austrian politics; how he hates the white carnations that, in +Vienna, are the insignia of the Jew-baiters. + +But with what gusto he tells us of the old peasant midwife who assisted +at his “first experience with fear” and prophesied, after the manner +of her kind, that he would become “a great man!” His father, not to +be outdone, was of the opinion that he was “poetically gifted” from +the start. The idea of anticipated power may also lie behind the fact +that the favorite toy of his babyhood was a yellow porcelain lion. And +were I to follow his own method of the free association of ideas yet +further, I might suggest that it was this lion which afterwards led him +to visit England. + +In any case, visit England he did, when he was nineteen, and spent a +day on the shore of the Irish sea, amusing himself by catching the +“sea animals” left behind by the waves. A pretty little girl, seeing +him engaged with a starfish, approaches and asks, “Isn’t it alive?” He +answers in halting English but correctly enough, “Yes, he is alive.” +And now the adult Freud must needs spoil this idyl by explaining that +he was much embarrassed by his grammatical “mistake,” and hastened to +substitute an _it_ for the _he_, fearing that the slip of the tongue +in dealing with gender had already betrayed the improper meaning which +in his thoughts he had attached to the masculine pronoun. Really, at +times Freud is quite intolerable--and he seems to fancy, even yet, that +he improved matters by his “correction” of himself. + +Since visiting England, he has always wanted to visit Rome, but has +never done so, pretending to himself that Rome is not healthy in +summer, the only time he is free to travel. He knows quite well that +this excuse is about a hundred years out of date, but appears to be +prevented by a complex from entering the Eternal City. For Freud, all +roads lead to sex, and no road leads to Rome--which becomes quite +understandable when we learn that for him Rome meant Catholicism. And +when he tells us further that he often dreams that he is Hannibal, whom +he identifies as Judaism, he makes it plain that with him it is _aut +Cæsar aut nullus_. He would like to enter Rome as Hannibal the Semitic +commander, would have liked to enter it--in the rôle of conqueror. At +present the Pope and Mussolini stand like inhibitions at the gate. + +At one time in Vienna he lived in a house having one set of rooms upon +the ground floor, serving him for an office, and a second set upon the +story above, where he had his domestic quarters. The two levels were +connected only by an outside stairway, and it was his custom always to +“jump over the steps,” two at a time, arriving at the top suddenly and +out of breath. And from this he derives his unrepeatable description of +the symbolism of staircases as seen in dreams, where he gives them a +sexual, even a rhythmic, significance. + +It is also his custom, it appears, not only to run up stairs but to +spit upon them as he goes. He does this, he says, even in the houses +of patients unless spittoons are provided at convenient intervals. And +on the occasions when he has been reproved by servants, he has always +been able to retort that a spittoon was missing. + +As to his wife, we learn that he “kept her waiting five years” before +he married her, but derived great satisfaction from the circumstance, +soon evident, that the marriage was not to be unfruitful. And, being +on a visit to Breslau and seeing the sign of a “Dr. Herrod” in an +office window, he at once cried out, “I hope he is not a children’s +specialist!” Since then Freud’s most likeable trait has been his +anxiety over the future of his offspring. He seems to have worried, +both sleeping and waking, because of the fact that, as they are Jews, +he cannot give them “a native country of their own.” + +Concerned lest one of his sons should grow up one-sided either in +mind or body, he dreamed that the boy said at first “salted” and then +“unsalted.” This, he assures us, was a wish-fulfillment, because in the +dream at least the boy was acting “in obedience to bilateral symmetry.” + +Freud’s incredible ingenuity never fails him. Nor is he, except when +discussing metaphysics, lacking in abundant wit, humor, and other +amiable qualities. He says that he will put in italics all the features +of a certain young lady’s dream that have a sexual significance--and +follows this up with two solidly italicised pages and no other remark. + +He tells with glee how a lady in the audience at one of his lectures in +America interrupted him by exclaiming, “Maybe all Austrian dreams are +erotic, but I am sure it is not so in the United States.” + +He is suffering from a boil, which had been poulticed, and dreams that +he is in a saddle riding a horse, the poultice being the “day-remnant” +now transformed into a saddle. He declares that the dream (which, +among other things is “the guardian of sleep”) meant to say to him, +“Keep on sleeping. You have no furnucle [boil] at all. You are riding +on a horse, and with a furnucle where you [think] you have it, riding +would be impossible.”[52] This also means that his friend, F., has been +putting on airs, “riding the high horse” with him ever since he (Freud) +superceded him in the treatment of a particular female patient. So the +saddle becomes a side-saddle to indicate the lady, and the dreamer +performs circus antics upon it as a dream-boast of the great things he +had been doing for her while she was under his care. And to those who +object to the super-abundance of his “associations” he retorts that it +is always the rich who have the most money. + +Real money he seems to regard as “filthy lucre,” since he holds +that “the uncleanliness of childhood is often replaced in the dream +by greediness for gold.” His stout republicanism comes out in his +statement that “aristocrats can be readily confounded with coachmen,” +that their merit is “that they have taken the trouble to be born”; that +“to us middle-class plebeians” an aristocrat is one who likes to put +himself “on the driver’s seat,” as Count Thun once liked to drive the +Austrian car of state. + +Much light is thrown upon the author’s environment, perhaps even some +justification to be found for his American auditor’s exception to the +inclusion of the United States in the all-erotic hypothesis, by such +remarks as the one which distinguishes page 462: “That the sexual +intercourse of adults appears strange to children who observe it, and +arouses fear in them, _I dare say is a fact of daily experience_.” +This, as they say in Vienna, must have been “grown on his own manure.” +I have added only the italics. It also reminds one of a Hungarian +proverb which Freud is fond of quoting, “Pigs dream of acorns, geese of +maize.” + +In his part of the country, he informs us,[53] “It is hardly possible +to go through a village ... without meeting a two-or-three-year-old +tot who lifts up his or her shirt before the traveler, perhaps in his +honor.” And lest there be any doubt about the sort of life with which +Freud is familiar, his translator takes the trouble to note[54] the +custom of _Fensterlein_ as practiced in the Schwarzwald. Lovers there, +he says, are in the habit of mounting by ladders to the windows of +their sweethearts, and “becoming so intimate that they practically +enjoy a system of trial marriage.” And he adds, “The reputation of +the young woman never suffers on account of _Fensterlein_ unless she +becomes intimate with too many suitors.” + +Still, it is hardly fair to single out the Black Forest, which after +all is not Vienna. Even the Welsh have their _carangwelly_; Irving +found evidences of bundling in the history of Father Knickerbocker; and +companionate marriage knows how to speak English. + +Freud himself has become a linguist, partly through searching for the +“bad” sense of words in all languages, partly by looking for puns, the +pun being one of the tools with which he digs out “meanings” from his +patients’ dreams. A great mass of knowledge is required to trace some +of these word-plays. For instance, a dream of a botanical monograph +leads from cyclamen to cocaine, from cocaine to a _Festschrift_, +and thence to Dr. Königstein, to Prof. Gartner and his _blooming_ +wife whose name is Flora, to Freud’s wife and her favorite flower, +to his own favorite flower (the artichoke) and thus to Italy. To +dream that there is “a terrible storm outside” may mean that somebody +is superfluous, for everything is overflowing with water, “with +fluid,”--“superfluid”--“superfluous.” + +“People who dream often of swimming, of cleaving the waves with great +enjoyment, have usually been persons who wetted their beds, and they +now repeat in the dream a _pleasure_ which they have long since learned +to forego.” This also seems superfluous. + +He accuses people who form collections of neckties of using this bit +of haberdashery as a sex-symbol. Nothing in Freud is harmless, though +he professes that his constant digging for muck sometimes wearies him. +Thus one day after a lecture upon the usual subject he felt a longing +to get away “from rummaging in human filth,” and was reassured only +when a student followed him to a café and told him that he was a great +man. Filth and greatness are again associated in his dream of being +Gulliver and cleansing a foul closet by the means used by that famous +traveler in putting out a never-to-be-forgotten fire in the queen’s +palace at Lilliput. In the same dream he became Hercules cleansing the +Augean stables. + +Naturally he reads Rabelais; but he has also read C. F. Meyer’s “_Die +Leiden eines Knaben_.” And when Louise N., a visitor to his home, +asked for a book, he recommended Rider Haggard’s “She,” “which deals +with the eternal feminine,” and the Haggard-Lang romance, “The Heart +of the World,” which he attributes to Haggard alone. This may indeed +be the eternal feminine, but it has at least undergone a charming +sea-change--“she-change,” Freud undoubtedly would say. Strain a desert +and the lions remain. Strain Freud, and if sex does not remain nothing +does--except his wit. After all he is no _Deutzenmensch_, not of the +sort who come in dozens, and is always rich enough, at least in humor, +to be able to ask the price of Graz.[55] + +He adores the tale of the husband who said to the wife, “If one of us +dies I shall move to Paris.” And the story of the dreamer, who, when +asked “Are you asleep?” answered “No”; but at the words “Then lend +me ten florins,” promptly responded, “Yes, I am asleep.” But some +sexual implication of a sort lower than animal is liable to germinate, +whatever the occasion, and rise, as he would say, “like a toadstool +from its mycelium” to poison the air. In Vienna they employ an art +called Gsnas, which consists in making “something valuable out of +trifles.” Nothing valuable comes from the Freudian Gsnas, unless you +count a bad conscience which uses vestigial inhibitions merely to +heighten tumescence. + +He confesses that he was once “a green youth, full of the materialistic +doctrine.”[56] What he does not seem to realize is that he has never +recovered from this adolescent characteristic. But it is always a +relief to turn from his “interpretations” to the honest facts of his +life--to read that he once spent a “charmingly beautiful day” with his +wife looking from the window of a hotel (evidently the Danieli) on the +riva Schiavoni, at Venice, watching the English warships that were +taking part in a _fiesta_; and to know that his wife was interested in +the toilet-table of an “Etruscan lady” in a Venetian museum. It was “a +rectangular black object with two handles, with little boxes for rouge +and powders,” and the _gnädige Frau_ “thought it would be nice to have +in the house.” By rare good fortune, Freud failed to dream of these +little boxes, or at least forgot to mention it if he did. + +Upon a less happy occasion he becomes so vexed with Mrs. Freud that +when she gives him a book as a present he immediately forgets it--thus +living up to his absurd theory that we only remember things which +have agreeable associations. Then his “beloved mother” falls sick, +and his wife takes such “tender care of her” that the domestic breach +is healed. So the victim of amnesia suddenly recovers his memory, and +walks straight to the lost book, “like a somnambulist.” + +One likes also to turn to the amusingly recounted hardships of his +student days, and to learn that the five years provided for the study +of medicine was “as usual” not enough for the future great man. So +he “worked along unconcernedly,” though “considered a loafer” by +his associates, who doubted if he would ever “get through.” He had +intended to study law, but was moved to take up science upon reading +Goethe’s “beautiful essay on Nature.” He never did get through very +far, and failed in his examinations for the degree of Doctor of Legal +Medicine. Consequently, when he dreams of examinations the subject is +invariably botany, zoology, chemistry or history--it being another of +his contentions that no one ever dreams of examinations excepting those +in which one has succeeded. On the other hand, one dreams only of the +trains which one has missed, such dreams being “consolation” dreams, +directed against the fear of dying. One missed the train--that is, one +did not “depart,” did not die. Railroad travel seems to be dangerous in +Austria. + +Freud always wanted to be “a professor _extraordinarius_,” but was held +back by the fact that he was a Jew in a country where appointments were +in the hands of Gentile politicians. By way of compensation he is now a +doctor of laws, _honoris causa_. + +But first, what struggles! The “honored teacher” of his youth was +Bruecke, who in his age had eyes which were “wonderfully beautiful,” +yet was a terrible fellow in his prime. One morning Freud, then a +demonstrator at the Physiological Institute, came late to work--and the +eyes, not yet so beautiful, turned to a “terrible blue,” and before +their glare the hapless demonstrator “melted away.” But Bruecke has his +day; he dies. And Freud takes characteristic revenge by dreaming that +he denounces him as a ghost before a group of living people with whom +the deceased was presuming to mingle as an equal. + +It is interesting to note that “the first scientific task” at which +Bruecke set him “was concerned with the nervous system of a fish--the +Ammocœtes.”[57] Have we here the origin of the Freudian philosophy? +It seems to me so, but perhaps this is merely because I have recently +been reading Roland Pertwee’s inimitable “Fish are Such Liars,” in _The +Saturday Evening Post_. + + +2. THE ELABORATION OF A FICTION + +But it is time to leave the fascinating subject of Freud the man +and turn to Freud the psychologist. Everybody understands his +psycho-analysis in a vague, general way, but I know of no one who has +ever taken the trouble to reduce its chaos to order and so expose the +kind of “logic” which rules it. His disciples merely choose such bits +as please them, add a rhetorical pæan, and say, “This is Freud!” +Others skip all but the salacious passages. Let us take it fairly, the +lean and the fat together. After all, it is important. For if this +theory be “true” we must submit to it though the heavens fall. We are +not “irrational” I hope. + +[Illustration: DR. SIGMUND FREUD + +He tells us his dreams] + +Psycho-analysis is based upon six main assumptions, but even +assumptions deserve for once to be stated in plain language. + +_First Assumption_: That we are born with a certain equipment, called +the Primary Psychic Apparatus, or the Unconscious Mind. This is much +like the “Instinctive” apparatus of McDougall, or the “Unconditioned +Reflex” apparatus of Watson. It has a certain resemblance to the Old +Adam of popular speech, with that Flesh which was formerly associated +with the World and the Devil. It is Psyche’s house as originally +bequeathed to her. + +“We have elaborated the fiction of a primitive psychic apparatus whose +work is regulated by the efforts to avoid accumulation of excitement,” +says Freud.[58] “For this reason it was constructed after the plan of a +reflex apparatus. The accumulation of excitement is perceived as pain +and sets the apparatus in motion in order to reproduce a feeling of +gratification in which the diminution of the excitement is perceived as +pleasure.” + +This “fiction” then is Oriental. Pain is positive, pleasure merely the +diminution of excitement. The logical procedure would be to get rid of +such an apparatus, if in no other way then by committing suicide. But +later we shall learn that notwithstanding its perception of pain and +pleasure, the apparatus is unconscious. Freud and Watson together give +us a no-conscious, an unconscious, and a pre-conscious, and not a bit +of consciousness in any of the three. + +_Second Assumption_: That as we develop under stress of +circumstances,--conform to our environment as a Darwinian would say, +or in other words become educated--we develop a Secondary Psychic +Apparatus whose emotional reactions are different from and often +in opposition to the emotional reactions of the first. This is the +non-instinctive, reasonable, or acquired mental equipment, the +conditioned reflex system--what we ordinarily term our second nature. +Freud divides it further into the Pre-Conscious and the Conscious--and +here at last we become really conscious. But we shall be “compelled +to build a series of new assumptions concerning the structure of the +psychic apparatus,” he informs us.[59] And here they begin. “From the +moment that we wish to penetrate deeper into the psychic processes +... all paths lead to darkness.”[60] The darkness is about to be +ours--darkness abundant, Stygian, Egyptian; darkness which may be felt. + +_Third Assumption_: That, owing to the emotional differences of the two +psychic systems, the Second System offers a resistance to the desires, +thoughts and memories (all unconscious) of the first. “Whenever a +wish-fulfillment is unrecognizable or concealed, there must be a +present feeling of repulsion towards the wish, and in consequence +of this repulsion the wish is unable to gain expression except in a +disfigured state.”[61] It is this resistance which he personifies as +the Endo-Psychic Censor and imagines standing like a watch-dog at the +threshold of the pre-conscious. He even imagines a second censor +standing at the threshold of the conscious. + +Everybody must admit that this resistance, personified or otherwise, +is a fact. The adult does acquire a distaste for childishness. He at +times exercises upon himself a sort of discipline. He has different +inclinations which are at war with one another. Freud’s contribution to +psychology at this point consists in the discovery that such discipline +is a perilous thing to indulge in. For-- + +_Fourth Assumption_: A desire so disciplined does not cease to exist, +but continues in being. The opposition of the Secondary Apparatus +causes it to be forgotten, to became a part of the unconscious. But +there it remains, “suppressed” but biding its time. + +These unconscious wishes “suffer the same form of annihilation as +[do] the shades of the lower region in the Odyssey, who awoke to +new life the moment they drank blood.”[62] Shall we then keep them +away from blood? That is not the programme. But for the moment Freud +merely says:[63] “Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious; +nothing can cease or be forgotten.” Adding:[64] “I believe that these +unconscious wishes are always active and ready for expression--the as +it were immortal wishes from the unconscious.” + +This implies that a wish cannot be deflected, but persists as a desire +for its original object--which is totally contrary to reason and +common sense, to experience, and to physical science. It is the same +as saying that a boy who was looking forward to a Saturday afternoon +visit to his grandmother’s grave and was induced to go to the circus +instead, would--especially if he suppressed his cemeterial inclination +to the point of not telling the fellows about it--straightway forget +everything but the circus, and yet be haunted by an unconscious desire +for the grave. Nor could anything but a conscious visit to the scene of +interment (or to a psycho-analyst) ever set the desire at rest. + +Such a suppressed, abashed and forgotten but far-from-done-with desire +is called a “complex.” There are many complexes, but they all reduce +themselves to two, the Œdipus and the Inferiority. Let us pause to +consider them before going on to other suppositions. + + +3. TWO OFT-THWARTED PASSIONS + +An inferiority complex originates in a blow to our self-love, to our +sense of personal regard. And as Dr. McDougall is the most eminent +godfather of this instinct, we had better go to him for a working +example. + +A famous architect visits his alma mater after many years of successful +post-graduate life. Suddenly he begins knocking men down right and +left, shouting, and trying to climb over the head of the bed in +spite of the efforts of three attendants to hold him within bounds. +An old-fashioned expert would have pronounced him a paranoic, a +megalomaniac, or something equally disagreeable. But Jung, McDougall’s +one-time co-worker, was called in. He said that it was only a case +of schizophrenia, and that what the patient needed was--not a +straight-jacket but a quiz. + +By “free word-association” (Jung’s personal invention) it was +discovered that the schizophreniac had once been jilted by a fair co-ed +at the dear old school, and had quite sensibly forgotten all about +it. But when he returned to the scene of his adolescent chagrin, it +all came back--the very campus seemed to him suddenly to sway beneath +a purple sea of emotion. He thought that the fair one was not really +married to another after all, notwithstanding rumors which he had heard +to that most likely effect, but was still waiting for him--waiting +until he should prove himself a man. So he commenced knocking other men +down. Proof enough. He even added song and gymnastics by way of good +measure; and a second attack, like the first but milder, occurred upon +his next visit to the fateful place. + +What had happened (internally) was this. The co-ed had given him a +mental traumatism, a blow upon the solar plexus of his vanity. And +he was so shamed that he could not bear to think of it. So he put it +from his mind--as he fondly thought. But alas, there is no such thing +as putting anything from one’s mind. Things so put only go into the +unconscious mind, there to fester like a potato in a damp cellar. The +psychiatrist digs it out, and all is well. This is the story as set +forth (in quite other language) in McDougall’s “Outline of Abnormal +Psychology.” + +Unquestionably it is a great discovery--that we are not always crazy +when we appear to be. Introverts, schizoids, dreamy people (you may +have your choice of terms) are especially to be congratulated. For +they are apt to find themselves battling suddenly with a suspiciously +insane looking bosom monster long hidden from themselves--the battle +resulting in hysteria if they give way and in compulsion-neurosis if +they resist. If one happens not to be a schizoid but an extrovert--that +is, a commonplace, practical sort of person--a bad inferiority-complex +merely leads to multiple personality, a splitting of individuality +into parts, one of which may go about calling itself Smith, another +Jones, another Brown. + +But what shall we do with our famous architects, introvert or +extrovert, when they begin to misbehave along non-professional lines? +McDougall quite rightly attributes the cure of the one in question +to Jung’s showing him just how ridiculous he had been in laying the +co-ed’s treachery so much to heart in the first place. He need not have +been so rich in false pride, Jung seems to have told him; need not have +been ashamed of being jilted. Into each life some rain must fall. His +was but the common fate of all men in general and of undergraduates in +particular. He should have laughed the incident off, or perhaps have +sought relief in another bite from another vampire, on the homeopathic +principle of _similia similibus curantur_. What he had needed as a +child was not the indulgence of self-esteem, for life is not always +kind, but early preventative measures tending to curb self-esteem’s +abnormal growth. + +One may agree with the diagnosis and treatment of this case without +difficulty. It was not a Freudian case. The wound was only remotely +sexual, and McDougall manages to ignore its erotic elements altogether. +He is always the Dr. Jekyll of the couple of which Freud is the Mr. +Hyde. + +Jung, for some reason, also enjoys a Jekyllian reputation, but he +hardly deserves it. Indeed, he frequently out-Hydes his former teacher. +For Freud observes that the “significance of sexual complexes must +never be forgotten, nor must they, of course, be exaggerated to the +point of being considered exclusive.”[65] Jung on the other hand writes +(I am certain of his words but have forgotten the book and the page), +“I am often asked why it is just the erotic complex rather than any +other which is the cause of the neuroses. There is but one answer. No +one asserts that this ought to be the case.... But as a simple matter +of fact, it is always found to be so, notwithstanding all the cousins +and aunts, godparents and teachers who rage against it.” + +In another place, Jung declares quite sensibly that the real cause of +trouble is “the non-fulfillment of life’s task.” He is, it seems, so +anxious not to be lost beneath the shadow of the master that he seeks +to outshine him even in the production of self-contradictions. + +What chiefly distinguishes this noted citizen of Zurich, however, +is the vast array of complications which he has added to the map of +our psychic “localities” by drawing in the “archetypes ... the great +primordial images”; the “collective unconscious” (inherited or innate +tendencies of various awesome shades); the “Persona,” or mask beneath +which the developed self timidly confronts the world; the “Anima,” +or submerged personality; the “Kabyr,” or undeveloped intuitive +premonitions, and many other romantic features whose names seem to have +been taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Yet his attempt to write +as picturesquely as Freud is a failure, like his endeavor to evolve an +independent philosophy. Jung is merely Freud, McDougall, and water. +His principal Avatars in this country are Dr. Maurice Nicoll and Dr. +Constance Long. + +And now for the Œdipus Complex. + +“King Œdipus, who has struck his father, Laius, dead and has married +his mother, Jocasta, is nothing,” says Freud,[66] “but the realized +wish of our childhood.... His fate moves us only for the reason that +it might have been ours, for the oracle has put the same curse upon us +... as upon him.” He adds that, unless we have become psycho-neurotics, +we have since “succeeded ... in withdrawing our sexual impulses from +our mothers and in forgetting our jealousy of our fathers,”--and +presumably we have withdrawn, too, from the cousins, aunts, godparents +and teachers listed by Jung. If these impulses have found their +way into the unconscious, however, they must have become eternal. +Psycho-analysis drags them into consciousness, not to kill them but to +give them a transfer. The patient, it is said, always falls in love +with the operator as a half-way step on the road to cure. But in regard +to “falling in love with one member of the parental couple and hatred +of the other,” Freud does not think that “psycho-neurotics are ... +sharply distinguished from ordinary human beings.”[67] The only way to +preserve normality, then, without calling in the doctor, would be never +to lose consciousness of our original polymorphus perversities. + +In such a case, how is a transfer to be brought about? Not by +discipline, evidently. Considering the dire horrors said to lie in the +wake of any attempt to thwart the perversities in question, the natural +conclusion is that children should just grow, like Topsy, without +having to suffer the stern and perilous ordeal of being brought up. And +does not such a scheme leave perversity in control? + +Certainly the effect of the study of Freudianism everywhere has been +to make parents afraid of resorting to corrective measures when their +children are “naughty.” A stern word, let alone a sound spanking, may +(according to the Freudian theory) cause a suppression of desire, a +thrusting of a native impulse into the Sheol of the lower psychic +locality, “where ... wishes ... recall the legendary Titans who from +time immemorial have borne the ponderous mountains which were once +rolled upon them by the victorious gods, and which even now quiver from +time to time from the convulsions of their mighty limbs.”[68] + +Must one, then, totally abstain from mountain-rolling for fear of +earthquakes? A boy’s “libido” is first excited by his mother, so that +he wants to murder his father because the fellow is this woman’s +husband and the boy would like to be her husband himself. Is this to +go on? And of the two ways out of the situation, which shall we chose? +Let the boy murder the father? Or shall we let him marry the mother? +It seems to be a Hobson’s choice. We do not want to run the risk of +creating a “complex” by harshly thwarting either of these amiable +desires, for a complex, Freud assures us, may produce psycho-neurotic +symptoms ranging all the way from a mild hysterical excitement to +paralysis, blindness and homicidal mania. + +If there happens to be a daughter born in the family before the murder +can take place, another difficulty arises. For the daughter’s “libido” +will be excited by the father even as was the son’s by the mother. +So the girl will want to kill her mother for being the wife of the +father--will want to become her own father’s bride. In case all these +instincts are given sway, there will be two murders; but where are +the weddings coming from? The boy now has no mother. His sister has +murdered her to get her out of the way. And the girl has no father, he +having been murdered by the jealous boy. Brother and sister have nobody +left but each other. Ergo, they should make the easiest transference +available, and live happily ever after. + +In some instances, due to circumstances over which the infants have no +control, the libidos may not reach out to the parent of the opposite +sex, but attach the daughter to the mother and the son to the father. +But this only complicates the situation. The murders will take place +as before, the murderers’ parts being merely exchanged, and in the +end brother and sister will be left as before, the sole survivors of +the massacre. And in this case they will have especial difficulty +in making the necessary libidinous transference. They have, through +some accident in the nursery bringing similars instead of dissimilars +together in the field of desire, become homo-sexual. The future of the +race is threatened. Either that, or we must run the risk of a race of +maniacs by teaching the young that some things are--not “unspeakable,” +“unverbalizable,” or “unthinkable,” but shameful--murder and incest +being among the number. If they cannot endure the shock of such +knowledge, driven home until it becomes effective, so much the worse. +Freud leaves the prospect gloomy indeed. And yet David Seabury, author +of “Unmasking our Minds,”--Seabury, whom William James is said once +to have dandled on his knee--endeavors to convince us in an article +entitled “The Bogey of Sex,”[69] that Freud has spent his life in +beautifying and ennobling human love. + +Beautiful and ennobling or not, the assumption that a desire and its +first object are a pair of Siamese twins incapable of separation, is +the very father of fallacies. Nor does it become more reasonable if +by object is understood a class of objects. In either case desire in +general is cut up into particulars, each one deathless and indomitable. +Why should those who deny free will to the individual be permitted +thus to attribute all powerful will to his several reactions? + +Freudians always instance hunger as an example of a persistent +desire. You want your dinner, they say, and you go to the theatre +instead of dining. You forget all about food, but you still continue +to crave it; and when the show is over you discover that you are +starving. Incidentally, this desire persists even if not driven into +the unconscious by shame beyond hope of easy recall--which somewhat +enlarges the hypothesis. A further enlargement is made with the +admission that the hunger here is not a desire for turkey, or for +chicken, but merely for food. + +Now it must be admitted that the Freudian supposition so understood has +the superficial appearance of truth. In a case of this sort it does +look as if only a limited transference were possible. One dish may be +served in place of another, but unless we eat we continue to be hungry. +But do we? + +Had Freud known anything about fasting, had he been a good Jew and kept +the Passover, he would have learned that the symptoms soon cease. The +sensation of hunger is produced by certain tensions in the stomach. +The glands containing the digestive fluids are distended. The forces +designed to attack the food are mobilized, and where the food should +be yawns only emptiness. But soon the digestive fluids dissipate +themselves; in the course of a few hours the last feeling of appetite +is gone. One does not have to be a Dr. Tanner to be aware of this. Many +people have gone without food for long periods, and with little or no +suffering or ill effects. + +It is not pretended that we can go without food forever. The body +cannot be altogether ignored--not by the majority of us; and one +must remember the farmer’s horse, who, taught to live upon one straw +a day, was so inconsiderate as then to die. But even with this, the +most fundamental and imperative of all the desires, discipline may +operate to a great extent. Gluttony is not a _sine qua non_ of health. +Indeed, if no discipline be exercised there is likely to ensue--if not +psycho-neurosis at least another and most distressing symptom, known as +gout. + +And how is it with sex-hunger? This not being actually necessary to +the preservation of the earthly life of the individual, is even more +amenable to the curb, and may be divorced altogether from its carnal +object. We are certain of this because it has been done and is being +done in innumerable instances. + +I am not claiming that sex should be suppressed by cold negation, any +more than I hold that one ceases to be hungry if one has nothing to +do but think about dinner. But there is such a thing as sublimation, +which may be defined as a transference of libido upon such a broad +and magnificent scale that we may say not only that one object is +substituted for another but that one desire is substituted for +another. Thus lust--and I use the word without implications of the +unnatural--may be overwhelmed by love, and a lower love by a higher. + +Even without going very high we find that the ardently moved members +of the endocrine system at times cease to trouble in the absence of +exterior physical stimuli, and a different type of autocoid than +the burning one makes its appearance in the blood-stream. Those who +pretend that lack of indulgence perpetually increases the store of +sexual desire and capacity, conscious or unconscious, run the risk of +being likened to that boastful bridegroom so inimitably described by +Montaigne, who, because of the sheer extravagance of his claims, was +eventually adjudged “unfamiliar with the practice” under consideration. + +A particular wish, then, is a wish with a direction--a direction which +may be changed. The belief that a grown man has an unappeased longing +to be fed once more at the breast or the bottle--a longing suppressed +in his primary psychic apparatus--deserves itself to be classed as a +psycho-neurotic symptom. + +And now we may resume our suppositions. + + +4. MORE SUPPOSITIONS + +_Fifth Assumption_: That dreams open the road for the discovery of +festering wish-thoughts in the unconscious. + +“The dream is the distorted fulfillment of a suppressed wish.... The +wish manifested in the dream must be an infantile one.”[70] + +The ingenuity which our author has expended in the attempt to prove +that “dreams are never nonsense” passes belief. To begin, he makes a +sharp distinction between “manifest” and “latent” content, between the +dream as it appears and the dream as it secretly is. Then he divides +the modes of disguise which this latent content or meaning of the +unconscious mind adopts in sneaking its obscenities past the censor for +the production of the manifest dream-show into three categories: (a) +Condensation; (b) Displacement; (c) Regard for Presentability--which +means presentability in pictures or symbols. The word “distortion” +sufficiently covers these three processes. Then there is a fourth +category, (e) called Secondary Elaboration. + +“A psychic function which cannot be differentiated from our waking +thoughts may make contributions to the dream content.... It is an +expression of the _esprit d’escalier_ on the part of the psychic +censor.... The result is that the dream loses the appearance of +absurdity and incoherence [given it by distortion] and approaches +the pattern of an intelligible experience.”[71] That is, we half +wake up, and give to the manifest dream a specious logic--which the +psycho-analyst warns us to ignore. + +Now it is clear that the principle of symbolical interpretation, if +once admitted, will open wide the gates for whatever “meanings” it +is necessary to find in order to establish the general theory. For +these are not “arbitrary” symbols, like “those used in stenography.” +They are such symbols as may be taken from “folk-lore,” or any other +available source, their meanings loosely worn. All that is required of +them is that they shall yield a general sexual significance whenever +sufficiently squeezed. + +For example,[72] an “intelligent and refined young lady” related the +following dream to Freud: “Her husband asks: Should not the piano be +tuned? She answers: It won’t pay; the hammers would have to be newly +buffed.” + +This, we learn, “repeats an actual event of the previous day,”--for in +every dream there is a “day-remnant” to furnish stuff for the manifest +content, as well as a suppressed infantile wish to give it its real +“meaning,” and some of this remnant at least must relate to the waking +experiences of the past twenty-four hours. Once we grasp the general +idea, we shall see meaning after meaning, each one deeper than the +preceding, revealing itself like so many skins peeled from an onion. + +The lady’s husband had actually asked her about the piano; but that, +being real, amounts to nothing. What is more significant is that the +lady, lying upon Freud’s couch and relaxing, refers to the piano as “a +disgusting old box,” and says that it was one of the things which her +husband had before his marriage. + +The outer onion-skin has now come off. But it promises to be so +unsavory that we would better drop this particular bulb and take up +another. For dream onions are not only laminated, but there are always +several onions to every dream. Let us regard the one from which sprang +the phrase, “It won’t pay.” The outer skin here was a visit the patient +had made the day before to a lady friend who asked her to take off her +coat; but as she had to go in a moment she replied that it would not +pay. And here again I am forced to drop the subject, or at least to +avoid the line of thought which is immediately suggested by a knowledge +of the symbolism here involved. Freud himself takes a new lead by +remarking that during a previous analytical séance this same patient +_had_ taken off her coat, “a button of which had opened,”--taken it +off with a gesture which seemed to say, “Please don’t look in this +direction; it won’t pay.” From which he concludes that among the many +things which “disgusting old box” refers to is “chest,” or “bust.” + +Were this lady but an American we might now conclude (without +exaggerating the Freudian procedure in the slightest) that this means +“Pike’s Peak or Bust”; that this in turn recalls a bust which she went +on when she was younger and in the neighborhood of 142nd street, New +York, locally known as “Pike’s Peak”; that the peak of her ambition was +to marry a Jew--with incidentally a hidden desire to be peeked at; and +that because of her failure to realize these wishes she was piqued, and +suffered accordingly. + +But as she seems to be an Austrian we must be content with the idea +that “the interpretation of the dream leads directly to a time in her +bodily development when she was dissatisfied with her shape.” She +wanted to be fat--an eminently Austrian thought. And from here we +are led to a yet earlier period. For the words “disgusting” and “bad +tone,” make it necessary, Freud informs us, to remember “how often in +allusions and in dreams the two small hemispheres of the ... body take +the place--as a substitute and as an antithesis--of the larger ones.” +That is, the piano was a dream disguise for the buttocks. + +It now hardly seems necessary to remark that “the dreamer, owing to +a peculiar set of circumstances, may create for himself the right to +use anything whatever as a sexual symbol.”[73] Still less to add that, +generally speaking, “all elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks and +umbrellas, all sharp weapons, knives, daggers and pikes,” are masculine +symbols; while “all little cases, boxes, caskets, closets and stoves” +have a feminine signification; or that “stairways, stairs, ladders +... or anything analogous to them” are to be regarded as specifically +erotic suggestions. And to make the system complete, whenever a symbol +refuses to fit in with the desired significance, we are at liberty to +regard it as “misplaced emphasis” due to distortion, and to interpret +it in an opposite sense. So pain may mean pleasure, and a crowd a +secret. + +Nor is even this enough. He goes on and invents a veritable grammar +of dreams. Logical connection (in the latent content) is rendered (in +the manifest content) by simultaneousness; causation is expressed by +succession; “either--or” by “and--and” (you dream of both alternates as +being true); similarity or agreement is pictured by the concentration +of several images into a fantastic unity, etc., etc. + +Freud commits the common and fatal error of proving too much. He should +have been warned by the fate of the late Ignatius Donnelly, once +Lieutenant-Governor of Minnesota. Donnelly, having shown that Bacon +wrote Shakespeare’s plays, went on to show that he also wrote Burton’s +“Anatomy of Melancholy” and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” And having +discovered that these works had all a sort of sense when read from left +to right, proceeded to demonstrate (in “The Great Cryptogram”) that +they had an even better sense when read more or less from right to left. + +Using the Freudian premises, we are forced to conclude that the average +child’s aversion to the multiplication table is a blind to cover his +unconscious but shamefaced eagerness for illegitimate parenthood. The +very name, “Multiplication,” gives us the key. Freud has met this +objection by saying that he does not permit himself to wander at random +over the field of conjecture, but is always guided by a principle. What +principle? That dreams come from suppressed erotic desires--the very +principle he is trying to prove. No, the court does not admit evidence +at random, it measures it by the supposition that the defendant is +guilty. + +The Multiplication Table is quite admissible, for dreams are not the +only things which may be subjected to dream-analysis. Waking thoughts +are interpreted in the same way. If a patient refuses to dream, +the analyst pounces upon his inventions, his replies to questions. +The “Œdipus Tyrannus” of Sophocles and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” fall +naturally into the dream category. + +“We are far too much inclined to over-estimate the conscious character +of intellectual and artistic productions,” since “from communications +of some of the most highly productive persons, such as Goethe and +Helmholtz, we learn that the most essential and original parts in their +creations came to them in the form of inspirations and reached their +preceptions almost finished.”[74] + +But though a dream can compose a “Hamlet” or an “Œdipus,” it cannot +compose a speech. “No matter how many speeches and answers may occur +in dreams, analysis always shows ... that the dream has only taken +... fragments of speeches which have been delivered or heard.”[75] +What, then, is this dreaming faculty which is at once so competent and +incompetent? Is it a gift, or a disease? + +“A dream,” says Freud, in the Introductory Remarks to the book we +have been following, “is the first link in a chain of abnormal +psychic structures whose other links [are] the hysterical phobia, the +obsession, and the delusion.” Then on page 482 he declares, “The dream +is not a pathological phenomenon and does not leave behind [it] an +enfeeblement of the mental faculties.” + +Those whose mental faculties have not been too much enfeebled by the +attempt to reconcile these two statements, may try their logic’s teeth +upon page 437, where it is said that “in view of the complete identity +[to be] found between the peculiarities of the dream-work and the +psychic activity forming the psycho-neurotic symptoms, we shall feel +justified in transferring to the dream the conclusions urged upon us by +hysteria.” Or one may turn to page 471, and read: “It is condensation +that is mainly responsible for the strange impression of the dream, +for we know of nothing analogous to it in the normal psychic life +accessible to consciousness.” Remember, too, that Freud does not think +that in regard to “falling in love with one member of the parental +couple and hatred of the other,” psycho-neurotics are “sharply +distinguished from ordinary human beings.” + +Now if you are not very sharply distinguished from ordinary human +beings you naturally indulge in “typical dreams,”--the dreams that +everybody has. And among typical dreams is the Œdipus dream of the +death of parents or other near relatives. But here a difficulty arises. + +“These dreams show the very unusual case where the dream-thought, +which has been created by the repressed wish, completely escapes the +censor, and is transferred to the dream without alteration.”[76] Is the +theory then at fault? No; but the censor is. “There is no wish which we +believe further from us.... The dream censor is therefore not prepared +for this monstrosity, just as the legislation of Solon was incapable of +establishing a punishment for parricide.”[77] + +Objections to the Freudian theory are vain; the theory bends to +accommodate whatever it encounters, then straightens out and goes its +way as if nothing had happened. + +If we are consciously anxious about our dear ones, the wily unconscious +merely takes advantage of that fact to stage a dream about somebody’s +death, well knowing that the conscious anxiety will blind us to the +deep-down truth. But there is consolation in the thought that “if +someone dreams ... that his father or mother, his brother or sister has +died,” Freud does not “use the dream as a proof that he wishes them +dead _now_.... The theory of dreams ... is satisfied with concluding +that the dreamer has wished them dead ... at some one time in +childhood.”[78] And to console us still further, he adds (p. 214) that +a child has no idea “of the terror of the Infinite Nothing.” + +Pursuing the infinite nothing of this now happily satisfied dream +theory, we discover that “dreams of the death of parents predominately +refer to that member of the parental couple which shares the sex of the +dreamer,” except, of course, in the case of the homo-sexual. Or, “to +express the matter boldly, it is as though a sexual preference becomes +active at an early period, as though the boy regards his father as a +rival in love, and as though the girl takes the same attitude towards +her mother ... a rival by getting rid of whom he or she cannot but +profit.”[79] Dr. Watson, though he knew not the reason, was certainly +right in saying that bringing up children was a perilous business. What +else would the fate of Laius and Jocasta lead us to expect? + +To put the matter beyond doubt, Freud cites the case of an +eight-year-old girl of his acquaintance, who, if her mother happens to +be called away from the table, reveals her psychic enormity by saying, +“Now I shall be Mamma. Charles, do you want some more vegetables?”[80] +Freud is not a man to be deceived by the seeming innocence of play. And +he blames “that sanctity which we have ascribed to the injunctions of +the Decalogue”[81] for the dullness which keeps us from perceiving the +incestuous and homicidal tendencies of our young. + +It may be admitted that “no other impulse has had to undergo so much +suppression from the time of childhood as the sex impulse”;[82] and, +the parental instinct of self-preservation being what it is, the fact +is not surprising. And these suppressive tactics seem to have been in +vogue from the earliest times. “The obscure and primitive ages of human +society give us an unpleasant idea of the power of the father” and +the ruthlessness with which it was used. Kronos devours his children +as the wild boar devours the brood of the sow; Zeus [in the rôle of +retributive justice] castrates his father ... and takes his place as +ruler.”[83] + +Now, as I remember this legend, Zeus operated with a sickle--an +immemorial image of Time. And as Kronos is himself a symbol of Time, +I long supposed that here was a figurative way of saying that Time +(Kronos), which devours all things (his children), shall himself +eventually be devoured, as it were by himself--the sickle. But +evidently the theory of dreams cannot be satisfied by symbols when they +are used to interpret mythology. + +Evidently, too, the time has now arrived in this, our Freudian era, +for Kronos to suffer again and as literally as before, notwithstanding +the “frantic attempts” of modern parents to hold on to “whatever +remnants of the ... _potestas patris_” remain. The newspapers certainly +chronicle occasional incidents of this childish rebellion, if not of +the frantic efforts which are being made to resist it. Freud even knows +of a little girl--this one not yet three years old--who “tried to +strangle a suckling in the cradle, because she suspected its continued +presence boded her no good.”[84] So not the parents alone are in +danger. In the case of his own children, “who followed one another +rapidly,” he “missed the opportunity to make such observations,” the +supplanted baby always being too young to be dangerous at the time when +its nose was broken--another argument in favor of large families. + +He foresees, however, what is to be dreaded later, for he describes the +predicament of a man of 31 who had a compulsion-neurosis which took +such a pronounced homicidal form that he (the young man) was forced +to lock himself in his room and to give the housekeeper the key for +fear that he should one day commit a murder. The father in this case +was dead and beyond the reach of reprisals, so “the obsessive reproach +transferred itself to strangers.”[85] + +I do not wish for a moment to suggest that this case was unreal or to +belittle its horror. I am dealing merely with a peculiarity of the +diagnosis. You will observe that the blame is laid to a “reproach.” Had +the patient never reproached himself he would have remained normal. +Now if he was guilty of nothing but some childish fit of temper, and, +because of some senseless system of early training, led to magnify it +beyond all reason, the diagnosis may be sound. The danger comes from +the attempt to elaborate from these instances of abnormality a general +system of philosophy applicable to life in general. The implication +that reproaches should give way and any sort of conduct spared even +criticism, is inescapable. For example, Freud says[86] that “a +compulsion-neurosis ... corresponds to a super-morality, imposed upon +the primary character.” He chooses morality by name as the target of +_his_ “reproach.” + +In the case under consideration, the patient remembered, under +psycho-analytic treatment, that at the age of seven he had “expressed +enmity” towards his father, and (still under treatment) at once +“realized that the hatred lay much deeper still.” Remorse, awakened +by the father’s painful last illness, had brought about that +fatal “super-morality,” without which the son might have remained +unrepentant, normal and happy. “Anyone,” Freud ominously adds, “capable +of wishing to push his own father from a mountain-top into an abyss is +certainly not to be trusted to spare the lives of those not so closely +bound to him. He does well to lock himself into his room.”[87] + +Here the psychiatrist distinctly gives to the childish wish that very +importance which would naturally lead to excessive repressive measures +and to abnormal interior reproach. Moreover, it follows that all of us +who are not “sharply distinguished from ordinary human beings” would do +well to lock ourselves up. For we are not only capable of entertaining +such a wish, we have--so Freud has been telling us through fifty or +sixty pages--already entertained it, time and time again. Which brings +us to our-- + +_Sixth and Last Assumption_: That the cure for hysterical symptoms (and +these include most of the ills to which flesh is heir) is the recapture +by consciousness of the lost knowledge of that circumstance which drove +the original wish-thought into the limbo of the lower psychic locality. + +The procedure is for the patient to dream a dream, or if he cannot do +this to make up a dream, which the psychiatrist “analyzes.” Then the +patient lies down on a couch, “relaxes,” and repeats whatever random +thoughts come into his head as the various parts of the dream are +brought to his attention. These “associated” thoughts are analyzed +in their turn. If there is reluctance, the operator knows he has +encountered modesty (“resistance,” he calls it) and has got the range. +He can now tell where to train his guns. For all these neuroses, +psychoses and psycho-neuroses (mental troubles in general and their +physical results) are, according to the hypothesis, the children of +shame. Kill shame, and the brats perish. That is what it amounts to. + +It may have seemed unaccountable that it should have been thought +necessary to invent an elaborate system of dream interpretation when +the psychiatrist is convinced from the moment his office door-bell +rings that he is about to be confronted with a case of suppressed +incest. But the hocus-pocus serves its turn. Never has the ingenuity +of man devised a more effective excuse for the discussion of the +abominations of the human heart. + +“But,” cries Freud, “my analyses bring about cures!” + +Granted. But that only proves that Freud the man is better than Freud +the scientist and philosopher. + +The world is full of miserable wretches whose early education was of +the most atrocious kind; who were first permitted improper contacts, +and then taught that their infantile imaginings were unpardonable +sins. The doctor poo-poos the whole matter, and they are relieved. In +other words, if he is a wise doctor, he tries to remedy the defects +of education by re-education. So long as he has to deal with those +suffering from abuse, or from starvation of natural desires--desires +which have failed of their ordinary satisfaction without having been +sublimated by devotion to higher aims--so long as he deals with these +unwilling anchorites and pitiable social victims, he does well. + +But what if he writes books, circulating in huge editions among the +normal and spreading the doctrine that mental disease comes from +restraint, and not from the rank growth of passions, undisciplined or +merely balked? + +As to this, I will quote the opinion of Judge William McAdoo, Chief +Magistrate of the City of New York. The Judge sees some half-million +criminal cases pass through the courts every year, so can hardly be +accused of speaking without opportunities for gathering information. +And he says in a recent article[88] that psycho-analysis is one of the +most “active” evils “effecting modern youth.” Parents, he tells us, +have been led to believe that any attempt to “suppress” the desires of +their children is likely to lead to dangerous “complexes.” Hence “the +complete collapse of parental authority,” of what Freud himself has +called “the antiquated _potestas patris_.” + +But Freud is but one of the figures in a movement, and by following +his dreaming for a few more pages we shall be able to learn yet other +strange things which are not so, and some--yet stranger--which are. + + +5. FREUD THE METAPHYSICIAN + +Superficially considered, Freud is the very antithesis of Dr. Watson. +The behaviorist, indeed, will have none of him. In his “Myth of the +Unconscious” he accuses him of having “resorted to voodooism instead of +falling back upon his early scientific training.”[89] He even suggests +that the psychiatrist was “much influenced in his youth by the fable +of the devils who took flight into the Gadarene swine.” Nevertheless, +Watsonianism and Freudianism are parts of the same gigantic piece of +mystification. + +Freud may speak of the “unconscious” and Dr. Watson of the +“unverbalized”; the one of “unconditioned reflexes,” the other of “a +primary psychic apparatus”; but both agree in effect that the will is +a mere phenomenon resulting from the preponderance of forces, that the +self is a collection of movements after the things which move have been +taken away. In other words, both are mechanists. Their difference is in +temperament. + +Nor is even this difference very profound. The two philosophies +have but one effect--to sanction _laissez-faire_ in matters of sex. +A verbalized but otherwise unconditioned “gut-reaction” is but a +conscious “libido” freed from the suppression which might create +a “complex.” Dr. Watson’s superiority lies in his insistence upon +education where sex is not involved. Freud’s superiority is literary. + +But there are two Freuds, the literary and the metaphysical. In +telling dreams no mortal ever dared to tell before, he uses language +that he who runs may read. In his book on “Wit in its Relation to the +Unconscious”--one of the most complete compendiums of smutty stories in +the world--he proves himself a lively raconteur. But when he seeks to +plunge deep down to the roots of things, his style suddenly becomes a +Chinese puzzle. Take, for instance, the following paragraph from pages +478 and 479 of “The Interpretation of Dreams”: “When I termed one of +the psychic processes in the psychic apparatus the primary process, +I did so not only in consideration of the order of precedence and +capability, but also as admitting the temporal relations to a share +in the nomenclature. As far as our knowledge goes there is no psychic +apparatus possessing only the primary process, and in so far it is a +theoretic fiction; but so much is based on fact, that the primary +processes are present in the apparatus from the beginning, while the +secondary processes develop gradually in the course of life.” + +In the original German this seems, to me at least, even less like +language than it does in the Brill translation. So much less that one +evening as I was puzzling over it, trying in vain to make it fit into +any conceivable sense, I fell asleep. And as I slept I dreamed; and as +I dreamed Freud appeared to me, and, after considerable persuasion, +proceeded to re-translate: + +“When I said that one of the psychic processes was the primary process, +I meant that it was not only first in capacity but first in the time of +its appearance.” + +“Very good,” said I. “Kindly go on.” + +“As far as we know,” he did go on, “there is no psychic apparatus in +existence, and there never was one, which possesses only the primary +process. Therefore it is a theoretic fiction to suppose that there can +be a primary process standing alone.” + +“Why then,” I interrupted, “do you complicate matters with a theoretic +fiction when they are complicated enough, in all conscience, if we +bother only with facts?” + +“Because,”--and his tone showed some asperity, as if he were addressing +a stupid pupil, “because the primary processes are present in the +apparatus from the beginning, while the secondary processes develop +gradually in the course of life.” + +I gasped. “According to that there _is_ a time when the primary +apparatus _does_ stand alone, viz, the time before the secondary +process develops. I thought you just said there was no such time?” + +“You needn’t be rude,” said the great man. “Nobody is supposed to read +these obscure passages. But I have to write them, just as a doctor +has to talk a little Latin when you go to him for a prescription. You +wouldn’t respect him if he didn’t. Besides, what difference does it +make whether the primary apparatus ever stands alone or not?” + +In my dream I pondered this for a long time before replying: + +“Perhaps it doesn’t make any difference, in a theoretic fiction. But if +you mean that the primary apparatus is real, the idea that it can come +first and stand alone seems to imply that it really comes first and +really stands alone, not only in the individual but in the universe. +That would mean that the universe was built from the bottom upwards.” + +The Freudian dream-image nodded. “Of course--just the way we build a +house.” + +“But,” I objected, “if we build a house _we_ build it--the house does +not build itself. Therefore the house begins with something even higher +than its roof. So it is really built from the top down. So is the +cosmos, if you will admit that its builder and maker was God. But if I +let you build a man from his primary psychic apparatus up, you will be +saying next that the universe was built from _its_ primary apparatus +up--that is, from a theoretic fiction.” + +Freud lighted a dream-cigar and sat down. “I’m no worse than the +theologians,” he smiled. “They say the universe was created out of +nothing.” + +“What theologian,” I retorted, “ever said that the universe created +itself out of nothing? Your own Old Testament suggests that God created +the universe out of nothing but Himself.” + +“And you profess to understand that?” + +“Certainly not. The beginning and the end are postulated together in +one great mystery. But it isn’t a mystery which we invented. We found +it here. It is a mystery with force in it--something which goes.” + +“We are such stuff as dreams are made of,” said Freud. “And dreams come +from a suppressed libido.” + +“So? How about a dog’s dream?” I suddenly asked. “Does that, too, come +from a suppressed libido--a suppressed puppy libido? Or is it due to a +super-morality restraining a mother-fixation?” + +“How do you know that dogs dream?” + +“In the same way I know that you dream. I infer it from the way you +act.” + +“To dream of a dog,” he responded heavily, paraphrasing one of his own +pages, “is to dream of the major function--French, _chien_; German, +_Chier_.” He had willfully missed the point. + +And so the dream went on and on, until I finally woke up and began idly +to turn the pages of the great Dream Book itself. It was difficult +to believe that I was not still asleep, for I kept coming upon such +passages as the following, from page 442: “To speak figuratively, +it is quite possible that a day-thought plays the part of the +contractor (_entrepreneur_) in the dream. But ... no matter what idea +the contractor may have in his mind, and how desirous he may be of +putting it into operation, he must depend upon a capitalist to defray +the necessary expenses; and this capitalist ... is invariably and +indisputably a wish from the unconscious. In other cases the capitalist +himself is the contractor for the dream; this, indeed, seems to be the +more usual case. An unconscious wish is produced by the day’s work, +which in turn creates the dream. The dream processes, moreover, run +parallel with all the other possibilities of the economic relationship +used here as an illustration. Thus the _entrepreneur_ may contribute +some capital himself, or several _entrepreneurs_ may jointly supply the +capital required by the _entrepreneur_.” + +This is certainly a moving picture. We seem to be looking upon +a lively scene in the financial district, with contractors and +capitalists running hither and thither, forming combinations for the +prosecution of great works. Yet it is a scene which belongs properly +to “Alice in Wonderland,” not in a book purporting to be scientific. +It is a conjurer’s trick, worked by that initial phrase, “To speak +figuratively.” + +Now anybody who admits the existence of God, of a life which is vital +rather than mechanical, has the right to speak figuratively. With him +figures are the signs and symbols of real things. They have force +because they are the personifications of real forces whose existence he +is prepared to admit outside of metaphor. + +But with the materialist, figures of speech are dishonest subterfuges. +They make the impossible seem possible and reasonable. By being +admittedly figures of speech, they escape criticism when they come upon +the stage. And once there, they act parts possible only to entities +possessing energy and will--the very things which the mechanistic +hypothesis professes to exclude from the picture. And in the end it +is claimed that all things which may be done by these flesh and blood +actors may be done by the nothings which they stand for. + +This psychic contractor of Freud’s has something “in his mind” which +he is “desirous” of putting into operation! On the stage he is as full +of reason, consciousness and vim as is Mr. Douglas Fairbanks. But in +the Freudian philosophical system, literally considered, he is one of +the processes of a primary psychic system standing alone--that is, a +process in a state of things admittedly fictitious. + +But the Great Man goes on: + +“The story of Œdipus is the reaction of the imagination to these two +typical dreams [of murdering one’s father and marrying one’s mother]. +And just as the dream when occurring to an adult is experienced +with feelings of resistance, so the legend must contain terror and +self-chastisement. The appearance which it further assumes is the +result of an uncomprehending secondary elaboration which tries to +make it serve a theological purpose. The attempt to reconcile divine +omnipotence with human responsibility must, of course, fail with this +material as with every other.”[90] + +So it is an “uncomprehending” elaboration which busies itself with +trying to reconcile divine omnipotence with human responsibility. One +would hardly expect an uncomprehending elaboration to succeed in such a +task. As to actual incompatibility of the two ideas, it is such a large +question that I prefer to consider it later under another head. Freud +goes on:[91] + +“The unconscious idea, as such, is altogether incapable of entering +into the foreconscious, and ... it can exert an influence there only by +uniting with a harmless idea already belonging to the foreconscious, to +which it transfers its intensity and under which it allows itself to be +concealed.” + +“Allows itself to be concealed!” It has intelligence and purpose, this +unconscious thought. A cunning fellow for a mere reflex in a process +antedating memory and reason. But the theatre has suddenly become dark +with purple shadows through which absurdity stalks, obscure but naked +and unashamed. The unconscious wish is incapable of entering into the +foreconscious, but, without entering it, nevertheless manages to exert +an influence there, by means of what go-between Freud only knows; for +the “harmless idea” with which union is to be made is already beyond +reach in the foreconscious. Nor is this all. + +“The relations existing for the repressed idea are similar to the +situation existing in Austria for the American dentist, who is +forbidden to practice unless he gets permission from a regular +physician to use his name on the public signboard and thus cover the +legal requirements. Moreover, just as it is naturally not the busiest +physicians who form such alliances with dental practitioners, so in +the psychic life only such foreconscious or conscious ideas are chosen +to cover a repressed idea as have not themselves attracted much ... +attention.”[92] + +The _entrepreneur_ (French for “undertaker”) has now become a dentist, +and the entire Austrian code of civil procedure has been introduced +into the psychic apparatus. Yet, such is the lure of figurative speech, +so easy is it to fancy that whatever can be true of the figure is +necessarily true of the abstraction for which it “doubles,” that even +Freud obviously thinks he is saying something. + +He proceeds to speak of “occupation,” meaning not occupation but the +possession of energy. And in this way we come to the problem of Will, +in these words:[93] “It is probable that the principle of pain first +regulates the displacements of occupation automatically, but it is +quite possible that the consciousness of these qualities adds a second +and more subtile regulation which may even oppose the first.... The +automatic control of the primary principle of pain and the restriction +of mental capacity connected with it are broken by the sensible +regulations which in their turn are again automatisms.” And again: “The +mental processes are in themselves devoid of quality except for the +excitement of pleasure and pain accompanying them,” which, as we know, +are to be held in check as possible “disturbers of thought.”[94] + +This, if it means anything, means that energy in the primary psychic +system is automatically regulated by pleasure and pain. But the primary +processes are not only unconscious, they are incapable of becoming +conscious. “There are,” we are told,[95] “two kinds of unconscious +... both are unconscious in the psychological sense; but in our sense +the first, which we call the unconscious, is likewise incapable of +consciousness.” Freud, like Dr. Watson, attempts to conceive of +pleasure, pain and unconsciousness altogether. He, like the great +behaviorist, subtracts the quality of painfulness from pain and the +quality of pleasurableness from pleasure, and fancies that he has +something left--something capable of regulating our unconscious conduct +automatically. + +Even when we come to the secondary process, with its “sensible +regulation,” these “in their turn are again automatisms.” And though +they have no quality except as exciters of pleasure and pain, this +excitement must be held in check as a possible disturber of thought--of +the sensible regulations. So these higher mental processes, which +have no quality save the one of which they are deprived, yet +exercise a control at once “sensible” and “automatic” over their more +humble neighbors in the psychic basement. And somewhere there is “a +restriction of mental capacity.” With this last statement I have no +quarrel. + +“What part,” Freud wants to know,[96] “now remains in our description +of the once all-powerful and all overshadowing consciousness?” Very +little, one would think. “None,” he says, “other than that of a sensory +organ for the perception of psychic qualities.... The psychic process +which is turned to the outer world is itself the outer world for the +sensory organ of consciousness.” + +So the lower sensory organ, turned towards the world, is unconscious. +And the higher sensory organ, turned towards the lower, is an +automatism. No doubt it is true that “the most complex mental +operations are possible without the cooperation of consciousness,” and +that “the state of becoming conscious depends upon the exercise of a +certain psychic function, viz, attention.”[97] But not even attention +can be moved about by nothing. And one complex mental operation which +cannot operate without consciousness is rational control. To suppose +that the boss of a job does not know what he is doing is to suppose +that the job is without a rational boss. + +For yet another time the attempt to create a psychology without a +veritable Psyche falls to the ground. Freud’s fictional apparatus lands +him squarely upon the spot marked by Dr. McDougall’s X. Once more +his verbalization has brought him into complete agreement with the +unappreciative Dr. Watson. But what has all this to do with science? +Let us find out. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[47] “Psycho-Analysis,” by R. B. Hingley, B.A., Edinburgh, second +edition, 1922, p. 17. + +[48] “The Interpretation of Dreams,” p. 172. + +[49] _Ibid._, p. 244, note. + +[50] _Op. cit._, p. 241. + +[51] _Ibid._, p. 388. + +[52] _Op. cit._, p. 195. + +[53] _Op. cit._, p. 106. + +[54] At the bottom of p. 171. + +[55] “What is the price of Graz?” An expression used by the Viennese +when they wish to boast of wealth. + +[56] _Op. cit._, p. 179. + +[57] _Op. cit._, p. 325. + +[58] _Ibid._, p. 474. + +[59] _Op. cit._, p. 405. + +[60] _Loc. cit._ + +[61] _Op. cit._, p. 120. + +[62] _Op. cit._, p. 439, note. + +[63] _Ibid._, p. 456. + +[64] _Ibid._, p. 439. + +[65] “The Interpretation of Dreams,” p. 240. + +[66] _Op. cit._, p. 224. + +[67] _Op. cit._, p. 221. + +[68] _Ibid._, p. 439. + +[69] _The Century Magazine_, September, 1927. + +[70] “The Interpretation of Dreams,” p. 136. + +[71] _Op. cit._, p. 390. + +[72] _Vide_ p. 155. + +[73] _Op. cit._, p. 246. + +[74] _Op. cit._, p. 486. + +[75] _Ibid._, p. 329. + +[76] _Ibid._, p. 226. + +[77] _Ibid._, p. 226. + +[78] _Op. cit._, p. 211. + +[79] _Ibid._, pp. 216-217. + +[80] _Ibid._, p. 218. + +[81] _Vide_ _op. cit._, p. 217. + +[82] _Ibid._, p. 240. + +[83] _Ibid._, p. 217. + +[84] _Ibid._, p. 213. + +[85] _Op. cit._, p. 221. + +[86] _Ibid._, p. 212. + +[87] _Ibid._, p. 221. + +[88] _The Ladies’ Home Journal_, October, 1927. + +[89] _Harper’s Magazine_, September, 1927 + +[90] _Op. cit._, p. 224. + +[91] _Ibid._, p. 443. + +[92] _Op. cit._, p. 444. + +[93] _Ibid._, p. 388-489. + +[94] _Ibid._, p. 490. + +[95] _Ibid._, p. 488. + +[96] _Op. cit._, p. 489. + +[97] _Ibid._, pp. 469-470. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE FAIRY HALLS OF SCIENCE + + +1. THE IDOLS OF THE TRIBE + +Whenever I stand beside one of those wonders of modern achievement, a +great turbine engine, for example, smoothly and silently performing +the work of a myriad men, I feel like taking off my hat to the +geniuses (for the most part unnamed and unknown) who have made such +a thing possible. There may be two opinions about the social effect +of machinery, but there can be no two opinions about the prodigies of +intelligence which have gone into its making. + +Everybody knows that machinery is scientific. And because of the vast +esteem which our master mechanics rightly enjoy, the word Science has +come to command a reverence once accorded only to the name of God. +It is no longer possible to advertise a toy or a tooth-brush without +calling it “scientific.” + +But what is Science? Is it a synonym for Truth? By no means. It is not +even a search for truth. Truth is something general; the highest truth +is universal. The search for it is called Philosophy. Science, as we +now understand it, did not begin to have an independent existence until +it definitely abandoned Truth as its province and devoted itself to the +study of those--not general but particular phenomena known as facts. +When we say that Science is classified knowledge we mean that it is +our classified knowledge of facts. And in that word “classified” lies +the root of its only difference from common sense. + +Science is also a method for ascertaining new facts as well as the +classification of those we already know. What do we mean when we say +that science is a method? What is its method? Every schoolboy can +answer, “The method of science is the experimental method.” + +The experimental method itself is less generally understood. To +experiment without an object in view is like starting on a journey +with no destination in mind. In the vernacular phrase, it does not +get you anywhere. The object of an experimenter is always to prove or +to disprove something. And what is there for him to prove? A fact, +once established, is already proven. But behind one fact there always +lies another, and behind that yet others. We soon leave the world of +certainty and find ourselves in the world of theories. It is a theory, +then, which the experimentalist seeks to prove--his own theory, while +disproving that of somebody else. Theories, dignified by the name +hypotheses, are as necessary to science as are microscopes and scales. +They are invented generalities used as conveniences in a region where +Truths are too much to expect. A hypothesis does not even pretend to +be true. It is merely the best approximation, the best guess, possible +under the circumstances. + +Every scientist worthy of the name has at one time or another said +something like the following: “The only thing we positively know about +a hypothesis is that it is to a certain extent wrong. Progress is made +by gradually substituting the less erroneous for the more erroneous, +until the hypothesis is finally established in a modified form as a +fact, or becomes so untenable that it must be abandoned altogether. In +either case, it has served its turn.” Thus Darwin, true scientist that +he was, characterized his theories as to the descent of man as “highly +speculative,” adding, “Some will no doubt prove erroneous.”[98] + +The ideal scientist, therefore, never becomes dogmatic, never cocksure. +He knows that though Truth be not relative, Knowledge is. He forever +deals with conclusions which are highly tentative, and constantly +waits for that appeal to experience which will reveal his mistakes. +Unfortunately, scientists are but men, and the ideal scientist no more +exists than does the ideal Christian. Only those whose specialties keep +them constantly close to experience remain truly scientific for any +length of time--which is one of the reasons why most of our progress +has been made in physics and chemistry. + +Francis Bacon, who is generally credited with having first put science +upon the firm ground of inductive reasoning, or generalizing from +observed particulars, says in his _Novum Organum_:[99] “Having first +determined the question according to his will, man then resorts to +experience; and bending her into conformity ... leads her about like a +captive in a procession.” + +How well Bacon understood our human nature’s proneness to determine +questions according to its will, and then to bend experience to fit +the occasion! But he did not call this method the scientific method. +On the contrary, he described it as one of those “Idols of the Tribe,” +or habits leading to error, to which everybody is subject. And he only +_hoped_ that science would avoid it as much as possible. + +True science has avoided it--as much as possible. But how little +true science we have! The experimental method is so limited in its +application that there are few matters important to human life which +can be put to the test of immediate experience. We must wait long +years for experience in general to tell its tale, and even then its +conclusions are not always convincing. To be convincing, experience +must take place under conditions of our own contriving, every unknown +influence eliminated. And the experience must be repeated time and +again. The field of true science is, therefore, one of the narrowest in +the world. Much that goes by the name of science is but semi-science, +pseudo-science, false science, or no science at all. + +The ideal scientist, having suffered an initial experience, then forms +a tentative hypothesis merely to direct his subsequent experiments, +and never for an instant permits his enthusiasm for theory to warp his +judgment regarding fact. But as there are no ideal scientists, what is +to be done? Bacon thus notes what is to be expected: + +“The human understanding, when any proposition has been once laid down +... forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation: and +although most cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, +yet [the understanding] either does not observe, or despises them, or +it gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and +injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first +conclusions.”[100] + +How highly fateful, then, must have been those first propositions +which modern science laid down in its infancy. But man is not to be +balked by his own infirmities. Since he cannot hope to abolish the +worship of this particular Idol of the Tribe, cannot hope to be led by +non-existent ideal scientists, he will make a virtue of his necessity +and reap what good he may from his very shortcomings. Men will not +abandon their fetishes and become reasonable. Very well, then, we +will incorporate the Idol of the Tribe in our general method, and let +abuses correct themselves. We will give them rope until they are hanged +thereby. + +This is precisely what has been done. Bacon’s Idol of the Tribe, the +human tendency to bend experience to suit theory, has been put upon a +pedestal and crowned with the high-sounding name of a principle called +“The Economy of Hypotheses.” + +Of two possible explanations of a phenomenon, that one is chosen which +requires the fewer suppositions, the least departure from hypotheses +already existing. + +This is nothing more nor less than the principle of conservatism, +and probably, in the long run, it does more good than harm. It is a +protection against wild and radical theories. It gives men a chance +for that long and intense application which they will give to nothing +but to the defense of old and cherished beliefs. But it makes the +correction of a fundamental error a very slow business, and though a +part of the now recognized methods of science, it is not scientific. + +It is, however, immensely popular, this principle of the economy of +hypotheses. The other ideal--that of submitting continually to the +stern discipline of trial--never appealed to the man in the street. +For ages he was prejudiced against science altogether. He left it to +monks and such people. Then, finally--and not so very long ago--the +idea, having proved a money-maker, was “sold” to him. He swallowed it +hook, line and sinker, until today he will not admit that he has a +pain in the stomach unless he finds in his basic theories something +which will let him account for it. What we need now is to be reminded +to be economical not with our hypotheses but with our credulity, our +acceptance of hypotheses as final. For there are still many things in +heaven and earth not dreamed of in our major syntheses. + +A major synthesis, of course, is that broadest, most shadowy, least +dependable, but widely inclusive hypothesis by which it is sought to +bind all minor theories into one more or less coherent system. It is +the point where science most nearly approaches to philosophy, the +point where, according to its own premises regarding the authority of +experience, it should be most cautious and humble. The making of a +major synthesis is an awesome business. The fall of a major synthesis +marks the end of an epoch. We are now living at the end of such an +epoch, though the pseudo-scientists do not appear to be yet aware +of the fact. And the major synthesis which has fallen is that which +sought to bind all phenomena together as manifestations of matter--the +Mechanist Hypothesis. + +That the Mechanist Hypothesis should be the first generalization of +modern science was inevitable. It began with astronomy, the first +science to dare to call itself “exact.” In astronomy we cannot +experiment. We cannot take planets and comets and suns, and subject +them to laboratory conditions. But we can at least make observations; +and what we observe appears to be matter, pure and simple. + +Then came physics and chemistry, throwing off the attempt to be magic +and buckling down to practical jobs. Both experiment and observation +were possible here--and still matter held the field. Matter, it was +soon noted, had exceedingly regular habits. And when it failed to +follow one habit, continued observation would discover that it was only +following some other. These habits came to be called laws, and it was +practically impossible not to confound laws with force. + +In the back of the scientific mind were those human laws--customs, +behind which was Government, always ready to manifest itself as the +force in a policeman’s club. And back of that was the idea of the laws +of God--of a real God with all the force of the universe in His hand. + +“Our laws are the laws of God,” said the early scientist, quite +rightly. And then, after he had abandoned that ancient idea, the +“hypothesis of a God,” he continued to say it, not realizing how +ridiculous and empty his notion of “law” had become. Eventually he +did begin to see this, and was minded to drop force altogether. A law +became merely the way things acted under given circumstances, and force +merely a persistence in such action--in other words, the way in which +other things would act which stood in the way. + +A given amount of some substance put into a scale pan will lift the +same amount of the same substance to a level with it, and this behavior +of the substance in the second pan is the measure of the “force” of +gravity moving the substance in the first pan. As to the nature of +force itself, the scientist came to say that it lay outside of his +province--which was well and good. Pseudo-sciences went further, and +said that there was no such thing as force--quite another pair of +shoes. But long before this, which marks the end and not the beginning +of the last scientific epoch, the Mechanist Hypothesis had been +formulated in terms recognizing both force and matter, and brought to +the attention of the average man through the writings of Newton. + +Sir Isaac Newton had one of the greatest minds granted to a human being +since the Reformation; yet inadvertently he did his fellows about the +most evil turn which modern history records. He robbed them of their +belief in free will--or if not quite that, he at least induced them to +abandon those fundamental propositions upon which alone the belief in +free will can reasonably be based. + +Free will presupposes force--real force--at the disposition of the +will. A will without force is a powerless will--no will at all. And +a man without will is not a man; he is not even an animal. He is on +a level with his own lawn-mower. Upon free will depends not only all +religion, all ethics, all sense of human responsibility, but our +physical and mental well-being, our happiness, our very self-respect. +If we are but weathercocks, blown this way and that by every breeze, +it is folly to talk of striving; of reasoning; of good or of evil; of +loyalty or of treason; of anything which makes us act indeed like human +beings. It is folly to speak even of consciousness. What good could +it do us? We might as well surrender to Dr. Watson at once--and it is +folly for him to write books to tell us so, though a folly which he +cannot help. To rob man of his will would be to rob him of his life, +and to rob him of his belief in the freedom of his will is to rob +him of all faith in any means proposed to make life better. Yet our +mechanists one and all pretend to be philanthropists, and nearly all +are reformers. Every day of their lives is a self-contradiction. + +Sir Isaac Newton, when he saw the apple fall and deduced the law of +gravitation, did not intend to precipitate another Fall of Man. He +seems to have been quite unmindful of the evil reputation of the fruit +in question. Nor would much harm have been done had not his discovery +been one of those rare scientific ventures which are “good theatre.” +Everybody has seen apples fall. Nobody can ignore gravity. The law +was the best newspaper story of a scientific sort since Copernicus and +Galileo dislodged the earth from the center of the universal stage. It +gave Newton such prestige that his slightest word became Gospel. + +Much of this prestige was deserved. His laws were, and still +are, mighty monuments of human genius. The trouble came from the +implications that were drawn from them. The mechanistic hypothesis +had long been in existence--no fruit of science, but both root and +branch of an old mechanistic philosophy. Descartes had brought it up +to date. So Newton adopted it in preference to any other philosophy. +And his worship of that Idol of the Tribe, the economy of hypotheses, +led him to arrange his laws so as to cause as little disturbance to +Cartesianism as possible. + +The result was a world in which the Conservation of Energy was the only +real God. Neither energy nor matter could be created or destroyed. +Whatever went into anything, that or its equivalent came out. A “free” +creature gives out more energy than it receives. Therefore to believe +in freedom was to be crazy. + +Moreover, the “laws” did account very well for most of the known +physical phenomena of the day. There were then no Becquerel rays, +X-rays, actinium, radium, protons, electrons, quanta or ultramicroscopy +to be dealt with. Accurate observation was in its infancy. Materialism +was in the very air. Had not science won its first triumphs by looking +at matter and ignoring everything else? Newton lived some two hundred +years ago. His “closed system” of a universe in which all creative +activity had ceased, though it gave us a life without a future, a +life wherein everything had already as good as happened, a life that +was really a moving death with its future behind it--this all fitted +amazingly well with the static ideas of the age. It was a Calvin’s +universe, unlit by the fires even of fanaticism. Prayer was futile. +Initiative an illusion. Heaven and hell either non-existent or +foredoomed. We were here but to turn the pages of a book printed long +before we were born. + +Actual mechanics, busy at their work-benches, satisfied with a +hypothesis which was accurate enough for their immediate needs, thought +very little of these far-reaching implications. But here were weapons +forged to a nicety for the hands of the leaders of that vast movement +which today we loosely and inaccurately call modern paganism--it +being neither pagan nor modern, but an old, old disease marked by +the hardening of the arteries of the soul self-deprived of conscious +communion with God. Pains were taken to bring Newton’s findings home +to every intellect. Popular science became intensely interesting, +and hot with fervor; for in reality it was not science at all but +anti-religious propaganda--and this even when it sugar-coated itself, +as it sometimes did, with phrases having what might pass for a pious +taste. + +But it was more than even the “tough-minded”--that is to say, +sclerotic-brained--long could endure. Oliver L. Reiser, of the +University of Pittsburg (a writer for _The Monist_) goes so far as +to say that “had Newton been able to foresee the inevitable logical +consequences of his doctrine in the godless universe of Laplace, he +might have been constrained towards a more hospitable regard for the +views of Leibniz”--the reference, of course, being to the attempt of +Leibniz to reconcile the mechanical Cartesian universe with the idea +that creation, after all, has a meaning and a purpose. Newton, indeed, +might have done even more than this. + +But he died leaving us nothing but a big machine which continued +to dominate men’s minds until about the year 1890, when the whole +thing suddenly broke down. Says R. A. Millikan, of the Norman Bridge +Laboratory of Physics, writing recently for _Scribner’s_: “In [the +discovery of radio-activity and the electrical constitution of +matter] the physical world changed in our thinking over night in its +fundamental elements from a fixed, changeless, static, dead thing, +to a changing, evolving, dynamic, living organism. Two principles, +conservation of mass and conservation of energy, are now gone, clean +gone, as distinct and separate verities.” In other words, matter and +energy are now thought to be capable of changing, the one into the +other. In the opinion of G. Urbain,[101] the experiments of Rutherford +entitle us to say that there are “two chemical elements, the electron +and proton, out of which the universe is made.” But--“we physical +chemists of today do not tell what matter is.... The least metaphysical +among us all see in electrons and protons merely centers of convergence +of lines of force. That evidently explains nothing fundamental.... +It makes for us a world formed of minute hairy points, the hairs +strikingly abstract.” + +So matter itself is force and nothing else--or rather it is two forces, +electrons (negative electricity) and protons (positive electricity) +locked together in a strange conflict whose resistance to interference +gives tangibility and “hardness” to the things of the world--all of +which sounds rather as if it had been translated from the Rig-Veda. +Gone by the board is the idea that matter is the fundamental reality, +that nothing can happen in the mind but what has first happened in the +brain. + +But has mind itself to obey the old law? Is it but a more subtile +manifestation of the preponderance of exterior forces? We shall have to +penetrate yet farther into these fairy halls of science before finding +an answer to that question. + + +2. SOME NEBULOUS MATTERS + +Of all the facts of the old science, none was more firmly established +than what was known as the “Nebular Hypothesis.” The name “hypothesis” +clung to it always, because “nebular hypothesis” makes an imposing +mouthful of syllables. Yet it was everywhere treated as a fact. Indeed, +after the “fact” of the conservation of energy, it was just about the +fact of facts. What has become of it now? + +A. Vibert Douglas, M.B.E., M.Sc., writing in _Discovery_ for August, +1925, says, “The nebular hypothesis of Laplace and the planetesimal +hypothesis of Chamberlain have gone into the history of science as +great and lasting _monuments_ to their originators.” + +Monuments! Memorials marking the last resting place of things now dead. + +How carefully Herbert Spencer used to explain the manner in which a lot +of star-dust, scattered somehow through the space marked roughly by the +orbit of the planet Neptune, started to contract, revolve, grow warm, +and to throw off rings (since known as Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Earth, +Mars, _et cetera_) and ended by central concentration in our glowing +sun. There was nothing difficult to understand about the theory except +the language in which Spencer couched it--that is, unless one tried to +look beyond and into some of the things which it took for granted. In +that case certain questions arose. What scattered the dust in the first +place? Would it scatter it again, again, and yet again, thus creating +the universe of recurrent phenomena imagined by the horror-loving +Nietzsche? What force separated the rings from the mass and rolled them +neatly up into planets? Why haven’t Saturn’s rings rolled up? Will +they, in time? What is keeping them back? These matters, and various +details which had been observed but by few, troubled the mathematicians. + +They hardly caused the average citizen to lose a wink of sleep. Saturn +looked like a working model preserved for school-room purposes. And +the nebular hypothesis was a pleasant story to tell to children. But +the contrary observations increased and multiplied--for the most part +without getting into the newspapers--until now we have Vibert, with +a host of competent astronomers ready to echo his words, saying, “A +nebula giving rise to a solar system [is] an impossible hypothesis in +the light of modern knowledge.” + +The hypothesis itself has not been altogether carried away to the +bone-yard. Like an old and faithful horse, it has been taken from the +shafts and turned out to grass so that it may enjoy its declining years +in comparative peace. The latter pastures of the nebular hypothesis +are sufficiently large, for it is being used now to help make stellar +systems. As there is little in this far region save assumptions to +drag around, the work is light. Fit ending for an honorable career. +But astronomers have grown cautious. It is not likely that any of them +will be rash enough ever again to impose the weight of a real star, +let alone a system, upon the already broken back. They at least know +the hypothesis for what it is--a hypothesis, and a dying one. Only +laymen, half asleep over their Sunday supplements, now think it was +ever anything else. + +And what has come to take its place? The “Big Star Theory.” An +astronomer named Jeans brought forward this entry in 1919. He said +that if a big star had ever come near enough to the sun, it might have +caused a fearful tide of solar substance--a long arm of stuff more or +less gaseous and very hot--to reach out millions of miles into space. +And from this hypothetical arm (there were really two, but let us not +complicate matters with details), broken into several pieces, the +planets might have originated. + +This time there was plenty of force at hand, enough to satisfy all the +equations which the mathematicians were likely to contrive. No need +to try to think how the dust had been scattered. The force came from +the big star, which Jeans made a very big star indeed, with a diameter +of eight thousand million kilometers--say about twice the distance of +the farthest planet from the sun. Anyway, there was a very big star +concerned. Too big. The mathematicians could not use all the force thus +put at their disposal. Dr. Harold Jeffers therefore reduced the mammoth +to a diameter of a mere forty million kilometers. + +The mathematicians still objected. It was no longer a question of +force. But the theory of probability, they said, made it almost +unreasonable to suppose that a collision or near collision could +actually have happened within the lifetime of the sun. So astronomers +set to work again, some of them to lengthen the past life of the sun, +others to bring the stars in general closer together so as to increase +the risks of collision. Both parties succeeded admirably. Jeans himself +published a calculation which made the sun a million million years +of age--seven thousand times older than any other calculation had +ever made it. There were now seven thousand times more chances of a +collision having taken place than there had been when he started. + +Others (you may read an account of their observations in an article +on the Spiral Nebulæ, by C. Wirtz, in _Scientia_, November, 1925), +discovered that when you look long enough and deep enough into the gulf +of space (about three hundred thousand light-years is as far as you +need to go), it looks as if all matter were outward bound, and moving +faster and faster all the time. Therefore the stars used to be much +more thickly placed here around home than they are now. A collision +becomes easy to imagine. + +But why is matter going away from here? Apparently for the same reason +that rats leave a sinking ship. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, ought +to be five times more thickly settled with stars. As things stand, it +is much too light for its size. It cannot hold itself together and is +being deserted by its outer fringe of suns all the time. Nor is this +the worst of it. The very matter of our solar system is fifty-two times +less dense than it should be. Its critical point--that is, the point +where it will fly to pieces at the slightest provocation--has long +since been passed. Some day, a few million years hence, when you get up +in the morning the morning is likely not to be there. This is not such +a good story to tell to the children. + +Nor is the situation any better if you turn your back to the stars, and +look at those little stars within things which we call atoms. Very much +to the contrary. Some meteorologists created considerable consternation +a few years ago by prophesying that one of the glacial epochs, probably +the last one, was coming back to play a return engagement--decidedly +not by request. But what is a glacial epoch or two compared with atoms +in the state ours are in? + +“We owe to Sir Ernest Rutherford [the great English physicist] what +is basic in our actual ideas about atoms,” says Urbain.[102] This +savant was once a pupil of Pierre Curie, discoverer of radium, and +speaks with authority. And he asks: “As to the atom, have we attained +something real, or only a model, symbolic of observed phenomena?” He +then answers his own question by declaring that “it is difficult to +say.... Rutherford allowed the electrons [in the atom] to radiate, +since it was supposed that the model must obey the standard laws.” The +difficulty was that such an atom as Rutherford’s ought, all agreed, +to be luminous. And all atoms are not luminous. Another difficulty +was this. “Each outer electron must gradually approach the central +nucleus,”--I still quote from Urbain--“finally falling into it, which +means death.” Presumably it is not intended to be implied that the same +electrons which were allowed to radiate ended by falling into the thing +they radiated from. Anyway, Urbain continues: “We might have accepted +the death of the stars ... but we cannot that of the atoms. That would +mean a definite death of the universe.” + +For once, even scientists were appalled. What was to be done? +Something, evidently. So an astronomer named Bohr rose to the occasion. +He constructed--not another atom, but another “model.” This one was +guaranteed to last forever, and if real atoms would only conform to it +all would be well. + +“Bohr’s atom,” says Urbain, “is not a clear explanation, for the +privileged orbits [he gave the electrons ‘privileged orbits’ to keep +them contented without either flying off into space or into the +deadly nucleus] are not understandable in themselves; neither are +the quanta of energy set free by the electrons in leaping from one +privileged orbit to another.... Bohr’s models have their own laws with +no necessary relation to the law of ordinary experiments, and he thus +turned scientific thought into a new and unknown direction.... In the +future are theories to be built upon such contradictions?” + +Apparently they are. We have now observed so many things that it is +flatly impossible to grapple with them, or to find out which ones +are so and which are not. The “new and unknown direction” into which +scientific thought has been turned is clearly that of imagining +artificial working-models known to be at variance with reality, getting +what satisfaction can be had from the models, and leaving reality to +shift for itself until some really serious collision with fact damages +the model beyond repair. It is not such a new direction, after all, +but merely a new frankness which acknowledges the shortcomings of a +hypothesis from the start without a period of pretending that it is +a genuine “explanation.” Every new discovery makes the universe--not +easier, but more difficult to explain. Progress uncovers our ignorance +much faster than it brings us knowledge--arm-chair progress, of course +excepted. + +So Urbain is thankful for the new model atom, and says that “Bohr, in +reviving our hopes, is a great benefactor.” Adding, “It seems necessary +either to resign ourselves to not understanding, as Bohr has done, or +to resign ourselves to a model in flagrant violation with experience.” + +Those sufficiently resigned to not understanding I now ask to return +with me for a short and final visit to those suburban stellar districts +situated some three hundred thousand light-years from our sun, where +matter is moving ever faster and faster away from us. By a strange +contradiction, time in those regions seems to be moving slower and +slower, as if tired with the long journey and no longer able to keep +up the killing pace set by the stars. Light, too, appears to be +losing the race. Professor Michelson, of the University of Chicago, +established the velocity of light not long ago at 299,796 kilometers +per second--roughly 186,000 miles. But now Monsignor E. J. Gheury +de Braye, in an article in _L’Astronomie_, official organ of the +Astronomical Society of France, declares that the velocity of light +decreases by four kilometers every second. We may perhaps grasp a +moment’s understanding by saying that this is relativity, that light +merely travels slower in comparison with the quickened pace of time and +matter in the outer stellar spaces. + +This, however, will not serve us long, for W. de Sitter, the Dutch +astronomer, taking all these things into consideration, must needs +offer an “explanation.” + +“The world of de Sitter,” says Wirtz in summing it up, “is a +four-dimensional continuum of space and time, forming the surface of a +sphere in five-dimensional co-ordinates.” + +If you look wise and pretend in scientific circles that you understand +this, you go to the foot of the class. A four-dimensional sphere with +a surface in five-dimensional co-ordinates does not pretend to be +comprehensible. To declare it to be graspable by the human mind is to +insult it. But it can be used in equations, like any other “imaginary” +quantity, though--again like any other imaginary quantity--it is quite +unimaginable. + +Imaginary quantities are not such awesome nonentities. Anybody can +make a few for himself and play with them as well as can anybody else. +Let us take nothing to begin with, thus--0. Write a 2 under it--0/2. +We have now one-half of nothing. Now multiply a cipher by 2, and we +have twice nothing, or 2(0)--not for a moment to be confounded with +twenty. Then one half of 2(0), or twice nothing, equals two times 0/2, +or one-half of nothing, because each is equal to nothing at all and +things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other--and +for various other reasons. + +Abstractions are other imaginary no-things which cannot be imagined. +A mathematical point has, by hypothesis, neither length, breadth nor +thickness. We always think of it as a very small dot, having all three. +Yet in dealing with it, mathematically, we ignore these dimensions in +the result. A line has length, but no breadth or thickness. We think +of it as something long and very slender. It is the edge of a solid. A +plane has length and breadth but no thickness, theoretically speaking. +We think of it as a very thin slice of a solid. Try to think of the +surface of a solid without thinking of the solid! Abstractions are +conveniences when we wish to travel light without carrying all the +mystery of material reality about with us. They are like Bohr’s model +atoms. And like all other unreal things, they have a danger of their +own. + +The practical man, especially if he be a physicist or a chemist, a +worker in those domains where our greatest scientific triumphs have +been won, has experience always at his elbow ready to correct his +errors whenever they pass beyond a certain point. Invent a machine, or +a shaving soap, and you are immediately compelled to prove that your +invention will work. And the only proof which those who invest in such +things will accept is the sort of proof which we require of a pudding +when we eat it. + +Experience has shown that not even the best calculations ever quite +verify themselves when put to the test of novel circumstances. A small +model may run smoothly, yet a large machine made in the same way will +develop unexpected flaws. Even increased size is sufficient to upset +the forecast. A machine may run for a week, yet become cantankerous +if we try to make it run for a year. Time adds a new element. So does +speed. Chemical compounds which cannot be made to explode in minute +quantities--coal dust, for example--sometimes work havoc in large +quantities. + +Now the physical sciences, like chemistry and astronomy, deal with the +simplest and most tangible things of which we have any knowledge. Yet +those who make them their study confess themselves baffled at every +turn. In these dreadful regions, Science, the real Simon Pure, humble, +beautiful and courageous, tries to maintain itself under the pitiless +bombardment of facts, smoky with the infinite mystery from which they +come, that rain every year more violently upon its defenseless head. + +What has become of the Sunday-supplement, positive, dogmatic, +you-are-a-fool-if-you-do-not-agree-with-what-I-say attitude? These +men, who do not wish to be mystics, engage in more ghostly talk than +did the delegates to the Meta-Physic Congress which met last year +at the Sorbonne in Paris to discuss telepathy, haunted houses, and +kindred matters. Gone is the cocksure vanity of the closing nineteenth +century. Gone is the God-defying materialistic impiety, the arrogance, +the hard-heartedness of an older and more ignorant day. In this +ultimate dim Thule where the higher syntheses are born, kissing the +dust is today the only permitted posture. Hypotheses hardly dare to +call themselves even hypotheses any more. They are content to be known +as assumptions, postulations, fancies, guesses, and thankful if they +may be allowed to live their unreal existences from the time of the +publication of one pamphlet to that of the next. Early modern science +was drunk with victory. New science is dizzy with awe. + +How comes it, then, that our Dr. Watsons can say that there is no +mystery in the building of a man? A man! Ah, that is different. We have +as yet hardly touched upon those positively certain “sciences” which +deal with human nature, with love, life and destiny. + + +3. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES + +Hans Driesch, at Jena, working in the very laboratory of Ernst Haeckel +shortly after the death of that master argument-maker for the mechanist +conception of life, inadvertently broke a fertile egg in two--and +thereby broke not in two but into smithereens the whole mechanism of +the mechanist which he had been taught to defend. For the egg hatched, +each half producing a perfect creature as if nothing had happened. + +Driesch then reduced a fertile egg fairly to hash--and still each +fragment functioned like a whole egg. As long as the egg was not +killed--and the eggs of primitive creatures are tough eggs except +where temperature and certain poisons are concerned--hashing merely +multiplied the hatch. + +The biologist was much disturbed. For it seemed fairly obvious that +if the design which growth was to follow lay anywhere in the material +of the eggs, division of said eggs would--if it did not bring the +whole vital process to an end--result at least in the division of the +incubated organisms. One half of an egg should, if it hatched at all, +hatch a head; the other half a tail--and so on. But this not being +what happened, design could no longer be located in egg material. Any +part of the material was ready to develop into either head, or tail, or +wing, or antennæ, or what not, according to the direction of something +beyond the dividing process--something which remained whole in each +part. + +Perhaps the experiment was not conclusive. In these days of model +atoms no doubt somebody can construct a model egg, each atom of which +is, potentially, a complete chicken. But what troubled Driesch was +the immediate necessity of violating a primary principle and being +compelled to be extravagant in the matter of hypotheses. Even a model +egg required a great many changes in Haeckelianism. + +Now if Driesch had been of an older generation or of a different +persuasion, he would have found the ideas of Haeckel, not the idea of +exterior design, extravagant. For one of the most ancient hypotheses +in the world assumes that the design for everything lies outside of +its material self. And I sometimes wonder if the principle of economy +should not have been earlier applied, before so many of us abandoned +this grand old major synthesis which found its highest expression in a +belief in God. If it did not explain everything, it at least left room +for the explanation of everything. All we had to do was to struggle +for a truer and clearer conception of what it meant. Astronomers, +for instance, would not now be so hard put to it in the matter of +inventing Big Star theories, nor physicists in making model atoms +which neither work nor exist, if they were at liberty to suppose that +a forceful spirit lay behind phenomena, lending a guiding hand to all. +Intellectually that would be at least as satisfactory as points of +force surrounded by highly abstract hairs. + +But the idea of God as it emerged from the nineteenth century presented +itself to many minds as the idea of a rather ridiculous monster--the +monster that Sinclair Lewis dared to strike dead,--the monster that +Stephen Crane once fancied as lying “dead in heaven,” and at another +time warned not to shake its bloody spears at him if its “sublime +ears” did not wish to “hear curses.” Neither Crane nor Lewis need have +shocked anybody. They had each seen a straw man set up, and were but +proceeding to knock it down. The only shocking thing was the idea, the +deformity, which had been presented to them. Where it came from it is +not my present purpose to enquire. + +Astronomers and physicists have now gone far beyond Crane and Lewis +and are looping back--saving their faces (i.e., hypotheses) as much +as possible--and picking up ever more and more of the ancient belief +thrown away in the hour of materialistic extravagance. Chemists, too, +are beginning to realize that there is no use going on and pretending +that our thoughts, our feelings, our every manifestation, can be +reduced to a mechanical basis, since not even a sea-urchin or a pismire +can be so reduced. + +This something which we call life shows itself, ordinarily at least, +only when certain physical elements are present. But it shows +sufficient independence of these elements to make it impossible for any +rational, unprejudiced being with the facts before him to continue to +confound life with matter. + +Yet many learned professors do continue to confound them. Why? In +some cases it is, perhaps, not too much to say that the holder of a +university degree is not necessarily in possession of all the facts. +And very few of us, professors or not, are without prejudice. We must +remember the Idol of the Tribe, the capacity of the mind to become so +clouded by passion and biased zeal that it sheds unwelcome evidence as +readily as a duck’s back sheds water. + +It was Herbert Spencer who first popularized the notion that +materialistic science could explain everything. It had not been +invented with an eye to explaining everything--only a few things, with +the hope of getting hold of them in a way that might be useful. But so +great was the success of the early applications of the method that the +temptation to turn it into a synthetic philosophy was too great for +mortal to resist. Spencer had the advantage of not knowing very much. +His early education had been neglected. And his powers of invention +were practically without limit. + +It is always easier to explain when not burdened with too much +first-hand knowledge. Hearsay, and what we learn from books, is the +stuff for theories. But the facts which have entered intimately into +our own lives are stubborn. We are too familiar with their edges to +fancy that they fit into whatever space may be contrived for them. +Ignorance is satisfied with almost any account. Those who deal a good +deal with retorts and crucibles may speak of men and women as retorts +and crucibles. This is impossible to those whose knowledge of human +nature has made them distinguished in affairs. The books of a closet +economist satisfy everybody but business men. + +If you have spent much of your time in observing, say, the behavior +of rats on inclined planes, you may come to think of animals as +machines. One such investigator has recently discovered that rats are +“negatively geotropic.” That is, they are afraid of falling; and when +the plane is tipped will scramble away from the lower edge. A pet rat +would have taught him not only this, but that, under kind treatment, +the rat is one of the cleverest and most affectionate four-footed +creatures in existence. A scientist bores holes in a dog’s cheek to +measure his autocoid secretion; or he removes part of a dog’s brain, +scratches the animal’s leg, notes that a kick results, and comes out +of the laboratory convinced that we all walk--not with a desire to get +anywhere, but because of the irritating effects of the ground on the +soles of the feet. Go tell that story to a man who knows dogs! + +Those who love and understand animals cannot be made to believe that +animals are devoid of sense and feeling, or act blindly in response +to stimuli. Why then should we listen only to those who know nothing +of animals and care less? Lovers of flowers will even go so far as +to attribute a sort of sentience to vegetation. Are they necessarily +wrong because their opinions are contradicted by teachers in flowerless +school-rooms? + +J. C. Bose, the great Hindu scientist, has lately intrigued the whole +world by writing a book in which he shows that trees have eyes, nerves, +veins, something which corresponds to a heart; are capable of pain; +of fatigue; can be poisoned; and to a certain extent seem to remember +what has happened to them. What is the result? Why, our mechanists have +hurried to invert the Bose philosophy and to describe it with its heels +in the air. It is “_la fin du mythe de la force vitale_,” cries Pierre +Guitet-Vauquelin.[103] Bose, according to this ingenious writer, has +discovered “_l’unité de la matière vivante et non vivante_,” and the +conclusion is drawn that said unity has been arrived at by making the +_non vivante_ universal. + +The Idol of the Tribe, the economy of hypotheses, has become a +Procrustean bed, to which everything must be stretched or cut to +fit. But unfortunately this particular bed was made by chemists and +physicists in Newton’s time to fit certain facts and approximations +to truth in which they were dealing for the moment. It was then a +convenient bit of furniture. Now it is very awkward. We cling to it +only for old time’s sake. + +The modern experimental method as at first developed has proven +woefully inadequate when universally applied. Even the study of outward +behavior is very difficult, especially if the subject be human, for +we cannot duplicate in the laboratory the exact circumstances of real +life--and every variation is fatal to accuracy, especially as its +influence is often unsuspected and totally unknown. We cannot control +our own species, because we are not placed above it--though many of us +would like to be. + +This entails another difficulty. As we are not above it in power, so +we are not above it in intelligence. The mind in attempting to study +itself has the disadvantage of being both the eye and the picture. +No wonder the so-called social sciences have failed to duplicate the +triumphs of physical science. They have tried to steal a prestige which +they have not earned, to work with borrowed tools instead of developing +proper tools of their own. + +But since it is the habit of the age to look below for its sanctions, +let us look a little more intently--at the findings of the new science. + + +4. THE NEW PHYSICS + +Unfortunately, the new physics is difficult, or at least can be made +to seem difficult. Few lay readers have any first-hand knowledge of +it; few lay readers have ever read a book of science in their lives, +new or old. In fact science does not publish itself directly in books, +but in short monographs, editions limited to two or three hundred +copies. At best these papers make their appearance in small, specialist +magazines. And they are couched almost entirely in mathematical symbols +interspersed with long words barbarously derived from the Greek and +Latin. True scientists have not yet learned to advertise. + +We are therefore at the mercy of the popularizer, and the popularizer +is under every temptation to bolster up popular prejudices and +misconceptions. There is also the “story interest” which he must +consider. + +These are times when government is not by reason, by principle, by +expedience, or by experience. We are governed by story interest--the +thrill such as we get from a good detective yarn. Most of us must get +the bulk of our information from the newspapers, magazines, and the +most accessible and widely distributed of books. These depend upon +story interest for their sales. We buy those periodicals and those +volumes which promise to thrill us most; it is so much more pleasant to +be thrilled than not to be thrilled. Thus it becomes to the interest of +editors to see that we are thrilled as much as possible, without regard +to ultimate consequences. Fiction tends ever more and more to become +the moulder of public opinion. + +It is of course a better story if Voronoff’s transplantations of goat +and monkey glands result in prolonged life than if they do not so +result. To say that chemicals will take the place of male sperm in the +fertilization of sea-urchins’ eggs (as Loeb, a few years ago, used to +claim) produces a greater thrill than to say that this consummation so +devoutly wished by some has yet to materialize. It is even thrilling +to be told that life is mechanical, for that gives man the flattering +idea that some day he will be able to create life in his own workshops +and set up an independent business as a god. We do not stop to think +of all the implications of such a theory--and we buy the paper. We go +further, and enact laws which take the truth of the articles in the +paper for granted. + +So, when the modern popularizer deigns to give his attention to modern +physics, he has a single eye to the “story.” The difficult parts, the +parts expressing doubt, the parts which do not fit with the pet fads of +his readers, he can omit. Or he can take an entire theory and stand it +on its head. The effect will be exciting--and marvelous. + +There are those who are becoming tired of this childish procedure, +those who would really like to know what is going on without having to +perfect their Greek and Latin or master the higher mathematics. They +would even like to know if it be true, as has been claimed, that the +attempt to reconcile the omnipotence of God with human free will and +responsibility has always been found scientifically impossible--to know +if belief in either will or God be in itself unscientific and contrary +to mathematics. Probably they will go on believing in God and free-will +anyway--for those who do not have not yet become tired of childish +procedures. But it will be with a certain sadness. The man who must +hide his faith from his reason in fear of attack, is not a complete or +a happy man. Few of us realize how much depends upon our conception of +the fundamental truths of physics, how we lean upon what we understand +to be the laws underlying the material world. + +The Scholastics claimed that the existence of God--even the great +truths of Christianity--could be demonstrated by reason alone; but few +have sufficient philosophical training or inclination to follow such +arguments to their end. Science, while it has often claimed to be able +to disprove religion, has never claimed to be able to establish either +religion in general or any one religion in particular. The most that +can be asked of it, I think, is the removal of those barriers which, +some time since, it erected in the way of belief in the supernatural. + +Science has always had its Mendels, its Voltas, its Galvanis, its +Ampères, its Pasteurs--men who believed as heartily in God as they +believed in his works. But I do not wish to discuss the religion of +scientists. It will be enough to show the bearings of recent science +upon an antiquated but still pretendedly scientific materialism. So let +us chose a single paper by a modern worker--a man comparatively obscure. + +He will of necessity be comparatively obscure, for no one can be a +scientist pure and simple and be widely known unless he has invented +a popular mechanical appliance, advertised a cure for some common +disease, wandered into a foreign province as a prophet, or had the luck +to say something startling--such as, “Man descended from a monkey,” or +“Everybody can live to be a hundred years old,”--and even then fame +usually takes time to accumulate. + +Ralph S. Lillie has as yet written no good story. But he has an +interesting article, entitled “Physical Indeterminism and Vital +Action,” in _Science_ for August 12, 1927. + +Mr. Lillie, a worker in the Marine Biological Laboratory, is the author +of “Protoplasmic Action and Nervous Action,” and his very occupation +shows that he is engaged in the business of wrestling knowledge rather +than thrills from the phenomena of the world. What he says, however, is +much more thrilling than the most incestuous dreams ever dreamed by +a Freudian, or all the discoveries ever made by dropping babies upon +pillows in the laboratories of Dr. Watson. + +For he says that we are free; that there has been observed under the +microscope certain actions which look much like the veritable finger of +God, glimpsed for an instant through the screen of matter behind which +His power forever works--a power that we so often fail to recognize +because, from our infinitesimal observation of it, it acts according +to laws--laws we have for the most part made ourselves and to which we +almost invariably give a personality and an omnipotence we would feign +deny to the Deity whose doings they so imperfectly record. + +But how does Lillie say all this? In the most lamentable manner--in +Scientese. You will not wonder why I called him obscure after you read +the following sample paragraph: + +“Science and philosophy, but especially science, have found great +difficulty in reconciling the apparent indeterminism of many vital +manifestations, particularly voluntary action, with the strict +determinism of physical science. The traditional problem of freedom, +with all its implications, is the classical expression of the +difficulty.” + +True, this is by no means as cloudy as Freud when Freud plays +schoolmaster and propounds incomprehensible metaphysics intended +to inspire our awe. It contains no confusion of thought. But it is +sufficiently cold and forbidding. Lillie totally lacks the literary +ability of Freud, the raconteur of spicy stories. It is evident, +however, that he means to point out the difficulty which science +has found in reconciling the doctrine of blind reaction with that +appearance of choice which is often to be noted in the conduct of the +higher forms of matter. Living matter, apparently, does not respond +to external stimuli as mechanists think it ought to. It is inclined to +behave as if it had some force, some will of its own. In other words, +it seems to a certain extent to be interiorly determined. + +There would, of course, never have been any controversy as to this had +those who took the negative been honest enough to accept a rational +definition of will and of freedom. Nobody ever claimed that the will is +free in all respects. Nobody supposes that a man set upon by a mob can +go his way as if nothing had interfered with him. He may be dragged to +the stake or the scaffold. Physically, there are circumstances in which +his movements are most certainly exteriorly determined. The most that +he can do is to refuse his consent to those motions he is forced to +perform, so that the resulting conduct is none of his. + +But psychologists have assured us that the giving or withholding of +this consent is automatic; that physical forces are still at work; +that a man has a mob inside of his head even when there is no mob +without; and that what he does seemingly of his own volition is but +the net result of the pullings and haulings of this interior horde of +instincts, desires and stimulators. Moreover, these forces themselves +came either from parents or environment, and the man himself is but +their sum--he is his own inner mob. Nor can it be denied that the +law of the Conservation of Energy gave psychologists the right of +the argument. Since Newton, only the very wisest of men have had any +intellectual excuse for believing themselves either real or free. + +“Analysis, in tracing down the sources of [physical action],” says +Lillie, “seems always to restate determinism; it shows the will to be +motivated; motives have their natural origins; actions not consciously +motivated are either habitual and referable to past motivation, or are +instinctive and determined by heredity. In either case we seem to have +a mechanistic determination.” + +Having thus fairly stated the enemy’s argument, he goes further and +admits that “although voluntary action affects mechanical change and +seems free, the ‘energy balance sheet’ of a man shows no conflict +with the law of conservation, indicating that there is no creation of +energy within the organism.... Classical physics thus seems definitely +incompatible with the idea of freedom. Accordingly, scientific +men--and somewhat curiously biologists in larger proportion than +physicists--have commonly regarded freedom as a delusion. In so doing +they have created more difficulties than they have resolved; certainly +the inner conviction of freedom has not been abolished in the minds of +most thinking men.” + +There are one or two points to be noted here. “Somewhat curiously, +biologists in larger proportion than physicists” have been willing to +abandon the free-will hypothesis. He doubtless means comparatively +recent biologists, men who have taken their foundation physics from the +books regarded as authoritative in their school days. Or perhaps there +is another reason. Following the Idol of the Tribe, they look below +them for their models, and seem to feel obliged to make their subjects +as much like the machinist’s subjects as possible. And when they deal +with man they are shut off from the corrective influences of free +experiment. Mistakes in speculative biology are not at once apparent. +They are not immediately applied, and returns are slow in coming in. +But I am willing that the enemy should take what comfort he can from +the biologists. He may say, if he likes, that biologists are the ones +who call life mechanical because biologists are the ones who work +closest to life. Lillie happens to be a biologist himself--a biologist +of details, not of generalities. + +As to the “energy balance sheet” of the individual, I think he leans +over backward in his endeavor to be fair. Considering the exceedingly +minute quantities of energy involved, it cannot rightly be claimed +that the energy balance sheet even of a wayside daisy has ever been +experimentally worked out with an accuracy fit to be called conclusive. +Only recently have we even begun to measure quantities of this order +of magnitude. Only recently did we know how very little energy we +needed at our disposal in order to rid our inner conduct of external +compulsion--and it is inner conduct alone with which we are here +concerned. We do not ask to be able to shake a physical leg at will, +but merely to be capable of shifting our attention to legs if and when +we chose, or to entertain the desire to shake. + +But once more let us grant the point to the adversary. Let him prove +the balance sheet of the individual if he can--it will avail him +nothing. Lillie, in seeming to leave intact the Law of Conservation, +is but planning a flank attack. For a curious reason soon to appear, +the law may rule and yet leave us free. It will then cease to be of +moral importance. Our biologist goes on: “We must regard it not as +a coincidence but as highly significant that the only region where +physical science gives evidence of ... externally uncontrolled, or +individual, action, is in the field of ultra-microscopic phenomena.” + +Nevertheless, there is a coincidence here. The field where Lillie has +noted externally uncontrolled individual action is his own field. As a +worker in a marine biological laboratory, the minutest forms of life +are objects of his daily study. + +If I wanted to settle the question by authority and a show of +erudition, I could now quote from Jordan’s “The Philosophical +Foundations of the Quantum Theory.”[104] While if it depends merely +upon famous names I could cite Einstein and Smoluchowski, who have +found that the second law of thermo-dynamics (according to which heat +is said to pass from higher to lower temperatures in direct proportion +to the energy which is extracted from it--another way of expressing our +old friend, Conservation) does not hold true when the time and space +involved are sufficiently small. And to this Svedberg, in his “Colloid +Chemistry,” agrees by saying that in microscopic systems it is obvious +that “fluctuations of entropy” (variations in the amount of a given +energy which is found to be “available”) undoubtedly occur. + +But there is no need to follow such a thorny path as this. Lillie +sufficiently sums up the situation by declaring that “the universality +of the rule of physical determination” as regards very minute, or +“quantum” phenomena, is now subject to question; and that “in the +highest manifestations of life, prediction [that is, the discovery +of a mechanical law governing conduct] is not possible at all.” And +he adds: “It follows that the regularity of macroscopic [or large] +phenomena, in which determinism is for all practical purposes complete +and trustworthy, is in reality a _statistical regularity_.” + +What can he possibly mean? + +Here is in reality a flash of light in darkness, the gist of the whole +matter, the way out, the explanation of a thousand riddles. And he must +put it in such language as this! + +For a statistical regularity is of course nothing but the regularity +to be observed in averages. Individuals vary in a way which groups do +not. No one is compelled to commit suicide this year. If I do such a +thing it will be because I am individually a fool. And nobody knows +whether my good sense is going to last another twelvemonth or not. Yet +every actuary in every life-insurance company’s office in the world +knows how many people are going to commit suicide this year, and next +year, and the year after; and the quota which each civilized country +is going to furnish. Their knowledge may not be absolutely accurate +as to the last digit. There is a very slight margin for mistake. But +they are almost as certain of the figures as they are of the figures +for last year, or the year before. Mass action is sufficiently regular +to make calculations based upon a comparison of its future with its +past exceedingly profitable. Groups, and groups alone, obey the Law +of Conservation. It was group action observed among atoms which gave +rise to the formulation of that law. Individuals behave capriciously, +obeying the laws of their unique natures, laws known only to God. + +But it will be objected: is not man a mass of atoms, or a mass of +whatever ultimate particles science finally arrives at? And the answer +is an emphatic _no_. His body is such a mass, but it is so formed as +to be controlled, in so far as its movements are voluntary, by an +individual self whose inner essence is single. The only way to make +group action out of one man’s conduct is to observe him over a long +period of time. His average may be guessed at. But nobody can say how +he will act in a new and unusual circumstance. + + +5. CHANCE + +Pious people have always been prone to declare that there is no such +thing as chance. They have been afraid that belief in chance implied +a disbelief in the omnipotence of God. Never were pious people more +mistaken--or perhaps I should say misinformed. The doctrine of +probabilities is one of those things belonging to mathematics which +the pundits have decided it were better for us common people not +to understand. So they have carefully refrained from stating it in +interesting, or even human, language, pretending that we were barred +from comprehension by the inadequacy of our intelligence and education. + +Nevertheless we all inhabit a world upon the phenomena of which the +doctrine of probabilities is founded. We are compelled to live every +day surrounded by events “obeying” the Law of the Greatest Probability. +And those of us who have made any success in life have become pretty +good mathematicians, though we may know no mathematical symbols beyond +the signs of addition, subtraction and division. + +It is of course misleading to say that events _obey_ the law of the +greatest probability. Events do not obey any of the laws which science +has formulated. On the contrary, the laws were, in so far as they are +laws and not mere errors, formulated in obedience to the events. But +to say that there is no such thing as chance is to say that there is +no such thing as ignorance, which to my mind is hardly a pious idea. +For chance, rightly understood, is but the measure of our ignorance. +Nothing more. + +Given total ignorance, the chance of guessing right is too remote to +be calculable and can be expressed only by the meaningless formula, +“nothing to infinity.” Given total knowledge, certainty leaves no room +for probability. In all other circumstances, chance is the balance in +which we weigh what we know against what we do not know. Gambling is +called a vice because nobody ever uses the word except to describe some +form of chance-taking which he considers vicious--the vice usually +consisting in a foolish attempt to get something for nothing. It is +considered particularly immoral to lose. But in a broad sense, everyone +gambles who lives. I hope I will be pardoned, then, if I take my +illustrations from actual games. + +If we know that a penny is a disk of equally weighted sides and is to +be tossed in the air by an unknown amount of force which will cause it +to turn over an unknown number of times, the chance of its falling head +up is the same as that of its falling head down. We say the odds are +even. If we do not know what a penny is, we cannot reckon the odds. If +we know exactly what a penny is, know its present position in relation +to the table-top, and know that it is going to turn over three times, +say, there are no odds to calculate. Ignorance has been supplanted by +knowledge. + +But why do we say that an even-sided disk, thrown at hap-hazard, is as +likely to fall head up as it is to fall tail up? Because observation +in the past has taught us that such is the case. We may reason +subsequently about momentum, gravity, and the like, but observation +lies at the bottom of our knowledge. Very well. The sun rose this +morning. I know that. What is the chance of its rising tomorrow morning? + +If I know nothing but what I have stated, the chance, from my point of +view, is as one to one. The odds are even, nothing more. It is just +as likely not to rise as it is to rise. From the standpoint of an +Omnipotent God, this is not the case. He knows whether it is going to +rise or not. To God there is indeed no chance. + +But to mankind at large? Surely the chances of the sun rising tomorrow +are better than even? To be sure they are. For mankind at large knows +not only that the sun rose yesterday morning, but the morning before +that, and on ever so many other mornings. How many? Upon the answer +to this question rests the actual chance of its rising again, for the +answer shows the amount of our knowledge. The more knowledge, the more +certain the chance. + +Let us say we know that the sun has risen for a billion mornings. +Tomorrow, if there be a tomorrow, will mark a billion and one. Then +there are a billion and one events, or sunrises, under consideration, +and only one of them is still in doubt. The chances of the sun’s rising +tomorrow are therefore a billion to one. If we know it has already +risen a trillion times, they are a trillion to one. As knowledge +increases, certainty approaches. + +I have heard it objected that, according to this theory, the chance +of a one-year-old child to live another year must be only even, while +a man of 99 has 99 chances in a hundred of rounding out his century. +This would indeed be true if we knew nothing about either babes or +nonogenarians but their years. But we have a great deal of other +information--statistics--bills of health. We must put all of our +knowledge into the calculation. + +Almost everybody is now willing to admit this method of reckoning +probability when it is applied to dawns or to life insurance. It seems +quite natural to say that we know the sun will rise again because, +so far as we know, it always has risen; or to say that a baby has +a longer prospect of life than has a very old man because we have +observed that babies generally live, while very old men generally +die. But when we apply the same method to the calculations of certain +other things--the behavior of our penny, for instance--we shall meet, +strangely enough, with a lot of heretics. If a penny has fallen heads +for twenty times in succession, there are those who will say that the +chances of heads coming on the next throw are much worse than one to +one. “It is time for a change,” they will contend. And nothing can +keep them, if sportingly inclined, from wagering their money on tails. +But a mathematician will coldly bet on heads. _He knows that there is +something the matter with that penny!_ + +So come what are known as “runs of luck,”--a subject apparently remote +from that of free will, but not so remote as it seems. Runs of luck are +the result of unknown influences; for if the influences are known we do +not say “luck,” we use a harsher term. The oftener a thing has happened +before, the more likely it is to happen again. Some large force must +be at work, or there would not have been the run. This is such an +important rule that anyone who doubts it would do well to convince +himself of its validity. He will in that way not only improve his mind, +he will save money be he never so little of a “gambler” in the vicious +sense of the term. Losers are always playing the stock-market and the +world for “reactions” that “must come.” Winners always “go with the +trend.” They are vicious only when their prizes are evil. + +“But what,” some will say, “of the change of luck which wipes out the +winnings? What of those larger cycles which bring the smaller cycles +to an end?” Just this. We know nothing of the larger cycles until we, +or somebody whose word we can trust, has begun to experience them. +Therefore our ignorance is complete in most cases, and we have no +chance against the larger cycles or rhythms at all--which is why +sensible people usually keep out of the stock-market. Doubtless there +is some larger cycle in cosmic events which will some day put out the +sun. But unless we have somehow been able to put our finger already +upon its pulse, we must ignore it in our calculations. We cannot bring +it to book. When any one cycle has kept up a faithful performance as +long as the sun has kept on rising, it must be a rather large cycle and +is pretty safe to depend on for our remaining days. + +But I did not enter into this digression merely to give a few tips +on gambling, or the advice not to gamble at all when gambling can be +avoided. The calculation of probabilities is of vast utility in matters +infinitely more important than markets or games. With it mathematicians +have put mere telescopists to shame. Give a mathematician the past +course of a planet, and he will calculate its future course without +taking the trouble to find out a thing about the nature of planets. +This is no chimera. It has been done. The vagaries of the motions of a +heavenly body fall into series; into cycles; into cycles within cycles. +Accuracy in prediction is determined by accuracy and amount of past +observations, and by nothing else. + +But what has this to do with the human will? Everything. The so-called +“laws” of science, including the Law of Conservation, are the laws +of chance, nothing more. They are founded upon the behavior of great +masses of particles, or the behavior of one or a few particles (more +accurately, _particulars_) over long periods of time. As Lillie phrases +it, the regularity of nature is a “statistical regularity,” like the +regularity of the statistics of suicide. It does not interfere with the +freedom of the individual, of the particular. Here is the answer to +Freud’s absurd statement that the attempt to reconcile human free will +with divine omnipotence is always a failure. The actuary calculates the +number of suicides that are going to take place--does he thereby compel +you to kill yourself? + +There is, of course, this difference between an actuary and +Omniscience. The actuary only knows the total result. Omniscience must +know the individuals who will help to make up that result. Omniscience +knows just what we are, individually. Omniscience knows every Psyche, +and knows what it will chose. I may know that a pair of dice are so +loaded that they will always come up sixes. Is it my knowledge which +compels them so to fall? + +But some will say that if our human dice are loaded, it must have been +God who loaded them, and that beneath that load free will disappears. + +It might have been that way, I will admit. Omniscience, being also +Omnipotence, might have loaded the dice, beyond question. Omnipotence +was under no compulsion to grant free will to anything. But by the +same reasoning, Omnipotence was free to withhold Its hand, and to let +us determine to a certain extent our actions for ourselves. Even the +finite mind has been able to see how this can be without interfering at +all with that regular march of events which characterizes a cosmos in +distinction from a chaos. A cosmos of free particulars will still have +a “statistical regularity.” + +As a matter of fact, this system of delegated authority, of +limited grants of real power, seems to run through all nature. The +Commander-in-Chief leaves certain details to his generals; the generals +leave certain details to their captains, the captains to their +lieutenants. The private soldier has his particular duty to perform. +And each one is held responsible for the performance of his own duty +within his own limited sphere of action--a duty which he is free to +perform or to leave undone. Whenever an individual is rewarded or +punished for something which he was not free to do or not to do, our +natures recoil from what we term an “injustice.” With no free will at +all, any reward or punishment would be unjust. And it is to this sort +of a world our materialistic psychologists and philosophers have been +trying to introduce us. No wonder they shied away from the conception +of consciousness. Sentience without freedom seems unjust. Even with +limited freedom, it seems unjust. Man’s sense of justice, therefore, +has compelled him to regard this life as a fragment; to say that only +willfully endured or provoked pains and privations are deserved, to +believe in another life beyond the grave without waiting for further +proof of it. Thus Dante was constrained to write even over the gates of +Hell, “_Giustizia mosse ’l mio Alto Fattore_.”[105] + +If we return now to the doctrine of probabilities and to Lillie we +shall find him nodding, for he says: “It already seems clear that +many of the physical laws with which we are familiar in the realm of +microscopic phenomena cease to apply on the scale where events are +determined by the ‘chance’ fluctuations of molecular movement.” + +Chance here is clearly not the proper word. It contradicts his whole +argument. Obviously he is using it in a very loose sense--much +as behaviorists use it when they say that the first synapse +between dendrite and axone in the brain is chance-determined. As +a mathematician he must know that these isolated phenomena of +the exceedingly minute are precisely those to which the law of +probabilities cannot be applied. As much cannot be said of the +behaviorists. Their attaching of the word “chance” to the word +“synapse” is due to no slip of the pen, but rather to some regrettable +individual action behind the synapse itself. + +“Ultra-microscopic phenomena,” Lillie goes on, in a way which quite +confirms the foregoing explanation of his lapse, “thus give evidence +... of control by individual action rather than by statistical or mass +action. The laws relating to such [microscopic] action ... assuming +such laws to exist ... are as yet imperfectly known. But they are +certainly entirely different from physical laws.” + +This may seem remarkable, but after all it is only what we should have +expected. In the ultra-microscopic world we are approaching individual +action and leaving mass action, the average action of many individuals, +behind. The illusion of bondage begins to disappear. + +What makes this so important is the fact that we are so built that +the minutest imaginable interior events may determine our largest +actions. I lift a pound weight, but it was the movement of the all but +impalpable particles of the brain which decided what the movement was +to be. A touch upon the trigger fires the gun. And the force at the +disposal of will needs to be only enough to move these tiny particles +in the vital field. The trigger-touch, the precipitating circumstance, +is traceable, says Lillie, “to ultra-microscopic events in the nerve +cells.” And it is precisely this fact, with the opportunity it offers +for central control, which makes a man’s behavior, even as to his body, +something other than the result of a struggle of blind forces. Man is +not a mass of particles like a dumb-bell. + +There is, Lillie contends (and he is supported by Maxwell and +Boltzman), “a smoothing off, or obliteration of detail” in “effects +controlled by mass action.” So we say that we lose ourselves in a +crowd. “Mass action” represents the “sum of numerous fluctuating +minutiæ.” What we see is like a composite picture, with individual +traits more or less obliterated. Excess in one unit is off-set by +deficiency in another, so to our sight the individual is obscured. “The +relation between a smoothed curve and the distribution of the points +showing the individual data is a relation of a similar kind,” he adds +for the mathematically minded. And then he throws an almost literal +bombshell into the determinist camp, with these words: + +“Every now and then an unexplained catastrophe occurs in stores of high +explosives. We know from observation ... as well as from theoretical +considerations of probability, that at infrequent intervals an internal +molecular movement of unusual amplitude occurs. Such a movement +may exceed the critical minimum below which no chemical reaction +results,”--and so blow up the whole mass. + +But what we are here interested in is that unexplained molecular +movement of unusual amplitude. It is almost like coming upon the +creative spark itself, and--as is frequently the case with creative +sparks--the immediate result is destructive to existing conditions. + +Not that I think that here is actually the naked finger of God. I am no +Monist. So far as human experience, at least, is concerned, I believe +that however far we pursue matter, either into its minute or its starry +depths, it remains matter; and that spirit is separate and apart from +it. The ultimate knot cannot be untied. The seamless veil has been +drawn too tightly across the face of Deity for it ever to be penetrated +by physical science. + +Call matter but force, if you will. Admit that even material force is +of a spiritual nature, that its materiality consists in what we call +its material effects. Nevertheless there is a gulf between those locked +forces and spirit properly so-called. Saying that everything is God is +only an indirect way of saying that there is no God--no God but what is +locked up. + +If all be matter, how can we, who too must then be matter, manage to +contemplate the universe? We must conclude with Dr. Watson that we do +not contemplate it. The same thing cannot at once be both subject and +object. If all be spirit, then what separates us from the Great Spirit? +Why is not our knowledge and comprehension, our power and our duration +of days infinite and commensurate with ourselves here and now? For in +the case supposed, we would ourselves be God. There would be nothing to +come between. + +Spinoza, who claimed that all is God, contradicted himself by calling +his philosophy a philosophy, a search for truth. Were his theory true, +we should not have to search. We would be already one with the All. +Nor could any of the diverse phenomena of creation exist. There could +be no separation between part and part, even in our sense perceptions. +With nothing but spirit, out of what could those shadows, those lapses, +those ignorances between this and that be made? Of nothing? But nothing +is nothing. It is not even empty space, nor darkness, nor a shadow. +Even the Vedantic philosophers had the wit to see that there must +be a gulf between Brahma on the one hand and Vishnu and Siva on the +other. They had no explanation to offer. Modern would-be Brahmins +have assumed that there is no inexplicable. Instead of rising to the +Gospels, they have fallen below the Vedas. + +Lillie seems not to have fallen into this error, for he says that +“microscopic events” are determined by “sub-microscopic events”; that +“behind or internal to the sub-microscopic events, we must assume a +series of ultra-microscopic events reaching back by convergence into +the field where the known types of physical determination are replaced +by another type of determination, the special conditions of which we do +not know.” But as the action of the brain-cell determines the motion +of the arm, so the action of something yet more minute determines the +action of the cell, and so on until we come to the ultimate physical +basis of the series. In this field of the physically ultimate, events +are self-determined. They occur through no compulsion from without. + +“If by free we mean externally uncontrolled, it would appear that the +ultimate local centers or units of action should be independent of +one another, i. e., a radical discontinuity should exist at the base +of physical reality. Something of the kind seems to be indicated by +quantum phenomena,”--phenomena of an ultra-minute variety. Men have +often spoken of the eternal loneliness of the soul. Here we see that in +this very loneliness lies its freedom. If it chooses to surrender this, +for good or for evil, its surrender is still a choice. + +And in conclusion, Lillie most rightly adds that one may “hesitate to +call [this ultimate physical field]” the “metaphysical field,” or the +field beyond matter. Our author makes no attempt to taper his matter +off into spirit merely by subdividing it. And he goes on: + +“If would seem, however, that there must be some final support or +substratum of the physical to which only the term metaphysical can be +applied.” Which I take to mean that he believes in a substratum which +is not physical. And having thus shown that back of matter experimental +science feels that there is something else, and that we in our inner +selves are quite free from external control, whatever compulsion may be +put upon the actual motions of our bodies by things beyond our power, +he rounds out his argument by saying: + +“There is also the general philosophical position that the universe, +considered in its totality, must be the expression of free action, +since an all-inclusive whole cannot be determined externally, i. e., by +conditions outside of itself,”--there being nothing outside of itself. +In other words, not only are we free, but God is omnipotent; and the +two facts, instead of being contradictory, are found to be but the +different ends of the same chain of reasoning. Freud’s dictum proves +to be not quite so final as it seemed. Lillie has torn it to bits in a +single article. + +And had we not gone to Lillie we might have gone to Cassier, LeBon, +Claude Bernard, Lucien Poincaré, or to any of a multitude of +clear-headed scientists, philosophers and mathematicians. They may not +give us all we seek, but they at least give us this. Let behaviorists +and psychoanalysts say what they will, reason has not yet vanished from +the world. Neither has unreason, for that matter--as the next chapter +will show. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[98] “The Descent of Man,” p. 780. + +[99] “The _Novum Organum_,” i. 63. + +[100] _Op. cit._, i. 45. + +[101] _Vide Le Recueil des travaux des Pays Bas_, No. 44, pp. 281 to +304, for the year 1925. + +[102] _Le Recueil des travaux des Pays Bas_, No. 44, pp. 281 to 304, +1925. + +[103] In the Paris _Matin_, September 4, 1927. + +[104] _Nature_, vol. 119, 1927, p. 566. + +[105] “Justice moved my High Maker,” Dante’s “_Inferno_,” canto III, +line 4. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE FAMILY TREE + + +I. ARE MONKEYS PEOPLE? + +Nobody was ever humiliated by the seventh verse of the second chapter +of Genesis, which says, “God formed man of the dust of the ground.” +But when Darwin wrote,[106] “There can ... hardly be a doubt that +man is an offshoot from the Old World simian stems; and that, under +a genealogical point of view, he must be classed with the catarrhine +division,”--when Darwin wrote that the offense was general. Why? +Certainly a catarrhine ape is higher in the scale of being than is the +dust of the ground. + +But the Bible account had added, “And [God] breathed into his nostrils +the breath of life.” Darwin left out any saving addition. So those who +say today, “We came from the monkey,” invariably mean that we were +contained in the monkey even as an oak is contained in an acorn. + +As a matter of fact, the oak is not contained in the acorn. An acorn is +merely the means through which an oak may eventually become manifest. +It is an instrument which enables an oak to become. The substance of +the oak is still widely scattered when the acorn which is to be its +parent falls from the tree. Some of it is in the soil; some of it is +in the air; some of it is far off in the sun. The acorn is like a lens +through which light bends to a focus. It is something which brings +together parts of the earth, the air and the sun and welds them into +the body of a tree. That something which we call life uses the acorn +as a business man uses a little shop, a going concern which he buys as +the foundation of a great department-store. But the shop could never +become the store did the business man add nothing to it. The question +therefore is, was the catarrhine ape the lens through which the +elements of man were brought together? And what, if anything, was added +which were not added in the case of the ape itself? + +So stated, Darwin’s theory loses most of its religious and therefore +its popular significance. For the public in general is not interested +in biology, it is interested only in God and in man’s relation to God. +Even atheists are interested chiefly in God, or they would speak of +other matters and spend less time in denying Him. Even biologists and +psychologists are interested chiefly in God, not in their own subjects. +Otherwise they would not be forever straining to make a theology, +though but a negative or devil’s theology, out of what pretends to be +science. + +Whether it is orthodox to believe that we number monkeys among our +ancestors, theologians must decide. Certainly the Church would not have +to alter a single one of its major tenets nor a line of its ritual in +order to include Darwinism among the articles of faith. Whether the +dust of the ground evolved into ape before it evolved into man during +those long periods which the laconic poetry of Genesis allows to slip +by between the lines, or whether the change from dust to man was +immediate, is immaterial to the doctrine of the Fall of Man, which +concerns man’s subsequent history alone. + +Darwin, himself, regarded his views of human descent as mere theories, +useful for biological purposes. “Many of the views which have been +[here] advanced,” he wrote[107] “are highly speculative, and some no +doubt will prove erroneous.” Had the modesty of the great scientist +been emulated by his disciples, we would have had no Scopes trial, and +few of us would ever have heard of Evolution. + +Even now that we have heard so much, few of us seem willing to take +the trouble to find out what it is, or even to learn to distinguish +between the theory of evolution in general and that particular theory +of evolution which Darwin advocated. Considered broadly, evolution is +merely the idea that living things--and even things which we do not +ordinarily call living, including, perhaps, intangible things, like +thoughts and feelings--appeared on earth in a certain order, the lower +and simpler ones first. This idea is as old as the hills, and was fully +set forth in Moses’ account of creation. + +Moses held further that the upward climb was interrupted at a certain +point, and that another cycle, another upward climb, then began. But +as neither the Fall nor Redemption are supposed to be biological, this +line of thought does not concern us here. + +A more narrow view of evolution regards the resemblances to be noted +among things as the resemblance of children to parents. According to +this theory, the tie which binds the universe together is the tie of +heredity. Nebulæ give birth to suns, suns to planets, planets to the +lower forms of life, the lower forms to the higher. The notion is +not so popular among astronomers as it used to be, but it is still +dominant among scientists in general and biologists in particular. +Nor can there be any doubt that evolution in this sense has been the +supreme hypothesis of modern times. Curiously enough, the most extreme +Darwinians among our literary scientists usually balk at it, holding +that while man certainly must have had an ape for ancestor, thoughts, +customs and sentiments can be generated spontaneously. They trace their +brains straight back to the amœba, but claim to have minds which are +brand new. They scorn any philosophy which cannot prove that it was +born yesterday--or at least since the present period of prosperity +began in the United States--and born out of nothing. “Men,” says Albert +Edward Wiggam, in “The New Decalogue of Science,”[108] “have never been +really righteous because they did not know how.” Meaning, of course, +that they didn’t know how until the “New Decalogue” was published, +which was in 1922. + +Darwinism, itself, is the belief that the different species originated +not only one from another, but that the difference now existing +between one species and another is due to the slow accumulation of +those minute particulars in which children do _not_ resemble their +parents; and further that these differences were preserved and added +one to another through succeeding generations because they were useful +from the first, increasing the likelihood that their possessors would +survive and breed; while those not born with these variations, or had +variations which were useless or perhaps harmful, would be killed off +in the struggle for existence. This selection of fortunate individuals +in a world where there is not room enough for all is called “natural +selection,” and variations which increase the chances of survival +are said to have a “survival-value.” Darwin did not pretend to know +what caused variations. Darwinism is merely the theory that species +originate by the accumulation of useful variations through natural +selection, and that intermediate forms then die out, leaving gaps. Were +none of the links missing from the record Darwin believed that it would +now be impossible to tell where one species began and another left off. + +The hypothesis itself was but a variation of an older one. Lamarck +had taught that species originated gradually, but he held that it +was chiefly through the inheritance of “acquired characters.” Now an +acquired character is something we are not born with, as for example, +the ability to play the piano; and if it could have been proved that +such acquirements descend from parent to child, Lamarckianism would +have had smoother sailing. + +But great pianists persist in having children born without the ability +to play the piano, children who have to begin at the beginning just +as the great pianists themselves did. Every effort has been made to +demonstrate the contrary, but the facts are stubborn. The best that +can be said for the theory of the inheritance of acquired characters +is that, in some instances, if a single character is acquired by a +sufficient number of generations there is a slight possibility that +eventually it may begin to leave some trace of a hereditary nature. +Hundreds of generations of rats have had their tails cut off without +producing a natural-born tailless rat. + +What looks like the inheritance of an acquired character always turns +out to be a phenomenon which can be accounted for by early education. +The Bach family was a family of wonderful musicians, but the Bach +children all received the best of musical training from the moment +they could begin to lisp. + +But Darwinism, though it would profit greatly could the heritability of +acquired characters be proven, was especially constructed to get along +with the heritability of inborn characters. To be a Darwinian it is not +necessary to believe that the giraffe originated by the neck-stretching +of a lot of prehistoric calves anxious to feed as high as possible +upon the trees of the pasture. It is enough to believe that the calves +who happened to be born with the longest necks were the most apt to +survive, and that they passed their longer necks on, minus any acquired +stretch, so that in each generation the accidental or unaccountable +long-neck variations could begin at a higher level--and so on down, or +up, to the present. + +The theory works very well with the giraffe. Every fractional inch of +additional neck seems to have a survival value. But unfortunately for +Darwin, this is not the case with all variations. Many are useless or +positively harmful until their accumulation has gone on until a new +and workable mechanism is formed, and it is beyond the imagination of +man to devise a way in which they can have been accumulated by natural +selection. Fabre, the great French naturalist, pointed out hundreds of +instincts among insects which could have had no survival value unless +they were complete at the start--whole chains of instincts, each link +positively worthless in itself. We are forced to believe that all the +links arrived on the scene simultaneously and in perfect working order. + +The body of man, to take another example, is--in so far as it varies +from an ape’s body--a variation in the direction of weakness. If the +catarrhine, old world Simians began once upon a time to have children +a little more human in body than the catarrhines themselves, they at +that very moment began to have weaker and shorter-armed children, less +well calculated to survive in the struggle for existence. It may be +argued that the half-human children survived because they had better +brains. And it may be argued further that it was the deflection of +energy to the brain which caused the rest of the body to shrink. This +is at least imaginable. What is lacking is any positive evidence that +half-human children ever arrived upon the worldly scene through the +genitals of monkeys. The theory is merely a working hypothesis which +works somewhat less well every day. + +Will Durant, writing of Bergson,[109] says that “all his (Bergson’s) +criticism of Darwin has proved effective; the specifically Darwinian +features of the evolution theory are now generally abandoned.” This is +too sweeping a statement. Hilaire Belloc hews closer to the line of +truth when, in “A Companion to H. G. Wells’ ‘Outline of History,’”[110] +he names 41 outstanding scientists who hold with Bateson that “for men +of clear intellect Darwinism has long been dead.” In other words, the +old jolly row is still on, with the anti-Darwinians gaining ground but +the pros still flying their flag. The flag, itself, however, shows some +sign of accumulating variations. + +This makes it the more surprising that Sir Arthur Keith should +have seen fit, upon his election to the presidency of the British +Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1927, to say in his +Inaugural Address, “So strong has his [Darwin’s] position become that I +am convinced it can never be shaken.” A hypothesis which could not be +shaken would be a unique thing in the history of science. And for his +remark, Sir Arthur received the following congratulatory telegram: “We +hail with joy your uncompromising championship of the ape ancestry of +man. Your boldness and plain speaking will encourage atheists the world +over.” + +No, this is not a message from a learned society. It came from The +American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, popularly known +as “The Four A’s,” an incorporation parented by Charles Smith, an +attorney of Oklahoma, and Freeman Hopwood, of New Jersey. It claims +a number of branches or chapters among the undergraduates in various +colleges--chapters bearing such names as “The Damned Souls,” of the +University of Rochester; “The Devil’s Angels,” of Los Angeles, and +the like. From time to time gems of thought reach the world from the +Association’s Headquarters, such as: “Edison believes in a Supreme +Intelligence, but is a vice-president of the Thomas Paine National +Historical Association.” “Aristotle was what today would be called +an atheist.” “No wonder people above the intellectual level of a +paramecium don’t take any stock in Christianity.” + +The reckless use of language makes strange bedfellows. Surely Sir +Arthur must have been a little intoxicated with his new honors to speak +so much in the manner of a Grand Kleagle. He even went on and compared +vital activity to what takes place in an automobile factory. “In ... +this factory,” he said, “there is no apprenticeship.... Every employee +is born, just as a hive-bee is, with his skill already developed. No +plans or patterns are supplied; every workman has the needed design in +his head from birth.... There is neither manager, overseer nor foreman +to direct and co-ordinate the activities of the vast artisan armies.... +And yet there must be some method of co-ordination.” + +This factory without patterns or overseer, co-ordinated by a “method” +with nothing to carry it out, must have been located in Russia in the +days of Lenin. Even there we have yet to see automobiles producing +spontaneous variations of a survival value, or big trucks begetting +little roadsters which grow upon gasoline till they reach the size of +their ancestors. We therefore seem to be a long way from the factory +of life. But instead of myself attempting to take Sir Arthur to +task, I prefer to compile a little dialogue out of extracts from his +speech interlarded with quotations from a review of it written by the +biologist, Francis P. LeBuffe.[111] + +_Keith_ (third paragraph of his address): “Owen ... cited evidence +which suggested a much earlier date for the appearance of man on earth +than was sanctioned by Bible records.” + +_LeBuffe_ (who is a member of the Society of Jesus): “He [Sir Arthur] +ought to know that whatever calculations as to the age of man have been +made from ‘Biblical records’ are entirely problematical, and that the +6006 years so frequently adduced as Biblical is merely the inference of +scriptural scholars years ago.” + +_Keith_: “Darwin ... succeeded in convincing himself that, immeasurable +as are the differences between the mentality of man and ape, they +are of degree not of kind. Prolonged researches made by modern +psychologists have but verified and extended Darwin’s conclusions. +Huxley’s ‘Evidence of Man’s Place in Nature’ ... settled for all time +that man’s rightful position is among the primates and that ... his +nearest living kin are the anthropoid apes.” + +_Le Buffe_: “That man is a primate is as true in the doctrine of +immediate creation as it is in the theory of evolution; and while a +non-evolutionist would dispute the statement that the ape is man’s +nearest kin, he would admit that he is the animal that is the most like +him.” + +_Keith_: “The evidence of man’s evolution from an ape-like being +obtained from the study of fossil remains is definite and irrefutable.” + +_Le Buffe_: “Let us take up the ‘irrefutables’ one by one.” + +And he does, describing minutely how the hunt for the “missing link” +now stands. For brevity’s sake I paraphrase his text as follows: + +First Irrefutable: _Pithecanthropus erectus_, “one time inhabitant of +Java.” Irrefutable? Then why did Dr. Moir[112] state before the Berlin +Anthropological Society that it did not differ essentially from other +types of human skulls, and that it coincided very closely with that of +Aurignacian man? Scott Elliot says, “The skull is considered a human +skull by six ... celebrated authorities, who for the most part are +English. It is thought to be a missing link by eight, mostly French. +It is considered an ape’s skull by six others, mostly German. Only one +authority makes the femur that of an ape, thirteen consider it human, +and six make it out intermediate.” + +Second Irrefutable: Dawson’s “Dawn Man.” Irrefutable? What have we +here? A shattered, imperfect brain-case, part of the mandible and +a canine tooth. Keith says that Sir Arthur Smith Woodward rightly +recognized that the skull and jaw were part of the same individual. +Then how do Waterson and Miller say that the jaw is a chimpanzee’s and +does not belong to that skull? and Hrdlička that it is human, but again +does not belong to that skull? and Ray Lankester, who wrote to one, H. +G. Wells: “I think we are stumped, baffled?” + +And so on, until we have Keith repeating with approval the words of G. +Elliot Smith, “The difference between the human and the ape brain is +only quantitative.” + +And Le Buffe responding: “Then why did Dr. Arthur S. Woodward say ‘We +cannot of course go by the size, for the Neanderthal man has a larger +brain cavity than some of us at the present day. It is quality not +quantity that counts’? That is surely true, we hope, as the heaviest +brain ever found (weight, 2850 grammes) was that of an epileptic idiot.” + +Here is a true picture of the state of modern science as it relates to +man--a few disputed bones and any quantity of disputed conjectures. +Keith’s picture is obviously false. He should visit the excavations at +Glozel, France, where the findings are declared by some savants, “_du +mérite le plus incontesté_,” to be of the “_époque néolithique_”; and +by other savants, “_dont les travaux font authorité dans le monde_,” to +pertain not to the neolithic but to the “_époque néo-fumiste_.” + +But what if someone were actually to find the missing link? It would +be merely a skeleton intermediate between that of ape and man. It +would prove nothing; settle nothing. What is needed is the spectacle +of a female monkey in the act of giving birth to a human child; and as +nobody claims that well-bred monkeys do that sort of thing nowadays, +the prospect is not hopeful. + +Yet Albert Edward Wiggam says in “The New Decalogue of Science”[113] +that the “Darwinian generalization,” after a “battle with entrenched +opinion, authority, prejudice and vested interests, has at last +received the universal assent of practically all educated men.” + +I do not see how a “universal assent” can include “practically all,” +if by that is meant anything different from simply all. But this is +tabloid, pre-digested science, with the hulls of opposing opinion +carefully removed. The implication is that non-Darwinians, however +eminent, are _ipso facto_, ignorant. Those who do not feel themselves +properly brow-beaten must have thicker skulls than _Pithecanthropus +erectus_. But I think Mr. Wiggam is here showing a variation from the +paramecium of very doubtful survival-value. + +Since Darwin many efforts have been made to improve his theory by +supplementing it with others. Hugo DeVries, for example, believed +that he had solved the problem of the survival of variations which +need to be complete before they can be useful. He discovered a bank +of evening primroses on an English hillside which seemed to be in the +very act of producing new species--not by degrees but all at once. It +was announced throughout the world that organic evolution had proved +itself experimentally, though not along Darwinian lines. The variations +here were too marked to be called variations, so they were called +“mutations.” + +But the primroses were but hybrids, and what had been seen was not +the evolution of new species but the action of the law of mixed +heredity long before formulated by Mendel. The new species were only +throw-backs, revealing hereditary traits which had been latent in their +immediate ancestors, as when a boy resembles not his father but his +grandfather. + +More recently a school of biologists has risen whose members call +themselves “Emergent Evolutionists.” According to their idea, the +finger of God occasionally “emerges” so plainly that man can see it. +Here again we have the idea of sudden mutations, where the ordinary +course of events seems at certain points to be broken by the impulse of +a higher law--as when life, sensation, reason, or man first appeared. +Alfred Russell Wallace, Darwin’s co-discoverer of the “law” of Natural +Selection, laid the foundation for this conception as long ago as 1889. +More recently men like Lloyd Morgan; General Smuts; Herbert Spencer +Jennings, of Johns Hopkins University; Sir Bertram C. A. Windel, +professor of anthropology in Saint Michael’s College, Toronto, and many +others, have sought to give Emergency its place among the recognized +hypotheses of science. + +But, as far as I am aware, it has never yet been completely stated, +nor any logical reason given why the emergence at one point in the +evolutionary scale differs except in degree from the emergence of any +event, even the most trifling. Once we accept the belief that matter +is a mere instrument in the hands of something which is not matter, +it seems necessary to regard all phenomena as the emergence either of +the direct power of God or of the will of some creature to whom has +been delegated a limited freedom. If this be the underlying idea, then +a special emergence might be defined as one of so marked and rare an +importance that it stands out from every day happenings, forming part +of a broader rhythm whose beat is apparent only when all the great +emergences of which we have evidence are taken together. Or it may go +even beyond this, and stand as an event unique in man’s experience, +constituting what we call a miracle. + +The advantage of the theory of emergent evolution is that it furnishes +the evolutionary process with a power capable of bringing it about, +while the idea of matter evolving itself implies a universe trying to +lift itself by its bootstraps. It also removes the difficulties of time +(of which there is never enough for thoroughgoing Darwinians) and of +finding survival value for half-developed mechanisms. + +“_Bien des choses s’expliqueraient si nous pouvions connaître notre +genéalogie véritable_,” wrote Flaubert--much more wisely than he knew. +Perhaps not only many things but nearly everything will be explained +from the moment our true genealogy is recognized. But it must be our +true genealogy, not a part of it. Emergent Evolution permits us to have +our place in the natural order, and yet remain children of God. The +soul may be the greatest--or next to the greatest--emergence of all. + +Is it such a distressing idea? That should not trouble the realists, +for they notoriously attribute reality to things in proportion to the +amount of unpleasant odor which things exhale. Thus they unite with the +Hindus in considering life a curse. Matter taken by itself certainly +is either painful or boresome, and if one wishes to stop with the half +and consider only matter as real, I know of no way in which one may +logically escape despair. + +The trouble with the idea, then, is that it is not distressing. The +moment we agree that something more divine may emerge through matter, +or at least thrust up beneath it till matter rises here and there to +a glorious psychic mountain peak (“emergence” is not quite the right +word, for there still remains the material covering)--from that moment +even evolution loses its repellent features. From that moment the +greatest thinkers of all the ages are on our side--which is sometimes +a comfort. We develop a strange capacity for happiness. Is this an +evidence that we are fools? + +“_Le malheur_,” says Paul Bourget in “_L’étape_,” “_démontre l’idée +fausse, comme la maladie la mauvaise hygiène._”[114] + +That probably is not conclusive reasoning if you are not convinced +beforehand. But why is happiness any more apt to be the result of +illusion than is misery? We do not say that the best body is the one +which suffers the most pain. Have not the pessimistic philosophers +accustomed us to some strange and monstrous inversion of thought? + +Let emergence, then, have its way. We are no longer contained in our +physical ancestors. The man is not even contained in the child. We +change from day to day. There is a continuity, yet it is added to--or +subtracted from. The soul accepts this and rejects that. + +So Psyche rebuilds her house, continually tearing it down and +reconstructing it. Sometimes the lighting system gets out of order. +Fuses blow out--and we say she is mad. Sometimes the house falls, or +burns, or succumbs to a flood--and we say she is dead. And from the +dead house some conclude a dead Psyche, or that there never was a +Psyche--which is like concluding that, if the telephone line goes dead, +it proves that there never was anybody talking at the other end except +the batteries and the wires. + +No; monkeys are not people, no matter what kind of children they may +have had. Nor are people monkeys--not to the extent which Mr. Wiggam +seems to suppose. + + +2. BURBANKING THE HUMAN RACE + +The effect of Darwinism has been to popularize an exaggerated idea of +the importance of heredity. Darwin, of course, depended quite as much +upon environment to select his variations as he did upon heredity to +hand them down. But it is from Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, that most +people have acquired their Darwinism, and it so happens that Spencer +was not primarily a Darwinian but a Lamarckian. “The Origin of Species” +was not published until Spencer was a middle-aged man. + +Therefore an immense amount of confusion has arisen in the minds of +amateur biologists, and a tendency to believe in heredity as the +destiny which shapes our ends. Hence the Eugenists. Hence this Mr. +Albert Edward Wiggam, already referred to. + +The idea of dominant heredity is flattering to parents, who like +to think that they live again in their children; who are unwilling +to grant that children have souls of their own. It pleases those +scientists who still hope to prove that acquired characters are handed +down. It pleases determinists, who see here another way of making us +slaves to something. It pleases those naturalists, who have acquired +their ideas of man from the study of animals, plants and insects. +And as animals, plants and insects form the readiest subject for +experiment, it pleases materialistic biologists in general. + +But reasoning from lower forms of life to higher is reasoning by false +analogy. Luther Burbank, a great artist with plants, worked wonders in +his garden; and in his book, “The Harvest of the Years,” he expresses +the regret that his methods could not at once be applied to human +beings. But Burbank was not a scientist, not a thinker, but merely +a super-gardener, incapable even of keeping an accurate account of +his innumerable experiments. So it is not remarkable that he failed +to realize that when we say what is sauce for the goose is sauce for +the gander we are speaking of beings of the same order, while man and +plants are not of the same order. + +If heredity be dominant in the garden, it does not follow that it is +dominant even in the menagerie, let alone in the street. Conclusions +arrived at in the study of insects are not necessarily true of Indians. +Indeed, there is every reason to believe that man, because of his long +period of infancy, is much less determined by heredity than is any +other form of life. This in itself knocks the foundation from under +nine tenths of the arguments we hear upon the subject. + +Even profound changes in the body may be produced by (or with the aid +of) environment. The third generation of immigrants to America are said +to have higher cheek-bones--that is, to be more like redmen--than the +immigrants themselves. The discovery of the functions of the ductless +glands shows how food, or the manner of life, may be at work in cases +where germ-plasm used to get all the credit. The notion that heredity +is destiny has altogether broken down. + +[Illustration: ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM + +The Devil take the hindmost!] + +Says Professor Herbert S. Jennings, of Johns Hopkins, in an article +entitled “Heredity and Environment” in the _Scientific Monthly_ for +September, 1924: “Clearly it is not necessary to have a characteristic +merely because one inherits it. Or more properly, characteristics are +not inherited at all; what one inherits is certain material that under +certain conditions will produce a particular characteristic; if those +conditions are not supplied, some other characteristic is produced.” +Thus heredity becomes a mere capacity--and that we do inherit certain +capacities need not be denied. + +The fundamental laws of heredity were first made known in 1866, +when Gregor Mendel, a monk of the Augustinian order, read his now +world-famous paper upon heredity in plants before the Naturalists’ +Society of the little town of Brünn, in Moravia. He had made more +than 10,000 observations upon the peas growing in the garden of his +monastery--wonderful observations. Their results, too complicated +to be fully described here, may be sufficiently summarized in a few +words--and in order that there may be no mistake, I shall take the +words from Mr. Wiggam himself,[115] omitting only his running comment: + +“If you cross tall peas with dwarf peas the offspring will be as tall +as the parents. The dwarfness has completely vanished. If you cross +these tall offspring back with a dwarf, one-half of the offspring +of this cross will be dwarfs and one-half will be talls. However, +instead of crossing the talls back with dwarfs, if you place capsules +over their blossoms so they will not get crossed, and then sow their +seeds, one-fourth--not one-half--of their seeds will come up dwarf and +three-fourths will come up tall.” + +In this case, tallness, because it supercedes dwarfness in the first +generation, is called a “dominant” trait, and dwarfness, because +it disappears, is called a “recessive” trait. As Wiggam correctly +says,[116] the fundamental principle is that “the units contributed by +two parents separate in the offspring without having had any influence +on each other,” or practically none. A trait either shows in the +offspring, or it does not show. And where the inheritance is hybrid, +the reappearance or disappearance of traits may be calculated, given a +sufficient number of instances, by application of the law of greatest +probability. + +Everybody knows that one may inherit a Roman nose from a grandfather +even though one’s father’s was a snub and one’s mother’s retroussé. +The mathematical implications are amazing. But all that I wish to call +attention to is the fact that we all are hybrids, and that unless our +ancestry for many generations back is known to the minutest detail +it is utterly impossible to calculate the hereditary phenomena to be +looked for in our children. + +Mendel believed in unit characters, but it has been found that unit +characters, such as blue eyes, are far from being units and are made +up of an unknown number of smaller units. This greatly increases the +difficulty of even guessing what hereditary possibilities the children +of any given couple will receive. Nevertheless, twenty-three states +have already, at the behest of eugenists, passed laws permitting the +sterilization of the “unfit” by means of enforced surgical operations. +And under these laws, 6244 operations have actually been performed--and +my statistics are of the year 1927 and not complete at that! What is +the idea? I will let Mr. Wiggam explain. + +“The Nordic elements of our population are being forced out by other +races whose representatives in this country are of distinctly lower +average mental alertness and of less social coherence and political +capacity.”[117] + +“This race has contributed a vast share of all political wisdom and +scientific discovery to the modern world. It is probably the one race +on earth which has steadily advanced in these respects for the past +several thousand years.”[118] + +“Cattell has shown that in America not a single day laborer’s son has +become a man of scientific distinction. The wholesale rise of the +masses to power may be the death knell of their biological progress. +Like a bottle of old wine, which, when uncorked, for a time sparkles +and fumes with life but soon becomes inert and stale, so it seems that +men, when freed from oppression for a time, bubble with genius. But +ambition is sterilized by its own success. Indeed, without biology as +the basis of social processes, success spells failure and achievement +brings decay. Like caged animals, those who rise cease to breed.”[119] + +“There were one hundred two Pilgrims who came over in the +_Mayflower_.... No finer stock to found a great national breed of men +and women ever set out to sea.”[120] + +“The genealogy of 12,722 New England wives of the old Colonial stocks. +In one hundred twenty years their blood has been vanishing from the +racial stream as follows: 1750-1799, children per family, 6.43 ... +1870-1879, children per family, 2.77.... There is the story of the +decline of the old American stock.”[121] + +“In 1920 the school-teachers of America who had had any children +had given birth to 2.2 children per family; the bootblacks had come +within one-tenth of giving birth to four!... This crude birth rate, +however, does not measure to the full the relative contributions of +bootblacks and school-teachers to the citizenship of tomorrow. Nearly +all bootblacks marry and have children, while scarcely half our +school-teachers ever marry at all.”[122] + +“In this same year, 1920, the lawyers and judges of America who had +families had 2.2 living children, while janitors and sextons had 3.4; +authors, editors and reporters had 2.1, workers in stone quarries and +gravel pits 3.6.”[123] + +“Every school child knows that Burbank, Schull, Hanson, Davenport and +others achieve their triumphs solely by selecting the best specimens +as parents. Farmers ever since Eden have done the same thing.... But, +suppose they bred chiefly from their worst! Well, that is precisely +what America ... is doing.”[124] + +There is the situation. School teachers are practicing either celibacy +or birth-control; bootblacks are not. Janitors and sextons and workers +in gravel pits are breeding lawyers, editors, authors and reporters off +the map. The masses are rising, like an uncorked bottle of old wine and +bubbling with genius. Up till now they have not produced their first +distinguished man of science, but there is no saying what may happen if +the bubbling continues. Fecundity is passing from New England wives, +from the captain’s lady, and descending to Mrs. O’Grady. The radio, +invented by the “Nordic” Marconi sends out the S.O.S. What is to be +done? + +The remedy is very simple. Castrate as many of the masses as may be +necessary to enable the biologically “superior” to keep up in the race +of life with biologically (and socially) “inferior.” + +No, Mr. Wiggam does not openly advocate any such crudely frank +measure. In the first place, the operation is called asexualization, +and leaves the subject free to uplift the morals of the community +by sexual activity complete in every detail except the minor one of +fruitfulness. And in the second, the choice of life-imprisonment is to +be offered in certain instances to the eugenically condemned. + +Who is to do the condemning? And what are the requirements for passing +the examination? + +“Unless you can measure men you cannot select them,” says Mr. +Wiggam.[125] “It is often said that eugenics is hopeless because it +does not know what it wants in human nature--it has no ideal. To this +Dr. Morton Prince of Boston aptly replied: ‘Yes it has; it wants such +men as William Graham Sumner and William James.’ This certainly sets a +lofty ideal.... Yet, in all soberness it is doubtful if we want a whole +race of such men. Men like these would doubtless clean our streets +and remove our garbage a hundred times better than it is now done, +but they could not at the same time be teachers, writers, lecturers +and philosophers, unless perchance a society of such men would be +so perfect that the street cleaner and philosopher would willingly +interchange their tasks from hour to hour or from day to day. Pending +such a possibility, however, eugenics is content with a much less +but more inclusive ideal, namely, the increase of health, sanity and +energy.” + +This is a little obscure to me. It is difficult to picture William +James (or Henry, for that matter) as a superlative street-cleaner. But +the goal of the eugenist seems clear--health, sanity and energy. These +are excellent things. But as Mr. Wiggam estimates--by what method I do +not know--that we owe to heredity fully nine-tenths of what we are, it +would not seem advisable that the name of an invalid should be made to +perish from the land of the living until we are able to know much more +than we can as yet possibly know of the quality of the “germ-plasm” we +are dealing with. + +Energy presents another difficulty. The rattlesnake possesses +considerable energy, and is usually in good health. Chicago’s gunmen +are energetic enough in all conscience. Obviously the direction of +energy will have to be taken into consideration. And here again we are +confronted by the question, Who is to decide what directions are right +and what directions are wrong? + +“Let us,” says Mr. Wiggam,[126] “see to it that those to whom our +sympathies have extended the privilege of a happy life instead of +sounding for them the death knell of the jungle, shall not have the +high biological privilege, which should always run parallel with social +privilege and always be under social control, namely, the privilege of +reproduction.” + +Never before in the history of the world has the idea of special +privilege reached such heights as this. Through our “sympathies” we +have, it appears, extended to certain persons we do not approve of the +“privilege” of a happy life instead of killing them outright as we +perhaps should have done. But we are not to allow our sentimentality to +carry us so far that these persons shall have the further “privilege” +of reproduction. + +In “The Fruit of the Family Tree,”[127] Mr. Wiggam, speaking to women +voters, says that he does not care to outline for them “any complete +eugenical program.” Then he continues: “The very nature of the vast +problems themselves ... indicate what such a program is bound to be. +As one first plank in her program, most assuredly, the woman voter +should advocate a survey of the human family.... The pedigree of every +family in America should be put on record.... These family histories +would be among the most priceless archives of the nation, for it is +upon the biological assets of the nation that all truly statesmanlike +legislation must be based.” + +Legislation again! Mr. Wiggam does not favor the Eighteenth +Amendment--for the curious reason that he believes alcohol dangerous +to but a small fraction of the population and that indulgence by all +would tend to exterminate those weaklings who do not carry their liquor +well--doubly curious reasoning considering the splendid efficiency of +prohibition liquor as an exterminator. He thinks (as I do, for that +matter) that Prohibition was a great mistake. Yet he is doing more +than any other one man in America today to further another prohibition +movement compared with which Volsteadism is a mere trifle. His books +sell by the tens of thousands. He has become one of the signs of the +times. And he wants legislation to make the “privilege” of having +children run parallel with “social privilege.” Family histories +doubtless contain much interesting information--they have even been +known to contain manufactured information. When they become the _sine +qua non_ of full citizenship the artificial growing of suitable family +trees will doubtless make bootlegging look like a very minor member of +our great national industries. + +But we begin to see who is to do the choosing. + +“Another plank in woman’s eugenic platform should be the establishment +in every state of a State Board of Heredity and Eugenics. This board +would work in cooperation with the State University, the Boards of +Charities and Correction, the State Prison Board, the Department +of Public Health and indeed with every agency of social uplift and +advancement. It would have on its staff expert psychologists [Freudians +or Behaviorists?] biologists and statisticians for the direction of +measures of public mental hygiene, the mental survey of schools and the +prescription of minimum mental requirements for marriage.”[128] + +And these agencies (with of course the coöperation of the Eugenic +Society) will measure our health, sanity and energy. The opportunities +for graft are so staggering that it seems impossible that the more +energetic among us will rest content till the whole plum is theirs--for +as yet eugenic legislation applies only to the inmates of public +institutions, like jails, poor-houses and asylums. Mr. Wiggam has shown +the way to a mine that ought to be worth a mountain’s weight in solid +radium. + +Under such circumstances it is perhaps idle to ask what is the +biological warrant for this worship of heredity? We are face to face +with a political and social, not a scientific, movement. + +Yet Mr. Wiggam is a good biologist--at least he is able to quote a +great deal of good biology. And so long as he confines himself to +observed facts he is both instructive and interesting. But biology +mingles with the bread of its facts an intolerable deal of the sack +of deduction, guessing, theory and surmise. Mr. Wiggam seems to state +facts merely for the privilege of reveling in subsequent “reasoning.” +And his reasoning is of such a character that for a long time I mistook +him merely for one of those sprightly writers from whose mental +equipment the handicap of logic has been happily left out. But I +wronged him. There is method in his madness. He wishes, I believe, to +camouflage the strong meat of his doctrine so that we babes may not too +abruptly recognize what sort of cuts are being offered us. + +Thus he says,[129] “Eugenics is ... not killing off the weaklings. Not +a scheme for breeding supermen.... Not a scheme for breeding human +beings like animals.... Not a departure from the soundest ideas of sex +morals.” + +Then what is it? + +“Eugenics is a method ordained of God and seated in natural law for +securing better parents for our children.... Modernizing the definition +of its great founder, Sir Francis Galton [who was a cousin of Darwin], +eugenics is the study and guidance of all those agencies that are +within social control which will improve or impair the inborn qualities +of future generations.”[130] + +“Guidance,” again--i. e. legislation. But the bitter pill has been +presented in a sugar-coating. And in another place in this same book +he goes so far as to say, “Had Jesus been among us, he would have been +president of the First Eugenics Congress.”[131] + +If I may be permitted to extend this gratuitous blasphemy so as to +connect it with facts, I wish to point out that when Christ did live he +was crucified by precisely the healthiest, sanest and most energetic of +his contemporaries, measuring these qualities by eugenic standards. A +bill declaring Him both insane and criminal could unquestionably have +been put through the Jewish Sanhedrim without a dissenting vote. + +What is insanity? The sterilization of the insane is the strongest +appearing plank in the whole eugenic platform. Yet even here troubling +questions arise, bidding us stay the knife. And what is crime? For +eugenists are sterilizing criminals also--and in at least one instance +the crime was “drunkenness.” + +I once wrote to a prominent eugenist in hopes of finding out what makes +a crime a crime--and I did find out. He told me that the essence of +crime was non-conformity. He had hit the nail squarely on the head. +That is the essence of crime exactly, non-obedience to some law. But +what law? Here my correspondent showed himself to be entirely at sea. +He could refer to nothing but the statute law momentarily in effect in +the place where the crime was committed. + +Are we to preserve one sort of germ-plasm in California and another in +Massachusetts? A willingness to conform to any and every statute which +a legislature anywhere may see fit to pass is certainly a curious test +of human virtue, of the right to leave an impress on future generations. + +As to the nature of insanity, my correspondent was willing to leave +it to the doctors--more especially as Prof. Lombroso, then quite +prominent, had lately identified it with genius. Mr. Wiggam has a +theory of both crime and insanity which at least removes all vagueness +from the terms. Whose germ-plasm is to be allowed to go on down the +ages? The germ-plasm of those who have been able to get named in “Who’s +Who!” + + +3. SALVATION BY WHO’S WHO + +I admit that this is an exaggeration--at the present moment. Eugenists +assure us that they mean to be very temperate. But we know from +experience how temperate a reform movement is likely to become, once it +is fairly launched. + +In substance, the “Who’s Who” theory of unnatural selection is actually +developed in a series of articles by Mr. Wiggam reviewing Professor +Lewis M. Terman’s “Genetic Studies of Genius,” which appeared in _The +World’s Work_ during 1926. As usual, Mr. Wiggam beguiles us for a +time with pleasant writing. In this instance it deals with the old +legend of the poor country-boy and his supposed chance of becoming +distinguished. A formidable array of statistics is brought out to show +that it is not much of a chance. The advantage, it seems, all lies with +city-children--stimulated, as they no doubt are, by breathing the fumes +of gasoline. + +Three per cent of the people (and these belong to the “professional +classes”) have in America produced nearly one-half of our artists, +we are told. One third of the population (described as being “above +early struggles”) have been responsible for three-fourths of America’s +writers. Something must be the matter. Too much struggle it would +appear. Writer-bearing strata are to be pampered. Good! + +Some, of course, will say that what American literature is waiting for +is a few more words from the two-thirds of the population who are not +above early struggles--that even some of our rich and famous authors +wrote better when they were young and poor. But as I do not know the +pedigree of these objectors I shall pass them by and follow the Wiggam +argument as he finds it in Terman. + +“Superior intelligence,” says Professor Terman, himself, “is +approximately five times as common among children of superior social +status as among children of inferior social status.” + +The flaw in the argument here is of course forgetfulness of the fact +that, whether intelligence descends or not, tradition undoubtedly does. +This same flaw emasculates the eugenic argument everywhere. It saps +the force from Mr. Wiggam’s eulogy of the Edwards family in the first +chapter of “The Fruit of the Family Tree.” He himself admits that in +Doctor Winship’s study, which he makes the foundation of his own, “the +factor of heredity has not been completely separated from the factor of +environment.”[132] And he goes on: + +“One can readily imagine that the twelve college presidents that have +been in the [Edwards] line of descent might not all have been men +who were really great educators or executives. Some of them may have +attained the official position by the fact that their relatives may +have been trustees of the various colleges, and simply voted them into +office. Yet an immense part of the distinction of the Edwards family, +beyond question, has been due to their superior natural qualities. We +know this partly from the great achievements of many of the members; +and also we know from studies of other families, where the factors of +heredity and environment have been adequately separated.” + +Great achievements? Certainly. But does not family tradition, pride +and culture play its part in great achievement? Did not Harry Leon +Wilson’s immortal Bunker Bean do wonders spurred on by the mere +illusion that he was descended from an Egyptian mummy? And who has +“adequately separated” the factors of heredity and environment in the +history of any family? If Freud and Watson have done nothing else, they +have shown the immense importance of _very early_ training. The technic +which will separate the effects of blood from those of education and +example has yet to be devised. And tradition, or the lack of it, must +be taken into account before we draw conclusions from the history of +so-called “degenerate” families, the Kallikaks and the Jukses. Who can +pretend to interpret the heredity of such unfortunates when the very +point of the whole argument is the fact that they were prostitutes and +thieves? + +Family tradition derives from the inexhaustible springs of human shame +and human pride. The blood even of the super-man tends to get thin, +very thin, through successive generations. “Conification” doubtless +thickens it, for conification is the tendency of like to marry with +like. Mr. Wiggam advocates cousin-marriages to help conification along. +Logically he should advocate incest pure and simple. In discussing the +Pharaohs he does have a good word to say for it, but he warns us that +it is baneful when practiced by any but the best families. + +But one’s chief objection to the eugenist’s argument is its deficiency +in good faith. Wiggam admits that he has presented only “star cases.” +What he does not admit is that he has presented them incompletely. Thus +of Elizabeth Tuthill, first wife of Richard Edwards, the Connecticut +lawyer who founded the distinguished branch of the Edwards clan, he +says only[133] that she was “a marvelous girl.” Horatio Haskett +Newman, professor of Zoology in the University of Chicago, in chapter +XLIV of his “Evolution, Genetics and Eugenics,”[134] adds the following +details: + +“Elizabeth Tuttle [so he spells the name], grandmother of Jonathan +Edwards ... is described as ‘a woman of great beauty, of tall and +commanding appearance, striking carriage, of strong will, extreme +intellectual vigor and mental grasp akin to rapacity, but with an +extraordinary deficiency in moral sense.’ She was divorced from her +husband on the ground of adultery and other immoralities. The evil +trait was in the blood, for one of her sisters murdered her own son +and a brother murdered his own sister. Richard Edwards married again +after his divorce and had five sons and one daughter, but none of their +numerous progeny rose above mediocrity.” + +Mr. Wiggam agrees with this latter estimate, for he says, “Later +in life Richard Edwards married Mary Talcott. She was an ordinary, +every-day, commonplace woman. She had ordinary, every-day, commonplace +children. The splendid heredity of Richard Edwards was swamped by the +mating.”[135] + +So, if the eugenists had been in control three hundred years ago, +Mary Talcott would have been allowed to marry. But Elizabeth Tuthill +would have been refused a marriage license even had she escaped a +worse fate. Crime and insanity seemed to have marked her for their +own. And yet it was from her, not from the normal Mary Talcott, that +descended (I quote from “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” page 17): +“Timothy Edwards, one of the founders of Yale University. He was the +father of Jonathan Edwards. From Jonathan Edwards, who married also a +wonderful woman, Sarah Pierpont, have descended 12 college presidents, +265 college graduates, 65 college professors, 60 physicians, 100 +clergymen, 75 army officers, 60 prominent authors, 100 lawyers, 30 +judges, 80 public officers--state governors, city mayors and state +officials--3 congressmen, 2 United States senators and 1 vice-president +of the United States.” And he goes on to mention other notables in this +line of the family, including Aaron Burr; Mrs. Eli Whitney; Winston +Churchill; Edith Carow [widow of Theodore Roosevelt and mother of his +daughter Ethel and of his four sons]; Robert Paine: the Marchioness of +Donegal; the Fairbanks brothers (of platform-scales fame); Melville W. +Bigelow; Morrison R. Waite (former Chief Justice of the United States); +Bishop Vincent (founder of the Chautauqua movement); George Vincent +(head of the Rockefeller Foundation); Grover Cleveland; and U. S. Grant. + +The only thing which Mr. Wiggam omitted was the trifling circumstance +which shows that The Eugenics Society would, if it could, have +inadvertently prevented each and every one of these notables from +coming into being. + +Yet he thinks that he has discovered a way of distinguishing between +the influences of heredity and of environment--when applied to families. + +“Environment,” he says,[136] “is important in determining character, +but precisely how important I doubt very much if we have any means at +present for determining, when it comes to one individual, whether we +consider one particular act or the sum total of his character.... I +doubt if we shall ever be able to determine whether a particular act +by a particular individual, say whether he takes a drink of alcohol +... or whether he commits a crime, is due to his heredity or to his +environment. The causes are so hopelessly intertwined that no one so +far as I am aware has presented the slightest hope of measuring the +relative influence of the two forces _within the individual_.... For +all we know a man may commit a particular crime or take a particular +drink entirely from environment.... But when it comes to the question +as to which one of two individuals is the more likely to commit a crime +at some time in his life or take to excessive drink, we are in reality +dealing with a different set of scientific problems. And when we come +to the question as to which family is likely to have more members who, +in any one age of the world, will be unable to adjust themselves to +sound social behavior ... we are in a field where we can measure the +factors involved by fairly exact methods.” + +That is to say, we can measure results--after they have happened. It +may even be granted that we can calculate roughly a family’s likelihood +of producing distinguished descendants, basing the calculation on past +performance. But obviously this in no way decides between the relative +importance of environment and heredity. The question as to whether the +family’s distinction came from its blood or from its traditions remains +precisely where it was. Mr. Wiggam’s reasoning is quite of a piece with +his reliability. He himself exclaims[137] about “the very, very few +people in the world who can think ... the enormous number of people +who cannot think, but who think they can think, and who mistake their +mystical half-knowledge for social wisdom and act upon it.” + +What “mystical half-knowledge” may be I do not know. Mystical +knowledge, being intuitive knowledge of God, is by its very definition +complete knowledge or nothing. One must accept or reject it _in toto_. +Mr. Wiggam also uses this word as a term of reproach when[138] he +says, “Vitalism usually leads its adherents to mysticism.” But he +declares himself to be no mechanist. “I have no personal objection to +a purely mechanistic description of the life process itself. I have +been so far unable to see, however, how stimuli which are inconsistent +and unrelated can build up consistent and controlled behavior.”[139] +And he adds: “While I believe biology has triumphantly demonstrated +the mechanistic nature of the life processes themselves, it has +hopelessly failed so far to explain to me thought and behavior. I see +no explanation of this except some sort of dualistic conception ... a +universe in which there is something which is not aimless mechanical +force. We can call this substance ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’ or any other +convenient term.”[140] + +This is his perfectly valid objection to Watsonian behaviorism. But he +does not seem to see that the use of such convenient terms as mind or +spirit is in its very essence mystical, nor that admitting a mystic +vitalism puts in his hand a means for freeing himself from the tyranny +both of environment and heredity. If there be spirit, man may have a +soul. It may be the choice of this very soul which controls the strange +selection of traits from the parental “chromosomes,” or carriers of +heredity, which he so eloquently describes. That this choice follows +in the long run the law of the greatest probability is what such a +hypothesis would lead us to expect. Thus Psyche would not only build +and rebuild her house, but in a measure select her building materials +from the very start. Mr. Wiggam thinks that the idea of a dominant +environment flatters parents, just as I think that the idea of a +dominant heredity flatters them. Perhaps we can both unite in believing +that the idea of power-owning individual souls in children flatters +nobody and appeals to something much higher than the instinct of +self-regard. + +According to a statement prepared by Professor Irving Fisher, of +Yale,[141] the Second International Congress of Eugenics appointed as +long ago as 1921 a committee (of which he was chairman) to organize +the eugenics movement in the United States. Since then the movement +has been competently engineered, its avowed objects being education, +selective immigration laws, the elimination of defectives, the +“proper direction of research,” and the securing of legislative and +administrative aid. + +Professor Fisher says, “The Eugenics Society would like to see every +school, college and Chautauqua give regular courses in eugenics.... +Some laws need to be passed and a eugenical code established.... This +depends very largely upon education of the legislators.” + +So “education” does not mean a campaign for human betterment through +education. It means a campaign to educate people to vote for human +betterment through eugenic means--such as “the elimination of +defectives,” “selective immigration” and “proper” research. “By cutting +off the defectives,” says Professor Fisher, “the general average of +our people can ... be raised.” We know without telling, from memories +of the prohibition campaign, how legislators can be “educated.” +A “eugenical code” would naturally provide conditions under which +marriage licenses would be granted. We are dealing here with no chimera +but with a party with plenty of power, influence and money already at +its disposal. The question of “who is to choose” seems already to have +been settled. Further to determine who is to be chosen, we may go back +for a moment to the “Who’s Who” method. + +Dr. Cyril Burke, the English psychologist, devised a problem (described +by Mr. Wiggam in his review of the Terman volume already referred to) +which he put before various classes of school children. Slum children +required an average of 123 seconds to arrive at a solution, while +merchants’ children took but 91, and “the children of professors +and bishops” (presumably Anglican bishops) only 74. Nor do I wish +to conceal the fact that “in the general run of people there is one +eminent man out of every four thousand,” while “among the sons of +English judges there is one eminent man out of every eight.” Ought we +not to import some germ plasm from the British Bench? Anyway, all of +the famous biologists and psychologists and sociologists upon whose +findings the Wiggam arguments are based, took their successful men +either from “Who’s Who,” from some dictionary of biography, or measured +it frankly in dollars and cents. + +It might be suggested that not all desirable human traits are those +which lead to wealth or conspicuous position. No Lives of the Saints +are consulted to show the effect of poverty and self-denial upon the +growth of holiness--holiness, presumably, not being hereditary, perhaps +not even eugenic. Prof. Terman does say that nearly all gifted children +come from good homes. But what is a good home? One which tends to +produce Christians, or Mohammedans, or Methodists, or Christian +Scientists, or Poets, or Plastic Dancers? + +Anyway, under democracy, according to Mr. Wiggam, the poor are being +bled white and ever whiter through the opportunity given to the best +of them to mount the ladder to something better still, leaving the +residua to their poverty and shame. “Nothing on earth,” he says in the +course of the _World’s Work_ articles, “would improve the condition +of the poor as much or so permanently as decreasing their numbers.... +Just in so far as democracy works successfully in giving the masses +opportunity, it defeats its own end, biologically.... Democracy and +liberalism will fail and plunge men back into a social and intellectual +Dark Ages unless they have the will and vision to provide a constant +and adequate eugenical remedy for the biological disaster brought about +by their own success.” + +And in “The New Decalogue” (G. Stanley Hall says “one lays it down with +the feeling that biology is the basis of a new decalogue as important +and as authentic as the old one.”): “Your wise men are searching for +a cure for tuberculosis, insanity, etc.... Should they find such +a panacea ... every biologist would apply it without a moment’s +hesitation. But if you apply that panacea and do nothing else you will +wreck the very race you have saved.”[142] + +What else must we do, then? It appears that we must first make the +environment hard, so as to kill off the unfit, and then make it easy +for the survivors. Do you get the point? And it is going to be made +selectively difficult for those not approved of by the Eugenics +Society. An easy environment is safe only for those who have passed +their examinations.[143] + +Mr. Wiggam is planning for an army in which all are generals. Poverty, +inconspicuousness, slummishness, are relative terms. No sooner have +you eliminated one grade than you are logically bound to eliminate +another. There will remain no hewers of wood and drawers of water--as +if the world could exist for a day deprived of these blessed and humble +“failures.” But in the eugenic utopia no more shall it be said, “if one +cannot paint, one must grind the colors.” All must paint, or become as +the barren fig-tree. + +But if the poor are to be eliminated, why not the recalcitrant? Why +not those, who, in the old phrase of Grover Cleveland, show “offensive +partisanship”--for some cause not approved of by the ruling party? +Granted the principle, why should Protestants tolerate Catholics? Or +Baptists Presbyterians? Or Old-School Baptists New-School Baptists? +Why, even, should Professor Terman and Mr. Wiggam tolerate J. B. +Eggen, who has written, “The long-standing problem of heredity +versus environment has been solved in favor of environment?” Or, for +that matter, Professor Terman Mr. Wiggam himself? If we are to have +uniformity of this sort, let us have it. Let there be a driving from +life’s stage of those who would presume to raise any chickens but +Plymouth Rocks, and may the devil take the hindmost. + +Personally, I have nothing to fear. I am myself descended from our +early English settlers--though, as I watch the antics of some of my +remote cousins, I sometimes am anything but proud of the fact. Nor do I +like to think that my blood shall flow down through the generations by +any “privilege” granted by Mr. Wiggam and his ilk. + +He speaks of sanity as a test for survival, and then speaks of “the +kind of peace that came to Nietzsche, bravest soul since Jesus.”[144] +Does he not know that the only peace that ever came to Nietzsche was +the peace of final mental decay? And what does he mean when he dares +to exclaim:[145] “Oh, for a Socrates, a Seneca, a Pasteur, a Huxley, +a Nietzsche, a Jesus in every nursery and school-room?” A Nietzsche +and a Jesus! Has Mr. Wiggam never heard of that scourge of small cords +which was once used upon the backs of those who sought to make of the +Father’s house a den of thieves? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[106] _Vide_ “The Descent of Man,” second edition, Collier and Son, +1905, vol. I, p. 205. + +[107] “The Descent of Man,” p. 780. + +[108] “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 18. + +[109] “The Story of Philosophy,” p. 506. + +[110] _Vide_ the appendix, pp. 115 to 117. + +[111] _Vide_ _America_, September, 17, 1927. + +[112] Cf. _Journal of the American Association_, April 22, 1922. + +[113] “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 91. + +[114] “Unhappiness indicates wrong thinking, just as ill health a bad +regimen.” + +[115] “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” pp. 22 and 23. + +[116] _Op. cit._, p. 30. + +[117] “The New Decalogue of Science,” by Albert Edward Wiggam, p. 35. + +[118] _Loc. cit._ + +[119] _Op. cit._, p. 38. + +[120] _Ibid._, p. 179. + +[121] _Ibid._, p. 180. + +[122] “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 172. + +[123] _Ibid._, p. 173. + +[124] _Ibid._, p. 173. + +[125] _Op. cit._, p. 136. + +[126] “The Next Age of Man,” p. 126. + +[127] “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” p. 300. + +[128] “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” p. 301. + +[129] “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 100. + +[130] _Ibid._, pp. 100-101. + +[131] _Ibid._, p. 110. + +[132] “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” p. 20. + +[133] _Ibid._, p. 16. + +[134] Page 602. He is quoting in substance from “Human Conservation +from Genetics,” by Herbert E. Walter. + +[135] “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” pp. 16-17. + +[136] “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” pp. 332-333. + +[137] “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 275. + +[138] “The Next Age of Man,” p. 133. + +[139] _Ibid._, p. 132. + +[140] _Ibid._, p. 134. + +[141] _Vide_ “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” appendix. + +[142] “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 68. + +[143] See “A parable of Wheat and Men,” “The Next Age of Man,” p. 21. + +[144] “New Decalogue of Science,” p. 253. + +[145] _Ibid._, p. 278. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THIS UNBELIEVING WORLD + + +1. DORSEY + +We have now to consider some of our minor misbehaviorists, and may +as well begin with George A. Dorsey, Ph.D., former Professor of +Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and author of “Why We Behave +Like Human Beings.” + +I would hate to be asked to analyze this book or to reduce its contents +to an understandable outline. No matter what philosophy I attributed +to it, I could be flatly contradicted by quotations from the book +itself. Thus in one place he says, “Biologically, rape and the theft +of a loaf of bread are natural behavior; celibacy and asceticism are +crimes against nature.” And in another place he describes the courtship +habits of various mammalia, showing that rape at least is by no means +biologically natural even among the lower animals. The author is an +eclectic, wandering freely through the pages of Darwin, Bergson, Dr. +Watson and many others, picking and choosing what for the moment +pleases his fancy, untroubled by the clashing of the various views +which his staccato style records. + +Dorsey, though he says nothing new, constructs a curious puzzle of +inconsistencies, but Dr. Watson, I think, is the key. He even says +that Dr. Watson read the last two chapters prior to their publication, +which sounds like a claim that the great behaviorist approved of them. +It would seem that he did not read them very carefully. Nevertheless, +though marked by the bar-sinister, “Why We Behave Like Human Beings” is +clearly a Watsonian child. + +It begins, as do so many of our “thoughtful” books, with anatomy, +physiology, biology, a long history of the lower forms of life, of the +protozoa and the amœba and their kin, of the physical details of the +human body, in embryo and out of it. The public thirst for facts of +this sort is too great not to be taken advantage of by all who have +psychological or philosophical axes to grind. + +And having posed his facts, and duly mixed them with alleged facts, he +proceeds in the time-honored manner to attribute to his own inferences +the authority due only to the facts themselves. He also makes large +use of the custom of speaking of alleged “mechanisms” in metaphorical +terms, personifying them and thus making them “go” with an energy which +they are not supposed to possess. Thus he lends a vividness as of life +to what is in reality a picture of death. And having denied God in +substance, he does not forget now and then to fling Him a kind word. + +Man, we have been told, cannot by taking thought add a single cubit to +his stature. Other creatures seem to be more fortunate, for we learn on +page 66 that “some Primates experimented in fingers.” And on this same +page “a lemur lost his second finger.” No, he did not advertise. He +lost it on purpose, the way Freud lost the book his wife gave him when +he was vexed at her. But in this case the object was to “give the thumb +more grasping space.” And “some tried claws instead of nails.” + +Thus are evolutionary processes given aims and wills of their own. As a +mode of literary expression it would, of course, be proper enough did +it not serve to smuggle into the argument a multitude of those vital +things which the makers of such arguments are forever pretending to +exclude. Could primates really “experiment” with their fingers the way +a Curie can experiment with pitchblend, choosing, rejecting, moulding +the very substance of themselves in accordance with some “purpose,” +Darwin need not have troubled himself trying to discover how species +originated. We would all know. + +What Dorsey really feels behind his smoke-screen of rhetoric can be +seen on page XIII of his Preface, where he says: + +“As philosophy was moonshine before it began to investigate the +elementary properties of matter and energy, so, I suspect, religion +will be subject to quackery and hypocrisy until humanity itself becomes +more human than human nature and religion itself ceases worrying +about heaven and hell and devotes its energies to making this earth a +paradise.” + +That is, when religion ceases to deal with the supernatural it will +cease to be subject to quackery and hypocrisy. Very likely. It would be +difficult for either hypocrisy or quackery to attach itself to anything +which had ceased to exist. How, then, is this earthly paradise to be +brought about? Dorsey does not tell us in so many words. But he says +that we may soon hope for the discovery of a method whereby the several +hundred ova of the human female may be removed and fertilized outside +of the body. + +This method is already employed with fish in the modern hatchery. +Its advantages are obvious. In the first place, we could almost do +away with the necessity of raising males, or at least could let the +surgeon see to it that few of them remained males. This would solve a +great many social problems and release a lot of energy for industrial +employment. As it is, millions of spermatozoa go to waste in every +man. Also, the females, having furnished the ova, would no longer be +females in any troublesome sense of the word. More saving. Nor should +it be difficult to induce the Eugenics Society to superintend the +whole business. Of course some will object that this is not a picture +of a terrestrial paradise, that it looks more like some particularly +repulsive corner of Hell which Dante forgot or forbore to describe. +But such malcontents can be dealt with by removing their germ-plasm +from the stream of our national life and refusing it a place in the +government hatcheries. Progress of this sort need not be suffered to +halt on account of the existence of a few persons not socially minded. + +But how about philosophy? It was moonshine until it began to +investigate the elementary properties of matter and energy, and +elementary properties are ultimate properties. And religion will be +subject to quackery and hypocrisy until it ceases worrying about +ultimate properties and busies itself with making earth a paradise. So +moonshine mixed with quackery and hypocrisy is the substance of those +movements having other than a narrow, earthly aim. No coins are liable +to be counterfeited save those which are honored at some bank outside +of our humdrum sphere. And as science is supposed to be matter of fact +and practical, quack scientists become unthinkable. + +When, however, was it that philosophy left off being moonshine? It must +have been some time ago, for even the ancient Greeks--to say nothing +of the Hindus and Chinese--were eager to investigate the elementary +properties of matter and energy. As they were in the habit of keeping +their science a secret from the common man, we do not know how much +science they had. But it is evident from their philosophy that they +were always thinking about matter and energy. Their conclusions may +sound quaint--though not quite so quaint today as a half-century +ago--but it is certain that moonshine was largely mixed with +observation until modern metaphysics, predominantly German, took the +field. I cannot stop to prove this, but I refer Mr. Dorsey to any Story +of Philosophy, even Will Durant’s. I also recommend that he read some +good history of science, for he says on page 86: “Science knows nothing +of the ultimate origin of the source of energy; it only accepts both +facts [what facts?] and goes on with its business of trying to find out +what matter is and what energy can do. In other words, the problem of +the origin of life is locked up in the origin of matter and of energy.” + +One often hears this allegation--that science goes on with its own +business, leaving the problem of ultimate origin aside. Yet every major +hypothesis which science has ever constructed is an attempt to account +for this very ultimate origin--or primal origin, if you prefer. It +could not be otherwise. How could science try “to find out what matter +is” without at the same time trying to find out how matter originated? +Neither matter nor energy is a fact, isolated and handed out on a plate +for human use. Science must needs attempt to discover the nature of +that with which it works. And the only way to explain a fact, let alone +acquiring the power of producing phenomena at will, is by discovering a +preceding or accompanying fact. + +If we find the dead body of a man in the kitchen, and then find a knife +sticking into his heart, the knife helps to explain the dead body. +A bloody finger-print of the cook’s thumb helps further. If we then +learn that the dead man had been the cook’s lover and that he had been +flirting with the second-parlor maid, we have taken another step. But +if we want to know how to prevent such incidents (or to bring them +about, if that be our aim) we must go on and learn “Why We Behave Like +Human Beings.” The very title of Mr. Dorsey’s book shows it to be a +search for the ultimate. Does he wish us to understand that it is +therefore unscientific moonshine? + +But let him proceed with his personifications. “Nature,” he says,[146] +“can mean anything.” Whether he is referring to the word “nature” or to +the sum of things commonly called “nature” I do not know. When we were +talking of primates, the thing nature appeared to mean a great deal, +since it could experiment with fingers and weigh nails in the balance +against claws. Or was the primate an independent experimenter, and not +a part of nature? Dorsey goes on by speaking of a certain development +as being “an amazing tribute to the persistence of nature,” and of a +time when “nature” began to branch out on “new lines.” Clearly nature +here is something with will, force and purpose. + +He writes also of “the vertebrate idea,” as if it were an idea +possessed by some backbone--in the days, too, when the only backbone in +the world was a thread-like notochord, such as that of the amphioxus. +So the idea was originally the notochord’s! + +But through all this verbal debris something seems to shine like a +skeleton through the dark, which it is not difficult to recognize as +the _élan vital_ of Bergson--that God which nothing developed out of +nothing, which _inheres_ in things of an origin as tenuous as its own +and is determined to go somewhere but is by no means certain where--nor +can the imagination of man picture how. + +The motion pictures have accustomed us to demand a continuous stream +of action, of facts or of what look like facts. Nothing but motion +seems any longer to interest us. Probably we have fallen into the habit +of ignoring all comment which may be made upon it. The danger is that +the comment nevertheless may impress us, reaching our minds when our +intelligence is off its guard, so that we end by mistaking comment for +something else. We remember that we came upon it in company with facts; +and are not conclusions, like men, to be judged by the company they +keep? + +Unfortunately, facts cannot choose their company, and may be mustered +in to screen the nakedness of any theory whatsoever. To discover +the _non-sequitur_, the disharmony between the facts and their evil +companions, requires mental effort--and against mental effort, also, +the movie has somewhat prejudiced us. + +However, it does not require much mental effort to sift fact from fancy +in Dorsey. “The drive for a mate,” he assures us,[147] “is backed by +a sensori-motor mechanism which functions till the mate is secured.” +But everybody knows that the mechanism in question does not continue +to function until a mate is secured; lacking a mate (to say nothing of +the possibility of sublimation), its force will eventually be drained +away through other channels. He himself admits this a few lines later +on. But first he must say (on this same page) that “the mate-impulse is +driven by an unconscious mechanism, and not by any desire of offspring.” + +Let it be granted that sex will function without desire of +offspring--even in the face of a deadly dread of offspring. If it +were not so, contraceptive methods would hardly have been invented to +sterilize the sexual act. But how about this precious “mechanism” +being unconscious? Does he mean that the mechanism itself is +unconscious? Or that it acts without our being conscious of it? He +leaves us in the dark, and we are driven to seek such light as our +own experience may supply. And why does he leave us in the dark? +Because, regarding us as mechanisms, he sees no difference between +unconsciousness in ourselves and unconsciousness in the sex-glands and +their accompanying organs! + +So he leaves us with the biologically natural raper who is unconscious +of his rapacity, or whose body is ignorant of its biological +naturalness. We may take our choice of interpretations. To say that +the knife is ignorant of the murder committed with it, and to say +that the murderer is ignorant of the murder he commits with the +knife, is therefore saying one and the same thing. Both knife and +murderer are mechanisms. And so, it is to be hoped, is the murdered +one. Unconsciousness on his part would certainly help murder to fall +unnoticed into the procession of the biologically natural. + +And now we turn to page 434 and learn that “as one calls the roll of +the men who have rendered useful social service, one is impressed by +the notion that most of them have succeeded not because but in spite of +their training.” Here is the behaviorist, who calls in Dr. Watson to +read his manuscript, delivering us suddenly hand and foot over to the +hereditarians, to the eugenists--whom on other pages he professes to +abhor. For it is utterly impossible to suppose that Dorsey means that +the great succeed in spite of all circumstances through exercise of +individual will inherited from nobody, and all their own. + +Then, two pages further on, we come to the eternal question of woman’s +sphere. “Freedom of movement is soon limited for girls. Some learn to +skip the rope and play jackstones only under parental frowns.... And as +for climbing trees, playing marbles, going off swimming, who ever heard +of such a thing!” + +I turn at once to the date line at the end of the preface, and learn +with astonishment that it reads, “New York City, June 1, 1925.” So New +York parents are frowning--at least some of them are--when their girls +skip the rope or play jackstones. Or were in 1925. What changes must +recently have taken place, or how the newspapers of the world must +have lied about New York! But anyway, this looks like a whole-souled +endorsement of the more modern way of bringing up girls and a +condemnation of the ultra-conservatism of New York--unless Dorsey was +thinking of the girls of Thibet and forgot to mention it. + +He is still modern on page 439, where he says: “It is psychologically +significant that children of both sexes are born with erogenous +zones.... The sex-mechanism is inherently perfect at birth. The +[interior] impulse for a mate appears later, at puberty. But the +mechanism itself is so built into our structure that inaction is +biologically abnormal. Yet we speak of ‘control’; and dose youth with +endless formulæ.” + +Let us, then, cease to speak of control--at least long enough to +enquire into the meaning of these Dorsey adjectives. Here we have +“psychologically” significant, and “biologically” abnormal, with the +adverb “inherently” attached to the word perfect. (I also note, on page +103, that, “biologically,” immortality is a figure of speech.) + +Does he mean that the erogenous zones are insignificant when viewed, +say, from a social rather than a psychological standpoint? Does he mean +to admit that their inaction is normal if we could once get away from +whatever is implied by this ubiquitous biology of his? And who is to +guess what is meant by a perfection which inheres in anything at birth? + +To inhere, I believe, means to be fixed or to exist in something else; +to be an essential part of; to be innate. At least my dictionary +says it does. Now what is a perfection which inheres in a just-born +erogenous zone? Does it mean that the zone is born ready to perform +all its functions? But this is contrary to notorious fact. Or is the +zone born imperfect, and permitted to use its inherent perfection +only later? But we have just been told that inaction is biologically +abnormal. If any meaning is to be supposed to inhere in words, Dorsey +must here be trying to tell us that between the time of birth and the +time of puberty, the erogenous zones should not be subjected to the +biologically abnormal condition of inactivity. + +And yet, on this same page, he continues: “What happens to the +sex-response mechanism between birth and marriageable age? Biologically +nothing; nothing is expected of it.” That is to say, biologically +speaking, nothing is expected of the erogenous zones before puberty +except that they shall endure the biologically abnormal condition of +inaction. But perhaps “biologically nothing” means just nothing, and +perhaps just nothing is the meaning of the whole passage. Let us hope +so. + +“Raise the standard of man’s morality!” he next admonishes us--we are +now at pages 443 and 444. “But not by talk. Work will do it. Many a +boy is so hard at work he has no further energy left. His sex-impulse +is expended in life impulse activities.” Admirable! This is evidently +biologically abnormal and in complete contradiction with what has gone +before, but it is nevertheless good sense and capital ethics. + +“Girls begin to find outlets for their energy in action, in sports +and games, and in the broader affairs of life interests.” Admirable +again. But what has become of the frowns of their jackstone-hating +parents? And the next line reads: “All-night dances can dissipate a +lot of energy for both sexes.” Readers who doubt the existence of this +line are referred to the book, page 444. The all-night dance has at +last found its place among the means recommended for curbing sexual +precocity. + +We skip a dozen pages, and read: “Until recently it was a woman-made +world we lived in. The wife-mother was the center of the home.” This +is refreshing. We have heard it so often said that until recently, +when universal suffrage came to the rescue, this was a man-made world. +Dorsey lays the blame on women, which is at least a change. But how +came woman to make the world when it was the home and not the world +which she was the center of? Be that as it may, “it was her interest to +make [the home] a real center. It became a hive of industry and a swarm +of children.” It certainly did. And we are back boosting the good old +times again. Nor are they quite over yet, for “women generally married +for love, as they do now if their mate-hunger is unimpaired.” + +That flicker of partiality for sports and games for girls seems to have +died out. Dorsey returns to conservatism. And the argument proceeds: +“Now women have their ‘rights.’ In obtaining ‘rights’ she abdicated +a throne: she no longer rules by divine right. The children that +‘bless the home’ are turned over to the nurse while mother presides at +bridge.... All this, of course makes for ‘progress.’ But in our social +progress we have acquired special schools where boys may learn to be +pimps and girls to be prostitutes.” + +This seems to me a little severe. But at least we are sure of Dorsey +now. Girls used to be restrained, and he favors restraint. “Social +conditions are changing, but the average American girl still approaches +her majority fitted for no economically independent career. Brought up +as a social parasite, it is her belief and the all-around understanding +that marriage is her career.” + +What does this mean? That marriage was a girl’s career was the +all-around understanding in the days when the wife-mother was the +center of a home that was a hive of industry and a swarm of children. +And now we are asked to believe that girls still brought up with such +ideas are social parasites. Was woman a parasite when she occupied the +throne which some now have abdicated? This argument has gone insane. +Girls must be brought up as social parasites or sent to schools for +prostitutes. Are we in a woman-made world now, or in a man-made world? +I confess that I do not know where we are. But I read on: “Many a +mother nearly ‘dies of shame’ when Mamie bobs her hair and marches off +in the garb of a girl scout. ‘Girls didn’t do such outlandish things +in my day!’ They did not.” The jackstone-hating mother thus comes once +more to the fore, and she believes that her girls are going to the +devil in boy scout’s clothes with bobbed hair to the old swimming-hole. +I hope those schools for prostitutes are not hard by. + +The girls, too, come in for their meed of shame. For after saying +harsh things of Freud, Dorsey first writes, “It is natural for the +boy to pattern his reactions towards his mother after his father; for +the girl to prefer her father,”--which seems to have been taken from +The Complete Freudian--and then clenches the matter by adding: “These +innocent tendencies may be shamed into permanent attachments, making +it difficult for the boy or girl later to make perfect substitutions.” + +Did Dr. Watson really read this chapter (it is the last in the book) +and pass without remark the statement that a seeking-motion reflex +like the foregoing may have a substituted stimulus built into it by +_shame_? Or do he and Dorsey consider shame a pleasant emotion? No; we +are here plainly in the presence of mother and father fixations, of the +Œdipus complex--an innocent thing made dangerous and eternal by being +driven into the unconscious mind by shame. And Dorsey believes in no +unconscious mind, or in any other sort of mind. Usually he encloses the +hateful word in quotation marks. But he says (on page 11), “We do not +use the brains we have.” Is that the solution? + +These are deep waters, so let us get back to our girl scouts. “For +we have to learn anew what our stone-ax ancestors knew. Girls can be +as ‘outlandish’ as boys! The girls themselves are just beginning to +discover it.” Are they? Bless their hearts! Everybody else has always +known it. What follows, however, is news. “Marriage behavior is in for +further conditioning. The sex-complex may become simple again.”[148] + +Dorsey’s attitude towards the woman question at last becomes clear. It +is a return to the stone-age to which he hopefully looks forward--the +stone age and the simple, unconditioned reflex of the erogenous zone +stimulated by exterior contacts, with no inner-born, nonsensical, +complex sentiments to render it biologically abnormal. We have finally +re-established harmonious relations with the gut-reactions so much +admired by Dr. Watson. + +Dorsey says that he does not see how the Darwinian theory of evolution +by means of the accumulation of minor variations through natural +selection can have worked unless the theory of the inheritance of +acquired characters be taken for a fact. Nevertheless he informs +us[149] that “our ancestral primate was a small, warm-blooded, +primitive mammal with forty-four teeth, four short legs, all alike, and +feet with five toes armed with claws.” This forbear “lived on insects, +fruit and nuts. Who was _its_ ancestor? Where did it get its mammæ?” he +then asks. And he answers himself: “Circumstantial evidence points to a +dog-toothed, low-browed, Tirassic reptile, called Cynodont.” + +No, Dorsey has not become a convert to the theory of the inheritance +of acquired characters. He does not much believe in heredity. Upon +undivulged circumstantial evidence, however, he settles the moot +question of human descent. And he calls his book a bit of “propaganda +for _critical_ judgments.” + +He settles also the problem of will. + +“As for will, it is as free as air. And much more difficult to +catch.”[150] The meaning here is itself a little difficult to catch. +Nor is the following quite clear: “Our psychology is human, but our +behavior is individual.” When did our psychology become human? It is +welcome news. Our behavior has always been individual, of course. But +Dorsey, as a behaviorist, should have said that it was the collectivity +of our reaction-mass--which certainly cannot be either free, individual +or human unless it is controlled by some psychic power. + +[Illustration: DR. GEORGE A. DORSEY + +“We do not use the brains we have”] + +“Psychic power?” Dorsey exclaims. “I know what power is; I know +what psyche is; I also know that knowledge may be power. But I can +discover only one way to get knowledge into my head: through my sense +perceptions. And only one way to get any power out of that knowledge: +by inference, by reason.... When I want magic I go see Houdini.” + +Good! But why, if reason can turn knowledge into power, go to Houdini +for magic? Turning knowledge into power is real magic, glorious, white +and true. It happens every day. Even Dorsey can lead us to the eternal +verities, it seems. But he will not permit us long to remain even in +their neighborhood. “We learn to think logically,” he declares, “just +as we learn to speak correctly or to behave decently. I may think well, +I may shave well ... who shall say? My way of thinking and my way of +shaving are my own ways.... I may change both tomorrow; someone is +always inventing new ways of adjustment, new ways of exciting human +protoplasm to change its shaving soap. New thought also. Why not? We +have new books, new scandals, new elements, new diseases, new razors, +new glands, new logic.”[151] + +“The point is that there is no thought without muscular or glandular +activity. This is true whether the stomach thinks hunger, the dreamer +thinks air-castles, the prisoner thinks freedom, or the maiden thinks +of her lover. Thinking is a bodily act as coughing or scratching one’s +head. During thinking energy is consumed, mechanism is involved.”[152] + +Do you comprehend? The man who scratches his head has always been +supposed to be thinking. Now we know that the scratching is the +thinking--thinking is a bodily act. The rumbling of the bowels is +thinking. The stomach thinks. Everything thinks but ourselves. + +No wonder we have new thoughts when so many new thinkers come forward. +New logic. My stomach may think that the sum of the interior angles of +a triangle is equal to twenty-three right angles, or that a bite of +mince pie is bigger than the whole pie. It is _my_ stomach. What it +thinks is nobody’s business. And by tomorrow my stomach’s protoplasm +may become so excited that it will think some other way. + +I can see how we have new scandals at the same time that we have new +books. But I don’t see how we are going to get back merely to the stone +age by our new ways of thinking. They will certainly take us back much +further than that. And I wonder what our physicians will say to the +suggestion that our glands are new? They have been offered to us as +new discoveries, but this Dorsey seems to hint that they may be new +inventions. I “think” we might better have gone to see Houdini after +all. For “rational conduct is a dream” on page 470, and on page 455 it +is the only way of converting knowledge into power. Over this mystery I +scratch my head in vain. + +Then there is the Church. + +“As a projector of unsocial behavior,” says Dorsey, “the so-called +Christian Church, with its endless squabbles over forms, creeds and +rituals, and its eternal betrayal of humanity, is not far behind.”[153] +Not far behind what? Good form. For “good form is in the saddle; it +is ruthless, it is mighty, and it does prevail. It is not founded on +intelligence.” + +I am glad that the Church has at least good form to keep it company. +But I confess that I do not know what church is the “so-called +Christian” one; whether it is Protestant or Catholic; nor what the +real, honest-to-goodness Christian Church, if any, calls itself in +Dorsey’s mind. + +“Socially useful behavior is not more prevalent, because sociably +fashionable behavior has a better lobby.”[154] Our Dorsey is now +turning radical, for he goes on: “By Fashion I do not mean the, or a +Four Hundred; I mean those in power of money and of government, our +bosses; the people who are trying to make us buy their wares, join +their club, vote their ticket, think their thoughts, and help them kill +or cripple their enemies.” Radical and pacifist. But I had not heard +that force was being used by anybody to make people join their clubs. + +“What,” the now thoroughly aroused former professor of anthropology +demands--page 473--“can be of less consequence to you than whether I +_believe_ in this or that kind of a God, Savior, government or society? +What is of consequence to you, to society, and to me, is what I do.” + +Very true, Mr. Dorsey. And I for one apologize. But we were under the +impression--seemingly mistaken--that your beliefs might, at times, +influence your conduct, or even enable us to guess what, under given +circumstances, you were likely to do before you actually did it and it +was too late. + +I hope I have not given the impression that Dorsey is unimportant. +He--like the one who is to follow--is immensely important. He has a +large and enthusiastic public. I have never seen the rationality of his +argument seriously questioned in any periodical of general circulation. +And that fact, perhaps, is the most important one of all. + + +2. THE BRAZEN BOUGH + +Lewis Browne’s “This Believing World,” which ran through four large +printings within the first four months of its existence, is an +interesting example of the sort of reasoning that passes with a +generation devoted to materialism, mechanism, humanism, monism and the +newer psychologies, and yet is not quite ready to pay the consequences +of its position or to abandon altogether the banner of the cause which +it has deserted. + +Browne is what may be termed an “admirer” of Jesus Christ. He treats +him always with the utmost kindness, speaking of him[155] as “a gentle, +loving, helpless youth ... the very incarnation of perfection,”--a +perfection with which an “insistent pacifism” is soon included. +“The spirit of Jesus,” it also appears, “was innately Jewish and +puritanical.”[156] Moreover, “Jesus, one must remember ... like every +other great Jewish prophet ... preached only ethics.”[157] + +Thus the great fame of the Nazarene, which rests upon the idea not +that He was the incarnation of perfection but the Incarnation of God, +is sought to be preserved and appropriated by an eclectic modernism +which denies the very basis of His title to supreme distinction. Robert +Ingersoll and Thomas Paine are thought to have been a little crude +in some of their anti-religious tirades. But they addressed a people +that was at least familiar with its Bible. They never presupposed such +childish ignorance of history and scripture as is everywhere taken for +granted in “This Believing World.” + +Browne, who naturally has small use for the Church of Rome, is +sympathetic towards such leaders of the Reformation as Wycliffe, +Huss, Luther, Zwingli and Calvin. But not even Protestantism wins his +unqualified approval. He says[158] that “Protestantism includes every +type of religious thought,” and “only slowly, and with many pangs” is +“shaking off the religion about Christ. Only slowly, very slowly, is it +beating its way back to the religion of Jesus.” + +This seems like a fairly clear thesis, uttered by one who has never +read either the New Testament or the Old, and who consequently is +able to look upon Christianity, or “the religion of Jesus” (i.e., the +religion which he thinks was taught by Jesus), as an excellent system +of human morality of which he has heard good report, and holds that it +should not be confused with supernaturalism, or “the religion about +Christ,” of which he has heard bad and understands has been invented +somehow without historical warrant. + +Were this all, I might pass him unmentioned. One cannot stop to +complain of every popular author who speaks without information. But +the total depravity of the Browne method of thinking, of argument, of +logic--to employ such words in his connection; the illimitable naïveté +with which he propounds mutually exclusive and antagonistic assumptions +in that agreeable and easy-flowing style of his, positively cries out +for remark. How he “gets by with it,” is more than I can understand. +“This Believing World” is logical only in two particulars. It follows +the same author’s short history of the Jews, entitled, “Stranger than +Fiction”; and it is dedicated to H. G. Wells. Such substance as it has +marks it as a less aureate branch sprung from Fraser’s “The Golden +Bough.” + +“In the beginning,” it begins, after certain preliminaries--we are now +in fact on page 27,--“In the beginning was fear; and fear was in the +heart of man.... Boulders toppled and broke his bones; diseases ate his +flesh; death seemed ever ready to lay him low. And he, poor gibbering +half-ape nursing his wound in some draughty cave, could only tremble.” + +Is it necessary to remark that there is no evidence whatever pointing +to this as the early state of man? That it is merely an assumption +assumed to help along one particular theory of evolution, and is +contradicted by those modern researches tending to show that savages, +when actually degraded, are degenerate rather than primitive? Yet +Browne illustrates his text with an original pen-and-ink sketch of +this Missing Link. The drawing is extremely good and spirited. One +only wishes it were a photograph. And he continues: “Since blows could +not subdue the hostile rocks or streams [the rocks were hostile, +evidently, because they supplied caves, and the streams because they +supplied fish], our ancestor tried to subdue them with magic.... +Self-preservation must have forced them to [the] certainty [that +spells would work], for without it self-preservation would have been +impossible. Man had to have faith in himself or die--and he would +not die. So he had faith [in himself, you will note] and developed +religion.”[159] + +This is so vivid that it sounds like the description of an eye-witness. +And he goes on in a no less certain tone: “By the word faith we mean +that indispensable--and therefore imperishable--illusion in the +heart of man that, though he may seem a mere worm on the earth, he +nevertheless can make himself the lord of the universe. By the word +religion, however, we mean one special technique by which man seeks to +realize that illusion. It was by no means the first such technique to +be invented by man; and it may not be the last, either. Long before man +thought of religion, he tried to control the ‘powers’ of the universe +by [this] magic.”[160] + +Very well. Man, once half ape, has become, in seeming at least, a mere +worm; but he entertains an indispensable and “therefore” imperishable +illusion that he can make himself lord of the universe--certainly a +strange conviction for either a worm or an ape to entertain. To support +this illusion, he first invents magic, which is an attempt to coerce +the “powers,” and then invents religion--which Browne later explains +as an attempt to “cajole” the powers. Religion and magic are merely +two different kinds of technic, each designed to fool the technician +until by dint of fooling illusion becomes reality. The “powers” are not +fooled because they are always enclosed in quotation marks, which I +understand to indicate that they do not exist. What next? + +“He [‘dawn man’] saw on every side of him the fell and bewildering +‘powers,’ and illogically but naturally his first concern was not how +they worked but how they could be avoided.”[161] + +We thus make our acquaintance with the Browne idea of “logic.” A +logical dawn man would have waited to be devoured by the fell powers, +imaginary or not, before trying to avoid them. Logic would have +compelled him to understand before doing anything else. Fortunately for +us, dawn man was illogical. He escaped extinction. + +And so we read on, up to the beginning of the fifty-ninth page, +becoming better and better acquainted with our ancestor all the while. +The conviction grows that Browne was there. Then, suddenly, he tells +us that, though he is aware that his narrative has made it seem “as +though the writer knew for certain just what had happened ... actually +he knows nothing of the sort. All he knows is what many learned +anthropologists after much painstaking research, have _surmised_.” The +italics are his own. “Of course,” thus begins page 60, “they may have +surmised quite badly. Their underlying theory may be entirely wrong, +and religion, instead of having been originally created to elude or +conquer fear, may have arisen quite independently of it. Religion may +be an altogether primal instinct in the human race--something just as +old and fundamental and innate as fear itself. Who knows?” + +As candor, this is flawless. But it is disturbing. If learned +anthropologists, after much painstaking research, can be entirely +wrong (and indeed a great many other learned anthropologists, after +equally painstaking research, have time and time again declared these +particular learned anthropologists to be wrong altogether) why cannot +the learned anthropologists and biologists who furnished the data for +the spirited pen-and-ink sketch of our gibbering, half-ape _aïeul_ be +wrong as well? What if this surmising about monkeys and worms be as +badly done as may be this surmising about religion? And what is the use +of going on with all this if it be just a guess? + +Shall we continue because it is stranger than fiction? But it is not in +itself as interesting as is fiction. We were lured into reading by the +idea that it was being presented as truth. And now we are haunted by +the fear that it may be a blasphemous invention--that religion rather +than this anthropology may have some truth in it. + +So we skip “What Happened in India,” “What Happened in China,” “What +Happened in Persia,” and “What Happened in Israel,” since, after all, +it may never have happened; and turn to part seven, “What Happened in +Europe.” Here, as near home as this, we ought to be on safe ground, +with dependable historians instead of surmising anthropologists to +act as guides. This is the portion of the book which deals with the +Christian religion, in itself of more interest to most than are the +Shebatum taboos, Taoism, or the heliotropisms of Zoroaster. What, then, +did happen in Europe in the days when Christianity was born? + +“The prologue of the story of that new religion opens in Galilee. +Almost two thousand years ago there was born in the Galilean village +of Nazareth, a Jewish child to whom was given the name of Joshua, or +Jesus. We do not know for certain how the early years of this child +[Browne adheres to the lower cases in all emergencies] were spent. The +Gospels recount many legends concerning his conception, birth, and +youth, but they are no more to be relied upon than the suspiciously +similar legends told many centuries earlier about Zoroaster.”[162] + +The anthropologists were only possibly wrong; but the Gospels recount +legends, and Browne here does not say maybe. Neither does he say where +he gets his information concerning the birthplace of Christ. Had he +ever read even the first Gospel he would have learned that Christ was +born in Bethlehem of Judæa. Perhaps our author referred himself only +to his own stranger-than-fiction history of the Jews. + +Anyway, he goes on to declare that this Child “cherished many of the +primitive notions of the simple folk to whom he belonged, believing +that disease and sometimes even death were caused by the presence of +foul demons, and could be removed by prayer. He knew little if any +Greek, and could never have even heard of Greek science or philosophy. +All he knew was the Bible, and probably the text of that had been +taught him only by rote.... Above all he must have been taught to +prize as dearer than life the old obsession of his people that someday +they would be miraculously freed by the Messiah. Indeed, so well was +that last drilled into him that, as he matured, the hunger for the +realization of the hope became his all consuming passion.”[163] + +We now have One “who preached only ethics,” and yet cherished an +all-consuming passion for the realization of the obsessive hope of His +people that someday they would be miraculously freed by a Messiah. + +If Browne will turn to another book with which he seems to be as +unfamiliar as he is with the Bible, the dictionary, to wit, he will +find ethics defined in some such manner as follows: “Ethics, the +science that treats of the principles of human morality and duty; moral +philosophy; morals.” An obsessive belief in miracles is something quite +beyond ethics, either of a puritanically Jewish or any other variety. +Nor do the cherished primitive notions of simple folk to the effect +that diseases may be cured by prayer savor much of ethics. I do not of +course mean that Christ had no ethics; but Browne has introduced Him +to us as one who preached ethics only. Did He, then, keep his one “all +consuming passion” out of his preaching? + +This attempt to distinguish between “the religion _of_ Jesus” and the +“religion _about_ Jesus,” is as old as modern ignorance of the subject. +But Browne, given all the ignorance in the world, seems unable to +state it without letting it sting itself to death with its own tail. +And he goes on, still further to murder the dead body of his own +philosophy: “Now ... there was in the land an evangelist ... called +John the Baptizer.... Jesus was for a time a follower of John, one of a +multitude of young Jews and Jewesses who believed in the mission of the +wild prophet. His gospel was much like that of his teacher. ‘The time +is fulfilled,’ he cried, ‘and the Kingdom of God is at hand.’”[164] +That is, the new gospel was the messianic gospel of a wild prophet--and +the “follower” who preached it preached only ethics! + +And--“when the stories of that young preacher’s wandering [the +reference is to Christ, not to John] were gathered together in later +years and set down in writing, it was said that he performed all manner +of miracles as he went about the land. Perhaps there is a fragment +of truth in that tradition, for if people will only believe with +sufficient faith, miracles become not at all impossible.... And Jesus +could quite command implicit faith. He himself believed; with all his +heart and soul he believed that soon would come the Great Release.... +He spoke without the slightest flourish, using plain words and homely +parables. He indulged in no philosophy or theology, for, after all, +he was an untutored toiler who knew nothing of such vanities. Nor, +seemingly, did he preach any inordinate heresies.”[165] + +How does Browne know how He spoke? Surely he cannot be depending upon +the “stories of that young preacher’s wanderings” that were “gathered +together in later years and set down in writing,” for he has already +told us that “they are no more to be relied on than the suspiciously +similar legends told many centuries earlier about Zoroaster.” Again it +seems to be suggested that Browne was there. + +But this at least seems clear: Browne holds that Jesus preached “The +Kingdom of God is at hand”; that it is not at all impossible that +He performed miracles, though only of the faith-cure sort (I have +insufficient space for the discussion of miracles as distinguished from +faith-cures); and that He did not preach “any inordinate heresies” +from the Jewish standpoint. “He was not a heretic in the sense that +Ikhanaton or Zoroaster were heretics. Outwardly he was distinctly a +conforming Jew.”[166] + +“Yet [on the same page] for all his conformity ... Jesus was definitely +a rebel.... His whole gospel was intended but to comfort the +disinherited, for it declared that no matter how unlettered they might +be they could nevertheless be taken into the Kingdom of God when it +came.... Now such a gospel was literally saturated with heresy.” + +Saturated with heresy, but not with inordinate heresy--is that it? + +[Illustration: RABBI LEWIS BROWNE + +Stranger than fiction] + +“Because it [Christ’s gospel] denounced the rich and commanded them to +divest themselves of all their possessions, it attacked the whole +sacrificial cult.... A people without possessions could never possibly +afford fat bullocks to burn or skins of oil to pour away.... Moreover, +because this gospel minimized the importance of learning, and commanded +men to keep merely the spirit of the law, it attacked the whole +Rabbinical cult.”[167] + +Again I wonder where Browne obtained these details without having +recourse to “legends.” And so he goes on down to the bottom of the +page, by which time this same gospel has become “charged with quite +devastating heresy.” Devastating, but not inordinate! + +If Browne’s mind works in this way, so presumably do the minds of +his readers. Religion aside, not a few results may be expected from +a “modern temper” of this sort--from the fact that there are in this +Republic a large number of people incapable of being troubled by +equivocations, by the glaring inconsistencies of flatly contradictory +statements living at seeming peace in the midst of the same argument, +or people incapable of remembering or too careless to remember more +than one statement at a time. + +This “modern temper” makes it possible for men and women who do not +accept the supernatural character of Christ to beg His authority for +their own notions, no matter how opposed those notions may be to what +is said in the New Testament records. In interpreting a statute one +is compelled by a rule of law to consider all its parts together. In +interpreting the Bible one indulges in the habit of selecting here a +jot and there a tittle. Those selected become authority. Those rejected +become legendary by the very act of rejection even at the hand of +caprice or lack of information. + +Browne speaks, on page 268, of “the stupid and silly and gross +extravagances,” the “pious embellishments and patent falsehoods +that clog and confuse the Gospel accounts.” But the method for +distinguishing the false from the true seems to be very simple. If a +line of Scripture fits in with your preconceptions, it is wise and +genuine. If not, it is either a forgery or the author was wrong. The +principle of “the economy of hypotheses” is thus conserved. + +It will be objected that this is what we do with any book, and that one +who does not attribute divine authority either to the Bible or to the +Church which promulgated it as canonical scripture, is guilty of no +intellectual malpractice in using individual judgment. + +But no ordinary book is treated in this way. An author whose good +faith is impugned in one particular becomes a doubtful author. If he +is convicted of one inaccuracy, his reputation for accuracy suffers to +that extent. If his proofs have been carelessly read, one ceases to +put much credence in individual words which possibly may be misprints. +And if the book is suspected of being actually fraudulent in essential +particulars, it ceases altogether to be of any documentary value except +in so far as it be confirmed by other sources of information regarded +as more trustworthy. + +But our Brownes call the Gospels stupid, silly, grossly extravagant +legends piously embellished with patent falsehoods--and then proceed +to quote them (though it may be at second hand) as conclusive evidence +where such quotation suits their purpose. Where quotation does not suit +their purpose, they use paraphrase. If that won’t do, they rewrite +entire passages as they claim they should have been written, creating +doctrines out of whole cloth, which, whatever may be the nature of +the weave, certainly bear no evidence of having come from a scriptural +loom. Everywhere the gospel according to Browne claims to be the Gospel +of Jesus. It seeks protection beneath the shadow of the Cross. Why? + +It would seem that many who deny Christ’s divinity still regard Him +with a sort of reverence, even a sort of fear. They would find it +uncomfortable to think that they were not following His precepts. So +they meet the admonitions of theologians with the allegation that +said theologians have corrupted the intent of the sayings of this +Great Teacher. These “individualists” are afraid to stand alone. They +have ceased to follow the so-called “higher criticism.” It is apt to +get too high. It has even been known to give aid and comfort to the +theologians. The lower criticism, the no-criticism, is much easier. + +Thus we have come to have a public which buys the books of the +Brownes--men and women who have habituated their minds to a scorn of +those rational processes which would tell them that certain assumptions +entail certain consequences. They want to hunt with the hounds, and +also to run with the hares. Browne’s masterpiece of dual allegiance, +however, relates, as we shall see, not so much to the Carpenter as to +the Apostle to the Gentiles. But he is not yet ready for that bit of +double-dealing. He first must say:[168] “What really marked Jesus as +one unlike any preacher who had come before him was not so much what he +said, as the particular authority on which he said it.” (The particular +authority of a preacher of ethics?) “Every other prophet had uttered +his heresies in the name of God.... But this carpenter from Nazareth, +for all his meekness and humility, spoke only in his own name. ‘Take +_my_ yoke upon ye,’ he said. So did he speak, not as the mouthpiece of +God, but as one vested with an almost divine authority of his own.... +Such a tone would have sounded blasphemous ... even in a prince or a +learned man.... But it ... created and sustained the impression that +he was a transcendent person, and bestowed upon him the power to take +cringing serfs and make them over into towering men. Only because he +believed in himself so firmly ... could he make others accept his +words. His tone was not that of a mere prophet, but almost that of God +Himself. + +“It was not merely that he could perform what were thought to be +miracles.... It was more that he could carry himself with the divine +assurance of an ‘Anointed One.’”[169] + +Strange conduct, surely, for One who preached merely ethics; who went +about crying, “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” and meant only that the +Kingdom of Good Moral Conduct was at hand. Why not say that He meant +“The Kingdom of Eugenics is at hand!” and be done with it? And what +can Browne mean by an “almost” divine authority, or a tone “almost” +that of God Himself? It would seem that Christ was the Son of God, or +was not; that He claimed to be the Messiah, or did not claim to be the +Messiah. Browne, ignoring the law of the excluded middle term, attempts +to insert a middle term by means of the word “almost.” And he adds: +“Whether Jesus himself was convinced he was the Messiah is a problem +still unsolved.... Charlatans and madmen, arrant knaves and driveling +fools, had time and again been hailed by the hysterical mob as the +Awaited One. Is it any wonder therefore that an exalted person like +this young carpenter, Jesus, should have been hailed likewise?”[170] + +But that is not the question. We are not concerned with what hysterical +mobs may have thought about charlatans, madmen, arrant knaves and +driveling fools, but with what Jesus thought about Himself. We are +also concerned with what Jesus did when He was hailed as the Awaited +One. It would seem that an exalted person, not self-convinced of his +Messiahship, would have been constrained by his own exalted character +to enter a disclaimer in such a case. + +Of course, if one could quote the Gospels without fear of setting +Mr. Browne to thinking of “all the stupid and silly and gross +extravagances, all the pious embellishments and patent falsehoods that +clog and confuse the Gospel accounts,” one could prove even to him that +Jesus actually claimed to be the Messiah. For in the Gospel According +to St. John it is written,[171] “Jesus said unto him [Thomas], I am the +way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” +And, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” + +Doubtless Browne considers these and similar passages as suspiciously +similar to certain legends told many centuries earlier about Zoroaster. +But in any case his own argument should force him to conclude that +Jesus was the Messiah; or was self-deluded; or was a charlatan. Or does +Browne consider it possible to be a charlatan and an exalted person at +one and the same time? Out of charity we must conclude that he decides +in favor of the delusion hypothesis. Of the other alternatives, his +text forbids one and his presumable sanity forbids the other. So it +was the victim of a delusion which we are not even certain that he +entertained who took cringing serfs and made them over into towering +men. + +“This Believing World” continues: “By the time Jesus reached the +capital his fame had already preceded him. A great mob rushed out ... +wildly throwing their cloaks to the ground beneath the feet of the colt +on which he rode. They hailed him as their Messiah.... ‘Hosanna!’ they +cried, ecstatically, ‘Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the +Lord!’” + +Browne quotes the Gospels! But what makes him think that this +triumphant entrance into Jerusalem is not a pious embellishment, or +even a patent falsehood? He only tells us that “One wonders whether +those poor wretches out of the alleys and dunghills of old Jerusalem +understood who the man Jesus really was. One wonders whether even his +own disciples understood--or whether even his most pious devotees +today understand. To that frantic mob, at least, he was simply an +arch-zealot, a martial hero who had come to lead them in bloody +rebellion against Rome.”[172] + +If this meant anything to the author it would mean that he himself was +a believer in the divinity of Christ. He seems here to be chiding the +Jerusalem mob, to say nothing of Christ’s pious devotees of today, for +not being sufficiently aware of the spiritual nature of the miraculous +Messiah’s mission. But no. Browne is thinking of a “gentle, loving, +helpless youth”; of a spirit “innately puritanical,” a heretic who was +outwardly “distinctly a conforming Jew” with an insistent pacificism, +who adopted a tone that would have “sounded blasphemous even in a +prince,” and surely was astonishing in a teacher of ethics. + +“The priests,” Browne goes on, “... were afraid of Jesus ... not +merely because his heresies endangered their own position.”[173] “Had +he been stronger in body no doubt he would never have joined the school +of John the Baptist and become a saver of souls. Instead, he would have +joined the Zealots, fighting with the sword against Rome.... From the +beginning his strength must have been not the strength of the body but +of the soul; and towards the end even that strength must have ebbed low +in him.”[174] + +“And then he died. But he died only to come to life again, to come +to a life more enduring, more wondrously potent than had ever been +vouchsafed to him in the days before his shameful death. Indeed, he +literally came to life again ... according to those who had most +earnestly followed him.”[175] + +“It was enormously difficult to prove that he had really been the +Promised One. No doubt that was why the disciples began to piece +together those genealogies we find in the Gospels. No doubt that, too, +was why those extravagant legends concerning the conception, birth, +childhood, and ministry of Jesus began to be devised. Uncharitable +critics may say the disciples resorted to fraud in these matters--but +it was all intensely pious and well-intentioned fraud. Before the +ordinary Jew could be made to accept Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus simply +had to be proved a descendant of David.... The disciples may not +have been even remotely conscious that they were departing from the +truth.”[176] + +Thus Browne seeks to destroy all reason for admiring, and at the +same time pretends to continue to admire. Such passages need no +comment. Being no uncharitable critic myself, I will merely remark +that the world now learns for the first time that the ordinary Jew +can apparently be made to accept Jesus as the Messiah by means of the +genealogies which are a part of the gospel story as it has come down to +us. And what happened in Europe after this? + + +3. ST. PAUL AS SCAPEGOAT + +“On a sudden--at least, so it seemed to those who had not marked the +mounting of its steady ground swell,” Browne proceeds, “that little +Nazarene sect,” the followers of Christ after the Crucifixion, “became +a high sea that broke and rolled across the whole Roman Empire ... +sweeping over one land after another until finally it had inundated the +whole face of the West and half the face of the East. + +“To explain how that could have happened, one must remember what was +going on just then in the Roman Empire. A great hunger was gnawing at +its vitals, a desperate hunger for salvation.”[177] + +Now what does Browne mean by salvation in this instance? Ethical +salvation? Salvation by law and order? Or salvation in the miraculous +Christian sense, i.e., salvation from the macula of original sin? He is +evidently writing from vague memories of what he has read and heard, +from a host of facts, fancies and prejudices which he has uncritically +allowed to find lodgment in his mind. It is not likely that he means +anything in particular. But he tells us that-- + +“The whole Roman world seemed to be writhing in the throes of death, +and the fear of that death drove it to a frantic and panicky clutching +after any and every chance of life. As a result, the mysteries, those +secret cults [of Greece and Rome] which whipped men into orgies of +hopefulness, flourished everywhere.... Those mysteries ... in origin +... were largely Oriental, and in essence they grew out of the belief +that by certain magic rites a man could take on the nature of an +immortal god.... That same legend was told--with variations--concerning +Dionysus, Osiris, Orpheus, Attis, Adonis, and heaven knows how many +other such gods. Arising out of the common desire for an explanation of +the annual death and rebirth of vegetation, that legend was common to +many parts of the world.”[178] + +It seems that what so agitated the Romans was a desire to explain the +annual death and rebirth of vegetation--a phenomenon almost unknown +in the climate of Rome. Anyway, they ran to these explanations in the +midst of their panicky fear. But surely those mad pagan orgies which +whipped men into hopefulness were not puritanical, ethical orgies. + +Nor were early Christian orgies, according to Browne. For “By the +first century of this era, the legend [of Christ] had spread to every +civilized province of the Roman Empire ... and had everywhere made the +people drunk with the heady liquor of its mystery salvation.”[179] + +So Browne now admits that Christianity, even in the first century +of its era, had ceased to be a mere ethic and become a “mystery +salvation.” Granting for the sake of an argument which is no argument +that, coming from One whose “all consuming passion” was the obsessive +hope of His people that some day they would be “miraculously freed” +by the Messiah it could ever have been anything else--granting this +self-contradictory assumption, where are we to suppose the heady liquor +came from? Answer, “From more learned folk.” For-- + +“Side by side with these religious cults flourishing among the lower +elements ... different schools of philosophic thought flourished among +the more learned folk. One of these was the philosophy developed in the +city of Alexandria by an Egyptian Jew named Philo. According to this +philosophy, God, the Father of All, manifested himself only through +an intermediary called the Logos, the Word. This Logos, which was +sometimes called the ‘Son of God,’ or the ‘Holy Ghost,’ had created the +earth and was the sole mediator between it and heaven.”[180] + +So--“If in later years the Nazarene faith began to take on the color +and shape of those heathen cults and strange philosophies, these +Palestinian Nazarenes were not in the least responsible. It was one +from outside the original brotherhood, a Jew from beyond the borders +of Palestine, who was responsible. It was Saul of Tarsus [later called +Paul] who brought on that change.”[181] + +You will note that St. Paul was responsible for coloring Christianity +not only with the strange philosophy of learned folk but with the color +of mystery cults which, originating in a desire to explain the annual +death and rebirth of vegetation, whipped men among the lower elements +of society into orgies of hopefulness. And he did this notwithstanding +the fact that before his own conversion Christianity, originating with +One who was a transcendant person who spoke in a tone “almost” that of +God himself, and yet was but an ethical teacher, an insistent pacifist +who but for bodily weakness would have taken up arms against the Roman +Empire and perished by the sword--Christianity had already become drunk +with the heady liquor of mystery salvation. + +There seems to be some idea floating around in Browne’s head. He seems +vaguely aware that since the Crucifixion there had come a change. +Indeed, there had. But it was not a change from ethics to religion, +nor a change from a belief in a non-miraculous Messiah to a belief in +a Messiah who was miraculous. Nobody ever believed in a non-miraculous +Messiah. A non-miraculous Messiah is a contradiction in terms. But +since the Crucifixion it had become evident even to charlatans, madmen, +arrant knaves and driveling fools that Jesus was not to found a +temporal, national kingdom of the Jews. Even the people were beginning +to understand that Christ’s Kingdom was spiritual and at least as broad +as the earth. And if the Palestinian Nazarenes were not responsible, +it must have been because their own belief and their own preaching +signally failed of effect. + +But let us get back to this Saul of Tarsus, who “must have had rather +more than a passing acquaintance with Greek and Alexandrian philosophy.” + +“Most important of all, he must very early have learnt from slaves +in the household or from Gentile playmates, of the mystery cults +... and of the savior-gods in whom the masses put their impassioned +trust.”[182] And Christianity was already one of these mystery cults, +a heady liquor that was to become a high sea and break over all the +West and half of the East by the end of the first century--or as soon +as the disciples, who were not in the least responsible, had invented +a sufficiency of legends to make up a technic capable of fooling the +people. Or are we to understand that St. Paul wrote the Gospels? + +“Now Saul was a person of very violent likes and dislikes. He is said +to have been an epileptic, and certainly he was a man of strange +temperament. Whatever he did, he did with an intensity and extravagance +that were distinctly abnormal.”[183] The Eugenics Society should take +note of this, in case another St. Paul arises among us. “But on his way +to Damascus [to persecute the Nazarenes] a queer thing happened.... He +was suddenly overcome by a seizure of some sort.” + +Browne does not attempt to name it, but a “seizure” in an epileptic +subject is usually called an epileptic fit. Why does he not name it? +Because he wants to help folks believe that they may continue to call +themselves Christians while assuming that everything which marks +Christianity is a disease. But the disease must be a polite one. + +“And when, trembling and astonished, Saul came to himself, behold +he was a changed man.... When he got to Damascus he ... had become +a complete convert ... believing in the Messiahship of Jesus and in +his resurrection.... He was but little interested in the gospel of +the man Jesus,”--the ethics which cried, “Behold, the Kingdom of God +is at Hand!”--he was interested only in the death and rebirth of the +savior-god, Christ.... “Saul [under the name of Paul] became the great +preacher of ‘Christ crucified.’”[184] + +“Jesus ... was not the founder of Christianity, but its foundling.... +Nor had his immediate disciples created the new faith.”[185] “The +Messiah put forward by them had all along been the Jewish Messiah.” +Thus once more Browne confuses the idea of a Jewish Messiah with +non-miraculous morality. “Nor was it Saul, the studious young Pharisee, +who founded the new faith, but his other self, Paul, the citizen of +Rome.... It is unfair to compare Paul to Jesus, for the two belonged +spiritually and intellectually to entirely different orders of men.... +The one was a prophet and a dreamer of dreams; the other was an +organizer and a builder of churches.”[186] + +According to this, it was a prophet and a dreamer who inspired the +early disciples with the idea that he was the Jewish Messiah--those +same disciples who saw in him a teacher of ethics only, yet corrupted +the Gospels in the attempt to prove that he was something more--those +same disciples who were not in the least responsible for the belief in +Christ as divine that afterward crept into the Church through the door +of epilepsy. And this ethical teacher is the same Being who believed +with all His soul in the Promised One and permitted Himself to be +greeted as the Promised One! + +This amazing series of contradictions does not come from confronting +Browne with other authorities, but merely from confronting Browne with +Browne and without going outside of one chapter of one single book. +Strange indeed is the behavior of those who seek to eat their cake and +at the same time to throw it away. + +For Browne would have it that Jesus, the prophet, dreamer and inspirer +of belief in His Messiahship, was made a foundling in his own +spiritual house by His antithesis, Paul--who accomplished this feat of +dispossession by winning general acceptance for the very belief in +question. Or does Browne think that when the Jewish Messiah came to be +understood as the Savior of the World, the idea was less dreamlike and +prophetic? + +Paul is evidently now drunk with the heady liquor of mystery-salvation. +He has had a seizure. But Browne has been telling us how Paul’s other +self, Saul, the studious young Pharisee, has been listening all his +life to tales of mystery-cults and savior-gods from the lips of +household slaves and Gentile playmates; how he has acquired more than +a passing acquaintance with the Logos philosophy of a Jew residing in +Alexandria. All this is heady liquor. Jew and Gentile, high and low, +slaves and playmates--none of them are exactly Puritans or ethical +rationalists. And the new religion, most heady of all, appeals--not to +the youthful Saul, who might supposedly be the dreamer of the pair, +but to the more mature Paul, the Roman citizen, organizer and man of +affairs. + +Of course it is historically correct to say that the new religion did +appeal to Paul rather than to Saul. But what happened on the road +to Damascus was not, even on Browne’s own showing, a change from a +disbelief to belief in miracle religion, but a change from disbelief to +belief in Jesus as the Son of God. An epileptic fit, we are about to be +told, makes a common man over into a moral and intellectual giant. It +transforms a listener to tales and mystical philosophies into a cold +thinker. And this cold thinking leads to the acceptance of Christianity +in its original form. I am not questioning that cold thinking might not +lead to such a result; am not trying to intimate that there is anything +antagonistic between a cold brain and a warm heart. Browne’s fallacy +here is historical--the attempt to prove that Paul was a cold thinker +and pretended to be nothing else. + +As to a touching belief in the efficacy of disease, we may find it in +minds much less confused than Browne’s. It runs through such books as +“The Psychology of Religious Mysticism,” by James H. Leuba, professor +of psychology at Bryn Mawr. According to Browne, mental unbalance +produces indomitable courage and inflexible will. According to +Professor Leuba, the hysterical saints lived lives of “joyful activity, +broken only by transports of surpassing love and peaceful rest.”[187] +Not a very comprehensive description of the lives of saints. But if +there be such hysteria as this, such epilepsy as Browne describes, +it is a pity that the germs cannot be isolated, propagated, and sown +broadcast. + +These authors are among those who ruin their hypotheses by +inadvertently accounting for too much. Their hysteria and epilepsy, +stretched to meet all demands, lose the quality of disease and take on +the quality of genius. Would it not be well at least to distinguish two +types of hysteria (some writers make even epilepsy hysterical), the +malignant and the benign? Or if the word hysteria merely means emotion, +why not recognize the fact that an emotion may indicate conditions as +categorically opposite as those reflected in the sensations of pleasure +and of pain? It is grossly irrational to narrow it down to a single +sinister meaning if it is to be put forward as the “cause” and the +“explanation” of such diverse effects as those which are clothed in +the willing garb of a Sister of Charity and those which lead to the +unwilling wearing of a straight-jacket. + +Nor is it any less absurd to say that St. Paul, having partaken of +heady salvation-liquor such as was drunken of aforetime only by +charlatans, madmen, arrant knaves and driveling fools, and adding to +its potency by insisting upon its universal applicability--to say all +this even by implication, and then to add as Browne does[188] that “in +his own class, Paul was one of the stupendously great men of the earth.” + +“He was,” the narrative continues, “a superb statesman. And he was +possessed of an energy, a courage, and an indomitable will, the like of +which have rarely been known in all the history of great men.... Again +and again he was scourged and imprisoned.... And yet he persisted, +never resting from his grueling labor of carrying his Christ to the +Gentiles, incessantly running to and fro, preaching, writing, arguing +and comforting, until at last, a tired and broken man, he died a +martyr’s death in the city of Rome.... It was in the year 67, according +to tradition, that Paul was beheaded.” + +Once again Browne considers himself privileged to repudiate all that +a man stands for, his sole claim to distinction, and yet to put him +on a pedestal of insincere rhetoric. When he speaks of Paul’s “own +class” does he mean the class of “charlatans, madmen, arrant knaves and +driveling fools”? Indeed, St. Paul himself is reported to have said, +“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most +miserable.” + +But Browne has yet stranger things in store. He proceeds to write the +history of the Church. + + +4. THE CHURCH AS SCAPEGOAT + +Paul, says Browne, “had spent perhaps thirty years in the labor of +spreading the idea of Christ, and by the time of his death that idea +had already struck root far and wide in the Empire. It had divorced +itself from Judaism, taking over the Sunday of the Mithraists in place +of the Jewish Sabbath, and substituting Mithraist ritual for the Temple +sacrifice.”[189] [The Mithraist ritual centered in the slaughter of a +bull!] + +“Through Judaism, the religion of Persia left its mark also on +Christianity; and not merely through Judaism, but also through +Mithraism.”[190] [Mithra is personified diffused sunshine!] + +“In most of the cities there were already thriving christian +brotherhoods, little secret societies much like those of the +mysteries.... With the passing of the years, the pagan element +grew.... The life-story of Jesus was embellished with a whole new +array of marvels and miracles, and the man himself was made over into +a veritable mystery savior-god. His character and nature fell into the +maw of an alien philosophy, and then came drooling out in sodden and +swollen distortion. He became the Lamb whose blood washed away all sin. +He became the Son of God supernaturally conceived by the Virgin.... He +became the Logos and the Avatar and the Savior.”[191] + +Browne here is complaining of alleged corruptions from Persian and +other sources, all largely Oriental; as were in their origin the Greek +and Roman “mysteries,” of which he has complained hitherto. But he +goes on to allege that “Although the religion of Jesus and of the first +disciples was distinctly Oriental, although the whole Messiah idea was +markedly a thing of the East, the religion about a Savior Christ was +largely European.... Indeed, one gravely doubts whether Jesus, the +simple peasant teacher in hilly Galilee, would have known who in the +world that Savior Christ was.” + +Geography is evidently too much for Browne. Persia has suddenly become +European. And St. Paul, with his “more than passing acquaintance” with +the Logos philosophy of Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, and his subsequent +conversion to the “distinctly Oriental ... Messiah idea,” is of the +West. Perhaps Alexandria was not in Africa in the early days of the +Christian era, and maybe Persia was then in the extreme Occident. + +“It was inevitable for that change to come about. Christianity ... was +gaining too many converts too rapidly.... It would not have been so +bad had they been converts from a world of ignorance.... But they were +converts instead from a world of what we would call stupidity.”[192] + +So preaching founded upon the epistles of St. Paul, a man “who was one +of the stupendously great men of the earth,” and “a superb statesman,” +appealed chiefly not to the ignorant but to the naturally stupid! “No +such testaments [as the stupid epistles of St. Paul and the silly +legends and pious frauds called the Gospels] could be offered by the +priests of Mithra, Cybele or Attis. For their deities were after all +mythical. Only the Christians had a real man to worship; a unique +and divine man, it is true, but nevertheless a person who had known +human woe and pain, who had suffered, and who had for at least +three days been dead. That element of naturalism, of closeness to +human reality, must have made Christianity a faith of extraordinary +attractiveness.”[193] + +Surely Browne does not believe that a simple teacher of ethics, who, +with good health, would have been a soldier, was actually dead and rose +again, for he has told us that such a legend arose from pious frauds +suspiciously like the frauds practiced long before in the case of +Zoroaster. He must be meaning to say that the stupid followers of St. +Paul and later preachers of miracle religion _believed_ Christ to have +been a Divine Man who was once dead. They must, then, have believed in +the Resurrection. Is that to be regarded as an element of naturalism? + +“There was a wondrous comfort in that religion”--of the stupid; “a +mighty zeal that made it possible for the martyrs to go to their death +actually with a smile on their lips. It took vile slaves out of the +slums where they rotted, and somehow breathed supernal heroism into +them. It told them that ... death for the truth would mean only life +everlasting.”[194] + +“Then came Constantine, and, in the year 313, an end to the +persecutions.”[195] An end to the persecution of a corrupt yet +wonder-working Christianity originated by the abnormal St. Paul, you +will observe, which must have worked through the powers of hysteria, +epilepsy and suggestion. One would think that there was little harm +left for Constantine to do. Nevertheless, “It was a costly triumph for +Christianity, as every other such triumph has been in all history. +What happened to Buddhism when it set out to conquer the Far East, now +happened also to Christianity in the West.” What, did it lose its +power? No. “It became an official and successful institution--and so +degenerate.”[196] + +A Mithraist ritual, draped in the rags of dying pagan mysteries and +Philo-Pauline doctrines from an European Africa, manages to degenerate! +It staggers on its downward way, growing more and more drunken with the +heady liquor of mystery salvation drawn from a Europe located in the +Orient. + +“A faith cannot be institutionalized,” Browne informs us, “for it is a +thing of the spirit.” + +An institution, then, is something which subsists in matter. Men with +faith in anything cannot be drawn together into an institution. Only +men who believe in nothing can belong to institutions. + +“Even dogmas or rites, which are things almost of the flesh, cannot be +organized beyond certain bounds.”[197] + +What bounds? And within or without what bounds is it possible for a +rite not to be organized? And to what extent is a dogma, like that +of the Logos, for example, “almost of the flesh”? Anyway, “even +after Christianity became primarily a thing of dogmas and rites, it +nevertheless began to crack and crumble.”[198] + +Why “nevertheless”? After what he has said of dogmas and rites he +should have said “because of.” And does he say “began” to crack and +crumble when it had already suffered the corruptions of St. Paul and +Constantine? + +Yes; and it begins to crack and crumble just as it is setting out as +a tidal wave to overwhelm the West and half of the East! And as faith +cannot be institutionalized, a sufficient lack of faith might have kept +it from cracking and crumbling, also from “drooling out in sodden and +swollen distortions.” + +“Paul,” continues our author, “had used his theological terms rather +loosely.”[199] His stupendous greatness, then, was not as a teacher of +religion. “Paul [same page] had spoken of Jesus as a savior.” + +Browne then tells of the controversies which arose over the doctrine +of the Trinity and other matters, adding: “Scores of such questions +arose.... Jesus had not been conscious of even the most ponderous of +such questions. That dear, fervent young preacher, who had lived and +died in the sublimity of a simple faith could never possibly have been +conscious of them. Had he heard them posed, he would probably have +shaken his head in mute bewilderment.... When one puts beside the +Gospel accounts of the preaching of Jesus the official records of the +wrangling and bickering of those church fathers, one feels that here +is to be found the most tragic and sordid epic of frustration that the +whole history of mankind can tell.”[200] + +Browne omits to name the church fathers he has in mind. But why put +beside records, which are at least official, the silly legendary +gospels which unconscious zealots corrupted into drooling distortions +to suit their fancy? + +And if Jesus could not have been conscious of even the most ponderous +of theological questions, what is he supposed to have thought of the +multitudes who greeted his entrance into Jerusalem, shouting, “Hosanna! +Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” That would seem to +pose a rather ponderous theological question. + +Moreover, all histories of the Jews which are not stranger than fiction +give the impression that the Scribes and Pharisees of Christ’s day +were somewhat given to discussing theological questions, ponderous and +other. One living in their midst and not being conscious of at least +some of the questions that were to be debated later by the Church +fathers must have been unconscious at all points. + +“More than sixteen hundred years have passed since Christianity was +made the state religion in the decadent Roman Empire. Throughout +all those years [notwithstanding its cracking and its crumbling] +it has been extending its borders.... It is estimated that at the +present time about one third of the entire population of the world is +Christian--approximately five hundred and sixty-five million souls. And +of course, it is to the spirit of Paul regnant in Christendom that one +must credit that enormous expansion.... It is because countless monks +and healers and warriors and saints have felt Paul’s call [sic!] to go +out and win the heathen to Christ, that today more souls are turned to +Christ than to any other deity on earth.” + +I do not know if Browne attributes the Pauline triumph to the Apostle’s +loose handling of theological terms, but he says, “these wholesale +increases in numbers were not made save at a high price.... Just as +Buddha had to be idolized before he could conquer the East, so Jesus +had to be idolized, too, for pagan Europe.”[201] + +Yet--“despite all these compromises, the new religion remained always +heavens above the old [paganism]. By assimilating pagan rites and +myths ... Christianity became at last almost completely pagan in +semblance; but it never became quite pagan in character. The Old +Testament puritanism which had so marked the life of Jesus was never +routed.... If the spirit of Paul insisted that Cybele be taken over +as the Mother of Christ, the spirit of Jesus insisted that her wild +Corybantes with their lustful rites, and her holy eunuchs with their +revolting perversions, be left severely behind. If the spirit of Paul +demanded that the wild Celtic goddess named Bridget be accepted into +Christianity, the Spirit of Jesus demanded that first she be made +lily-white and a saint.... It [the Spirit of Christ] set its face hard +against sacred prostitution and against all those other loosenesses +and obscenities which arose out of the pagan’s free attitude towards +sex.”[202] + +So it was the spirit of a man who was “in his own class” one of the +“stupendously great men of the earth,” who favored prostitution, +insisted upon taking Cybele into his loosely-worded theology, +and--having failed to secure the lustful Corybantes and the holy +eunuchs who still had a capacity for perversions--demanded and obtained +the acceptance of a wild Celtic goddess named Bridget. + +Browne describes this Spirit-of-Paul’s Bridget. She was, it appears, +one of three deities who “had already [2000 years ago] been +sufficiently detached from their physical bodies to be thought of as +remote gods and goddesses.” The other two were Ogmius and Maponus. + +At their festivals, “men and women lay together in the fields, +and behaved as did all other primitive peoples in their religious +festivals.... Not until the Christian idea of morality was brought to +them did the Celts grow conscious of any wickedness in their old rites. +And even then they did not give them up at once. Indeed, to this day +their descendants have not given them up entirely.”[203] + +“The difference between [the] Babylonian cult of Ishtar and the +primitive Celtic cult of Bridget was entirely one of degree.... Both +were inspired by dread of the same evil, sterility: and both sought +to attain one end, fecundity. But one, the Babylonian, was far less +primitive ... far less wildly promiscuous and bestial. The Babylonian +rites were conducted within the confines of stone temples, not out in +the furroughs of the torch-lit fields.”[204] + +This undoubtedly gave the Babylonians the ethical advantage. And it +seems that the Celtic gods and goddesses were not only primitive, but +continually kept their followers alarmed lest they (the goddesses) +should forget how to become fecund. The ritual in the furrows of the +torch-lit fields, “to this day not given up entirely,” was for the +purpose of overcoming the deities’ “bashfulness,” Browne tells us, and +to set them an example of what was desired. And if the spirit of Paul +could have had its way, such a ritual, though perhaps conducted within +stone temples, would have been established in Rome! And there it would +doubtless have been practiced today--as it is, I gather from Browne, in +present-day Ireland! + +“The spirit of Jesus flickering in Christianity made it at least +nominally a religion of ethics,” Browne goes on. “For Jesus, one must +remember, had not been in the least concerned with ritual. Like every +other great Jewish prophet, he had preached only ethics. And despite +all the compromises of the world-conquering Pauls, that ethical +emphasis of the teaching of Jesus persisted as a mighty leaven in the +church. It gave to the early Christians that gentle nobility which +history tells us graced their faith.”[205] + +When was this? Brown says that “of the life of the first Nazarenes we +know exceedingly little.”[206] He gives the year 67 as the date of St. +Paul’s martyrdom. Can it be that the early Christians were gentle and +noble even after the loose sex ideas and loose theological terms of the +great Apostle had been given a chance to begin their deadly work? + +“The church itself, with its foul record of crusades and inquisitions +and pogroms, cannot be said to have ever been really civilized. But +that admission does not at all discredit the potency of the spirit of +Jesus.... True, there were indeed Dark Ages in Europe when the power of +the Church was at its height. But who knows how far darker they might +have been, and how much longer they might have endured, had the Church +not existed?”[207] “One must remember that Christianity came into a +world that was sinking.... It alone sought to keep civilization going. +It failed. It could not keep from failing. But be it said to its glory +that at least it tried.”[208] + +“The glory of trying to save the world from bestiality belongs +primarily to but one element alone in Christianity; the original +Nazerene element. And that element, one must remember, was never +dominant in the faith save during those years before it was really +Christian. Once Paul came on the scene, the light of the religion of +Jesus began to fade, and the glare of the religion about Christ [that +is, the doctrine that Christ was the Son of God and the Redeemer of the +World] blazed over all.”[209] + +“Yet though the light from Galilee [the light of One who ‘like every +other great Jewish prophet’ taught only ethics, yet believed with all +his soul in the Messianic idea] faded ... it never was quite snuffed +out.... For long centuries it smouldered.... And then slowly that +forgotten spark began to brighten once more. A devastating incursion +of Huns and Saracens blew the spark to a flame. As never before in +full six hundred years, the Christians began to think again of their +suffering Savior.”[210] + +This certainly is what Browne writes, incredible as it may seem. The +Pauline doctrine “about Jesus” has been overshadowing the world, +threatening to extinguish the spark of the merely ethical religion +preached by Jesus himself. And now the spark blows into a flame--and +lo! it, too, is a religion about Jesus! Men begin to think again of +their suffering “_Savior_!” Moreover, Jesus was a pacifist, and all +that was needed to fan the spirit of his teaching into a flame was a +devastating incursion of Huns and Saracens. Was it the ethics of the +invaders which did the trick? + +“Like a mad fire the hope spread over Europe that the year 1000 would +see the return of the Redeemer.” Yes, the word is “Redeemer.” So Brown +does know what “Savior” means. And we were right in thinking that he +intends to say that the spark so long all but quenched by a religion +about Jesus proved, when it revived, to be itself a religion about +Jesus, a belief in Him as a supernatural Being, able, if he liked, +to return--in short, the Logos, as had been taught by the “abnormal” +St. Paul. And Browne appears to be utterly unconscious that he has +stultified his whole argument. The fact that he has in effect said +that the world expected a helpless teacher of ethics to return after a +thousand years; and has also said that belief in this helpless ethical +teacher constituted a belief in a miraculous Savior and Redeemer, which +belief had been for hundreds of years all but stifled by the doctrine +that he was indeed a miraculous Savior and Redeemer--all this troubles +the Browne mind not at all. + +“The year 1000 passed, and no Redeemer came--but Europe was a little +redeemed nevertheless.” By the ethical Huns and Saracens, apparently. +“Men turned from what the Church of Christ insisted on offering them, +and instead began to grope after the gospel of Jesus for themselves. +They took to reading the Scriptures in their original tongues.” (The +people did? Or does he mean in the vernacular? In either case it must +have exposed them to what Browne gives us to understand is a mass of +silly fables.) “And reading them they began to see at last how far the +Church had wandered from the pristine truth.” (A truly wonderful feat +of discriminating literary criticism. Were the people so familiar with +Zoroastrian tales that they were able at once to discard all passages +having a suspicious resemblance to them?) “They discovered at last how +shamelessly the priests had substituted rite for right, how flagrantly +they had ritualized all morality.... The clerical authorities took +alarm. Despotically they issued proclamations prohibiting the laity +from even glancing at the bible.” + +Browne owes it to the world to publish those despotic proclamations, so +that we may know their authors. I have myself seen the Bible in chains +in Italian churches, and I understand that chains were much more common +in the middle ages than now. But if the object was not to keep the +books from being stolen but to keep them from being read, the riveters +of the chains were indeed stupid people. For they chained the books by +the backs and in a manner which permitted them always to lie open. + +So--“the Bible was read nevertheless.... The flame of heresy burned +on.” But why, if the Church was so opposed to it, did it gather the +Bible together in the first place? Browne does not say. What he does +say is that “In the fourteenth century, Wycliffe did godly mischief +in England; in the fifteenth John Huss carried on in Bohemia; in the +sixteenth Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin led the Protestant revolt.”[211] + +“But one must not imagine that Protestantism was ever purely +Nazarene in spirit--any more than Catholicism was ever unrelievedly +Pauline.” (True enough. I have even heard it said that Catholicism +is to a certain extent Petrine.) “Protestantism includes every type +of religious thought. Only slowly and with many pangs, is even +Protestantism shaking off the religion about Christ.” (Then that +revival of belief in a supernatural Savior and Redeemer, instituted by +the Saracens and Huns, was not a flash in the pan, but carried over to +a certain extent into the godly mischief of Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, +Zwingli and Calvin!) “Only slowly, very slowly is it [Protestantism] +beating its way back to the religion of Jesus.”[212] That is, to ethics. + +“Though the Church of Christ may stand guilty of untold and untellable +evil, the religion of Jesus, ... has accomplished good sufficient to +outweigh that evil tenfold.” + +If the evil referred to expressed itself in facts, why is it +untellable? Browne, I think, should tell it, and in detail. He ought +not to emulate St. Paul in the loose use of words. As the page stands, +we cannot be sure that he does not refer to the Church of England +and the hanging, drawing and quartering of Catholic priests during +the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. But the “religion of Jesus,” i. +e. ethics, “Has made life liveable for countless millions of harried +souls. It has taken rich and poor, learned and ignorant, white, red, +yellow, and black--it has taken them all and tried to show them a way +to salvation. To all pain it has held out a balm; to all in distress it +has offered peace. To every man without distinction it has said: Jesus +died for you! To every human creature on earth it has said: You too can +be saved! And therein lies Christianity’s highest virtue. It has helped +make the weak strong and the dejected happy. It has stilled the fear +that howls in man’s breast and crushed the unrest that gnaws at his +soul. In a word it has worked--in a measure.”[213] + +I wish I might let this eloquent passage stand without comment. Taken +by itself, it sounds almost like the words of a sincere believer in +Christ as the supernatural Savior of Men. But, taken in connection +with what has gone before, it seems to me abominable. Here is a man +who has denied the supernatural nature of Christ time after time in +the preceding 300 pages. And now he is using words which imply such +a miraculous nature, or else mean nothing at all. Yes, they mean +something. They mean that this light, this balm, this peace, this +salvation which is Christianity’s highest virtue, is an illusion. To +every man this Christianity has said: Jesus died for you! Here the +doctrine of the Vicarious Atonement is indicated. And St. Paul, in +preaching that doctrine, that “religion about Jesus,” founded a new +faith and made Christ the mere foundling of Christianity! True, Browne +has also said a great deal on the other side. That is precisely the +trouble. He thinks it is possible to stand both with the sheep and with +the goats. + +But the final chapter of “This Believing World” (for Christianity +is not its climax) is consistent. It is entitled, “What Happened in +Arabia.” And it thus concludes: + +“Islam ... has been one of the most effective civilizing forces in +the history of Africa and Asia, and in a measure also in that of +Europe.... The supreme gift of Islam was the idea of unity which it +somehow drilled into the heads of a hundred races--not merely the +unity of God, but even more the unity of mankind.... Every other great +religion taught more or less the same doctrine [in regard to submitting +to Allah], but none with such fierceness and unrestraint.... Islam +excluded no man from the army of Allah.... And that is why to this day +Islam can still win converts with twice the ease of any other religion. +That is why to this day Islam is one of the mightiest institutions +on earth for the ordering and beautifying of life in at least the +‘backward’ lands.” + +In the beginning there was fear. In the end there is no God but Allah, +and Mohammed is his prophet! + + +5. THE STORIES OF DURANT + +It is with regret that I include Will Durant among the Misbehaviorists. +He is no crude mechanist, and his popularity is so great that, like +Sinclair Lewis, he has almost ceased to be a mere individual and +become an institution. And in some respects his success is a most +gratifying and hopeful sign of the times. + +[Illustration: DR. WILL DURANT + +Almost an institution] + +Some say that it was Durant who showed us that we were fond of serious +reading and not of the light novels which the publishers for so many +years fancied that we craved. But in reality it was “The Education of +Henry Adams” which showed us that. And I am not so certain that a mere +love of heavy reading is such a good sign. By the time reading becomes +substantial it begins to make some difference what it is weighted with. + +I like to think that “The Story of Philosophy” has been bought in such +quantities because it is, to a very great and very charming extent, The +Story of the Philosophers. Durant’s ability as a writer of biography +amounts almost to genius. Nor are his accounts of the philosophers’ +philosophies often other than good bits of skillful summing-up +interspersed with apt quotations. My only misgivings revolve around the +stories of Durant--those paragraphs of criticism and seemingly personal +opinion with which he usually ends his chapters--around those and +certain omissions. What have we here, the story of philosophy, or only +the story of a certain bias purporting to be the story of philosophy? + +As was to be expected of a born biographer, Durant follows the method +of using environment to explain belief. The pessimism of Schopenhauer +is due to the fact that he lived in the first half of the nineteenth +century, the age of the Holy Alliance, when Waterloo had been fought, +the Revolution was dead, and the Son of the Revolution rotting on +a rock in a distant sea. “Something of [Schopenhauer’s] despair +came from the pathetic distance of St. Helena.”[214] And when “Mme. +Clotilde de Vaux (whose husband was spending his life in jail) took +charge of Comte’s heart, his affection for her warmed and colored his +intelligence.” So Comte’s later Religion of Humanity was due to the +happiness of his illegitimate union, just as his earlier Positivism had +been due to the marital infelicity which led him to attempt suicide in +the Seine. + +It is the method by which Taine years ago sought to explain all English +literature. Durant is an environmentalist--which, after all, is better +than being a mad hereditarian. One is tempted to enquire into his own +environment, his college, his religious and philosophical surroundings, +and to read dates and geography between his lines. But I cannot bring +myself to apply either the environment or the heredity hypothesis to +the exclusion of that entity which comes from neither, that ego which +learns or does not learn from its contact with that which is not itself. + +That Durant is not himself a philosopher, is evident--and in his +favor. We really do not need another philosopher just now--of the sort +we would be likely to get. He has no system of his own, no universal +touch-stone, no central thesis giving unity to his several beliefs. In +his mind Kant, Darwin and Bergson meet, but no more mingle than do oil +and water. An emulsifying _tertium quid_ is lacking. This lack should +have made him an ideal historian of other men’s theories. And it almost +did. + +But there is another lack. The complete historian should have a +complete experience. He should have been submerged in the main stream +of thought, even if he has failed to sound all its dead-waters to the +bottom. And if environment and the accident of birth do not offer him +such experience, he should have that thirst for knowledge which leads +to exploration and discovery. + +The Durant ego lacks precisely that. It was born in a lake, and it has +no thirst for the sea. Like certain aquatic creatures, it takes what +floats into its mouth, but makes no explorations. What Durant has given +us is simply not the story of philosophy. It is merely a series of +interesting comments upon the curriculum of a certain type of college +which does not even belong to the University of World Thought. This +provincialism is unfortunate, for it is certain to deceive provincial +readers with the idea that they have listened to the whole story. + +It is difficult, after the reading of a book which is an avowed +recapitulation of many foreign opinions, to say what an author’s own +opinions may be. It is evident that Durant is no Catholic; not quite +so evident whether or no he is a believing Protestant. He seems to +have little sympathy with Protestantism as a whole, and less yet with +Fundamentalism. It may be safe to say that his personal bias takes the +direction of a vague Humanism. + +To quote, without taking the greatest precaution not to pass off some +mere explanatory paraphrase as the author’s own, would be so unfair +that I hesitate to quote at all in proof of anything. There are, +however, certain passages which are clearly Durant, and not Plato, +Aristotle or Nietzsche boiled down--though even here we must be on +guard lest what we see is Durant under the momentary influence of his +subject, not Durant in his daily habit. It is the wind which does not +blow, the things which he does not say, that speak most eloquently and +surely of the man. + +Chapters, and most of them long chapters, are given to Plato, +Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, +Herbert Spencer, Nietzsche; a chapter to three contemporary +Europeans--Henri Bergson, Benedetto Croce and Bertrand Russell; and a +final chapter to the three American moderns, George Santayana, William +James and John Dewey. There are adequate pages devoted to Rousseau, +Locke, Hegel, and many a lesser light. Some, you will note, are +pre-Christian; some are atheistic; some deistic, monistic, or agnostic. +It is a chorus which is irreligious with a vast predominance, with +here and there a tolerant voice for modernistic Protestantism. Bishop +Berkeley, represented by a few paragraphs, stands practically alone as +the exponent of a particular faith. + +It will be said that this is the story of philosophy, not of theology. +But I cannot see the force of the explanation. Theology is certainly +philosophy; and why should one man be barred because he begins with the +assumption that God has revealed Himself in an Incarnation, and another +admitted who begins with the assumption that God has revealed himself +in the human will of a super-man devoted satanically to selfish ends, +or is in the process of revealing himself in an _élan vital_, or begins +with the assumption that there is no God? Surely the historian is not +bound to believe every philosophy he outlines. And surely the Christian +assumption is no more of a foregone conclusion than are the others. + +Nor even if it be granted that the story of philosophy, because of the +current use of the word, is naturally a story of secular philosophy, +does Durant come off any better. The Chinese philosophers and the +Vedantic philosophers of India may be said to be so widely separated +from us in time and space that they do not belong in a history of our +culture. That was more true in the days when Durant was a boy than it +is today. But let it pass. What about the Scholastics? + +The Scholastics were not only theologians, but philosophers and +scientists; they dominated the thought of Christendom for a thousand +years, and still dominate a large section of Christendom, not counting +their influence in quarters where it is felt rather than recognized. + +Durant admits that his treatment of Scholasticism is “inadequate,” +but excuses himself with the plea that the inadequacy was due to lack +of space. But he finds space for ten and a half pages about Benedetto +Croce--and no page at all for St. Augustine, Albertus Magnus, or St. +Thomas Aquinas. + +The Angelic Doctor’s name, however, is mentioned. It appears in a +pictorial table of “philosophic affiliations,” constructed in the +manner of a family tree. According to this table, Aquinas stems from +Aristotle, who stems from Plato, who stems from Socrates, who stems +from the Sophists. There is also a branch line of affiliation extending +to the left like a bar sinister, connecting the great scholastic with +Christian Theology followed by a question mark. I do not fathom the +meaning of the question mark. But Christian Theology (?) itself stems +from Zeno the Stoic, and he from Diogenes, and he from Antisthenes, +and he from Heraclitus. There is yet another branch line leading from +Antisthenes, touching Socrates, and ending in Aristippus, of the house +of Democritus and Leucippus. + +So Aquinas appears to be quite free from any unquestioned philosophic +affiliation with St. Augustine, Albertus Magnus, St. Paul, or even +Jesus Christ. We begin to be glad that Durant had no room for an +“adequate” treatment of the Scholastics. + +Unfortunately, he does not quite drop them with the chart. In a note +“To the Reader” he refers to them as “half-legendary.” It is odd that +a school which included the leading thinker, secular or sacred, of the +Thirteenth Century, the age of Dante, should have become legendary in +the New York of 1926, from which Durant dates his book. + +Turning from legends, we come to Benedetto Croce, who, writes +Durant[215] “is a sceptic with an almost German gift for obscurity ... +an anti-clerical who writes like an American Hegelian ... an Italian +Catholic who has kept nothing of his religion except its scholasticism +and its devotion to beauty.” And lo, we are back to legend again! +“Perhaps the comparative infertility of Italy in the philosophy of +the last hundred years,” Durant goes on, “is due in some part to the +retention of scholastic attitudes and methods even by thinkers who have +abandoned the old theology.” Adding,[216] “He [Croce] is, after all, a +product of the scholastic tradition ... he is a germanized Italian.” + +Now it is quite true that, though Thomas Aquinas was a native +of the Kingdom of Naples, he studied under Albertus Magnus at +Cologne--probably during the year 1244; returned to Cologne in 1284; +and perhaps visited it several times thereafter. But both he and his +illustrious master were scholastics of the school of St. Augustine, who +died in the year 430. The one German thing about St. Augustine is that +Eucken, the German philosopher, says of him: “If our age wishes to take +up and treat in an independent way the problems of religion, it is not +so much to Schleiermacher or Kant or even Luther or St. Thomas that it +must refer as to Augustine, and outside of religion, there are points +upon which Augustine is more modern than Hegel or Schopenhauer.” + +Durant surely cannot mean that a living Italian has been “Germanized” +through having absorbed the teachings of a master who died in 1280 +and was the follower of another master, in Hippo, who died in 430. As +one of the chief tenets of Scholasticism is that the Christian creed +can be proven by reason alone without recourse to Revelation, Croce +of course had to repudiate his scholasticism, German or not, along +with his religion. All that can remain to him, if anything remains, +is a certain training of the mind. Whether he has shown the effects +of such training, or made good use of it, is a matter of opinion. +What Durant shows here is total unfamiliarity with his subject. He is +merely applying certain notions which he picked up uncritically from +unauthorative sources. But having mentioned this Scholasticism which +he seems not to have read, he goes on, _re_ Croce, to ask: “How could +an Italian be unkind to a Church that had brought all the world to +Canossa, and had levied imperial tribute on every land to make Italy +the art-gallery of the world?” + +My own rather extended acquaintance of the art-galleries of the world +has heretofore inclined me to believe that Italy has been more sinned +against than sinning in this regard--and that in Italy, itself, +such stolen masterpieces as are to be seen were largely stolen from +the Church and placed in galleries belonging to an anti-clerical +state. But perhaps I am mistaken--and mistaken also in thinking that +since 1870 the Pope has been self-imprisoned in the Vatican when in +reality he has been roaming for the (until very recently) irreligious +Italian Government abroad, stealing pictures. Or was it before 1870 +that the thieving from foreigners was done--during the days when +Italy was overrun with foreign armies, and the term Italy was a mere +“geographical expression?” Does he refer to the marble treasures of +the Vatican rescued from war and neglect in Greece and elsewhere? +Or were the thefts of a still earlier date, when most of Europe was +comparatively barbarian? I can think of one such instance. Some of +the decorations for St. Mark’s, Venice, were brought by the Venetian +merchants from the Orient--as was the body of their patron saint. + +But Durant continues: “So Italy remained loyal to the old faith, and +contented itself with the ‘Summa’ of Aquinas for philosophy.” + +When? Why, until Giambatista Vico came. He “stirred the Italian mind +again; but Vico went, and philosophy seemed to die with him. Rosmini +thought for a time that he would rebel; but he yielded. Throughout +Italy men became more and more irreligious, and more and more loyal to +the Church. Benedetto Croce (born in 1866) is an exception.”[217] + +What Durant must mean is that the more irreligious one becomes the +more loyal one naturally is to the Catholic Church. If that be true, +the Italian _Risorgimento_ (the political movement which led to the +union of Italy under an anti-clerical government) was certainly most +loyal--and it expressed its loyalty by taking the Church’s temporal +empire away from it! But in what respect was Croce an exception to this +devotion and this irreligion? + +For one thing, he was nearly killed beneath the ruins of a house at +Casamicciola during the earthquake of 1883. For another, he was “given +so thorough a training in Catholic theology that at last, to restore +the balance, he became atheist.” + +But this, apart from the training, was precisely what the +_Risorgimento_ did, so there is no exception here. The exception, +then, must lie in the fact that he did not remain loyal. He could not +get enough of the Catholic theology out of his system to be loyal to +the Catholic Church--though he could be loyal enough to imitate the +_Risorgimento_ in repudiating it! This, as Durant himself says[218] of +Croce’s philosophy in general, “is as clear as a starless night.” + +I wish to record my entire agreement with this final verdict as to the +Croce philosophy. From the most absurd premises in the world, Durant +has somehow arrived at a correct and satisfactory conclusion. + +But he does not stop here. He goes on to say that Croce “slides easily +into logical casuistry and refutes more readily than he can conclude.” +It is easy to see that Scholasticism is being held to blame here. +Durant does not like Scholasticism, and he does not like Croce. Not +that there is the slightest evidence that Durant ever read a single +scholastic author. I am merely assuming that he has. And he would like +to derive the cause of one dislike from the source of the other. So he +permits himself to use the word “casuistry” as loosely as Browne would +have us believe St. Paul used theological terms--that is, he uses it +as an old lady sitting by the fire might use it, to denote sophistry, +and sophistry to denote an unsound argument. A philosopher could never +have so forgotten the original meaning of casuistry as the art of +dealing with cases of conscience, especially when writing of Croce with +the idea that he was a scholastic. But perhaps it was the “German” +scholasticism of his subject which fogged the Durant mind at this point. + +But how explain the following? He tells of Croce becoming Minister of +Public Education and a Senator, and denouncing the World War. Then he +adds: “But Italy has forgiven him now; and all the youth of the land +look up to him as their unbiased guide, philosopher and friend.”[219] + +Had Durant but said, “The anti-fascist wing of the _Intelligencia_, +most of whom are far from young and cling to the atheistic French +Revolutionary philosophy of the _Risorgimento_, look up to Croce,” +the statement would have been true--in so far as a member of the +_Intelligencia_ may be said to look up to anybody. Every unbiased +person who has spent much time in Italy of late knows that most of the +youth of that country today look upon Mussolini, and not Croce, as +their guide, philosopher and friend. And Mussolini is a Catholic. Has +Durant never heard of the Black Shirts or of the March on Rome? + +But perhaps I am wrong in finding fault with Durant’s fondness for +catering to popular misconceptions which no doubt he shares. He +quotes his favorite Bergson as saying, “The time given to refutation +in philosophy is usually time lost. Of the many attacks directed by +the many thinkers against each other, what now remains? Nothing, or +assuredly very little. That which counts and endures is the modicum of +positive truth which each contributes.” + +One wonders how this modicum is to be discovered without criticism, and +is informed (still by Bergson) that “the true statement is of itself +able to displace the erroneous idea, and becomes, without our having +taken the trouble of refuting anyone, the best of refutations.” Is +this not saying that a garden will grow more flowers if one does not +criticise it by trying to pull up the weeds? Is it not sheer nonsense +to talk of erroneous ideas displacing themselves without anybody taking +the trouble to refute anything, when there was never a time in the +history of man when ideas, true and false, did not have to meet the +objections of the fault-finder? No; Durant assures us that Bergson +speaks with “the voice of wisdom herself,” and that when we “‘prove’ or +‘disprove’ a philosophy we are merely offering another one.” + +Merely, you understand. Then all philosophies are indifferent mixtures, +one as good as another. Here is pragmatism mixed with _laissez-faire_. +And like pragmatism (which at one and the same time holds that whatever +you think is true is indeed true for the moment and as far as you are +concerned, and that nevertheless the test of truth is the fruit it +bears), it does not understand itself. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[146] _Op. cit._, p. 83. + +[147] _Ibid._, p. 429. + +[148] _Op. cit._, p. 446. + +[149] _Op. cit._, page 71. + +[150] _Ibid._, p. 454. + +[151] _Ibid._, p. 155. + +[152] _Ibid._, p. 456. + +[153] _Op. cit._, p. 437. + +[154] _Ibid._, p. 473. + +[155] “This Believing World,” p. 298. + +[156] _Ibid._, p. 296. + +[157] _Ibid._, p. 297. + +[158] _Op. cit._, p. 300. + +[159] _Op. cit._, p. 29. + +[160] _Ibid._, pp. 29-30. + +[161] _Ibid._, p. 30. + +[162] _Op. cit._, p. 259. + +[163] _Op. cit._, pp. 259-260. + +[164] _Ibid._, p. 261. + +[165] _Op. cit._, p. 263. + +[166] _Ibid._, p. 264. + +[167] _Ibid._, p. 265. + +[168] _Op. cit._, p. 266. + +[169] _Op. cit._, p. 267. + +[170] _Ibid._, p. 267. + +[171] St. John, XIV. + +[172] “This Believing World,” p. 269. + +[173] _Ibid._, p. 271. + +[174] _Ibid._, p. 272. + +[175] _Ibid._, p. 273. + +[176] _Ibid._, p. 276. + +[177] “This Believing World,” p. 277. + +[178] _Loc. cit._ + +[179] _Ibid._ + +[180] _Op. cit._, p. 278. + +[181] _Ibid._, p. 279. + +[182] _Ibid._, p. 280. + +[183] _Op. cit._, p. 280. + +[184] _Ibid._, p. 281. + +[185] _Ibid._, p. 282. + +[186] _Ibid._, p. 284. + +[187] “The Psychology of Religious Mysticism,” p. 189. + +[188] “This Believing World,” p. 284. + +[189] “This Believing World,” p. 285. + +[190] _Op. cit._, p. 218. + +[191] _Ibid._, p. 285. + +[192] _Op. cit._, p. 287. + +[193] _Ibid._, p. 288. + +[194] _Ibid._, p. 289. + +[195] _Ibid._, p. 290. + +[196] _Op. cit._, p. 292. + +[197] _Ibid._, p. 292. + +[198] _Loc. cit._ + +[199] _Loc. cit._ + +[200] _Op. cit._, pp. 292-293. + +[201] _Loc. cit._ + +[202] _Op. cit._, p. 296. + +[203] _Op. cit._, p. 64. + +[204] _Ibid._, p. 70. + +[205] _Ibid._, p. 279. + +[206] _Ibid._, p. 274. + +[207] _Ibid._, p. 277. + +[208] _Ibid._, p. 298. + +[209] _Ibid._, pp. 298-299. + +[210] _Op. cit._, p. 299. + +[211] _Op. cit._, p. 300. + +[212] _Ibid._, p. 300. + +[213] _Ibid._, p. 301. + +[214] “The Story of Philosophy,” p. 326. + +[215] _Op. cit._, p. 507. + +[216] _Ibid._, p. 511. + +[217] _Op. cit._, p. 509. + +[218] _Ibid._, p. 316. + +[219] _Op. cit._, p. 509. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ANCIENT TEMPER + + +What now about that “modern temper,” which seeks to do away with the +romantic ideal of a world well lost for love and with the classic +ideal of austere dignity? We have followed it through many channels of +expression, and have discovered that it was well described. Of either +dignity or love it has not a shred. + +But we have discovered another thing. It is not being driven from the +old ideals by science. Or rather there are two sciences, one modern, +scientific and inspiring. The other not quite so modern in anything but +the names which it applies to itself, not quite so scientific--indeed, +no longer scientific at all. + +Its chariot comes thundering down Main street, and all are bidden to +throw themselves before it and let its wheels pass over them. One would +think it was the car of Juggernaut. But its license, when we come to +look it up, proves to have been taken out by Propaganda. + +Sometimes these propagandists descend and try to persuade us with +pleasant words. More often they prefer to threaten. Those who stand +upright before them or try to block their passage are termed morons, +or ignoramuses. To be snubbed by this new snobbery is almost like not +being in society. Yet after all, a university professor is sometimes +only a school-teacher, and not necessarily a good one. The letters +PH.D. after a man’s name do not turn him necessarily either into a +scientist or a Venerable Don Bosco. Beyond question, some of our +Misbehaviorists would have constructed better theories had they come +more in contact with other than diseased or adolescent minds. + +But why the propaganda? Why this endeavor to make man out a machine or +worse? The ancient hypothesis was that such teachings emanated from +the devil. To discuss that ancient hypothesis would take us beyond the +limits of the present volume, but it cannot be denied that it seems +rather to fit the case. Certainly the temper of these gentleman is no +newer than is the temperament of Lucifer. Among the many things which +distinguish man from the animals is this strange perversity, this +ability to sink beneath himself. + +The “modern temper” then is but the ancient temper, and like the +ancient it is of two sorts. This division also is old--as old as the +distinction between good and evil. + +Fundamentally, man never changes. I do not mean the individual man. He +may change immensely, and from having chosen to turn to the left may +turn and choose the right. But this choice has always been open before +him. + +Not even our fashions, our methods, our ways of doing things are quite +as novel as we sometimes like to think. Albertus Magnus, though he +died in 1280, laid down the principles of our cherished “experimental +method,”--and they were already old. Says Fenelon, “If an enlightened +man were to gather from the books of St. Augustine the sublime +truths which this great man has scattered at random therein, such a +composition ... would be far superior to Descartes’ ‘Meditations.’” +That takes us back to before the year 430--and wisdom then was far from +being a child. There is going on about us all the while a systematic +falsification of history so that the present may seem to stand upon an +isolated pedestal, or rest like a tumbleweed upon a heap of sand, or +like a thistledown to float seemingly upon nothing. Probably this sort +of thing, too, is coeval with the dawn of human life. + +Pyrrho, the Greek philosopher, who attained fame from having made the +remark that “nothing is more one thing than it is another,”--in other +words that black is no blacker than is white nor white whiter than +black--Pyrrho died 270 years before Christ. He voiced the “modern +temper” of his day as Watson and Freud voice it in ours. For we have +seen that Psycho-Analysis and Behaviorism spring from the same root. It +makes little difference to what we are slaves, whether to reflexes or +passions. If there be but one stuff, it is the same stuff whether we +call it spirit or matter. No man ever yet succeeded in thinking of an +abstract triangle, let alone an impersonal God. + +So, of old time as today, reason was Psyche’s good servant but a sorry +master. Then, as now, reason died with the fool who said in his heart, +“There is no God.” Then as now Wisdom cried, not in the class-room but +in the streets, and had its being in that Love--“_che muove il sole e +l’altre stelle_”--which moves the sun in heaven and all the stars. + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + + - Italics represented by _underscores_. + + - Small caps converted to ALL CAPS. + + - Footnotes renumbered consecutively and relocated to the end of each + chapter. + + - Obvious typographic and grammatical errors silently corrected. + + - Variations in hyphenation and spelling kept as in the original. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77481 *** diff --git a/77481-h/77481-h.htm b/77481-h/77481-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb9cd2b --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/77481-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11043 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + The Misbehaviorists | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; 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margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} +.transnote h2 { margin: 1em auto; } + +.title-page { border: 2px solid; max-width: 36em; } +.inner-box { border: 1px solid; margin: 3px; padding: 1em 2em; } +.t0 { margin-top: 2em; font-size: 150%; letter-spacing: .1em; } +.t1 { font-size: 200%; letter-spacing: .2em; } +.t2 { font-size: 110%; word-spacing: .2em; margin-top: 1em; } +.t3 { margin-top: 3em; } +.t4 { font-size: 150%; letter-spacing: .1em; margin-top: .25em; } +.ti { margin: 4em auto; } +.t5, .t6 { font-size: 110%; word-spacing: .2em; } +.t7 { font-size: 90%; word-spacing: .2em; } + +.t8 { font-size: 110%; } +.c1 { margin-top: .5em; } +.c2 { margin-top: 20em; font-size: 70%; letter-spacing: .22em; word-spacing: .34em; } +.c3 { font-size: 70%; letter-spacing: .2em; word-spacing: .25em; } + +.dedication { margin: 10em auto; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.8em; + word-spacing: .4em; } + +.half-title { margin: 5em auto; font-size: 150%; font-weight: bold; } + +p.drop-cap { + text-indent: -0.4em; +} +p.drop-cap:first-letter { + float: left; + margin: 0.06em 0.1em 0em 0em; + font-size: 500%; + line-height: 0.75em; +} +.x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap { + text-indent: 0em; /* restore default */ +} +.x-ebookmaker-2 p.drop-cap:first-letter { + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%; +} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp49 {width: 49%;} +.illowp20 {width: 20%;} +.illowp50 {width: 50%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77481 ***</div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp49" id="cover" style="max-width: 153.125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Book cover"> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> + + +<h1> +THE<br> +MISBEHAVIORISTS +</h1> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p> +</div> + +<div class='poetry-container'> +<div class='title-page'> +<div class='inner-box'> +<p class="center t0">THE</p> +<p class='center t1'>MISBEHAVIORISTS</p> + +<p class="center t2">PSEUDO-SCIENCE<br> +AND THE MODERN TEMPER</p> + +<p class="center t3">BY</p> +<p class='center t4'>HARVEY WICKHAM</p> + +<div class='ti'> +<figure class="figcenter illowp20" id="colophon" style="max-width: 26.375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/colophon.jpg" alt="Publisher's Colophon"> +</figure> +</div> + +<p class="center t5">NEW YORK</p> +<p class='center t6'>LINCOLN MAC VEAGH · THE DIAL PRESS</p> +<p class='center t7'>LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY</p> +<p class='center t7'>TORONTO</p> +<p class='center t8'>1928</p> +</div></div></div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span></p> +</div> + +<p class='center c1'> + COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY DIAL PRESS INCORPORATED</p> + +<p class='center c2'> + MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> +<p class='center c3'> + BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span></p> +</div> + +<p class='center dedication'><span class='allsmcap'> + TO ALL ENQUIRING MINDS, AND TO THOSE<br> + DISTURBED BY THE APPARENT LOGIC IN<br> + MANY CURRENT THEORIES HOSTILE TO<br> + THEIR DEAREST CONVICTIONS, THIS<br> + BOOK IS DEDICATED</span> +</p> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + + +<table class='toc'> +<tr> +<td class='tdlh' colspan='2'><span class="smcap"><a href='#CHAPTER_I'>Chapter I</a>—The Modern Temper</span></td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_13'>13</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdlh' colspan='2'> +<span class="smcap"><a href='#CHAPTER_II'>Chapter II</a>—Behaviorism from the Standpoint +of a Psychologist</span></td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>1.</td> +<td class='tdl'>The Missing Mr. Mind</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>2.</td> +<td class='tdl'>An Undecided Synapse</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_35'>35</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>3.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Eliza Does not Cross the Ice</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>4.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Tinks! Tinks! Kwaks! Kwaks!</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_54'>54</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdlh' colspan='2'> +<span class="smcap"><a href='#CHAPTER_III'>Chapter III</a>—Dr. McDougall’s X</span> +</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_67'>67</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>1.</td> +<td class='tdl'>At the Beck of Thirteen Masters</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_67'>67</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>2.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Psyche Wields the Broom</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_79'>79</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdlh' colspan='2'> +<span class="smcap"><a href='#CHAPTER_IV'>Chapter IV</a>—A Slave to Dreams</span></td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_88'>88</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>1.</td> +<td class='tdl'>The Confessions of Sigmund Freud</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_88'>88</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>2.</td> +<td class='tdl'>The Elaboration of a Fiction</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_104'>104</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>3.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Two Oft-Thwarted Passions</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_108'>108</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>4.</td> +<td class='tdl'>More Suppositions</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_117'>117</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>5.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Freud the Metaphysician</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_129'>129</a></td> +</tr> + + +<tr> +<td class='tdlh' colspan='2'> +<span class="smcap"><a href='#CHAPTER_V'>Chapter V</a>—The Fairy Halls of Science</span></td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_139'>139</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>1.</td> +<td class='tdl'>The Idols of the Tribe</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_139'>139</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>2.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Some Nebulous Matters</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_150'>150</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>3.</td> +<td class='tdl'>The Bed of Procrustes</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_159'>159</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>4. </td> +<td class='tdl'>The New Physics</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_164'>164</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>5.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Chance</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_174'>174</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdlh' colspan='2'> +<span class="smcap"><a href='#CHAPTER_VI'>Chapter VI</a>—The Family Tree</span></td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_186'>186</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>1.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Are Monkeys People?</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_186'>186</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>2.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Burbanking the Human Race</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_201'>201</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>3.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Salvation by Who’s Who</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_213'>213</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdlh' colspan='2'> +<span class="smcap"><a href='#CHAPTER_VII'>Chapter VII</a>—This Unbelieving World</span></td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_225'>225</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>1.</td> +<td class='tdl'>Dorsey</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_225'>225</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>2.</td> +<td class='tdl'>The Brazen Bough</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_242'>242</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>3.</td> +<td class='tdl'>St. Paul as Scapegoat</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_258'>258</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>4.</td> +<td class='tdl'>The Church as Scapegoat</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_267'>267</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdr'>5.</td> +<td class='tdl'>The Stories of Duran</td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_280'>280</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdlh' colspan='2'> +<span class="smcap"><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'>Chapter VIII</a>—The Ancient Temper</span></td> +<td class='tdp'><a href='#Page_292'>292</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"> + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + </h2> +</div> + +<table class='loi'> +<tr> +<th class='tdl'><span class='allsmcap'>PORTRAIT OF</span></th> +<th class='tdr'><span class='allsmcap'>TO FACE PAGE</span></th> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdl'><span class="smcap">Dr. John Watson</span></td> +<td class='tdr'><a href='#i_057'>56</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdq' colspan='2'>“Give me the baby”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdl'><span class="smcap">Professor William McDougall</span></td> +<td class='tdr'><a href='#i_077'>74</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdq' colspan='2'>Are we trying to say something?</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdl'><span class="smcap">Dr. Sigmund Freud</span></td> +<td class='tdr'><a href='#i_109'>104</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdq' colspan='2'>He tells us his dreams</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdl'><span class="smcap">Albert Edward Wiggam</span></td> +<td class='tdr'><a href='#i_209'>202</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdq' colspan='2'>The Devil take the hindmost!</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdl'><span class="smcap">Dr. George A. Dorsey</span></td> +<td class='tdr'><a href='#i_247'>238</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdq' colspan='2'>“We do not use the brains we have”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdl'><span class="smcap">Lewis Browne</span></td> +<td class='tdr'><a href='#i_261'>250</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdq' colspan='2'>Stranger than fiction</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class='tdl'><span class="smcap">Will Durant</span></td> +<td class='tdr'><a href='#i_293'>280</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class='tdq' colspan='2'>Almost an institution</td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span></p> +</div> + + <p class='center half-title' id="THE_MISBEHAVIORISTS"> + THE<br>MISBEHAVIORISTS + </p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span></p> +</div> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I"> + CHAPTER I + <br> + THE MODERN TEMPER + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class='drop-cap'><span class='allcap'>The</span> past appears to be dead.</p> + +<p>“If the world of poetry, mythology and religion +represents the world as man would like to +have it, while science represents the world as he gradually +comes to discover it, we need only compare the two to +realize how irreconcilable they appear,” says Joseph Wood +Krutch, associate editor of <i>The Nation</i> and the author +of a biography of Poe, writing in <i>The Atlantic Monthly</i> +for February, 1927. “The romantic ideal of a world well +lost for love, and the classic ideal of austere dignity seem +equally ridiculous, equally meaningless when referred, +not to the temper of the past, but the temper of the present.”</p> + +<p>Hilaire Belloc is equally insistent as to the existence +of this modern temper, for he remarks in the course of +some “Cheerful Thoughts on Christmas.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>“I think it foolish to disguise from ourselves the plain +fact that, in the societies which abandoned the Faith in +the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the last supports +of Christian doctrine are breaking down very rapidly indeed. +Of the doctrines themselves there is little left ... +while the minority, which still feel some attachment to +some few of these doctrines, feel that attachment in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>decreasing degree and more and more as a vague, dissolving +sentiment; less and less as a principle.</p> + +<p>“The old feeling that the doctrines were sacred and intangible, +and that attack upon them was intolerable, has +so utterly passed that the modern generation does not even +understand it.... There has been hardly any defense, +hardly any resistance; the last remainder of the creed +... has been allowed to slip away unnoticed like the +last few coins of a fortune dissipated by a man so debauched +as to have lost his memory.”</p> + +<p>Both Belloc and Krutch, it will be observed, agree that +the world has changed—that is, that the popular idea as +to what life really is, has changed. They differ only as to +the sentiment with which the mass of the population are +supposed to regard the alterations which have taken place +in the view. Belloc, who is a Catholic, believes that Protestants +at least are quite satisfied to have lost the world of +“poetry, mythology and religion”; have in fact “allowed +it to slip away unnoticed.” Krutch, the radical editor, +suggests that there has been a struggle, that science has +forced man to give up the world as he would like to have +it and to accept the world as he has gradually come to +discover it—not by making the lost world undesirable, +but by making it seem ridiculous and without actuality.</p> + +<p>Krutch, I think, is right, in so far as the vast majority +are concerned. They have resisted, Protestants as well +as Catholics, and many who are neither Catholic nor +Protestant but merely lovers of tradition and of the +classic ideal of austere dignity and of the romantic ideal +of a world well lost for love. They have struggled. They +still struggle. But there is an ever increasing demand from +some quarters that the struggle be given up in despair.</p> + +<p>Now if science indeed represents the world as man +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>gradually comes to discover it—that is, if science represents +the world as it is; and if the testimony of scientists +as to the nature of this reality be fairly uniform and uncontradictory, +with a growing unanimity promising to +bring an eventual unison out of such discords as may +still exist, then the only thing for the sensible citizen to do +is to let the dead past bury its dead, turn from the grave +with as little moaning as possible, and adapt himself with +all speed to changed conditions. The advice, “Do it +now!” is being hurled at him. Why should he not heed it? +Nobody wants to be a mere reactionary, still less to live +in a fool’s paradise.</p> + +<p>But does science represent the world as the world really +is? Can we say that there is any likelihood of the scientific +picture being more photographically perfect than is, or +was, the romantic picture? Are scientists in agreement, so +that there is little or no choice or opinion offered? Are +their theories themselves logically consistent? What, precisely, +is science? And finally, have its findings been faithfully +reported to us?</p> + +<p>These are some of the questions which this book attempts +to answer. But before plunging merrily into such +a task it may be well to pause and consider yet further the +testimony of Belloc. He may be mistaken as to people in +general, but he is almost incredibly correct in regard to a +small but very influential body of conspicuous persons +who may be described as the Materialistic Philosophers. +Scientists some of them call themselves, and scientists +they are—of a sort. But as they permit themselves to be +perpetually hag-ridden by questions of eschatology—doctrines +relating to that ultimate dim Thule towards +which the whole creation does or does not move—philosophy +is what they chiefly have to offer, no matter by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>what other name they seek to give it a more modern and +therefore presumably sweeter odor.</p> + +<p>The ultimate nature of things engrosses them, and just +how little they struggle against the threatened loss of a +world of poetry, mythology and religion may be seen by +a quotation taken at random, or, to be more specific, from +“The Mechanist Conception of Life,” by a veritable general +in the materialistic army, Prof. Jacques Loeb, formerly +of the University of California.</p> + +<p>“Our wishes and hopes, disappointments and sufferings,” +he says, “have their source in the instincts which +are comparable to the light instincts of the heliotropic +animals.”</p> + +<p>A tropism, it should perhaps be explained for the benefit +of the older generation, is a tendency to move toward +or away from any external object, the operation being +carried out by means of chemical and mechanical changes +within the subject. Thus the heliotrope, which always +strives to turn towards the sun, got its name. It is said to +be positively tropic to light. Prof. Loeb, however, seems +to be negatively tropic in this regard, for he continues:</p> + +<p>“The need of the struggle for food, the sexual instinct +with its poetry and its chain of consequences, the maternal +instincts with the felicity and the suffering caused by +them ... are the roots from which our inner life develops. +For some of these instincts, the chemical basis is +at least sufficiently indicated to arouse the hope that their +analysis from the mechanistic point of view is only a +question of time.”</p> + +<p>“Hope,” he says. The second of the virtues, once set +between Faith and Charity, is here involved to express the +author’s reaction to the prospect that some day all the +movements of the inner life may be reduced to the level of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>so many warping planks exposed to variations in humidity +and to changing temperatures. The modern temper, as it +exists in the minds of those who seek to create and control +it, certainly seems to have become emotionally adjusted +to an abandonment of the classic idea of dignity. +Heretofore man has based his pride chiefly upon his intelligence, +the freedom of his will, his possession of a +soul, and his conviction that he was made in the image +of God. But according to the materialists, no mind, no +will, no soul exists, and God is merely the “behavior of +the universe.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>“There is no such thing as mind in the old sense of the +word,” says J. B. Eggen.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> And what is it in the new sense +of the word? “It cannot be considered as ... separate +from the body,” Mr. Eggen goes on. Is it the brain, then—the +brain in the old sense of the word? By no means. +“The mind is not a thing with which we react, it is a form +of reaction. We do not think with our brain; there is nothing +inside the brain but a lot of neurones.”</p> + +<p>The mind cannot be considered as separate from the +body, neither do we think without brain. With what, then, +do we think? Obviously we do not think at all in the old +sense of the word. Thinking, we are about to be told, is +only a collection of motions. And he who “thinks” the +theory cannot be made plausible has yet to read Eggen’s +illustrious masters. But is this science? That same science +which has transformed the appearance of the world and +given us the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the +automobile, the electric light, the air-plane, radio, and +television? We shall see.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p> + +<p>“The Approaching Crisis” would seem to be well +named, and in it Mr. Wieman, who is also the author of +“Religious Experience and the Scientific Method,” informs +us that the decline of religion has been largely due +to its “inadequate adjustment to scientific method and +discovery.” Adding, “At the present time it is research in +the field of psychology and sociology which is demanding +a transformation in our thinking,”—that is, in our notions. +Psychology is unquestionably the most popular +form of that “challenge to fundamental beliefs” of which +so much is heard. And Dr. John B. Watson, editor of the +<i>Journal of Experimental Psychology</i>, and formerly Professor +of Psychology at Johns Hopkins, makes all former +challenges seem weak, for he says—in the first chapter of +his “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist”:</p> + +<p>“Psychology, up to very recent times, has been held so +rigidly under the dominance both of traditional religion +and of philosophy—the two great bulwarks of medievalism—that +it has never been able to free itself and become +a science.... In the late sixties an attempt was made” +to make it such. “The boast was voiced that psychology +... had become a science without a soul—that is, a +natural science.” But “notwithstanding the many laboratories +here and abroad, it has never been able to substantiate +this claim.... The psychology begun by Wundt +has failed to become a science,”—apparently because some +remnants of soul still cling to it. And Dr. Watson concludes, +“Before progress could be made in astronomy, +it had to bury astrology; neurology had to bury phrenology; +and chemistry had to bury alchemy. But the +social sciences, psychology, sociology, political science and +economics, will not bury their medicine men.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span></p> + +<p>He is speaking, of course, of psychology prior to Dr. +Watson, of the psychology of Wundt, which resulted in +the Binet intelligence tests. This in its day was considered +a very materialistic psychology indeed, superseding the +psychology of the William James or the Herbert Spencer +type, which also in its day voiced the boast that it was a +science, tough, and without bowels of compassion. How +rapidly we progress. James lived until 1910, Spencer until +1903. It was not until 1912, when, according to Dr. Watson, +“behaviorism first showed its head,” that the burying +of the medicine men began. And two years later came the +War! The boast can now be voiced without fear of contradiction +that psychology has no soul.</p> + +<p>Still if it be true science, and if science be but another +name for reality, I for one am going to get at the burying +of my own medicine men without further delay. I notice a +considerable amount of such burying going on about me. +Men are hurrying with the work as if afraid of being +caught with a corpse or two on their hands and undisposed +of. A sort of terror is stalking through the land, +afflicting especially the writers of books and magazine +articles—the terror of not being able to keep up with the +Joneses in their employment of the undertaker. The famous +Experimental Method, but late a fugitive, hounded +from hole to corner and from corner to hole, has found +influence and capital. It wields a big stick, or at least a big +stick is being wielded in its name.</p> + +<p>It was once said, “Wisdom crieth in the streets, How +long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity?” And now a +voice, still purporting to be Wisdom’s, fairly yells: +“Bring us your dead!” One would think that a pestilence +was abroad. Possibly there is. Formerly men bowed down +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>to the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up, +or cast their babes before the car of Juggernaut. Today +they would rather die, some of them, than be found obstructing +the wheels of progress. Science, grown rich, has +acquired such prestige as was once accorded only to +Cæsar.</p> + +<p>And no wonder. It has given us Copernicus, Galileo, +Galvani, Volta, Faraday, Pasteur, the Curies, Edison, +Marconi, Westinghouse, Burbank, and thousands of +others—men for the most part personally poor, but adding +without measure to the material wealth of the world. If all +these men are back of the big stick; if it be they who bid +us give up our God, our souls, wills and even our minds, +ordering us to become accustomed to the idea that we are +but machines—and if in doing so they are sticking to their +business and not wandering off into fields they have failed +to make their own, it might (perhaps) be folly to disobey.</p> + +<p>But let us first make certain as to whose voice is on the +air. We have, all of us, a few more or less cherished beliefs. +We have grown up leaning upon—call them props +and crutches if you will. Some of us have even been +riveted to moral scruples which, when we try to go in a +direction they forbid, dog us with the clanking hinderance +of a ball and chain. We doubt if we could continue to +be good citizens without them. We do not even know if +good citizens, in the old sense of the word, are any longer +desired. Without our props we are likely simply to fall—and +we have never yet seen people walking upright without +props of some sort. We actually doubt the advisability +of trying to progress on all fours.</p> + +<p>There are new props, better than the old? Good! Let us +see them. Let us test them, and make sure that they be +indeed from science’s own workshop. And having mentioned +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>the Watson brand of artificial limb, we may as well +begin by experimenting with that, finding out by what +still waters and into what green pastures we may wander +with its aid.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3 id="FOOTNOTES"> + FOOTNOTES: +</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>America</i>, December, 4, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> “The Approaching Crisis,” by Henry Nelson Wieman, teacher +of philosophy at Occidental College, Los Angeles, <i>Century Magazine</i>, +November, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> <i>Current History</i>, September, 1926.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II"> + CHAPTER II + <br> + BEHAVIORISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF + A PSYCHOLOGIST + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>1. THE MISSING MR. MIND</h3> + +<p class='drop-cap'><span class='allcap'>Dr. Watson</span> practically begins his best known +book, “Psychology from the Standpoint of a +Behaviorist,” with the statement that he is not +concerned with problems of consciousness. And one at +first understands him to mean that in his capacity of behaviorist +he is not concerned with problems of this sort. +He knows as a human being, one supposes, that he is +alive. He does not, presumably, address his books to people +in a state of coma. So it would seem that, as a man, he +is concerned not only with his own consciousness but +with the consciousness of others; that he is like the judge +who knew something when off the Bench but refused to +know it when on.</p> + +<p>As we read, however, this kindly interpretation becomes +untenable.</p> + +<p>“Consciousness ... is but an indefinable phrase.... +Even if [objective proofs of consciousness] existed, +they would exist as isolated, unmeasurable ‘mental curiosities.’... +The behaviorist finds no evidence for ‘mental +existences’ or ‘mental processes’ of any kind.... If +behaviorism is ever to stand for anything ... it must +make a clean break with the whole concept of consciousness.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>Our thinking processes “are not different in essence +from tennis-playing, swimming, or any other activity.... +Meaning ... never arises in the scientific observation +of behavior.”</p> + +<p>Thus far he goes in this one book. In a previous volume⁠<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +he merely concluded that “one can assume either +the presence or absence of consciousness ... without +affecting the problems of behavior by one jot or one +tittle.” But in “The Myth of the Unconscious”⁠<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> he throws +subterfuge to the winds and says plainly:</p> + +<p>“The behaviorist finds no ‘mind’ in his laboratories, +sees it nowhere in his subjects ... if the behaviorists +are right, then ... <i>there can be no such thing as consciousness</i>.”</p> + +<p>Why? Because “personality ... is the reaction-mass +as a whole.” Can you put marbles in a bag and shake +them till the mass of their reactions becomes aware of +itself? Obviously not. Accepting for the sake of argument +the definition of personality as it appears from the Watson +“standpoint,”—there is no argument. Logic leads +us straight into nothing. This is also the conclusion of +J. S. Moore, who contends that <i>content</i> when accented +upon the first syllable signifies merely <i>context</i>—not the +thing inside (there is no thing inside) but the things +around it. Which makes it clear that I have been guilty +of gross presumption in even trying to attach meaning +to “psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist.”</p> + +<p>This may sound like an attempt to be funny, to make +cheap humor out of random extracts from a book half +or not at all understood, but whether I understand psychology +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>from the standpoint of a behaviorist or not, I +was never more serious in my life. Not only Dr. Watson +but many other adult men are solemnly asking us with +perfectly straight faces if we dare to call not our souls +but ourselves our own. And if we nod an affirmative, they +smile in their beards, and imply that we must have lacked +early advantages.</p> + +<p>But it will be urged it cannot be that so large a number +of university professors have gone mad. They must have +some way of deceiving themselves. And indeed they have. +Metaphysics has been defined as the art of befuddling +one’s self methodically, and of metaphysics of this sort +none are so fond as those who decry metaphysics altogether. +“Reaction-mass as a whole” sounds like a reasonable +expression, does it not? Abstractions always do. And +yet reactions can have no mass. They are only movements, +not the things which move. Try and get any meat out of +a movement and see what you have for dinner.</p> + +<p>But these fallacies do not usually travel alone. Watsonianism +in particular is fond of the company of facts. +It mixes up Behaviorism, as a mere study of behavior, in +a vast confusion of Psychology, Physiology, Ethics and +irreligion. It seeks now to blind us with passion, now to +swamp us in detail—lest we remember what we are talking +about.</p> + +<p>Thus Dr. Watson’s great book bristles with facts—pages +and pages of them taken straight from physiology. +He divides our bodies into three groups of parts, according +to function—receptors, conductors and effectors. The +receptors receive impressions from the outer world and +are nothing but our old friends, the five senses—eyes, +ears, nose, the taste-buds of the tongue, and those areas +(chiefly of cuticle) which are sensitive to touch. The conductors +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>are the nerves. The effectors, or the bringers about +of effects, are the muscles and glands. Now the glands, +at least those of the endocrine or ductless variety, are comparatively +new-comers in the world of knowledge. But the +other things are as familiar as doctors’ bills. There have +been changes in nomenclature, nothing more.</p> + +<p>Yet these changes are significant. Receptors take the +place of the senses because (in all seriousness) the behaviorist +wishes to get rid of that hateful word “sense” +and its implications. A similar motive must have been +active when it came to naming the secretions from the +ductless glands. They used to be called Hormones, meaning +“I stir up.” This no doubt was objectionable, because +some of the hormones do not stir us up; they quiet us +down. Dr. Watson knows them all as autocoids, which has +the advantage of being non-committal in this regard. +What is more to the point, it implies something automatic. +Let us see how they work.</p> + +<p>But right here we are met by a lack of knowledge. The +secretions from only a few of the endocrines (notably +andrenin and thyroxin) have as yet been isolated and +analyzed. But there is good reason for believing that they +regulate, to a certain extent at least, not only the ductless +glands among themselves but (through the sympathetic +nerves) the action of the unstriped muscles which control +the stomach, intestines and various other unconscious +or vegetative processes.</p> + +<p>Autocoidal secretion seems to be very much at the +beck and call of our emotions, or else our emotions are +very much at the beck and call of our autocoids; but +whether you hitch the cart before the horse or the horse +before the cart, the believer in human freedom need be +no more alarmed over the autocoids than he is over the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>fact that drugs have certain effects when taken into the +system. It was known even in the ages of faith that a +man was not quite himself after partaking too freely even +of a drug so charmingly outward mannered as is alcohol.</p> + +<p>The behaviorism of the autocoids is more obscure. +They become conspicuous chiefly by their absence. Thus +the removal of the parathyroids (part of the thyroid apparatus +situated on either side of the larynx and windpipe) +produces convulsions. Its autocoid is therefore believed +to be of a restraining type. The removal of the thyroids +themselves produces cretinism, and thyroxin, their +active principle (it is sixty percent iodine) was isolated +only recently by E. C. Kendall, of the Mayo Foundation. +Suprarenal extract (from the suprarenal apparatus near +the kidneys) aids in recovery from fatigue.</p> + +<p>As to the pituitary apparatus at the base of the brain, +“gigantism is supposed to be due to an overactive anterior +lobe; obesity and sexual infantilism to the lack of secretion +of the posterior lobe.” (Watson.) The thymus gland +(in the neck near the thyroids) is believed by Dr. Walter +Timme to be linked with the pineal (which is a part of +the brain structure) in a related system dominating the +life cycle from birth to puberty. If the function of the +pineal is disturbed in children, “there is a rapid development +of the reproductive organs, precocity, and an increased +growth of skeleton. It is thus supposed that this +gland furnishes an inhibitory autocoid.” (Watson.)</p> + +<p>To the absence of the puberty gland (also called the +interstitial, and endocrine not to be confounded with the +gonads, or true sex cells, to which is entrusted the reproductive +function)—to the absence of the puberty gland +is attributed the observed effects of castration, and “there +is a growing tendency on the part of investigators ... +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>to believe that man is as old as his glands.” Therefore, +“since the remaining glands apparently cannot stay youthful +in the absence of a sufficient output from the puberty +glands, it is only natural to connect senescence or old +age with the decline in the output from this gland.” +(Watson.) Hence all the experiments in rejuvenation, the +transplantation of glands from monkeys and goats, made +from the days of Brown-Sequard (famous about the year +1889) down to those made by Steinach, Voronoff and +many others of the present time. Thus the simian becomes +our “glandcestor,” so to speak, whether he be our forbear +or not.</p> + +<p>But let us take leave of all this physiology and observe +what sort of psychology we can get from our +receptors, conductors and effectors under experimental +conditions.</p> + +<p>For convenience sake, the behaviorist calls whatever +happens to the victim of an experiment the “stimulus” or +“situation,” and whatever the victim does in consequence +the “response.” So we will imagine that a stimulus of +some sort, say the spectacle of Eliza crossing the ice, impinges +upon a receptor—in this case the retina. Physically, +this is a light stimulus, and for a brief instant Eliza +may be said to be all in your eye. But a conductor (the +optic nerve) takes the matter up and transmits an impulse +(in the form of a “wave of chemical decomposition”) +to the brain. Here it encounters a lot of cells, called neurones. +If J. B. Eggen be right in saying that “there is +nothing inside the brain but a lot of neurones,” it could +not well encounter anything else.</p> + +<p>A neurone under the microscope looks somewhat like a +bush which has been pulled up by the roots. The ball of +earth adhering to it represents the nucleus, or brain-cell +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>proper. The branches are called dendrites, and in the +human body they extend from sometimes less than a +millimeter to sometimes more than a yard in length—in +the latter case becoming what the layman usually means +when he says “nerves.” Each nucleus possesses several, +often a great number, and it is through these dendrites +that it receives the neural, or nervous, impulse which it +passes on through its axone to the next cell. There should +be a small tap-root to our bush, terminating in brush-like +fibres, to represent this axone. Usually there is but one to +a cell, though it may send off collaterals.</p> + +<p>We have many millions of these neurones, each one +complicated beyond belief if examined in detail. But let +us not venture too far into that awful tangle of vaguely +definable structures where even the neurologist gropes +with difficulty, and about which he is constrained to make +his tentative conclusions with bated breath. But it may be +well to note that neurones are of three sorts. Let us call +them receiving neurones, association neurones, and sending +neurones; and let us liken them to three lines of soldiers, +the receivers busily getting information from No +Man’s Land, the associators passing it on to the senders +operating the artillery. Receptors, conductors and effectors +again. But out of fairness to Dr. Watson it should +be said that he calls them nothing of the sort. In fact, +he thinks that “entirely too much” has been made of the +association neurone, and “of the whole localization of +function.” The brain is not popular with behaviorists +anywhere, for sometimes it shows a tendency to upset +their most cherished theories.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless the brain is there, and Eliza is crossing +the ice. The brain sees her. How? Through its receiving +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>neurones. A soldier out in No Man’s Land holds a camera +(the eye) in his hand, or dendrite, and takes her picture, +which he transfers to his other hand, or axone, +ready to pass on. It is like one of these very modern +pictures sent by telegraph, for all he receives or passes +on is a series of shocks, or “waves of chemical decomposition.” +The effect would be the same if the soldiers communicated +by means of hand-clasps, a Morse code of +squeezes or taps,—something like that.</p> + +<p>The second soldier (association neurone) having possessed +himself of the picture, relays it in turn to the third—one +who is in touch with the guns, which in this case +are the muscles and glands. The truth, of course, is not +quite so simple as this. There are probably nine billion +neurones to begin with, each supplied with numerous +arms. Any association neurone appears to be able to get +in touch with every other neurone in either of the other +two classes, and even the simplest picture or bit of information +must manifest itself in an unconscionable +number of waves or impulses, each one quite meaningless +in itself. What a wild tumult of activity must be +taking place within us when the battle outside waxes +hot!</p> + +<p>Nor are all the observation posts outside. Many are +within the body. And from the data which they all transmit +emotions and coördinate actions are born—at least +so behaviorists would have us believe. The striped muscles +twitch, and bones are jerked about. The unstriped +muscles are stimulated to action, and the viscera are affected. +The ductless glands increase their secretions, or +suspend them. This, say the behaviorists, is what makes +us brave; or cowardly; wild with rage or tender with love. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>Our bowels of compassion are moved. Perhaps we have +no stomach for a fight. If we run away the vulgar will +declare that we have no guts.</p> + +<p>But we cannot always be thinking of neurones individually, +so we think of them in chains. When two get in +touch with each other (through the axone of the one and +the dendrite of the other) the connection is called a synapse. +When the chain includes all three sorts of neurones, +it is called a reflex arc.</p> + +<p>A reflex is what happens when you strike the patellar +tendon of the knee with the side of your hand, with a +tack-hammer, or with what Dr. Watson prefers to call +“a percussion hammer.” The leg registers a kick, because +the blow sets up a wave of chemical decomposition in the +dendrites of the receiving neurones which are nearest concerned; +the wave passes to certain association neurones, +and by them is passed to the kicking (striped) muscle. +That is, it passes through a reflex arc, one of the several +reflex arcs which are already in working order when we +are born. Which means that the association neurones here +involved have somehow already been educated to relay +all despatches to the neurones which operate the kick—and +to none other. So this reflex arc is called “unconditioned,” +and the stimulus which sets it in motion is said +to be a “natural” stimulus. An unconditioned reflex is +practically a tropism. Prof. Loeb ordered it to get busy +and account for all behavior, human and other. It fell +down on the job. We have not, it seems, enough knee and +similar jerks to enable us to write a Ninth Symphony +with their aid alone. Some other trifle was needed.</p> + +<p>Dr. Watson says he has it—in the conditioned reflex. +It is possible, we find, to get a reflex to respond to a +stimulus which is not its “natural” stimulus. Food, for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>example, is the natural stimulus of the reflex arc operating +the salivary glands. The mouth waters when we begin +to eat. But the Russian, Pavlov, bored holes in the cheeks +of a dog, brought the salivary ducts into the open, and +discovered that not only would the dog’s mouth water at +the contact of food, but that it would water at the mere +sight of food. Then he rang a bell for several days at +feeding time, and had the satisfaction eventually of seeing +the dog’s mouth begin to water when the bell was +rung and no food was anywhere about.</p> + +<p>Prof. Lashley, of the Hopkins Laboratory, has since +invented an instrument which can be fastened to the inside +of the cheek by means of suction, so that the secretions +may be led to a tube without a surgical operation—which +is a convenience when the victim is human. He has +thus ascertained how many drops per minute was the +normal slaver, and that chocolate in the (human) subject’s +hand increased it from three to five times; the smell +of chocolate, five times; chocolate brought to the lips, nine +times. “It may be said,” observes Bertrand Russell⁠<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> “that +modern psychology consists of the discovery by the professors +of what everybody else has always known.”</p> + +<p>Yet it must be confessed that we did not know the +number of drops of saliva which lay behind the licking +of our chops in the presence of something good, or that +the sight and smell of chocolate were “unnatural” or “substituted” +stimuli—still less that the substitution of unnatural +for natural stimuli was both the foundation and +superstructure of “education.”</p> + +<p>But we know now that we can obtain the knee-jerk +by blowing a whistle, or cause the iris to contract at the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>smell of asafœtida. We have but to flash a bright light +every time the herb is introduced into the vicinity; or +(if I may use such old-fashioned language), associate +whistles with percussion hammers in the “mind” of the +subject.</p> + +<p>Association is all it is. If you have learned to expect +to be blinded by radiance every time you get a whiff +of asafœtida, your eyes will begin to protect themselves +even in the dark. If the sound of a whistle leads you to +anticipate a blow on the patellar tendon, your leg will fly +forward—at least theoretically. To get practical results, +this education must begin very early.</p> + +<p>But I have used the words “mind,” “expect,” “anticipate,” +and many expressions which imply conscious intelligence. +In behaviorism all these are barred. The new +stimuli are said to be “grafted” on the old stimuli, not +upon the consciousness. All that can be said, then, is that +when two stimuli, one natural and one unnatural, happen +at the same time on a sufficient number of occasions, the +reflex becomes conditioned so that it will do its stuff when +the unnatural stimulus happens alone.</p> + +<p>One other item and the mechanical foundation of psychology +from the standpoint of a behaviorist will be +complete. There are certain reflexes called “emotional reflexes.” +These are the things we do when we are afraid, +angry, or in love—for Dr. Watson traces all emotions +back to one of these three. Some go further, lump fear and +anger together, and give us an emotional outfit reducable +to likes and dislikes.</p> + +<p>The new-born babe, Dr. Watson tells us, is afraid of +nothing but loud noises and the sudden loss of physical +support. These, then, are the natural stimuli of fear. +Nothing but restraint makes him angry. Restraint, therefore, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>is the natural stimulus of fury. To prove it, the behaviorist +drops a baby face downwards on a pillow, and +notes that it clenches its hands as if in the attempt to grab +something to prevent itself from falling. He hammers on +an iron bar behind the infant ear, and observes that there +is crying and shrinking away. He grips the little arms, and +a struggle ensues.</p> + +<p>As to love, Dr. Watson is not so clear. In one place he +speaks of the reaching out of the baby arms as being prophetic +of the nuptial embrace. In another he describes the +natural love stimulus as a stroking of the erogenous zones. +These zones, to be blunt, are the genitals, the breasts, the +anal region and certain other portions of the surface of +the body especially sensitive to touch. Perhaps there are +two sorts of love, the active and the passive; just as there +may be two sorts of dislike, shrinking fear and self-assertive +rage. The former professor of psychology at +Johns Hopkins can hardly be blamed for not making it +plain. He is not the first who has been obfuscated by love.</p> + +<p>But whatever love may be, the love-reflex, like the fear-reflex, +the anger-reflex, or the unemotional motor-reflexes +such as the knee-jerk, may be conditioned by having unnatural +stimuli grafted on to their natural stimuli by +bringing the natural and unnatural together in the field +of their experience.</p> + +<p>Albert, for example, the eleven-months old infant of +a wet-nurse in the Hopkins Laboratories, was not naturally +afraid of rats, a rat being neither a sudden loss of +support nor a big noise. He reached out for a rat as readily +as he reached for anything else. But every time he reached, +an operator standing out of sight beat heavily upon an +iron bar. So the reflex arc, beginning with the ear and +ending in such glands as distill cowardice or inhibit courage, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>grafted itself on to the reflex arc beginning with the +rat-wave coming through the eye and terminating in the +striped muscles that jerk the hand forward. And, as often +happens, the grafter eventually won the day.</p> + +<p>“At the first experiment,” rat and noise being presented +together, “the infant jumped violently and fell forward, +burying his face in the mattress—he did not cry, +however.” But “at the eighth experiment,” seven days +later, when the rat alone was shown, “the baby began to +cry. Almost instantly he turned sharply away, so rapidly +that he was caught with difficulty before he reached the +end of the table.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>Albert is now afraid of rats, there is no least doubt +of that. You may throw your bang-bang instrument away, +he will continue to recoil from rats. And not from rats +only. The fear extends to furry animals of all sorts, to +human hair, to cotton wool. In this instance it did not +extend to the nurse, but sometimes it does. The fear +stimulus is apt to graft itself on to whatever other stimuli +happen to be operating.</p> + +<p>Thus are emotional reflexes conditioned—by a performance +which has a remarkable resemblance to the old +method of punishing a child for wrong-doing, except +that wrong-doing on the child’s part is omitted as a necessary +condition precedent.</p> + +<p>This is psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. +From the standpoint of a psychologist it looks as if +all trace of psychology had thus far been carefully left +out; for psychology is the study of the psyche, the soul, +of the conscious self, or that part of the self which has +at least the capacity of becoming conscious. Dr. Watson +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>says not. He thinks that psychology is the study of the +reaction-mass. Anyway, he is convinced that reaction-mass +psychology is all the psychology needed to explain +everything. Mr. Mind may be missing, but he never will +be missed. “The behaviorist asks for nothing to start +with in building a human being but the squirmings everyone +can see in the newborn infant.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>It is not asking for much, so we will now let him try.</p> + + +<h3 id="2_AN_UNDECIDED_SYNAPSE"> + 2. AN UNDECIDED SYNAPSE +</h3> + +<p>Eliza is still crossing the ice. The spectacle (in the form +of a series of waves of chemical decomposition) is on its +way, through reflex arcs, to striped and unstriped muscles; +to ductless glands; to effectors, in short. It is time that +some action ensued, that behavior on Eliza’s part resulted +in behavior on the part of the spectator.</p> + +<p>Let us suppose that the spectator most interested is a +bloodhound. “The behaviorist,” we learn from Dr. Watson⁠<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +“recognizes no dividing line between man and +brute,” save (he adds later) perhaps in the matter of +“language.” As the occasion here affords no time for talk, +a bloodhound will serve as well as Senator Borah. Now +what will the bloodhound do?</p> + +<p>Were his reflexes unconditioned, he would do nothing +of any consequence. On the unlikely chance of Eliza +throwing a stone and hitting him on the patellar tendon, +he might do a knee-jerk. Or, should her shadow come +between him and the sun, the iris of his fearful eyes +might contract. But none of these things happen. Eliza +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>furnishes no natural stimuli upon which an unconditioned +reflex could act. Prof. Loeb, with all his tropisms, would +be able to bring no real drama about.</p> + +<p>This is a Watson bloodhound, however—a trained dog. +All sorts of unnatural stimuli have been grafted upon his +reflexes. For one thing, he has had the sight of little girl +and the taste of little girl brought simultaneously into his +experience a great many times. So the glands in his cheeks +advance immediately from a salivary output of, say, five +drops per minute, to some forty-five. He probably snaps +his jaws, a “seeking motion” prompted by the emotion of +love—for meat. Not only that, but he bounds forward—another +seeking motion, which was once, I presume a +puppy squirm. Anyway he bounds forward, and Eliza is +caught. Or else he does not bound forward, but stands and +sniffs, whines, or gives tongue, thus bridging the space +between animal and man, but flatly refusing to attempt +to leap the space of open water between dog and Eliza’s +cake of ice.</p> + +<p>But why? Why does not the dog act automatically +in obedience to the waves of chemical decomposition +faithfully transmitted to his effectors? The villain of uncertainty +lies in that intermediate set of neurones—those +association neurones which Dr. Watson thinks have received +already altogether too much attention. Some of their +dendrites have made synapse with axones laden with the +fear of the cold wetness of ice-water, and have communicated, +not with the leaping but with the sniffing, whining +and baying muscles, leaving the legs merely trembling.</p> + +<p>What? Have the association neurones some choice as +to the synapses they shall make? Is it left to them to say +which, of a multitude of differently charged axones, their +dendrites shall shake hands with? Does not mechanics +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>govern the connection which the association neurone effects +with a million waiting dendrites already linked with +a million different effectors? Is our soldier in the middle +row permitted to suit himself as to what listening-post +he shall get in touch with, and is he then allowed to do +as he likes with the information?</p> + +<p>What was lately a mere relay instrument seems suddenly +to have been endowed with strange powers. If ever +an arrangement was devised to look like the physical embodiment +of consciousness and free will, this certainly is +it. No wonder Dr. Watson would prefer to have us +regard these brain areas as vague “silent” ones, wherein +no function can be “localized.” A behaviorist who should +lose his unconsciousness would be more frightened than +was Peter Schlemihil when he lost his shadow to the +devil. The mere suggestion that the association neurone +might be the Achilles’ heel of insensibility must have +shocked many a conditioned reflex back into infantilism. +Dr. Watson remained and remains calm and aloof in the +midst of his “silent areas.” But others bestirred themselves +with considerable zeal if not discretion. The problem +was to find some purely blind and mechanistic agent +capable of regulating the resistance of the synapse.</p> + +<p>For that is the best way to think of it—as a resistance. +A neural impulse will go farther in a given time along a +simple nerve than it will along a route interrupted by +neurones with little gulfs between them. Not only that, but +when it comes out it is found to be measurably weaker +than when it went in. Almost immediately it picks up +again, and goes on, full speed ahead, as if somebody had +stepped on the gas. How this little miracle is accomplished, +nobody knows; nor whence comes the added force. Doubtless, +however, it comes from the body in some perfectly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>natural and ascertainable way. Certainly it has nothing +to do with the will.</p> + +<p>Has the synapse? That depends upon what causes its +resistance to vary. The association neurone itself cannot +possibly be the will. The very fact that it is observable +under the microscope proves that. The most hopeful field +of inquiry, therefore, is that of the resistance which is offered +the neural impulse on its way from one neurone +to another. If this resistance varies—and it does—it is +possible to conceive how the disturbances from the outside +world may be sifted, some ignored and some allowed +full play in the responses which follow. Here would be +Psyche, locking and unlocking her doors. I do not say +that this is exactly what happens. Our knowledge of the +brain, though vastly more complete than it was ten years +ago, is still far too fragmentary to permit of the localization +of function to this extent. I am only offering a hypothesis +to explain the workings of a belief arrived at in +quite another fashion from the one we are following here.</p> + +<p>The synapse offers the least resistance in what used +to be called the field of conscious attention; and by fancying +that attention moved about from one brain-area to +another without constraint and in conformity with some +non-physical law, we used to, in the good old days, be able +to picture free will in action—not with much pretense to +accuracy of detail, but in a way which was at least intelligible.</p> + +<p>Physical scientists never liked this loose-footed field of +attention. If it moved about, they wanted to know what +moved it. Even if attention be only an area of super-“neutrition,” +it could hardly move without force—a fact +which some psychologists, desperately anxious to be free +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>but having no force to put at the will’s disposal, have tried +in vain to get around.</p> + +<p>But behaviorists will have nothing to do with conscious +attention, free or bound. And as it was obviously necessary +to find something to regulate synapsial resistance, +they proceeded to find it.</p> + +<p>It was soon discovered that the neural impulse, having +once traversed a particular route, found the way thereafter +easier, just as we find it easier to walk through +snow after somebody has broken a trail. Repeated synapses, +therefore, may be left in charge of Habit. But there +has to be a first time. Habit, itself, depends upon this +first time for its own direction; for habit follows the line +of least resistance which this very first time creates. And +the first time, the time of times, which determines all other +times by wearing the initial path through the cranial snow, +is—behavioristically speaking—determined by Chance!</p> + +<p>What behaviorists wanted was to have nothing determine +the first synapse, and not being mathematicians +they fell into the error of supposing that chance was nothing, +or the next thing to it. In reality they could not have +made a worse selection. But, granting their premises, there +was really nothing else to choose.</p> + +<p>But let us call to the stand a distinguished witness as +to the reality of the choice having been made. Chance +leads me to select Prof. C. H. Warren, whose “A Study +of Purpose” was first published in the <i>Journal of Philosophy, +Psychology and Scientific Method</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> It chances +that I have access to certain passages from this paper. Also +he happens not to be a thoroughgoing behaviorist, as may +be seen from the fact that he speaks of “purposive action” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>and of “ideas.” Bertrand Russell is of the opinion that +there is only one thoroughgoing behaviorist in the world—Dr. +Watson, to wit. I even hope to show that Dr. Watson +steps out of his rôle in certain desperate pinches. But +Prof. Warren is sufficiently mechanistic to warrant his +being heard. He says: “The notion of purpose arose from +a certain definite type of human experience. The typical +purposive experience consists of a thought of some future +occurrence followed by a series of actions which culminate +in the very situation which the original idea represented. +A human act is said to be purposive when it is preceded by +an idea representing the situation which the act itself +brings about.”</p> + +<p>Not quite as clear as a crystal, but it means that I light +my pipe, not because I want to smoke but because I +foresee that I will light it. Dr. Watson says practically +the same thing, only he points out that the motions which +provoke desire are small, observable only by means of instruments. +“Visceral phenomena,” for instance. And he +makes the statement thoroughly behavioristic by adding +that these visceral phenomena <i>are</i> desire, the only kind of +desire which exists. But causes must precede effect, so +Prof. Warren is trying to make “foreknowledge” serve +for the needed something to touch off the visceral phenomena +and bring desire into being.</p> + +<p>He goes on to describe how he turns on the electric +light in his study—not because he wants to read, but because +he foresees that he is going to press the button and +that then there will be light—in a physical sense, at least. +He admits “desire” into the realm of being only after the +action has begun, and explains it as a “kinesthetic image,”—that +is, an image derived from the muscular sense. +Which means that he begins to want to read, and that I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>begin to want to smoke, only after our muscles are on +the way to produce smoke and light in available quantities. +And he further testifies. “If the thought of an action +leads to the production of that particular action ... +rather than to any one of the thousands of other kinesthetic +experiences, the reason is that a definite association +has previously been formed between this particular +thought and this particular impulse. The origin of such +an association <i>may be attributed to chance occurrence</i>.”</p> + +<p>It is interesting to speculate upon what would have +occurred had Prof. Warren chanced first to associate the +electric light button with kinesthetic experiences originating +in his feet instead of in his hands. What if he had +been standing on his head amusing the children on that +momentous day? Or, since he probably made his first acquaintance +with electric light early in life, what if when +playing circus as a boy he had accidentally <i>kicked</i> the +button from “Off” to “On”? Obviously he would have +obtained the fateful foresight that kicks will produce +light. And he would have been destined all his life to +play the acrobat before ever the kinesthetic experiences of +his muscles could instigate in him the desire to read after +dusk. Nor is it possible that he could have been rescued +from his fate save by another chance experience yet more +kinesthetically violent.</p> + +<p>“The synapse,” says Professor Pillsbury, sensibly +enough, “is the point where action leaves its impress upon +the nervous system.” But he does not grow lyrical about +it. For lyricism we must go to Miss Clara Stevens, a real +behaviorist. She thus deposes and sings in <i>The Open +Court</i>:⁠<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> “Here [in the synapse] lies the basis of character +and destiny. No need of a recording angel to set down +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>our shortcomings against us. The mystic synapse is recorder; +and avenger as well. Its use renders it all-powerful +... its neglect bars further way for either temptation +on the one hand or profitable deeds on the other. We can +only act and think in the future as we have habituated +the synapse in the past.”</p> + +<p>Surely the lady has allowed her enthusiasm to carry +her too far. How can we have anything to do with the +habituating of a synapse which is governed by chance? +She tries to find a way out by maintaining that the original +neural impulse may be determined “by such a material +fact ... as nutrition supplied or withheld by the cell-body.” +Does the cell-body, then, have a will of its own, +so that it can either issue or withhold supplies? That +were power indeed. And she speaks throughout her +article of “mystery,” “inclination,” “motives,” “ambitions,” +“tolerance,” “bigotry,” “principle,” “idealistic +acts,” “clearness of judgment,” and “firmness of purpose.”</p> + +<p>I have wronged her. Here we have no behaviorist, but +a good woman trying to be a behaviorist but unable to +leave all her commonsense behind her—a woman born, +happily, without a trace of logic, and spared by chance +from acquiring any. Not that Miss Stevens is one whit +more illogical than is Dr. Watson. She is merely less obscure. +On pages 319 to 321 of “Psychology from the +Standpoint of a Behaviorist” we are given a list of six +“determiners of acts,” and told that “of course the most +important determiner is the life-history of the individual.” +And the other five are mere portions of life-history. +Dr. Watson is fond of the word Genetics, yet he carefully +avoids the subject of true beginnings.</p> + +<p>And Eliza still is crossing the ice. The bloodhound +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>still is doing something or nothing. Somehow, with all +this “psychology” and with all Dr. Watson’s mass of reactions +at our disposal, we cannot get things to move. It +will be necessary to try again.</p> + + +<h3 id="3_ELIZA_DOES_NOT_CROSS_THE_ICE"> + 3. ELIZA DOES NOT CROSS THE ICE +</h3> + +<p>“The behaviorist,” Dr. Watson assures us,⁠<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> “can take +[the] squirmings of the new-born—his unorganized finger +movements, the movements of his arms, legs, feet and +toes, the squirmings in his trunk, and weave them into +highly complicated acts of sport, of skill—such as driving +a nail with a hammer, carving with a knife, shooting +with bow and arrow, or tennis-playing, climbing, crawling, +running and walking. [He] can take the squirmings +of the throat muscles, and weave them into those highly +organized acts we call talking and singing—and, yes, even +thinking. [He] can take the infantile squirmings of the +gut—the unstriped muscular tissue of the alimentary +tracts, diaphragm, heart, respiration, etc.—and actually +organize them into those complicated emotional responses +we call fears, loves and rages.... Give [him] just one +hundred ‘squirmings’ ... and let [him] tie them together +by [his] methods, and [he will] have more than +enough.”</p> + +<p>This is a comprehensive programme; if it is carried out +it ought to be able not only to get Eliza across the ice +but to produce the whole play of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. +Certainly one hundred squirmings are enough—enough of +squirming. Their mere combination would produce an untold +number—of squirms. And lest some might doubt as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>to this, Dr. Watson calls attention to that mathematical +formula known as “factorial n.”</p> + +<p>By factorial n one can determine the number of ways +in which a given number of things can be put together. +The calculation is accomplished by taking the given number +and multiplying it by a number one less than itself; +and then multiplying this result by a multiplier less by +one than the first multiplier; and so on, the multiplier +shrinking until it reaches zero. For instance, how many +ways are there of arranging six books upon a shelf? The +answer is amazing enough. For six times five times four +times three times two, equals seven hundred and twenty, +and we have limited the combinations to arrangements +along a single straight line. One hundred squirms may be +combined in enough different ways to satisfy the most +captious. Factorial one hundred would, if worked out, +look like an inter-allied debt.</p> + +<p>But are squirms all we are looking for? What does +Dr. Watson mean by “those complicated emotional responses +we call fears, loves and rages?” He has used such +words before, and it is time he were called to an account. +There is no such thing as consciousness. Can there still +be such a thing as an emotion? Yes, says Dr. Watson.</p> + +<p>We are now in the presence of one of the most preposterous +attempts at hocus-pocus ever recorded in the +history of the human race. William James prepared the +way by saying, “We feel sorry because we cry, angry because +we strike,” etc. But with James there was always the +possibility of assuming that an emotion is what we feel +of the various motions involved. At worst it was but the +natural order of things reversed. And in James, if one +does not like his philosophy of the moment, the totally +different philosophy of some other moment is never far +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>to seek. But now that there is no such thing as consciousness, +there would seem to be no way of feeling even a +motion. Ergo, an emotion is merely motion. Squirms. The +behaviorist asks for nothing else. Does he not?</p> + +<p>“An emotion,” says Dr. Watson,⁠<a id="FNanchor_13_13" href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> “is an hereditary ‘action +pattern’ involving profound changes of the bodily +mechanism as a whole, but particularly of the glandular +systems.” This is at least consistent. An emotion is a +group of motions which have been somehow linked together +into a pattern by reflex arcs before we were born. +He then speaks of emotion as a raising of the “bodily +tone,”—that is, a speeding up, an increase in the general +average and celerity of motions. Still consistent, however +absurd. But why did Albert, the eleven-months old infant +of that wet-nurse at the Hopkins Laboratories, “turn +sharply away” at the eighth experiment, when the rat +alone was shown him? Because he had learned to associate +rats with a loud noise of which he was afraid. But +does not this imply that he <i>disliked</i> the noise?</p> + +<p>By a wild stretch of the imagination, I think I can +almost see what is in the behaviorist’s mind when he bids +us believe that like and dislike can exist in a creature without +consciousness. He means that there is no like or dislike +about it; that what we call likes and dislikes are certain +chemical changes which make us move either towards or +away from objects. Tropisms, in short. I do not quite see +how the mechanism for such phenomena could be arranged, +but this may be merely because the mechanism of +a tropism is too complicated for my comprehension. Likes +and dislikes vary so much even when the same objects +and the same people are involved. We are not simple in +the way that a mariner’s compass is simple, its north pole +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>always liking the south pole of a magnet, always disliking +its fellow.</p> + +<p>Consciousness itself is a complicated matter. For instance, +we are never directly conscious of it; we are only +conscious of objects. Our inmost self can only contemplate +that which is not our inmost self. The eye does not +see the eye, though it can observe its reflection in a mirror.</p> + +<p>Things also happen of which we are not centrally +conscious at all—things, for example, to which we are +paying no attention. They yet have their effect. Can likes +and dislikes perform their functions, then, without our +knowing anything about it? I am for the moment quite +willing to admit it—in the case of Dr. Watson. For all I +know to the contrary, he may never be conscious. He +would not be the first epistemologist who has made such +a claim. But he does not claim just this. The behaviorist +finds no consciousness “in his laboratories,” none “in his +subjects.” He implies that <i>I</i> am never conscious, and +there I know he is wrong.</p> + +<p>Now since consciousness exists, in me at least (the +reader must speak for himself), it probably has a function. +So far as I am concerned, it is the one important—the +only important—thing in life. Why, then, try to leave +it out of the explanation of Albert’s acquired dislike for +rats?</p> + +<p>It might have been well enough to leave it out of the +description of Albert’s behavior. If behaviorism were +merely what its name implies, the detailed study of the +way people other than the observer behave, it might be +useful and certainly would not be ridiculous. But it seeks +to be psychology and philosophy as well. It assumes, as +we soon shall see, to instruct us in ethics and to overthrow +religion. It fancies that it has deprived us of will.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span></p> + +<p>Your consciousness and mine are of course two different +phenomena, severed by the gulf which yawns between +<i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i>. I do not know that you are aware in +the same way that I know that I myself am aware. I +merely assume that you are. You look much like me. You +behave much as I do. Therefore, as an act of courtesy, +I grant that you are probably sentient and know what +you are about—for the simple reason that I feel sure +that I am sentient and know what I am about.</p> + +<p>But all I am positively and subjectively certain of, as +to you, is what I observe you to do. This observation +may be extended, with your permission, to your insides. I +may insert tubes which tap your glands. I may induce you +to swallow rubber balloons, which I then fill with hot +water (an experiment mentioned by Dr. Watson), and +note the resultant reactions upon your muscles, smooth +and striped. Still, all I know about you is what strikes +my senses, which in the last analysis resolves itself into +motions, large or small, of your body and members. The +behaviorist’s contention that an individual is merely the +sum of his acts fits you well enough from my point of +view. Were I not conscious myself, I would never even +dream that you are conscious. If I did not reason, I +would not be wise enough to suppose that you do. Did +I not feel emotion, pleasure, and pain, I would be the last +person to accuse you of feeling them.</p> + +<p>Now Dr. Watson, when he assumes that because he +finds no consciousness in his subjects there is therefore +no such thing as consciousness, is entirely justified—if +he is himself an unconscious man. But I fancy he is merely +paying us the compliment of confusing himself with us. +He is unable to put his hands upon <i>our</i> minds or feelings +because they are forever hidden within us, and will never, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>never, never permit themselves to be isolated, taken apart +and chemically analyzed. That which is objective is conduct—it +is not feeling. Certain light waves are felt as +redness—but the waves are not the redness. Outside ourselves, +everything of red exists, saving and excepting +only its redness. Now is or is not redness an important +part of red?</p> + +<p>The brain is indeed but a few billion neurones, slightly +damp. Dr. Watson, fumbling among them, sees only certain +motions of matter. Naturally he sees no mind. But +he modestly forgets that all the while he is observing +these motions of ours and attributing them to other motions, +and these to yet other motions, and so on <i>ad infinitum</i>, +he is using his own mind—and a very ingenious +mind it is, thus to reason itself out of existence. We all +remember how granny used to lose her specs and look for +them everywhere—through the very specs in question, +which were all the while on the end of her nose.</p> + +<p>Consciousness is a fact of consciousness, the most obtrusive +fact in all the world. But it is not a fact outside +of consciousness. There it is only an inference. Should +Dr. Watson get hit on the head by a brick falling from +his laboratory chimney (which God forbid!), he would +not be immediately able to observe whether a dog’s salivary +secretions were increased by the sight and smell of +chocolate or not.</p> + +<p>Knowledge of glands can “amplify our conception,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +says Levine, “but it by no means abolishes the need for +a mental state.”</p> + +<p>“Not even by poetic license,” adds Sidney Hook,⁠<a id="FNanchor_15_15" href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +“can the earth be created through a deft masonry of +its derivative effects.” Neither can the mind. Or as J. R. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>Kantor, of the University of Indiana, expresses it in +his “Principles of Psychology,”—“The writers who hold +such doctrines [that psychology is a matter of neuro-muscular +or neuro-glandular responses] inevitably face +the consequence of neglecting the description of most of +the actual content not only of human but of animal +psychology.”</p> + +<p>Says William James,⁠<a id="FNanchor_16_16" href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> “Cases ... prove the existence +in our mental machinery of a sense of present reality more +diffused and general than that which our special senses +yield.... Nothing would be more natural than to connect +it with the muscular sense.... But our interest lies +with the faculty rather than its organic seat.... Something +in you absolutely <i>knows</i> that result to be truer than +any logic-chopping, rationalistic talk, however clever, that +may contradict it.”</p> + +<p>Naturally, James H. Leuba, professor of psychology at +Bryn Mawr, takes exception to such language on the part +of James. Prof. Leuba has been attempting—in his “Psychology +of Religious Mysticism”—to prove that holiness +is a form of hysteria. He uses the old method of those +who would define red without taking account of redness. +That is, he leaves holiness out of the question, and then +shows that the residue and hysteria (whatever that may +be) have much in common.</p> + +<p>“It is fortunate for science and philosophy,” he says +in a footnote to page 293, “that this passage does not +represent William James completely. It expresses only one, +or perhaps two, of the several moods or attitudes of this +gifted writer.”</p> + +<p>This is quite true. The passage does not represent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>James entirely. I know of no passage which does. But +does saying so dispose of the attitude? The reader must +judge for himself whether he has any inner conviction, +or state, which will warrant him in saying he has it. +Well may Prof. Kantor ask, “Is it not the attempt to +biologize human phenomena which has resulted in handing +over to novelists [to say nothing of novelists’ brothers] +the sole guardianship of the problems of human behavior +and human personality?”</p> + +<p>And since we have now allowed novelists to get in, we +may as well listen to Stewart Edward White, who is not +only a novelist but a journalist to boot. And he complains +that “it is the habit of science to thrust in the +background that which it is unable to weigh and measure +and understand, which is the same as saying that it is +the habit of science to be unscientific.” It is certainly the +habit of Dr. Watson. The hunting of big game seems to +have given White most accurate powers of observation. +Lions have this advantage over fallacies—they are able +to kill off those who do not see them right and in time.</p> + +<p>George A. Dorsey, whose “Why We Behave Like Human +Beings” I shall venture to take a shot at before I +finish, attempts to come to Dr. Watson’s rescue and to +save emotion for behaviorism without admitting any of +its troublesome implications. So Dorsey tells us not to be +puzzled; that emotions are like any of the other circumstances +which go to make up a situation to which our mass +of reactions must react. We “feel” them, he adds. Now as +Dr. Watson’s main contention is that we do not feel them, +the admission of feeling is like permitting a wooden +horse to be carried into the mechanistic Troy.</p> + +<p>It may be argued (but not by behaviorists) that though +Dorsey is not talking good Watsonianism, he is at least +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>talking sense. And of course he is when he speaks of emotion +as a feeling. But he is talking nonsense when he +claims that emotion is a factor like any other factor in +a situation. And for this reason. The other factors may +be viewed both objectively and subjectively, while if we +attempt to objectify an emotion—to drive it into the open—it +ceases to exist. It becomes a bundle of its own causes—autocoids, +or what have you? Or of its own effects—yowlings, +scratchings, clenchings of fists, grittings of the +teeth, and other alterations in bodily positions, tensions, +together with such chemical changes as may accompany +them.</p> + +<p>The fact that certain secretions from the ductless glands +keep pace with certain emotions does not even prove that +secretions cause emotion. An emotion that can be felt +may cause the secretions. Still less does it prove that the +secretion is the emotion. A scolding by your grandmother +may also give you an emotion. Does that prove that the +emotion was your grandmother? Emotion tends to release +adrenin from the adrenal apparatus, which in turn acts +upon the liver’s surplus supply of sugar. This sugar gets +into the blood, and the increase of sugar in the blood +is therefore evidence that you have experienced an emotion. +Even if you want to say that what you felt was +sugar, need you add that the feeling <i>was</i> sugar?</p> + +<p>A cat, we will say, is sitting on the table. Can we also +say that there is an emotion sitting there beside the cat? +An emotion belonging to you or to me, and not to the +cat? Let us suppose that the cat has just upset a vase +which you and I both prize. Behavioristically speaking, +our reflexes are similarly conditioned in regard to it. +So we both are grieved.</p> + +<p>The cat exists subjectively within us (or at least within +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>me) in the form of a group of ideas of cat—or as Dr. +Watson would insist, in the form of certain squirmings of +particles, members, atoms, and such things. We seem to +experience cat as a group of sensations of form, color, +of cat-movements, etc. But if I shut my eyes, put cat out +of my mind (i. e., shut off cat-stimuli from my receptors), +I seem to cease to feel or think or to be aware of +cat. Then, from some remark you make, I infer that you +have kept your eyes open, and are still cat-wise <i>en rapport</i>. +So I infer that your awareness of cat (no matter what +“awareness” is) does not depend upon my awareness, or +even upon your awareness of my awareness. So I assume +that the cat has an objective existence, outside of +us, and is a real cat. I assume also that the cat itself is the +cause of our awareness of it; and I feel certain that while +there may be as many awarenesses as there are people +who are aware, there is only one cat in the room.</p> + +<p>There is also but one broken vase. And it, too, is the +cause of our being aware of it. Cat and vase are evidently +of the same order of things to the extent that they +both have an existence within the beholder (which the +beholder knows through consciousness), and a certain inferred +existence of their own. But how about the emotion +awakened by the broken vase? Has that an existence +independent of those experiencing it?</p> + +<p>Ever since the days of ancient Greece, and probably +since long before, certain philosophers have been trying +to prove that not even the cat has such an outside existence. +Things exist only in the philosopher’s mind, and +therefore the one thing which exists is the philosopher. +The only way to refute this theory is by using your +brains to an extent sufficient to arrive at the conclusion +that, since some of the things you see look amazingly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>like yourself, and react much as you do to yet other +things, then it is at least highly probable that these other +people and other things actually are.</p> + +<p>Now the behaviorist’s contention is merely the reverse +of this all-in-the-mind theory—and is equally absurd. To +him there is nothing in the mind; there is no mind. Instead +of all being inside, all is outside.</p> + +<p>Yet Dr. Watson considers himself privileged to speak +not only of emotions and emotion-reflexes, but of “purpose,” +“failure,” and “success.” We begin with “random” +squirms, he says, and now and then one of these “random” +squirms is “successful,” it accomplishes its “object.” +Unconscious “seeking motions” are continued until +they are “satisfied.” Such expressions are to be found +scattered through all his writings.</p> + +<p>But a seeking motion must be a motion which seeks +something. If the babe be unconscious, how does it know +when the seeking has been successful? Does it move in +hopes of finding pleasure or of avoiding pain? It can +feel neither pleasure nor pain. Does it squirm to improve +its general welfare? That is what the tropism theory assumes. +But without consciousness there can be no such +thing as welfare. It makes no slightest difference to the +organism what happens to it, whether it lives or dies.</p> + +<p>Our unconscious Eliza refuses to cross the ice, even +when bayed at by an unconscious bloodhound. There is +no reason why she should. An unconscious Eliza would be +as comfortable inside of a bloodhound as anywhere else. +And an unconscious bloodhound is as comfortable fasting +as when fed.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Dr. Watson, who is “not concerned with +problems of consciousness,” is about to introduce us to +language, morality and reform!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="4_TINKS_TINKS_KWAKS_KWAKS"> + 4. TINKS! TINKS! KWAKS! KWAKS! +</h3> + +<p>“Give me the baby,” Dr. Watson begs,⁠<a id="FNanchor_17_17" href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> “and I’ll make +it climb and use its hands in constructing buildings of +stone or wood.... I’ll make it a thief, a gunman, or a +dope fiend. The possibilities of shaping in any direction are +almost endless. Even gross difference in anatomical structure +limit us far less than you may think.... Make him +a deaf-mute, and I will still build you a Helen Keller.... +Men are built, not born.”</p> + +<p>Shall we indeed give Dr. Watson the baby? Not yet. +If baby is as plastic as he would have us suppose, the +choice of a teacher carries with it momentous consequences. +You see, we don’t want him to make a thief, +a gunman, or even a dope-fiend. This is just an old-fashioned +prejudice, a hang-over from the days of consciousness. +But we have it. A Helen Keller, a carpenter +or a good stone-mason will do very well. We must, however, +be reassured as to teacher’s intentions. He has, +no doubt, some high principle to guide him. Let him +reveal it.</p> + +<p>“The psychologist, having chosen human behavior as +his material, feels that he makes progress only as he can +manipulate and control it.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_18_18" href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Very good. But this is not +quite the point.</p> + +<p>“In this work there is involved not only ability to predict +situation from response, and the probable response +given the situation, but the experimental manipulation of +stimulus and the creation of response.... Stimuli must +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>be added to or subtracted from until appropriate response +is attained.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_19_19" href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>The method at least is plain. Baby is helpless protoplasm +in the grip of whatever situation he finds himself. +Dr. Watson does not allow even chance to interfere with +those all-important initial synapses which, once made, will +turn conduct over to habit. Baby is a mechanism, with no +ability save that of wax to receive. His only “chance” +is that the situation shall be all that could be desired. +Not even the word “probable” placed before response +promises any individual initiative, since the psychologist +proposes to predict (he clearly means “work back to”) +the situation of which any given response was the answer. +One wonders where the teacher’s initiative is to come +from, whether he too is the inevitable result of a chain +of situations reaching back to the beginning of time; +and if so, where the first situation came from—to say +nothing of the first baby. But, which is more to the +point, what is the meaning of that word “appropriate” +preceding “response”? What makes a response “appropriate”? +Obviously an appropriate situation. And we cannot +tell whether a situation is appropriate or not until we +know what response we wish to produce.</p> + +<p>“Until we know more about the control of behavior +during the tender years of infancy, it seems almost a +dangerous experiment to bring up a child. The old argument +that a good many millions of children have been +successfully reared in the past few millions of years has +just about broken down in the light of the now generally +recognized lack of success of most people in making satisfactory +adjustments to society.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_20_20" href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span></p> + +<p>What has also just about broken down is the argument +that it is not a dangerous experiment to bring up a child—for +the reason that no sane parent ever thought that it +was not a dangerous experiment, quite the most dangerous +and gloriously all-important experiment which life +affords. If the child has no will or say in the matter, +parenthood involves a higher responsibility even than that +which a man has for his own soul—though of course +the behaviorist will plead that he has no soul to be responsible +for, and that—but there is no use going back +again to the beginning of time. We shall have to give +the teacher not only a soul but a free will, <i>pro tempore</i>, or +he will stick on our hands just as Eliza stuck on the ice, +and refuse to move. Things are not moving very rapidly +as it is. What, for instance, is meant by “satisfactory +adjustments”? Is there some doubt, after all, how baby +will adjust himself to what is happening around him? +No, says Dr. Watson.</p> + +<p>“Without going too far beyond our facts [how far +would be ‘too far’?] it seems possible to say that the +stimulus is always provided by the environment, external +to the body, or by the movements of man’s own muscles +and the secretions of his glands; finally, that response +always follows relatively immediately upon the presentation +or incidence of the stimulus.... These are really +assumptions, but they seem to be basal ones for psychology.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_21_21" href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_057" style="max-width: 62.9375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_057.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <span class="smcap">Dr. John B. Watson</span> +<br> +<span class='norm'> “Give me the baby”</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Since they are basal we will have to grant them, else +we will be left relatively immediately without any psychology +at all. A satisfactory adjustment, then, must be +the usual and inevitable adjustment, but to a satisfactory +situation. Those children who were successfully reared +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>during the past few millions of years must have had satisfactory +situations to begin with. And it is “now generally +recognized” that they were exceptions, and not “most +people.” There must be some criterion, then, by which +a satisfactory situation—that is, one producing satisfactory +response, or conduct—may be recognized. Has Dr. +Watson any such criterion to offer? No. He says on page +twelve of this same book, which gives us his “standpoint”: +“Psychology is not concerned with the goodness +or badness of acts, or with their successfulness, as judged +by occupational or moral standards.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_22_22" href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>I am afraid, then, it will not be possible to let Dr. +Watson have the baby after all. Behaviorism has no +ethics; no standard of conduct. Yet behaviorists are preparing +to build “infant laboratories,” and to save children +from “unscientific parents.” Dr. Watson, in particular, +calls upon us to make “systematic, long-sustained +genetic studies upon the human species, begun in infancy +and continued until past adolescence,”—an excellent idea. +And he demands it because only thus can we gain that +“experimental control over human conduct so badly +needed both for general social control and for individual +happiness.” He has, then, ethical notions, though he nowhere +explains how he came by them. What are they? +This question at least can be answered by noting what +sort of conditioning he wishes to give the reflexes. And +of these, love should be the most important.</p> + +<p>“The original situation which calls out the observable +love responses seems to be the stroking or manipulation +of some erogenous zone, tickling, shaking, gentle rocking, +patting and turning upon the stomach across the +attendant’s knee,” so psychology from the standpoint +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>of a behaviorist would have us believe. And sex emotions, +however understood, become later on the touch-offs of the +gonads and of the interstitial glands. How are these reflexes +to be conditioned so as to act in response to something +besides tickling, shaking, gentle rocking, patting +and turning upon the stomach across the attendant’s knee? +They are not to be conditioned at all. The behaviorist +wants to condition fear and rage as much as possible, but +he advises that love be left where we find it soon after +birth.</p> + +<p>“In our opinion,” says Dr. Watson (still in this same +book) “conditioned love responses [i. e. responses awakened +otherwise than directly through the aforementioned +zones], especially those directed [towards] father and +mother, breeding too great dependence upon parents as +they do, are probably the most sinister factors in the +whole system of human organization.” And he laments +the fact that such conditioning is not only tolerated by +society, but actually encouraged by it. This is a most +melancholy philosophy, and seems to put masturbation +above marriage.</p> + +<p>And what of the future? “The research psychologists +in the infant-behavior laboratories, once they are established, +will in time learn how to remove these conditioned +emotional reactions.”</p> + +<p>No doubt parents frequently do make their children too +dependent. So Dr. Watson advises that babies be hard-boiled; +for the conditioning which he objects to takes +place, according to his own account, chiefly during the +second year.</p> + +<p>A certain physician in a once-notorious book, entitled +“<i>Les Civilisées</i>,” insists that another of the characters, +generally considered much debauched, is entirely normal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>and healthy, “<i>parce qu’il ne cherche pas les femmes que +par le coït</i>.” Our leading behaviorist is more civilized still, +for he says:⁠<a id="FNanchor_23_23" href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>“In observing the two-year-old only child brought up +by an unscientific mother, we find that the child cries unless +held in the lap of the mother ... will sleep only +when in bed with the mother.... Verbalization +[speech] begins: it clusters around the mother just +as ... manual and bodily activity clusters around the +mother. In a similar way the gut reactions have their +center of reference in the mother. Manual, verbal and +emotional reactions are tied together by this one, all-exciting +stimulus,”—the mother, to wit.</p> + +<p>Which means that the gut-reactions, or the stir of the +unstriped muscles along the intestinal tract, are what +the child feels when it loves its mother, or would be if it +could feel anything; and that if the mother be not scientific +and careful, there is apt to ensue a “conditioning” likely +to depose the gut from its position of supremacy. Unless +the behaviorists can save us, our native, purely physical, +almost mechanical lust runs the danger of being swallowed +up by sentiment and affection.</p> + +<p>This danger has been avoided in some parts of the +world. Katherine Mayo, whose book, “Mother India,” has +received deserved attention, says that the “whole pyramid +of India’s woes, material and spiritual poverty, sickness, +melancholy, ineffectiveness, not forgetting the subconscious +conviction of inferiority which [the Hindu] forever +bears and advertises by his gnawing and imaginative +alertness for social affronts,” is due to an excess of +tumescence, to sex dominant and rampant in Indian life. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>She is not speaking of the India of dreaming, Vedantic +philosophers, but of the real India of every-day life, +which she has studied at first hand. There sexual impulses, +indulged in upon a purely erogenous plane, are +fostered and encouraged even by religion—by the Kali +belief; by the “phallic cult for females”; by the training +of girl babies so that they may become the playthings of +the carnal passions of men. I do not see where we could +find a better picture of what is likely to happen to us +when Dr. Watson’s “infant-behavior laboratories” once +accomplish their task.</p> + +<p>And now, having measured the loveliness of sex by +the degree of excitement existing in the erogenous zones, +Dr. Watson offers us another test for the excellence of +conduct in general.</p> + +<p>“In my opinion, one of the most important elements +in the judging of personality, character and ability is the +history of the individual’s yearly achievements. We can +measure this objectively by the length of time the individual +stayed in his various positions—the yearly increases +he received in his earnings.... If the individual +is a writer, we should want to draw a curve of the prices +he gets for his stories year by year. If from our leading +magazines he receives the same average price per word +for his stories at thirty that he received at twenty-four, +the chances are he is a hack writer and will never do +anything but that.”</p> + +<p>Bertrand Russell (upon whose authority I take this +quotation) has tried to apply this criterion to “Buddha, +Christ, Mohammed, Milton and Blake,” and confesses +himself staggered by the result.</p> + +<p>It seems strange that Dr. Watson should have selected +excellence in writing—even excellence marked in dollars—as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>an instance of a workable, objective substitute +for those old and by him discredited subjectivities, right +and wrong. “A word,” he says,⁠<a id="FNanchor_24_24" href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> “is just an explosive +clutter of sound made by expelling the breath over the +tongue, teeth and lips whenever we get around [near +to?] objects.” It does not appear how the clutter can be +much improved when we express it in written symbols. +In neither case does it mean anything.</p> + +<p>“Meaning,” according to “Psychology from the Standpoint +of a Behaviorist,” “never arrives in the scientific +observations of behavior.... An animal or human being +‘means’ what he does.” That is, he does not mean +what he does. His doing is his meaning. If he makes a +clutter of sounds, that is all there is to it. “It is often said +that thinking somehow peculiarly reveals meaning. If we +look upon thinking as a form of action ... such speculations +concerning meaning lose their mystery and hence +their charm.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_25_25" href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>“To answer what the church means to men,” he continues, +“it is necessary to look upon the church as a +stimulus and find out what reactions are called out, [and] +why.... This might lead us into folklore ... into the +influence of parents upon children, causing the race to project +the father and mother into a heavenly state hereafter +... finally into the realms of the incest-complex, +homosexual tendencies, and so on.”</p> + +<p>I do not comprehend the “and so on.” It would seem +that we had already gone on about as far as we could go. +This passage, unlike our speculations concerning meaning +in thinking, has not lost its mystery. Its charm speaks +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>for itself. But one thing is clear. Thinking is speaking, +and a word is an explosive clutter of sound.</p> + +<p>Not always audible, however. Dr. Watson reduces the +greater part of our thought to what he terms “sub-vocal +speech.” And Mr. Eggen agrees. “We do not think with +our brain ... we think with our muscles,” he says.⁠<a id="FNanchor_26_26" href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> +The yokel, always suspected of thinking with his feet, +thus comes into his own.</p> + +<p>“Thinking,” says the behaviorist,—and I now quote +from David Wechsler, “Psychology as a Practical Science +in Modern Life,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_27_27" href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>—“thinking is but a sub-vocal speech—that +is, it consists of certain muscular movements of the +throat and chest [like those observed in a semi-literate +man when he is attempting to read to himself] which are +not accompanied by the production of sounds.” <i>Id est</i>, +they are not <i>always</i> accompanied by sounds, and some of +them are observable only by means of instruments. The +child, we are told, begins by doing all his thinking aloud—but +some of us eventually learn to do it without noise. +Prof. Wechsler adds that the muscular theory of thinking +is “not as far-fetched as it seems.”</p> + +<p>Why is it not? Because these sub-vocal movements +seem always to be going on when we are thinking, and to +some minds—or should I say muscles?—it seems logical +to say that an accompaniment or a consequence is a cause. +The same sort of sub-vocal speech will lead us to conclude +that the foam in the wake of a steamer is what causes +the vessel to go. I have often noticed that a little troupe +of dogs usually accompanies Mrs. Belfeather in her walks +in the park. I now learn that these dogs <i>are</i> Mrs. Belfeather.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span></p> + +<p>That great psychologist, Eric Peters, once said to +Chlorine Garnet, “I uses my eyes to see with an’ my brains +to think thoughts.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_28_28" href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Evidently Peters is not a behaviorist. +Neither was Shenute, who died in the year 451, famous +for his anti-pagan propaganda among the Copts of +Egypt. But he seems to have had some of our moderns +in mind, for he said: “They also make the sound of +birds, having filled books, for themselves and you, with +vain words: Tinks! Tinks! Kwaks! Kwaks! saying: We +are making the sound of birds.”</p> + +<p>“What possible good does it do,” demands Dr. Watson,⁠<a id="FNanchor_29_29" href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +“when discussing brick-laying or sub-vocal arithmetic +to guess at what goes on in the synapse, in the efferent +or afferent leg of the reflex arc, or in the muscle +itself?” Such problems, he adds, “belong to the realm +of physiology, and this section of physiology has not yet +been written.”</p> + +<p>So he proceeds to write it, not as physiology, but as behaviorism. +These “Kwaks! Kwaks! Tinks! Tinks!” and +explosive clutterings of ours must be conditioned. And +they begin to get conditioned the moment the parents +begin to pay some attention to them—which usually happens +without delay. Snoodlekins explodes, “Dada! Dada!” +Paterfamilias is brought into the presence. Wrong! The +explosions continue. A watch is displayed and dismembered. +Wrong again! Then somebody hits upon the rag +doll in the corner. It fills the bill. Silence reigns, interrupted +only by goo-goos. And if the parents or other +attendants did not afterwards undo this conditioning by +beating upon iron bars or what not, and so insist upon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>the rising generation adapting its language to the usages +current among the old, “dada” would become the child’s +word for doll. This is a faithful translation into every +day kwaks of what Dr. Watson says in the more refined +tinks of the scholar, and I do not wish for a moment +to deny that things happen much as he says they do.</p> + +<p>But the point is, Snoodlekins discovers through the +trial and error method that explosive clutterings of sound +will cause things to move around the house. He finds that +if he says “doll,” slaves will hurry to place a doll in his +hands. Does this not give the word a meaning, in the +meaningful sense of the term? Does it not imply will and +purpose upon the baby’s part; consciousness, likes, dislikes; +the ability to feel pain and pleasure; the desire to +eschew the one and pursue the other? And do we not by +implication admit similar intelligence and emotional capacity +on the part of the parents and attendants? Otherwise +why should they care whether a yell or a coo assaulted +their ears?</p> + +<p>“Every time I question young children, or even college +graduates,” Dr. Watson complains,⁠<a id="FNanchor_30_30" href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> “I am struck by +their dumbness.” But surely they are not as dumb as this. +By dumb presumably he means unverbalized, speechless. +But of what use is speech to an unconscious, will-less piece +of protoplasm without a mind? Can the imagination of +even the least dumb among us see how or why a speech-mechanism +has been developed and an almost infinite +number of reflex arcs conditioned to respond to its innumerable +demands if there be nobody anywhere in a +condition to know whether silence or bedlam reigns?</p> + +<p>Dr. Watson objects to the evidence of “journalists” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>being received upon any matter involving human conduct, +because they always make their depositions “in terms of +some phases of the original nature of man.” But nobody +can say anything otherwise. A man born deaf could +understand Beethoven’s “Choral Symphony” in terms of +acoustics, because on that side he would not be “dumb.” +But could he understand what it is which the world +prizes in the melody that lifts up Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” +in the last movement? And yet acoustics explains everything +in music—except the music. Trying to describe +human conduct except in terms of the nature of man is +like trying to dip a net into the sea without getting it +wet.</p> + +<p>“Consider for a moment what people mean, or at least +should mean, when they say they are conscious or have +consciousness,” the “Myth” proceeds. “They mean, in the +words of the behaviorist, that they can carry on some +kind of brief sub-vocal talk with ‘themselves’ behind the +closed doors of the lips.” Do they, Dr. Watson? But +what do you mean, “mean”? Have you not told us that +“meaning never arrives in the scientific observations of +behavior”? Have you not told us that we are nothing +but a mass of reactions? Can one reaction “mean” anything +to another reaction?</p> + +<p>And why tell us that we “should” do this or that? +You have given us only our “life history” as the determiner +of our acts. That history found us with certain +reflexes with which we had nothing to do; certain “situations” +arose to which we automatically responded; our reflexes +became “conditioned” in a way that we could +neither help nor hinder. In “Psychology from the Standpoint +of a Behaviorist” you say, “A host of stimuli act +concurrently, but the organism reacts now to one, now to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>another, depending upon which group of stimuli becomes +prepotent.” It does not depend upon us, you see. The +credit or the blame rests either with our original protoplasm +or with the stimuli which have made up its life +history. If slaves we were born, if in slavery we have +grown up, you cannot set us free and make us morally +responsible now by letting us talk a little sub-vocally to +selves which do not exist.</p> + +<p>Yet this is precisely what Dr. Watson attempts to do—or +at least he warns us how helpless we will be if we +don’t learn to talk. The old Chinese philosopher, Lao Tse, +once said, “Those who do not know, talk; those who +know keep silence.” Dr. Watson says, going on with +his Myth of the Unconscious—calling it mythical because +he prefers the no-conscious: “The child brought up in +isolation or among taciturn parents or in groups where +verbalization is frowned upon ... can only act when +brought face to face with objects in their appropriate settings.” +That is, he cannot think. “This is typical of the +behavior of animals. It is typical of the behavior of many +primitive peoples; of men like Jack Dempsey, Calvin Coolidge, +or a great many athletes and acrobats.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_31_31" href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> + +<p>If the acrobatic, athletic, primitive, Dempsey-like Calvin +Coolidge has to be content not to think of consequences +it is no great wonder that we could not get Eliza +logically and behavioristically across the ice.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3 id="FOOTNOTES_1"> + FOOTNOTES: +</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> “Behavior, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology,” New +York, 1914.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, September, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> “The Training of Young Children,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, August, +1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> From Dr. Watson’s own account of these experiments in “Psychology +from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> “The Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, July, +1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> “Behavior, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology,” p. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> Vol. XIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> September, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a> “The Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, July, +1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13" href="#FNanchor_13_13" class="label">[13]</a> “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 215.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14" href="#FNanchor_14_14" class="label">[14]</a> “The Unconscious,” p. 59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15_15" href="#FNanchor_15_15" class="label">[15]</a> “The Metaphysics of the Instrument,” in <i>The Monist</i>, July, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16_16" href="#FNanchor_16_16" class="label">[16]</a> “Varieties of Religious Experience,” Lecture III, “The Reality of +the Unseen.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17_17" href="#FNanchor_17_17" class="label">[17]</a> “The Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, July, +1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18_18" href="#FNanchor_18_18" class="label">[18]</a> “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19_19" href="#FNanchor_19_19" class="label">[19]</a> “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20_20" href="#FNanchor_20_20" class="label">[20]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21_21" href="#FNanchor_21_21" class="label">[21]</a> “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22_22" href="#FNanchor_22_22" class="label">[22]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23_23" href="#FNanchor_23_23" class="label">[23]</a> “The Myth of the Unconscious,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, September, +1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24_24" href="#FNanchor_24_24" class="label">[24]</a> “The Myth of the Unconscious,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, September, +1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25_25" href="#FNanchor_25_25" class="label">[25]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 355.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26_26" href="#FNanchor_26_26" class="label">[26]</a> <i>Current History</i> for September, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27_27" href="#FNanchor_27_27" class="label">[27]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, December, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28_28" href="#FNanchor_28_28" class="label">[28]</a> “The Trained Flea,” by Octavus Roy Cohen, <i>Saturday Evening +Post</i>, December 17, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29_29" href="#FNanchor_29_29" class="label">[29]</a> “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” p. 372.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30_30" href="#FNanchor_30_30" class="label">[30]</a> “The Myth of the Unconscious,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, September, +1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31_31" href="#FNanchor_31_31" class="label">[31]</a> <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, September, 1927, page 104, col. 2.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III"> + CHAPTER III + <br> + DR. McDOUGALL’S X + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>1. AT THE BECK OF THIRTEEN MASTERS</h3> + +<p class='drop-cap'><span class='allcap'>Dr. William M</span><span class='allsmcap'>c</span><span class='allcap'>Dougall</span>, once of Oxford +and Harvard, now of Duke University +in North Carolina, came to America as one of +England’s leading psychologists. If he is less well known +to the public than some other psychologists, it is because +he is less eminently “verbalized” along the lines of gripping, +every-day speech. As an example of his literary +style, as well as of his philosophy, take his definition of +Instinct.</p> + +<p>“An inherited or innate psycho-physical disposition +which determines its possessor to perceive, and to pay +attention to, objects of a certain class, to experience an +emotional excitement of a particular quality upon perceiving +such an object, and to act in regard to it in a +particular manner, or, at least, to experience an impulse +to such action.”</p> + +<p>McDougall is nothing if not cautious. His subtile mind +foresees every objection which can be made, and tries to +forestall it. The result is a labyrinth in which even a professor, +lacking a golden thread from the head of Ariadne +to guide him, must—and does—frequently get lost. And +yet all that this famous definition actually means is that +we are born in such a way that we act in such a way.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p> + +<p>As to whether the way is marked by physical roads or +by roads which are something else; as to whether these +roads are bequeathed to us by our ancestors, or whether +we just have them, McDougall does not commit himself. +But he implies that there is something in us which pays +attention or does not pay attention, and that this something +does not always follow a road even if it sees it. +Sometimes it merely wants to follow, but forbears. Each +road, we learn as we continue to read from this, his +“Outline of Psychology,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_32_32" href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> has a lure of its own—as +roads are apt to have—something which he calls the “hormic +impulse,” or “hormic faculty.” And sometimes, instead +of having it always acting from the roads themselves +and moving us with a pull, he seems to think of it +as in or behind us and giving us a push. In its latter position +it can easily be mistaken for a will—even for a free +will. To experience an impulse to act, and then not to act +as the impulse would have you—is not that to be free to +act as you like?</p> + +<p>Yes; but what determines the like? Has the slave-driver +gone, or has he merely stepped into the background?</p> + +<p>A hormic impulse is a “striving” impulse. We are born +with these impulses, therefore they are “instincts.” William +James gave us twenty-four—the instincts of climbing, +imitation, emulation, rivalry, pugnacity, anger, resentment, +sympathy, hunting, fear, approbation, acquisitiveness, +kleptomania, constructiveness, play, curiosity, +sociability, shyness, cleanliness, modesty, shame, love, +jealousy, parental love. Dr. Watson says he has been able +to find none of them. Dr. McDougall rejects some and +discovers several new ones, leaving thirteen in all—which +was for him an unlucky number.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span></p> + +<p>Instead of being free, we have now thirteen masters, +always wrangling among themselves, it is true, but never +consulting us about their decisions. If we hesitate to obey +one of them it is only because some other happens for the +moment to be stronger. Or we are mastered by a combination; +by a bloc. If we decide to move from the city to the +country, it is probably a farm bloc. According to this +theory, a sufficiently knowing person could calculate your +conduct in advance.</p> + +<p>Draw two straight lines of the same length, or of different +lengths, as you prefer, from a single point; call that +point yourself; let the direction of the lines represent +the direction of the instincts, and let the relative lengths +of the lines represent the relative strength of the instincts. +If you then draw two other lines, each one parallel +to one of the first two, and if you finally draw a diagonal +from the original point to the opposite corner of the +parallelogram you have just constructed, this diagonal +will represent the action you will take when played upon +by two hormic impulses at the same time.</p> + +<p>But is this not free will, to do as you are moved to +do? It was Schopenhauer, I think, who said that if a stone +thrown through the air could be conscious, it would +imagine that it was free; would translate gravity, momentum, +resistance and the like into terms of personal +desire. And it was Will Durant who, in his “Story of +Philosophy,” said that Schopenhauer was right. This, of +course, is but another way of saying that free will is an +illusion. It seems to come from within us, but in reality +comes from without. And so it must be if we are the playthings +of these hormic, instinctive impulses with which +we are said to be born.</p> + +<p>McDougall has specifically repudiated this interpretation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>of his theory. He calls himself a “Vitalist”; a believer +in an active “life-principle,” in something which, +if not an actual soul, is at least a mind. But being an eminently +fair-minded gentleman, he has been at pains to +marshal together all the objections to his own views which +he can think of, and he has proven himself to be a better +enemy propagandist than defender of his own territory.</p> + +<p>Thus C. E. M. Joad, a British writer, author of “The +Babbitt Warren,” in his essay, “The End of Ethics,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_33_33" href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> +compared McDougall to Watson and to Freud, and finds +that one and all “preclude free will.” And he adds: +“Whether ... the conscious will overcomes the unconscious +desire, or whether the unconscious desire overcomes +the conscious will, is a matter which appears to lie +outside our control.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Joad does not go half far enough. Under the +McDougall hypothesis, the conscious will overcoming the +unconscious desire is a matter which can never happen. +Will is merely the conscious result of a war of unconscious +impulses. But he is quite right in believing that it +makes no difference whether a striving be called an “instinct,” +as by McDougall; an “emotion-reflex,” as by +Watson; or a “libido,” with or without a “complex,” as by +Freud. If we were born with it, or found it innate within +us, or acquired it through circumstances not of our making, +then we are its puppets or the puppets of its fellows. +So Mr. Joad quite logically groups McDougall, Watson +and Freud together as determinists, all the protests of +the eminent English professor to the contrary notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>McDougall nevertheless is possessed by an idea which +negatives such a conclusion, negatives his whole philosophy; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>but he has never let it possess him wholly. That is +why he has become so subtile, so difficult to read. Among +those objects “of a certain class” which his thirteen innate +or inherited instincts have moved him to pay attention to, +is the materialistic physical science of the nineteenth +century. And the conclusions of that science emphatically +forbid the conclusion which he longs to arrive at in his +own particular sphere. He wants to be free; to have a +soul. And this old science tells him that he can’t be free, +nor have anything of the sort.</p> + +<p>The trouble, of course, comes from the “law” of the +Conservation of Energy—the idea that force is incapable +of being either increased or diminished; that the amount +of power which enters into anything is the amount of +power which eventually issues from it, no more and no +less. If will be anything but the net result of a group of +pushes and pulls, it obviously contravenes this law by +“creating” enough force to upset the balance—that is, +unless we interpret the law very liberally and take it to +mean that the sum total of the force of the entire universe +alone is constant. In that case, if the will can smuggle +in a little energy without having to pay for it, so to speak, +it could be free to that extent.</p> + +<p>The nineteenth century provided against this catastrophe +by making matter indestructible. No particle of it +was to be permitted to give up the ghost—a ghost which +might be snatched by the will and used to wreck the +materialistic machine. So even if matter had some energy +locked up in it somehow, it was going to stay locked up. +Those were the days of a static universe; of a world completely +finished, set going and deserted by a God who had +gone out of business and was never expected to return. +And to prove it, scientists devised instruments, measured +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>the energy—income and output, found that the two balanced, +and boldly announced that they always “must” +balance.</p> + +<p>Naturally, McDougall is not so crude as to accept +either those experiments or those theories today. It takes +a popular author to do that—one whose reading stopped +or was curtailed many years ago. After saying that the +only ground for doubting the freedom of the will is that +offered by the strict determinists who contend for the +universality of the Law of Causation—a dependent +brother of the Law of Conservation,—after saying this, +he boldly adds that this law “is not susceptible of being +proved”; has “had its day”; and “is merely a clog on +speculation.”</p> + +<p>Nothing could be more hopeful. We seem to be setting +out on a magnificent, unincumbered highway. But McDougall +is a born reconciler of irreconcilables. He can +not abandon Conservation even after having repudiated +it. Earlier predilections, no doubt, bar the way. So he +seeks to retain both his Will and the Law which forbids +it. Fit successor to James and to Santayana, he presents +the spectacle of a house divided against itself. Yet he +lacks the wistful melancholy of the unbelieving Catholic, +who found the intellect so hard and dry and useless when +made supreme over all, but strove faithfully to worship +it nevertheless. Nor has he the reckless inconsistency of +the unbelieving Protestant, James, who could say one +thing heartily, and then, in another mood, say something +quite the opposite—no less heartily.</p> + +<p>McDougall is neither hearty nor melancholy. He has +partially accepted Freud, and has worked in the same +clinic with Jung. He is a psychiatrist. His important +contributions to knowledge all deal with the abnormal. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>He has studied insects and animals. But such thirst for +the human as he owns to has been largely satisfied by his +practical ministrations to the sick and semi-demented. +Therefore he is able to weave his intricate patterns of +words about the incompatible presumptions of his argument +with a certain appearance of enjoyment, and seems +to fancy that when the thread of the discourse has become +sufficiently tangled it will have brought the incompatibles +together.</p> + +<p>“Resolutions of the will are not bolts from the blue,” +he asserts.⁠<a id="FNanchor_34_34" href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> And he does not see that this commits him +hopelessly to the mechanistic camp. For resolutions of the +will must be bolts from the blue—just that, exactly—or +they do not transcend the law of the Conservation of +Energy. And if they do not add a jot or tittle by way +of effect to what is already found in the cause, they are +not free.</p> + +<p>“Shall we say that Divine [clearly he means ‘human’] +Reason sits at the head, controlling the fierce passions +that reside in the belly as a charioteer controlls a team of +savage steeds?” asks McDougall.⁠<a id="FNanchor_35_35" href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>“Aye!” cried the great Aristotle, centuries ago.</p> + +<p>“Hardly!” exclaims our Carolina professor. “Reason +is not a conative [i. e. striving] energy that may be +thrown on this side or that in our moral conflicts.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_36_36" href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> +“Reason is not that X of which we are in search, though +it plays an important part in bringing that X to bear.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_37_37" href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p>It begins to have the interest of a detective story. X +marks the spot where the Will is to be found—and if X +is something superior to Reason, all the better. But it is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>clearly asserted here that the Will is not the Reason; that +Reason merely plays a part in bringing the Will to bear. +That is, Reason guides, directs, aims the Will? No; for +in such a case Reason would be the master, the mysterious +Mr. X after all—which is contrary to the hypothesis. Is +Reason, then, a channel of information, an open book +where the Will reads the latest returns from the environment, +so that there may be no action without knowledge? +It looks that way for the moment. But McDougall goes +on: “The X of which we are in search is always an impulse +awakened within the sentiment of self-regard. It is +the desire that I, the precious self ... shall realize in +action the ideal of conduct which it has formulated and +accepted.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_38_38" href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> + +<p>So X is an impulse wakened within a sentiment, which⁠<a id="FNanchor_39_39" href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> +he tells us is the “most general term to denote all acquired +conative (i. e. striving) trends.” This makes X +an impulse wakened within an acquired striving trend. +And if we turn back to the definition of instinct we are +reminded that a disposition to experience an impulse is an +instinct, and therefore not acquired. So the impulse must +have slumbered in a disposition before the sentiment +within which it eventually woke had been acquired. X is +also a desire belonging to an “I” which has formulated +and accepted an ideal of conduct. Are we ringing the +changes upon an octave of bells, or are we trying to say +something?</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_077" style="max-width: 64.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_077.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <span class="smcap">Professor William McDougall</span> +<br> +<span class='norm'> Are we trying to say something?</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Here we have Reason, Desire, Impulse, Instinct and +Sentiment, not to mention Trend, all getting together +and trying to make a Will with the help of an X and an +I. We were out fishing, and just when the prospect +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>seemed encouraging for a bite of something edible, we +catch a wad of verbal flounces, beneath which if anything +be concealed it looks strangely like a gudgeon in the +shape of Nietzsche’s “Will to Power” rechristened as the +Sentiment of Self-Regard. Or it may be the “libido” of +Freud, or the “egotistic impulse” of Dr. Alfred Adler, +of Vienna, which even Freud has denounced as “founded +entirely upon the impulse of aggression,” leaving “no +place at all for love.” It is a Will such as Dr. Watson +might have made, had he been making one. But at least, +you will say, it is a Will. Yet is it?</p> + +<p>A Will must have power, else it cannot move at all. +And it must have the direction of that power, else it has +no choice as to the way in which it shall move. X, being an +impulse and a desire, may be said to have power. But +McDougall puts it within an acquired striving trend, and +my dictionary tells me that a trend is an inclination to +move in a particular direction—which is precisely what +an instinct is. The channel, you will note, has already +been dug. Whatever was acquired was foredoomed to be +acquired. The ideal of conduct which the “I” formulated +and accepted lay hidden from the first, with no possibility +of its being rejected in favor of some other ideal. +The “balance sheet” of the Law of Conservation has +been retained, all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>McDougall has also attempted to make a Will out of +attention.</p> + +<p>Now attention is probably the slightest piece of luggage +of all our inner impedimenta. It is such a little thing. It +weighs almost nothing. Can’t we get at least “attention” +past the old-fashioned scientific custom-house without +paying duty under the Conservation law? This looks at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>first like a feasible scheme. But the customsmen are lynx-eyed. +Once we submit to their jurisdiction they will let +nothing pass, though it weigh less than the tiniest bit of +fuzz off the end of a feather boa. Thus far McDougall +has been held up as an undesirable citizen by these hoary +custodians, and not allowed to land in Mechanistia. They +have been alarmed by the suspicious manner of the traveler. +But in thinking that he has any free will hidden +in his theoretical baggage they are deceived.</p> + +<p>This “interest” or “attention” with which we have to +deal, is “conative.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_40_40" href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> And conation is “a convenient Latin +word ... to denote the striving aspect of the mental +processes.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_41_41" href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> I am afraid that it is all it is, a convenient +Latin word. For “instinct” too is a “direct conative +trend.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_42_42" href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> Here we have two kinds of striving, only one +of which is said to be direct, that is to have a direction. +But this directed striving comes first; it is in-born, instinctive. +Naturally so is instinct, “a disposition which +determines its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention +to, objects of a certain class.” But in trying to find a Will +it is precisely this determining which we are interested +in. We don’t care what makes the water run in the ditch, +we want to know what digs the ditch. In McDougall it is +always instinct. He has studied insects too much. He has +seen too many lunatics whose wills were paralyzed. “Instinctively” +he gives us only the mechanisms which he +thinks he finds in grasshoppers.</p> + +<p>Once, indeed, he does get up to the level of birds. On +page 255 of the book⁠<a id="FNanchor_43_43" href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> which contains the most complete +expression of his theories, he says: “The only instance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>of pure cognition, as distinct from recognition, are +those in which a creature is confronted for the first time +with an object of the kind that evokes an instinctive reaction.... +As when the hen nightingale hears for the +first time the song of the male.”</p> + +<p>We are back to a first time, so for the moment are freed +from habit. But “instinctive reaction” evoked by an object +in the environment promptly takes us in charge. If +the hen nightingale has no X, neither have we. She is +merely a concrete example of the class “creature,” to +which we unquestionably belong. And obviously the hen +can pay no attention to objects in which she has no instinctive +interest, since it is instinct which “determines” +the disposition to attend.</p> + +<p>But what if the hen sees a snake as well as hears a +song? Can reason dig a channel for her striving which +will lead her to make a detour on her way past snake +towards song? Is Reason the X? Impossible. “Reason is +not a conative [striving] energy.” Then it has no power, +it cannot dig ditches.</p> + +<p>It cannot even control attention, since that is the yes-man +of instinct, the only thing having power which we +have yet encountered. So if the hen nightingale decides +to risk the possibility of laying unfertilized eggs rather +than the possibility of making a snake’s dinner—if she +turns a deaf ear to the song of the male and simply goes +away from there, it will be because her instinct of self-preservation +proved a stronger and a quicker ditch-digger +and trend-giver for her hormic impulses than did +her sexual or maternal instincts. Or perhaps it was her +instinct of self-regard which led her to take wing.</p> + +<p>No doubt it will be argued that it was Reason which +put before her the probable consequences of coming too +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>close to a snake, reason based on experience or observation. +Let us suppose that Reason did have this information—though +I don’t see how a powerless reason could +acquire anything,—what is it going to do with it? Call +it to the hen’s attention? It cannot. Her attention wears +the shackles of instinct. She moves without waiting to +know. Moving without knowing why is the very core of +instinctive behavior.</p> + +<p>And yet McDougall assures us⁠<a id="FNanchor_44_44" href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> that “conative +[striving] behavior is indicative of an energy that works +teleologically [i. e. purposefully] and which is therefore +radically different from the energies which physical +science conceives as working always mechanistically.” +He loves to console himself with sentences like this one. +We grow more rational and less instinctive as we grow +older. How perfectly true. But McDougall brings it about +by having Reason “waken” in a world where no energy +is required to amass and classify data and then bring +them to the attention of an X in the face of thirteen +instincts which among them possess all the power +there is.</p> + +<p>If Reason only were a bolt from the blue! Or if X +were such a bolt and could lend Reason a little current! +But X itself wakens in a particular instinct, self-regard, +and it is wakened by nothing. X does not mark the place +where the will is to be found, it marks the place where the +<i>body</i> is to be found. And what is McDougall’s conclusion +of the whole matter? What one might expect. “The stallion +arches his thick neck ... the bull bellows; the lion +roars; the cat caterwauls; and the young man curls his +mustache.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="2_PSYCHE_WIELDS_THE_BROOM"> + 2. PSYCHE WIELDS THE BROOM +</h3> + +<p>In an unclaimed desert anyone may erect fences, but +it is difficult to see how fences, especially when they are +only imaginary, can earn dividends if they enclose no cattle. +McDougall introduces us to a region where there is +not even sand—only words. And nothing is required of +these words, whether they be conveniently Latin or less +conveniently English, except that they follow one another +in grammatical order. He makes distinction after distinction; +and as they are verbal distinctions merely, all that +ensues when they contradict each other is a conflict like +that of several contending currents of air.</p> + +<p>We see now why Dr. Watson so much objected to the +introspective method. In truth, “introspective” is an unhappy +term. We may note what goes on inside of our +bodies, and even of our brains to a certain extent; and give +names to various thoughts, feelings and sensations, or +to what we take to be such. We can tell in what order they +occur. But this is not introspection in any literal sense, it +is simply paying attention to things which are intimate +and near. Actually to try to look inside of “ourselves,” +implies that “we” are standing outside and looking in—an +impossible situation. Its physical counterpart is the attempt +to roll the eyeballs so as to get a view of the interior +of the skull—a performance not to be recommended.</p> + +<p>The outer world, physicists tells us, is a “continuum,” +something all of a piece. A chair and the air around it are +not so separate as one might suppose. It is the sense of +touch and the sense of sight which distinguish so sharply +between one and the other. Make the chair of glass, and +the eye is not so certain. Lenses and mirrors can be so arranged +as to project a visible chair which the hand cannot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>feel. Make the chair of aromatic wood and the sense of +smell will perceive it as pervasively emanating from a +vague center yet permeating the whole room.</p> + +<p>But in dividing such a continuum we have at least the +warrant of our senses. We remain practical. When we +attempt to divide up the continuum perceived only by the +inner self, such guides are lacking. We have to depend +upon psychologists. And if we try to go further and cut +the inner self, itself doing the cutting, we only commit +subjective <i>hari-kari</i>, the sensation of which is very +uncomfortable. This is the sort of metaphysics which is +indeed but methodical befuddlement. Yet it is practiced, +not by metaphysicians but by men calling themselves +scientists; men who profess for the most part to despise +both metaphysics and philosophy—dogmatic men, who +never lose an opportunity for expressing their horror of +dogma. Such misbehavior entitles anyone to the title +“misbehaviorist,” whether he be a Watsonian or a Freudian, +and McDougall, for all his agreeable manners, will +have to be convicted.</p> + +<p>R. H. Hingley, B.A., who signs himself a “research +student in psychology, Edinburgh University,” picking +and choosing such verbalization as pleases him, even attempts +to reconcile McDougall with the impalpable +Boris Sidis. Hingley writes as a friend of the accused, +and in his book, “Psycho-Analysis,” proves it by defining +“self-consciousness” as “a recognized and acknowledged +synthesis of ... impulses.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_45_45" href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> If that is all self-consciousness +is, it is this same familiar nothing with +which we have already had so much to do. Can you +imagine a “synthesis” as existing by itself? In the case +of gin, perhaps, for the atoms in synthetic gin are real +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>atoms in good standing in their several communities +brought together by no fault of their own. Nor even yet +do they exist as gin except as there is something outside of +themselves capable of conceiving of them as gin. They +belong to the physical continuum—and generally it is +safer to leave them where they belong.</p> + +<p>I won’t ask what is to be expected of a synthesis of +McDougallian hormic impulses. Another verbal whirlwind +threatens to blow, and it will be better to keep out +of it. But let us make a synthesis of matches.</p> + +<p>Arrange a number of matches on the table before you +so that they form a cross, a star, or any other geometrical +figure. Then sweep them up in your hand and forget all +about it. Where is the figure now? What has become of +it? Have you at last succeeded in defying “natural law,” +and annihilated something? No; the figure did not exist, +as a figure, except in you. And if some trace of it be not +in you now, as an “unconscious idea” or what not, it +can be nowhere. It was only a form, and form is an entity +only by grace of the perceiver of form.</p> + +<p>It was you who perceived certain relations among the +matches. The relations were not in the matches. Unless +the matches managed somehow to get outside of themselves, +they had no idea that they were parts of a cross, +a star, or a triangle. And when this form is “destroyed” +they are conscious of no loss. Now a self, or a self-consciousness +which is only a form made out of the things +which constitute it and not perceived by anything else, +is less a self than a piece of bread rubbed on the outside +of an empty closet door is a cheese sandwich.</p> + +<p>This habit of playing with words signifying a multitude +of things conceived of as a unit, is evident in all the +literature of mechanist thinking. As soon as such a word +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>is found, the group of things is treated as if it were a +force, an entity, or even an intelligent creature standing +on its own legs. And usually the things in the groups are +also but words.</p> + +<p>Dr. McDougall, for instance, says that a man in the +presence of a great work of art is being played upon by a +“fusion” of the “instincts” of “curiosity” and “wonder,” +fused in their turn with the instinct of “submission.” It +is a predicament in which no one should lightly wish to +find even an art critic.</p> + +<p>But if we have thirteen instincts, why not fourteen? +Why not the whole twenty-four listed by James? Why +not twenty-five? If I can be played upon by a fusion of +curiosity, wonder and submission, all instinctive, why +cannot I be played upon by the instinct to light my pipe +at three o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, the Thirteenth +of January? Think of a self-conscious synthesis of unconscious +impulses being played upon by a fusion of unconscious +determining impulses wakened in an innate +psycho-physical disposition to pay attention!</p> + +<p>But let us abandon the materialistic hypothesis, however +disguised. Let us say that it was Psyche who built +her house, not the house which built Psyche—and how +the situation changes! She cannot have built it out of +nothing, it is true. So let Dr. Watson give her a dwelling +with only the foundation reflex courses laid, or let Dr. +McDougall escort her into a completely and instinctively +furnished apartment. In either case, she begins at once +to make alterations, for she is a “choosy” woman, this +Psyche of ours. She has power in her right arm, and does +not care a tinker’s dam about the conservation of energy.</p> + +<p>So she proceeds in her disposition to pay attention to +objects “of a certain class,” and totally to ignore others. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>Things progress from a “predominantly mechanical to +a predominantly teleological determination.” Pure instincts, +the original furnishings of the flat, become modified +by experience and rational reflection. Dr. Watson⁠<a id="FNanchor_46_46" href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> +says “there is no mystery in building the human being +into as complicated an organism as he is.” Avowed mechanists +are never tired of telling us this, and they are +right. There is no mystery at all—save in Psyche herself. +And she is all mystery. I would no sooner think of +trying to explain her than I would think of explaining +myself. For she <i>is</i> myself. And she and I, like Drs. Watson +and McDougall, are totally inexplicable. Not even we +understand in the least.</p> + +<p>What is explanation? Let us explain a sunset. It is +caused, we will say, by the earth turning upon its axis, +so that the sun, which at noon was overhead, seems to +sink to the horizon. Actually, it is the horizon which rises +and obscures the sun—no matter. The rays which were +perpendicular, become slant. They encounter drops of +water in the atmosphere—encounter too the laws of refraction, +and break up into gorgeous yellows and purples. +Follow the rays in one direction, and you come to the +“rods” in the eye; the optic nerve; the brain; and to +Something which translates the result into the color sensations, +and these, perhaps, into a fusion of wonder, curiosity +and submission—and these into a lot of theories.</p> + +<p>Follow the rays in the other direction, and you arrive +at the sun, and are tempted to construct various theories +of light. Whence came the sun? Whence came these primal +particles or protons of which it is theoretically composed? +We know of the sun’s existence only from what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>Psyche perceives—through her senses or otherwise. Imagine +that neither Psyche nor the sun exists. Start now +and try to imagine yourself creating either or both. Why, +you cannot even make a beginning. You have nothing +to imagine with. You are lost between the impossibility +of existence and the impossibility of non-existence. Did +you ever stop to think how utterly impossible is either of +these two opposite impossibilities? And yet—here we are!</p> + +<p>Explanation, then, consists in nothing but the addition +to one mysterious experience of Psyche certain other +mysterious experiences which precede, accompany or follow +it. And as they usually precede, accompany or follow +in much the same order, we call them causes, controlling +circumstances, and effects. But instead of explaining the +mystery away, we have merely heaped Pelions and Ossas +of mystery all about it. And so we often manage to hide +it, and to fancy that there is no mystery at all. Would it +not be wholesome exercise occasionally to admit openly +that we do not know what we are talking about? Why +not for once exclaim with Dr. Bertry, in “<i>L’évasion</i>,” by +Brieux, “<i>On ’s imagine savoir des millions de choses!—on +veut formuler les lois de la vie—et l’on assiste impuissant +à sa propre agonie!—Nous ne comprenons rien à +tout ce qui se passe autour de nous, rien à ce que se passe +en nous</i>”?</p> + +<p>So far as the mind is concerned, this is undoubtedly +true. The mind can know nothing of the proper essence +of that which surrounds us. The mind, says Newman, +cannot comprehend even its own activities to the full. +So we “do but assist at our own agony.... Why is it +that I die? The scelerose invades the arteries. Why? What +is the scelerose?” And Dr. Bertry continues: “Do you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>wish me to tell you? We know nothing about it—nothing! +We have found nothing about it—but words.”</p> + +<p>That is no reason, however, why we should use yet +other words to create mysteries of our own—like the unconscious +emotions of Dr. Watson, or the enslaved freedom +of Dr. McDougall. And this is my answer to those +who will object that my explanation, too, is incomprehensible. +Its incomprehensibility comes from the facts, +not from my contrivance. The metaphor of Psyche grants +the natural mystery by making our inner self a human +being, which, after all, is what it is. And with this for a +start, the reason can work—at the only job for which it +is fitted.</p> + +<p>It does not follow that Psyche discovers nothing which +is of any use. Knowledge is relative, but Truth is not—Pragmatism +or no Pragmatism. And she soon discovers, +let William James have said what he may have said, that +it makes a great difference whether her approximations +are more or less wide of the mark. Which is to say that +she profits by experience. Her original house does not +suit her. She makes certain rearrangements. They suit +her better, but not to perfection. She continues to rearrange +and to build, with such material as life affords her. +That, I fancy, is what she is here for—to learn how to +keep house. For though the house be not Psyche, any +more than your house or your body is you, do not think +for a moment that it is useless. As well say that the +parallel bars in the gymnasium are of no use to the +athlete for whom they afford the opportunity of exercise.</p> + +<p>Scientists at one time used to exercise—not their powers +of observation, but their verbal ingenuity—upon a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>set of bars of their own which they called the psycho-neural +parallel, saying that inasmuch as two parallel lines +can never touch, so neurology and psychology, nerves +and mind, matter and the immaterial, can never influence +one another. According to this theory, there were two +eternally separate twins dancing along, each on its own +line of the parallel, forever aping each other as our reflections +ape us in a mirror. And it was strictly forbidden +to cross the track!</p> + +<p>The materialists have repealed this “law,” on the ground +that there is no psychic rail out of which to make the +right hand parallel. Others would repeal it, saying that +there is no left-hand rail. The rails are there, nevertheless. +What is not there nor anywhere is the prohibition +against crossing. The idea that the immaterial cannot influence +the material because spirit and matter are things +of different orders comes from the same sort of logic +as would maintain that waves cannot rock a boat because +wood and water, too, are of different orders of +things.</p> + +<p>But, think you, this is merely human experience and +common sense, not science? That there is no Scientific +Psyche? That the idea of there being somebody at home +within us is a sweet but forbidden doctrine; something +forever outlawed by the experimental method? On the +contrary, it was the experimental method which first made +us aware of this state of things. And the experimental +method in its most modern, scientific form, politely lifts +its hat to the Housekeeper whenever she appears. It was +only during a decade or two—the decade or two when +most of our psychologists were young and learned all +they ever did learn of physics—that science forgot her +manners. If you want to be in style, do not continue to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>wear your hat in the house. In the best circles it is no +longer done.</p> + +<p>We are not ready yet, however, to enter the best circles. +We have first to pass through the fires of passion, of +madness and dreams.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3 id="FOOTNOTES_2"> + FOOTNOTES: +</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32_32" href="#FNanchor_32_32" class="label">[32]</a> My quotations are from the edition of 1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33_33" href="#FNanchor_33_33" class="label">[33]</a> <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, August, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34_34" href="#FNanchor_34_34" class="label">[34]</a> “Outline of Psychology,” p. 446.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35_35" href="#FNanchor_35_35" class="label">[35]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 439.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36_36" href="#FNanchor_36_36" class="label">[36]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 446.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37_37" href="#FNanchor_37_37" class="label">[37]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 440.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38_38" href="#FNanchor_38_38" class="label">[38]</a> “Outline of Psychology,” pp. 140 and 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39_39" href="#FNanchor_39_39" class="label">[39]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40_40" href="#FNanchor_40_40" class="label">[40]</a> “Outline of Psychology,” p. 274.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41_41" href="#FNanchor_41_41" class="label">[41]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42_42" href="#FNanchor_42_42" class="label">[42]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43_43" href="#FNanchor_43_43" class="label">[43]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44_44" href="#FNanchor_44_44" class="label">[44]</a> “Outline of Psychology,” p. 317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45_45" href="#FNanchor_45_45" class="label">[45]</a> “Outline of Psychology,” p. 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46_46" href="#FNanchor_46_46" class="label">[46]</a> “The Behaviorist Looks at Instincts,” <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, July, +1927.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV"> + CHAPTER IV + <br> + A SLAVE TO DREAMS + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>1. THE CONFESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD</h3> + +<p class='drop-cap'><span class='allcap'>Psycho-analysis</span>, we are told by Hingley⁠<a id="FNanchor_47_47" href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> +began with a “very interesting case of hysteria” +suffered by a patient of Dr. J. Breuer, of Vienna. +Sigmund Freud, then a young man, was in Paris, studying +with Charcot at the Salpêtrière. The patient lost the +use of the right arm, lost the power to drink; but recovered +both when Dr. Breuer, resorting to hypnotism, revived +the memory of a painful experience in the patient’s +childhood.</p> + +<p>Mesmer, with his magnetic fluid and his “passes,” had +almost been forgotten, but in France the hypnotists of the +Salpêtrière were still battling against the “suggestion” +school of Nancy—as in deed they are today. Here, therefore, +was a case after Freud’s own heart. He hurried +back home.</p> + +<p>The two doctors worked for a while in harmony, and +soon arrived at the conclusion that to cure hysteria it was +not sufficient to revive the past. Patients must re-live the +painful experience in all its original emotional intensity. +Thus the ground was prepared for the later Naturopaths, +who insist that one must have all one’s diseases +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>over again in inverse order, avoiding remedies as these +merely “suppress the symptoms.”</p> + +<p>But some people have had diseases which they do not +care to have over again, and prefer suppressed symptoms +to almost any other kind. So Naturopathy has had a hard +row to hoe. At first there was the same reluctance on the +part of the public in regard to painful emotional experiences. +Not until Freud, abandoned by Breuer but accompanied +by a disciple named Jung, visited America in +1919, was sales-resistance finally overcome. By this time +it was generally known that, though the method was called +the “cathartic method,” no cathartics were used; and that +the “painful experiences” to be re-lived were all sexual +experiences, painful only in a Pickwickian sense.</p> + +<p>For he came with the announcement that there was +within each one of us a bogie, or endo-psychic censor, +which prevented us from dwelling with any real enjoyment +upon the more unsavory episodes of the past; that +it was this spoil-sport which made us ill; and that it could +be put to rout by “Psycho-Analysis.”</p> + +<p>Soon it was discovered that an outer censor, familiarly +known as Anthony Comstock—a rather ignorant gentleman +with the annoying habit of sending policemen after +those who published what was, in those days, quaintly +termed “pornographic literature,”—could be floored by the +same means. Psychology was not “literature.” Therefore +it could not be “pornographic literature,” within the +meaning of the law. The Venusburg <i>motif</i> shivered with +joy. The Pilgrim’s Chorus sank to a gruff base. So the +Austrian became a best-seller, out-vending even Havelock +Ellis, who had previously had our perversions pretty +much in his politer charge. Dr. Breuer, on the contrary, +clinging to hypnotism, which Freud had discarded, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>more or less discarding the eroticism to which Freud had +nailed his colors, sank back straightway into his native +oblivion, a warning to all.</p> + +<p>It need not be thought that the cathartic method did us +no good. The United States, just emerging from the +taboos of Queen Victoria, was in need of hyssop. Some +of us, brought up among tables and chairs having limbs +in lieu of legs, were really in a bad way. But Freud has +become much more than a physician. Through books +which sell in hundreds of thousands, he seeks to officiate +as a pedagogue, a scientist, a philosopher and a priest.</p> + +<p>Therefore it may not be amiss to enquire into his antecedents +and his character, and then to ask ourselves what +his teachings amount to as theory and how they influence +our lives if put into practice.</p> + +<p>In order to be perfectly fair, I shall confine myself +almost exclusively to the analysis of a single book, the +master-piece into which he has put his most fully elaborated +and carefully worked out speculations, “The Interpretation +of Dreams,” using the third edition of the +authoritative English translation of A. A. Brill.</p> + +<p>This work, whatever it may be as psychology, is certainly +one of the greatest autobiographies in existence; +for in it Freud not only tells us his dreams—which alone +would tell us nothing—but the incidents from which he +deems the dreams to have sprung, and the thoughts and +memories which his study of the dreams have brought to +mind. It is a method to be recommended for those who +wish to stand quite naked before the world. By the time +he has done, not even Rousseau or Benvenuto Cellini +are better revealed.</p> + +<p>“When I was six years old,” he writes,⁠<a id="FNanchor_48_48" href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> “and was receiving +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>my first instructions from my mother, I was asked +to believe that we are made of earth, and that therefore +we must return to earth. But this did not suit me, and I +doubted her teaching. Thereupon my mother rubbed the +palms of her hands together—just as in making dumplings, +except that there was no dough between them—and +showed me the blackish scales of epidermis which +were thus rubbed off as a proof that it is earth of +which we are made. My astonishment at this demonstration +<i>ad oculos</i> was without limit, and I acquiesced in +the idea.”</p> + +<p>And so, in maturer years, when he came to dream of +a woman rubbing her hands together, the incident was +recalled, and he identifies the dream woman as one of +the Fates!</p> + +<p>For once his conclusion is not far-fetched. One of the +Fates, indeed! To speak his own jargon, it may have +been from those blackish scales of epidermis that he received +the psychic blow which resulted in his life-long +anti-religious mania. His love of God (he once used to +read Philippson’s Bible, and to dream of the illustrations) +was made ashamed by this ridiculous demonstration <i>ad +oculos</i>, and forced out of consciousness. The course of +history was turned on a certain famous occasion by the +cackling of a flock of geese. It might have been turned +again by the timely use of a cake of soap upon a maternal +epidermis.</p> + +<p>Freud describes the inability of a child to detach its +“libido” from the parent whom he asserts first awakens +it, as a “mother-fixation.” His own mother-fixation takes +the following startling form:⁠<a id="FNanchor_49_49" href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> “It is only of late +that I have learned to value the significance of fancies +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>and unconscious thoughts about life in the womb. They +contain the explanation of the curious fear felt by so +many people of being buried alive, as well as the profoundest +unconscious reason for the belief in a life after +death, which represents nothing but a projection into +the future of this mysterious life before birth. The act +of birth [he means the act of being born] is the first experience +with fear, and is thus the source and model of +the emotion of fear.”</p> + +<p>Here emerges his marvelous gift for the enunciation +of inconsistent formulas. Birth, the “first experience with +fear,” is the “source and the model of all fear.” Yet it is +the pre-natal life, which knew no fear, which is the source +of the fear of being buried alive. Moreover, unconscious +thoughts about this happy life <i>in ventro</i> have but to be +projected into the future to become the source of a belief +in a life after death—a belief which is fraught both with +fear and hope to all those who entertain it.</p> + +<p>Then, to make his inconsistency complete, he maintains +(in his essay on “The Anxiety Neurosis,” and in many +other places) that “neurotic fear has its origin in the +sexual life and corresponds to a libido which has been +turned from its object.” From what object? One of the +erogenous zones. Birth thus ceases to be the source of +fear—at least of “neurotic” fear—unless we assumed +that it was a the moment of birth that erotic passion +was first awakened.</p> + +<p>Dr. Ernest Jones, in “<i>Zur Psycho-analyse der Kriegsneurosen</i>,” +says that all fear is due to suppressed libidinousness, +but adds that fear consists in anxiety lest the +suppression be overcome and the erotic demon escape +control. The natural hero, then, would be the man who +either had no erotic impulses or was indifferent as to when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>and where and how they manifested themselves. Freud, +perhaps, agrees with this. Yet evidently, like Hamlet (to +whom also he attributes a mother-fixation) he still carries +with him another fear—a “fear of something after +death,” an apprehension of such “dreams” as may come in +such a “sleep,” baffling all psycho-analysis and worse than +the delusions of a suppressed libido—and this notwithstanding +the blackish scales in the demonstration <i>ad ocolus</i> +and the incredible reasons which he gives for his +“symptom.”</p> + +<p>Freud hates to abandon anything altogether. He likes +to keep a little fear, a little shame—not enough to control +conduct, but just enough to lend a thrill to transgression. +“The original situation which calls out the observable +love-responses ... the stroking or manipulation +of some erogenous zone, tickling, shaking, gentle +rocking, patting and turning upon the stomach across the +attendant’s knee,” would become intolerably monotonous +if sought to be prolonged for a lifetime. Anatole France’s +penguins were not “excessively occupied” by it even after +they became human, before they learned to wear clothes. +Dr. Watson, could he really prevent other stimuli from +being “built in” or “grafted upon” this unconditioned +reflex, would reduce all love-interest to that seasonal intermittance +owned to by the beasts of the field—with +what consequences to the film industry, who can say? +Freud, though he prefers the words “mother-fixation” +to “gut-reaction,” and “polymorphous perverse” to “unconditioned +reflexes,”—to say nothing of “original sin”—agrees +perfectly with the behaviorist as to what the +natural stimuli are and that they should be spared all interference. +But he can never quite get over the idea that, +though natural, they are wrong. He speaks sometimes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>of “pollution” and of “filth.” The love-adventure thus +becomes as exciting as a pact with the devil. At the same +time he drives us to it with the threat of psycho-neurosis +and possible paralysis if we refrain. In his hands, psychology +becomes an aphrodisiac.</p> + +<p>From this same autobiography we learn that he was +once actually in a grave, though only “an empty Etruscan +grave near Orvieto.” And when he dreams of death, it is, +he sometimes thinks, from a wish that <i>if</i> he must go (“if” +is the word he uses!) it may be to a grave something like +this “pleasant one.”</p> + +<p>For a moment one thinks that the uterine obsession has +abated. Yet I remember that somewhere he explains that +the fondness of youths for flinging themselves down in +the open is due to the fact that the ground is “the womb of +mother earth,” and to a longing for return—whether in +a fœtal or other capacity I do not recall. The Etruscan +tomb-dream is not so pastoral as it seems.</p> + +<p>“Dreams which are conspicuously innocent,” he warns +us,⁠<a id="FNanchor_50_50" href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> “invariably (sic!) embody coarse erotic wishes.” +Note the word “coarse,” a term of condemnation. And +yet if we refine them we go mad!</p> + +<p>He can look forwards at times, for he asks,⁠<a id="FNanchor_51_51" href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> “Is not +the having of children the only access to immortality for +us all?” Which is certainly an inadequate—no man really +“lives again” in his children—yet a better explanation +for the general belief in immortality than the extremely +psycho-analytic idea that it comes from thoughts and +memories of the unborn state. But the mother hypothesis +seizes him again when he comes to interpret dreams +“about landscapes and localities in which emphasis is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>... laid upon the assurance” that one has “been there +before.” For he adds, “the locality [indicated] is always +the genital organ of the mother.”</p> + +<p>Freud was born in a little village of Moravia, “inhabited +by Slavs,” and “must have understood the Czech +language during the first three years of childhood.” Until +the end of his third year, his “inseparable” companion was +his nephew, John, a boy about a twelvemonth older than +himself. John occasionally took advantage of signority, +treating the future psychiatrist “very badly”; and the +memory of this association has, in his own opinion, “colored” +Freud’s relationships with people of his own age +ever since.</p> + +<p>He had, when he was fourteen, the pleasure of playing +Brutus to the hated and beloved playmate’s Cæsar—not +in Shakespeare’s drama but in Schiller’s poem—the audience +being composed of children. Long afterwards he +dreams of the event, and connects up the “associations” +in characteristic style. The dream-month, it seems, was +July—named after the mighty Cæsar himself. Which +leads him at once to Brutus’ speech in Shakespeare: “As +Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I +rejoiced at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as +he was ambitious, I slew him.” So old scores are evened, +if only in that thing less than a dream—dream-analysis. +Freud’s favorite method of taking revenge is in his sleep.</p> + +<p>Yet there is a certain truculence in his waking character +too, a <i>Schlagerfertigkeit</i> which he acknowledges to +be his. This seems to owe its origin not so much to the +teasing John as to a conversation which took place when +Freud was ten or twelve. His father was telling him how, +in his own youth, he was walking on a Saturday through +a street in the village where Freud was born.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span></p> + +<p>“Along comes a Christian,” says the father to the boy, +“knocks my cap into the mud with one blow, and shouts, +‘Jew, get off the sidewalk!’” Sigmund asks, “And what +did <i>you</i> do?” his eyes big with wonder and the hope for +some happy issue. But the father answers simply, “I went +into the street and picked up the cap.”</p> + +<p>Here was born another complex—this time an inferiority +complex—with which all right-minded persons +must sympathize. Stoutly has he sought to fight it off, to +assert himself. But it is easy to see how he has been hurt +by the anti-Semitic feeling which from time to time has +disgraced Austrian politics; how he hates the white carnations +that, in Vienna, are the insignia of the Jew-baiters.</p> + +<p>But with what gusto he tells us of the old peasant midwife +who assisted at his “first experience with fear” and +prophesied, after the manner of her kind, that he would +become “a great man!” His father, not to be outdone, was +of the opinion that he was “poetically gifted” from the +start. The idea of anticipated power may also lie behind +the fact that the favorite toy of his babyhood was a yellow +porcelain lion. And were I to follow his own method of +the free association of ideas yet further, I might suggest +that it was this lion which afterwards led him to +visit England.</p> + +<p>In any case, visit England he did, when he was nineteen, +and spent a day on the shore of the Irish sea, amusing +himself by catching the “sea animals” left behind by +the waves. A pretty little girl, seeing him engaged with +a starfish, approaches and asks, “Isn’t it alive?” He +answers in halting English but correctly enough, “Yes, +he is alive.” And now the adult Freud must needs spoil +this idyl by explaining that he was much embarrassed by +his grammatical “mistake,” and hastened to substitute an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span><i>it</i> for the <i>he</i>, fearing that the slip of the tongue in dealing +with gender had already betrayed the improper meaning +which in his thoughts he had attached to the masculine +pronoun. Really, at times Freud is quite intolerable—and +he seems to fancy, even yet, that he improved matters +by his “correction” of himself.</p> + +<p>Since visiting England, he has always wanted to visit +Rome, but has never done so, pretending to himself that +Rome is not healthy in summer, the only time he is free +to travel. He knows quite well that this excuse is about +a hundred years out of date, but appears to be prevented +by a complex from entering the Eternal City. For Freud, +all roads lead to sex, and no road leads to Rome—which +becomes quite understandable when we learn that for him +Rome meant Catholicism. And when he tells us further +that he often dreams that he is Hannibal, whom he identifies +as Judaism, he makes it plain that with him it is +<i>aut Cæsar aut nullus</i>. He would like to enter Rome as +Hannibal the Semitic commander, would have liked to +enter it—in the rôle of conqueror. At present the Pope +and Mussolini stand like inhibitions at the gate.</p> + +<p>At one time in Vienna he lived in a house having one +set of rooms upon the ground floor, serving him for an +office, and a second set upon the story above, where he +had his domestic quarters. The two levels were connected +only by an outside stairway, and it was his custom always +to “jump over the steps,” two at a time, arriving at +the top suddenly and out of breath. And from this he +derives his unrepeatable description of the symbolism of +staircases as seen in dreams, where he gives them a sexual, +even a rhythmic, significance.</p> + +<p>It is also his custom, it appears, not only to run up +stairs but to spit upon them as he goes. He does this, he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>says, even in the houses of patients unless spittoons are +provided at convenient intervals. And on the occasions +when he has been reproved by servants, he has always +been able to retort that a spittoon was missing.</p> + +<p>As to his wife, we learn that he “kept her waiting five +years” before he married her, but derived great satisfaction +from the circumstance, soon evident, that the marriage +was not to be unfruitful. And, being on a visit to +Breslau and seeing the sign of a “Dr. Herrod” in an office +window, he at once cried out, “I hope he is not a +children’s specialist!” Since then Freud’s most likeable +trait has been his anxiety over the future of his offspring. +He seems to have worried, both sleeping and waking, because +of the fact that, as they are Jews, he cannot give +them “a native country of their own.”</p> + +<p>Concerned lest one of his sons should grow up one-sided +either in mind or body, he dreamed that the boy said +at first “salted” and then “unsalted.” This, he assures us, +was a wish-fulfillment, because in the dream at least the +boy was acting “in obedience to bilateral symmetry.”</p> + +<p>Freud’s incredible ingenuity never fails him. Nor is +he, except when discussing metaphysics, lacking in +abundant wit, humor, and other amiable qualities. He +says that he will put in italics all the features of a certain +young lady’s dream that have a sexual significance—and +follows this up with two solidly italicised pages and +no other remark.</p> + +<p>He tells with glee how a lady in the audience at one of +his lectures in America interrupted him by exclaiming, +“Maybe all Austrian dreams are erotic, but I am sure it +is not so in the United States.”</p> + +<p>He is suffering from a boil, which had been poulticed, +and dreams that he is in a saddle riding a horse, the poultice +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>being the “day-remnant” now transformed into a +saddle. He declares that the dream (which, among other +things is “the guardian of sleep”) meant to say to him, +“Keep on sleeping. You have no furnucle [boil] at all. +You are riding on a horse, and with a furnucle where +you [think] you have it, riding would be impossible.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_52_52" href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> +This also means that his friend, F., has been putting on +airs, “riding the high horse” with him ever since he +(Freud) superceded him in the treatment of a particular +female patient. So the saddle becomes a side-saddle to +indicate the lady, and the dreamer performs circus antics +upon it as a dream-boast of the great things he had been +doing for her while she was under his care. And to those +who object to the super-abundance of his “associations” +he retorts that it is always the rich who have the most +money.</p> + +<p>Real money he seems to regard as “filthy lucre,” since +he holds that “the uncleanliness of childhood is often replaced +in the dream by greediness for gold.” His stout +republicanism comes out in his statement that “aristocrats +can be readily confounded with coachmen,” that their +merit is “that they have taken the trouble to be born”; +that “to us middle-class plebeians” an aristocrat is one who +likes to put himself “on the driver’s seat,” as Count Thun +once liked to drive the Austrian car of state.</p> + +<p>Much light is thrown upon the author’s environment, +perhaps even some justification to be found for his American +auditor’s exception to the inclusion of the United +States in the all-erotic hypothesis, by such remarks as the +one which distinguishes page 462: “That the sexual intercourse +of adults appears strange to children who observe +it, and arouses fear in them, <i>I dare say is a fact of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>daily experience</i>.” This, as they say in Vienna, must have +been “grown on his own manure.” I have added only the +italics. It also reminds one of a Hungarian proverb which +Freud is fond of quoting, “Pigs dream of acorns, geese +of maize.”</p> + +<p>In his part of the country, he informs us,⁠<a id="FNanchor_53_53" href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> “It is hardly +possible to go through a village ... without meeting a +two-or-three-year-old tot who lifts up his or her shirt +before the traveler, perhaps in his honor.” And lest there +be any doubt about the sort of life with which Freud +is familiar, his translator takes the trouble to note⁠<a id="FNanchor_54_54" href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> the +custom of <i>Fensterlein</i> as practiced in the Schwarzwald. +Lovers there, he says, are in the habit of mounting by +ladders to the windows of their sweethearts, and “becoming +so intimate that they practically enjoy a system +of trial marriage.” And he adds, “The reputation of the +young woman never suffers on account of <i>Fensterlein</i> +unless she becomes intimate with too many suitors.”</p> + +<p>Still, it is hardly fair to single out the Black Forest, +which after all is not Vienna. Even the Welsh have their +<i>carangwelly</i>; Irving found evidences of bundling in the +history of Father Knickerbocker; and companionate marriage +knows how to speak English.</p> + +<p>Freud himself has become a linguist, partly through +searching for the “bad” sense of words in all languages, +partly by looking for puns, the pun being one of the tools +with which he digs out “meanings” from his patients’ +dreams. A great mass of knowledge is required to trace +some of these word-plays. For instance, a dream of a +botanical monograph leads from cyclamen to cocaine, +from cocaine to a <i>Festschrift</i>, and thence to Dr. Königstein, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>to Prof. Gartner and his <i>blooming</i> wife whose +name is Flora, to Freud’s wife and her favorite flower, +to his own favorite flower (the artichoke) and thus to +Italy. To dream that there is “a terrible storm outside” +may mean that somebody is superfluous, for everything +is overflowing with water, “with fluid,”—“superfluid”—“superfluous.”</p> + +<p>“People who dream often of swimming, of cleaving +the waves with great enjoyment, have usually been persons +who wetted their beds, and they now repeat in the +dream a <i>pleasure</i> which they have long since learned to +forego.” This also seems superfluous.</p> + +<p>He accuses people who form collections of neckties +of using this bit of haberdashery as a sex-symbol. Nothing +in Freud is harmless, though he professes that his +constant digging for muck sometimes wearies him. Thus +one day after a lecture upon the usual subject he felt a +longing to get away “from rummaging in human filth,” +and was reassured only when a student followed him to +a café and told him that he was a great man. Filth and +greatness are again associated in his dream of being Gulliver +and cleansing a foul closet by the means used by +that famous traveler in putting out a never-to-be-forgotten +fire in the queen’s palace at Lilliput. In the same +dream he became Hercules cleansing the Augean stables.</p> + +<p>Naturally he reads Rabelais; but he has also read C. F. +Meyer’s “<i>Die Leiden eines Knaben</i>.” And when Louise +N., a visitor to his home, asked for a book, he recommended +Rider Haggard’s “She,” “which deals with the +eternal feminine,” and the Haggard-Lang romance, “The +Heart of the World,” which he attributes to Haggard +alone. This may indeed be the eternal feminine, but it +has at least undergone a charming sea-change—“she-change,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>Freud undoubtedly would say. Strain a desert +and the lions remain. Strain Freud, and if sex does not +remain nothing does—except his wit. After all he is no +<i>Deutzenmensch</i>, not of the sort who come in dozens, and +is always rich enough, at least in humor, to be able to +ask the price of Graz.⁠<a id="FNanchor_55_55" href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> + +<p>He adores the tale of the husband who said to the wife, +“If one of us dies I shall move to Paris.” And the story +of the dreamer, who, when asked “Are you asleep?” +answered “No”; but at the words “Then lend me ten florins,” +promptly responded, “Yes, I am asleep.” But some +sexual implication of a sort lower than animal is liable to +germinate, whatever the occasion, and rise, as he would +say, “like a toadstool from its mycelium” to poison the +air. In Vienna they employ an art called Gsnas, which +consists in making “something valuable out of trifles.” +Nothing valuable comes from the Freudian Gsnas, unless +you count a bad conscience which uses vestigial inhibitions +merely to heighten tumescence.</p> + +<p>He confesses that he was once “a green youth, full of +the materialistic doctrine.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_56_56" href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> What he does not seem to +realize is that he has never recovered from this adolescent +characteristic. But it is always a relief to turn from his +“interpretations” to the honest facts of his life—to read +that he once spent a “charmingly beautiful day” with his +wife looking from the window of a hotel (evidently the +Danieli) on the riva Schiavoni, at Venice, watching the +English warships that were taking part in a <i>fiesta</i>; and +to know that his wife was interested in the toilet-table +of an “Etruscan lady” in a Venetian museum. It was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>“a rectangular black object with two handles, with little +boxes for rouge and powders,” and the <i>gnädige Frau</i> +“thought it would be nice to have in the house.” By rare +good fortune, Freud failed to dream of these little boxes, +or at least forgot to mention it if he did.</p> + +<p>Upon a less happy occasion he becomes so vexed with +Mrs. Freud that when she gives him a book as a present +he immediately forgets it—thus living up to his absurd +theory that we only remember things which have agreeable +associations. Then his “beloved mother” falls sick, +and his wife takes such “tender care of her” that the +domestic breach is healed. So the victim of amnesia suddenly +recovers his memory, and walks straight to the lost +book, “like a somnambulist.”</p> + +<p>One likes also to turn to the amusingly recounted hardships +of his student days, and to learn that the five years +provided for the study of medicine was “as usual” not +enough for the future great man. So he “worked along +unconcernedly,” though “considered a loafer” by his +associates, who doubted if he would ever “get through.” +He had intended to study law, but was moved to take up +science upon reading Goethe’s “beautiful essay on Nature.” +He never did get through very far, and failed in +his examinations for the degree of Doctor of Legal Medicine. +Consequently, when he dreams of examinations the +subject is invariably botany, zoology, chemistry or history—it +being another of his contentions that no one ever +dreams of examinations excepting those in which one +has succeeded. On the other hand, one dreams only of the +trains which one has missed, such dreams being “consolation” +dreams, directed against the fear of dying. One +missed the train—that is, one did not “depart,” did not +die. Railroad travel seems to be dangerous in Austria.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span></p> + +<p>Freud always wanted to be “a professor <i>extraordinarius</i>,” +but was held back by the fact that he was a Jew +in a country where appointments were in the hands of +Gentile politicians. By way of compensation he is now +a doctor of laws, <i>honoris causa</i>.</p> + +<p>But first, what struggles! The “honored teacher” of +his youth was Bruecke, who in his age had eyes which +were “wonderfully beautiful,” yet was a terrible fellow +in his prime. One morning Freud, then a demonstrator +at the Physiological Institute, came late to work—and +the eyes, not yet so beautiful, turned to a “terrible blue,” +and before their glare the hapless demonstrator “melted +away.” But Bruecke has his day; he dies. And Freud takes +characteristic revenge by dreaming that he denounces +him as a ghost before a group of living people with whom +the deceased was presuming to mingle as an equal.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to note that “the first scientific task” +at which Bruecke set him “was concerned with the nervous +system of a fish—the Ammocœtes.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_57_57" href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> Have we +here the origin of the Freudian philosophy? It seems to +me so, but perhaps this is merely because I have recently +been reading Roland Pertwee’s inimitable “Fish are Such +Liars,” in <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i>.</p> + + +<h3 id="2_THE_ELABORATION_OF_A_FICTION"> + 2. THE ELABORATION OF A FICTION +</h3> + +<p>But it is time to leave the fascinating subject of Freud +the man and turn to Freud the psychologist. Everybody +understands his psycho-analysis in a vague, general way, +but I know of no one who has ever taken the trouble to +reduce its chaos to order and so expose the kind of “logic” +which rules it. His disciples merely choose such bits as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>please them, add a rhetorical pæan, and say, “This is +Freud!” Others skip all but the salacious passages. Let +us take it fairly, the lean and the fat together. After all, +it is important. For if this theory be “true” we must submit +to it though the heavens fall. We are not “irrational” +I hope.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_109" style="max-width: 64.3125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_109.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <span class="smcap">Dr. Sigmund Freud</span> +<br> +<span class='norm'> He tells us his dreams</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Psycho-analysis is based upon six main assumptions, +but even assumptions deserve for once to be stated in +plain language.</p> + +<p><i>First Assumption</i>: That we are born with a certain +equipment, called the Primary Psychic Apparatus, or the +Unconscious Mind. This is much like the “Instinctive” +apparatus of McDougall, or the “Unconditioned Reflex” +apparatus of Watson. It has a certain resemblance to the +Old Adam of popular speech, with that Flesh which was +formerly associated with the World and the Devil. It +is Psyche’s house as originally bequeathed to her.</p> + +<p>“We have elaborated the fiction of a primitive psychic +apparatus whose work is regulated by the efforts to avoid +accumulation of excitement,” says Freud.⁠<a id="FNanchor_58_58" href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> “For this +reason it was constructed after the plan of a reflex apparatus. +The accumulation of excitement is perceived as +pain and sets the apparatus in motion in order to reproduce +a feeling of gratification in which the diminution +of the excitement is perceived as pleasure.”</p> + +<p>This “fiction” then is Oriental. Pain is positive, pleasure +merely the diminution of excitement. The logical +procedure would be to get rid of such an apparatus, if +in no other way then by committing suicide. But later +we shall learn that notwithstanding its perception of +pain and pleasure, the apparatus is unconscious. Freud +and Watson together give us a no-conscious, an unconscious, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>and a pre-conscious, and not a bit of consciousness +in any of the three.</p> + +<p><i>Second Assumption</i>: That as we develop under stress +of circumstances,—conform to our environment as a +Darwinian would say, or in other words become educated—we +develop a Secondary Psychic Apparatus whose emotional +reactions are different from and often in opposition +to the emotional reactions of the first. This is the +non-instinctive, reasonable, or acquired mental equipment, +the conditioned reflex system—what we ordinarily term +our second nature. Freud divides it further into the Pre-Conscious +and the Conscious—and here at last we become +really conscious. But we shall be “compelled to +build a series of new assumptions concerning the structure +of the psychic apparatus,” he informs us.⁠<a id="FNanchor_59_59" href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> And here +they begin. “From the moment that we wish to penetrate +deeper into the psychic processes ... all paths lead to +darkness.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_60_60" href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> The darkness is about to be ours—darkness +abundant, Stygian, Egyptian; darkness which may be +felt.</p> + +<p><i>Third Assumption</i>: That, owing to the emotional differences +of the two psychic systems, the Second System +offers a resistance to the desires, thoughts and memories +(all unconscious) of the first. “Whenever a wish-fulfillment +is unrecognizable or concealed, there must be a +present feeling of repulsion towards the wish, and in +consequence of this repulsion the wish is unable to gain +expression except in a disfigured state.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_61_61" href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> It is this resistance +which he personifies as the Endo-Psychic Censor +and imagines standing like a watch-dog at the threshold +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>of the pre-conscious. He even imagines a second censor +standing at the threshold of the conscious.</p> + +<p>Everybody must admit that this resistance, personified +or otherwise, is a fact. The adult does acquire a distaste +for childishness. He at times exercises upon himself a +sort of discipline. He has different inclinations which are +at war with one another. Freud’s contribution to psychology +at this point consists in the discovery that such +discipline is a perilous thing to indulge in. For—</p> + +<p><i>Fourth Assumption</i>: A desire so disciplined does not +cease to exist, but continues in being. The opposition of +the Secondary Apparatus causes it to be forgotten, to +became a part of the unconscious. But there it remains, +“suppressed” but biding its time.</p> + +<p>These unconscious wishes “suffer the same form of +annihilation as [do] the shades of the lower region in +the Odyssey, who awoke to new life the moment they +drank blood.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_62_62" href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Shall we then keep them away from +blood? That is not the programme. But for the moment +Freud merely says:⁠<a id="FNanchor_63_63" href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> “Nothing can be brought to an end +in the unconscious; nothing can cease or be forgotten.” +Adding:⁠<a id="FNanchor_64_64" href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> “I believe that these unconscious wishes are +always active and ready for expression—the as it were +immortal wishes from the unconscious.”</p> + +<p>This implies that a wish cannot be deflected, but persists +as a desire for its original object—which is totally +contrary to reason and common sense, to experience, and +to physical science. It is the same as saying that a boy who +was looking forward to a Saturday afternoon visit to +his grandmother’s grave and was induced to go to the +circus instead, would—especially if he suppressed his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>cemeterial inclination to the point of not telling the fellows +about it—straightway forget everything but the +circus, and yet be haunted by an unconscious desire for +the grave. Nor could anything but a conscious visit to +the scene of interment (or to a psycho-analyst) ever +set the desire at rest.</p> + +<p>Such a suppressed, abashed and forgotten but far-from-done-with +desire is called a “complex.” There are +many complexes, but they all reduce themselves to two, +the Œdipus and the Inferiority. Let us pause to consider +them before going on to other suppositions.</p> + + +<h3 id="3_TWO_OFT-THWARTED_PASSIONS"> + 3. TWO OFT-THWARTED PASSIONS +</h3> + +<p>An inferiority complex originates in a blow to our +self-love, to our sense of personal regard. And as Dr. +McDougall is the most eminent godfather of this instinct, +we had better go to him for a working example.</p> + +<p>A famous architect visits his alma mater after many +years of successful post-graduate life. Suddenly he begins +knocking men down right and left, shouting, and +trying to climb over the head of the bed in spite of the +efforts of three attendants to hold him within bounds. An +old-fashioned expert would have pronounced him a paranoic, +a megalomaniac, or something equally disagreeable. +But Jung, McDougall’s one-time co-worker, was called in. +He said that it was only a case of schizophrenia, and +that what the patient needed was—not a straight-jacket +but a quiz.</p> + +<p>By “free word-association” (Jung’s personal invention) +it was discovered that the schizophreniac had once +been jilted by a fair co-ed at the dear old school, and had +quite sensibly forgotten all about it. But when he returned +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>to the scene of his adolescent chagrin, it all came +back—the very campus seemed to him suddenly to sway +beneath a purple sea of emotion. He thought that the +fair one was not really married to another after all, notwithstanding +rumors which he had heard to that most +likely effect, but was still waiting for him—waiting +until he should prove himself a man. So he commenced +knocking other men down. Proof enough. He even added +song and gymnastics by way of good measure; and a +second attack, like the first but milder, occurred upon his +next visit to the fateful place.</p> + +<p>What had happened (internally) was this. The co-ed +had given him a mental traumatism, a blow upon the +solar plexus of his vanity. And he was so shamed that +he could not bear to think of it. So he put it from his +mind—as he fondly thought. But alas, there is no such +thing as putting anything from one’s mind. Things so +put only go into the unconscious mind, there to fester +like a potato in a damp cellar. The psychiatrist digs it +out, and all is well. This is the story as set forth (in +quite other language) in McDougall’s “Outline of Abnormal +Psychology.”</p> + +<p>Unquestionably it is a great discovery—that we are +not always crazy when we appear to be. Introverts, schizoids, +dreamy people (you may have your choice of terms) +are especially to be congratulated. For they are apt to +find themselves battling suddenly with a suspiciously insane +looking bosom monster long hidden from themselves—the +battle resulting in hysteria if they give way and +in compulsion-neurosis if they resist. If one happens +not to be a schizoid but an extrovert—that is, a commonplace, +practical sort of person—a bad inferiority-complex +merely leads to multiple personality, a splitting of individuality +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>into parts, one of which may go about calling +itself Smith, another Jones, another Brown.</p> + +<p>But what shall we do with our famous architects, introvert +or extrovert, when they begin to misbehave along +non-professional lines? McDougall quite rightly attributes +the cure of the one in question to Jung’s showing +him just how ridiculous he had been in laying the co-ed’s +treachery so much to heart in the first place. He need not +have been so rich in false pride, Jung seems to have told +him; need not have been ashamed of being jilted. Into +each life some rain must fall. His was but the common +fate of all men in general and of undergraduates in particular. +He should have laughed the incident off, or perhaps +have sought relief in another bite from another +vampire, on the homeopathic principle of <i>similia similibus +curantur</i>. What he had needed as a child was not the indulgence +of self-esteem, for life is not always kind, but +early preventative measures tending to curb self-esteem’s +abnormal growth.</p> + +<p>One may agree with the diagnosis and treatment of this +case without difficulty. It was not a Freudian case. The +wound was only remotely sexual, and McDougall manages +to ignore its erotic elements altogether. He is always +the Dr. Jekyll of the couple of which Freud is the +Mr. Hyde.</p> + +<p>Jung, for some reason, also enjoys a Jekyllian reputation, +but he hardly deserves it. Indeed, he frequently +out-Hydes his former teacher. For Freud observes that +the “significance of sexual complexes must never be forgotten, +nor must they, of course, be exaggerated to the +point of being considered exclusive.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_65_65" href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Jung on the other +hand writes (I am certain of his words but have forgotten +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>the book and the page), “I am often asked why +it is just the erotic complex rather than any other which +is the cause of the neuroses. There is but one answer. +No one asserts that this ought to be the case.... But +as a simple matter of fact, it is always found to be so, +notwithstanding all the cousins and aunts, godparents and +teachers who rage against it.”</p> + +<p>In another place, Jung declares quite sensibly that the +real cause of trouble is “the non-fulfillment of life’s task.” +He is, it seems, so anxious not to be lost beneath the +shadow of the master that he seeks to outshine him even +in the production of self-contradictions.</p> + +<p>What chiefly distinguishes this noted citizen of Zurich, +however, is the vast array of complications which he has +added to the map of our psychic “localities” by drawing +in the “archetypes ... the great primordial images”; +the “collective unconscious” (inherited or innate tendencies +of various awesome shades); the “Persona,” or mask +beneath which the developed self timidly confronts the +world; the “Anima,” or submerged personality; the “Kabyr,” +or undeveloped intuitive premonitions, and many +other romantic features whose names seem to have been +taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Yet his attempt +to write as picturesquely as Freud is a failure, +like his endeavor to evolve an independent philosophy. +Jung is merely Freud, McDougall, and water. His principal +Avatars in this country are Dr. Maurice Nicoll and +Dr. Constance Long.</p> + +<p>And now for the Œdipus Complex.</p> + +<p>“King Œdipus, who has struck his father, Laius, dead +and has married his mother, Jocasta, is nothing,” says +Freud,⁠<a id="FNanchor_66_66" href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> “but the realized wish of our childhood.... His +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>fate moves us only for the reason that it might have +been ours, for the oracle has put the same curse upon us +... as upon him.” He adds that, unless we have become +psycho-neurotics, we have since “succeeded ... in withdrawing +our sexual impulses from our mothers and in +forgetting our jealousy of our fathers,”—and presumably +we have withdrawn, too, from the cousins, aunts, godparents +and teachers listed by Jung. If these impulses have +found their way into the unconscious, however, they +must have become eternal. Psycho-analysis drags them +into consciousness, not to kill them but to give them a +transfer. The patient, it is said, always falls in love +with the operator as a half-way step on the road to cure. +But in regard to “falling in love with one member of +the parental couple and hatred of the other,” Freud does +not think that “psycho-neurotics are ... sharply distinguished +from ordinary human beings.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_67_67" href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> The only way +to preserve normality, then, without calling in the doctor, +would be never to lose consciousness of our original +polymorphus perversities.</p> + +<p>In such a case, how is a transfer to be brought about? +Not by discipline, evidently. Considering the dire horrors +said to lie in the wake of any attempt to thwart the perversities +in question, the natural conclusion is that children +should just grow, like Topsy, without having to suffer +the stern and perilous ordeal of being brought up. +And does not such a scheme leave perversity in control?</p> + +<p>Certainly the effect of the study of Freudianism everywhere +has been to make parents afraid of resorting to +corrective measures when their children are “naughty.” +A stern word, let alone a sound spanking, may (according +to the Freudian theory) cause a suppression of desire, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>a thrusting of a native impulse into the Sheol of the +lower psychic locality, “where ... wishes ... recall +the legendary Titans who from time immemorial have +borne the ponderous mountains which were once rolled +upon them by the victorious gods, and which even now +quiver from time to time from the convulsions of their +mighty limbs.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_68_68" href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p> + +<p>Must one, then, totally abstain from mountain-rolling +for fear of earthquakes? A boy’s “libido” is first excited +by his mother, so that he wants to murder his father +because the fellow is this woman’s husband and the boy +would like to be her husband himself. Is this to go on? +And of the two ways out of the situation, which shall +we chose? Let the boy murder the father? Or shall we let +him marry the mother? It seems to be a Hobson’s choice. +We do not want to run the risk of creating a “complex” +by harshly thwarting either of these amiable desires, for +a complex, Freud assures us, may produce psycho-neurotic +symptoms ranging all the way from a mild hysterical excitement +to paralysis, blindness and homicidal mania.</p> + +<p>If there happens to be a daughter born in the family +before the murder can take place, another difficulty arises. +For the daughter’s “libido” will be excited by the father +even as was the son’s by the mother. So the girl will want +to kill her mother for being the wife of the father—will +want to become her own father’s bride. In case all +these instincts are given sway, there will be two murders; +but where are the weddings coming from? The boy +now has no mother. His sister has murdered her to get +her out of the way. And the girl has no father, he having +been murdered by the jealous boy. Brother and sister have +nobody left but each other. Ergo, they should make the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>easiest transference available, and live happily ever after.</p> + +<p>In some instances, due to circumstances over which the +infants have no control, the libidos may not reach out +to the parent of the opposite sex, but attach the daughter +to the mother and the son to the father. But this only complicates +the situation. The murders will take place as +before, the murderers’ parts being merely exchanged, and +in the end brother and sister will be left as before, the sole +survivors of the massacre. And in this case they will have +especial difficulty in making the necessary libidinous transference. +They have, through some accident in the nursery +bringing similars instead of dissimilars together in the +field of desire, become homo-sexual. The future of the +race is threatened. Either that, or we must run the risk +of a race of maniacs by teaching the young that some +things are—not “unspeakable,” “unverbalizable,” or “unthinkable,” +but shameful—murder and incest being among +the number. If they cannot endure the shock of such +knowledge, driven home until it becomes effective, so +much the worse. Freud leaves the prospect gloomy indeed. +And yet David Seabury, author of “Unmasking our +Minds,”—Seabury, whom William James is said once to +have dandled on his knee—endeavors to convince us in an +article entitled “The Bogey of Sex,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_69_69" href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> that Freud has +spent his life in beautifying and ennobling human love.</p> + +<p>Beautiful and ennobling or not, the assumption that a +desire and its first object are a pair of Siamese twins incapable +of separation, is the very father of fallacies. Nor +does it become more reasonable if by object is understood +a class of objects. In either case desire in general is cut +up into particulars, each one deathless and indomitable. +Why should those who deny free will to the individual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>be permitted thus to attribute all powerful will to his several +reactions?</p> + +<p>Freudians always instance hunger as an example of a +persistent desire. You want your dinner, they say, and +you go to the theatre instead of dining. You forget all +about food, but you still continue to crave it; and when +the show is over you discover that you are starving. +Incidentally, this desire persists even if not driven into +the unconscious by shame beyond hope of easy recall—which +somewhat enlarges the hypothesis. A further enlargement +is made with the admission that the hunger +here is not a desire for turkey, or for chicken, but merely +for food.</p> + +<p>Now it must be admitted that the Freudian supposition +so understood has the superficial appearance of truth. +In a case of this sort it does look as if only a limited +transference were possible. One dish may be served in +place of another, but unless we eat we continue to be +hungry. But do we?</p> + +<p>Had Freud known anything about fasting, had he been +a good Jew and kept the Passover, he would have learned +that the symptoms soon cease. The sensation of hunger +is produced by certain tensions in the stomach. The glands +containing the digestive fluids are distended. The forces +designed to attack the food are mobilized, and where the +food should be yawns only emptiness. But soon the digestive +fluids dissipate themselves; in the course of a +few hours the last feeling of appetite is gone. One does +not have to be a Dr. Tanner to be aware of this. Many +people have gone without food for long periods, and with +little or no suffering or ill effects.</p> + +<p>It is not pretended that we can go without food forever. +The body cannot be altogether ignored—not by the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>majority of us; and one must remember the farmer’s +horse, who, taught to live upon one straw a day, was so +inconsiderate as then to die. But even with this, the most +fundamental and imperative of all the desires, discipline +may operate to a great extent. Gluttony is not a <i>sine qua +non</i> of health. Indeed, if no discipline be exercised there +is likely to ensue—if not psycho-neurosis at least another +and most distressing symptom, known as gout.</p> + +<p>And how is it with sex-hunger? This not being actually +necessary to the preservation of the earthly life of +the individual, is even more amenable to the curb, and +may be divorced altogether from its carnal object. We +are certain of this because it has been done and is being +done in innumerable instances.</p> + +<p>I am not claiming that sex should be suppressed by +cold negation, any more than I hold that one ceases to +be hungry if one has nothing to do but think about dinner. +But there is such a thing as sublimation, which +may be defined as a transference of libido upon such a +broad and magnificent scale that we may say not only +that one object is substituted for another but that one +desire is substituted for another. Thus lust—and I use the +word without implications of the unnatural—may be overwhelmed +by love, and a lower love by a higher.</p> + +<p>Even without going very high we find that the ardently +moved members of the endocrine system at times cease +to trouble in the absence of exterior physical stimuli, and +a different type of autocoid than the burning one makes +its appearance in the blood-stream. Those who pretend +that lack of indulgence perpetually increases the store +of sexual desire and capacity, conscious or unconscious, +run the risk of being likened to that boastful bridegroom +so inimitably described by Montaigne, who, because of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>sheer extravagance of his claims, was eventually adjudged +“unfamiliar with the practice” under consideration.</p> + +<p>A particular wish, then, is a wish with a direction—a +direction which may be changed. The belief that a grown +man has an unappeased longing to be fed once more at +the breast or the bottle—a longing suppressed in his primary +psychic apparatus—deserves itself to be classed as +a psycho-neurotic symptom.</p> + +<p>And now we may resume our suppositions.</p> + + +<h3 id="4_MORE_SUPPOSITIONS"> + 4. MORE SUPPOSITIONS +</h3> + +<p><i>Fifth Assumption</i>: That dreams open the road for the +discovery of festering wish-thoughts in the unconscious.</p> + +<p>“The dream is the distorted fulfillment of a suppressed +wish.... The wish manifested in the dream must be +an infantile one.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_70_70" href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p> + +<p>The ingenuity which our author has expended in the +attempt to prove that “dreams are never nonsense” passes +belief. To begin, he makes a sharp distinction between +“manifest” and “latent” content, between the dream as it +appears and the dream as it secretly is. Then he divides +the modes of disguise which this latent content or meaning +of the unconscious mind adopts in sneaking its obscenities +past the censor for the production of the manifest dream-show +into three categories: (a) Condensation; (b) Displacement; +(c) Regard for Presentability—which means +presentability in pictures or symbols. The word “distortion” +sufficiently covers these three processes. Then there +is a fourth category, (e) called Secondary Elaboration.</p> + +<p>“A psychic function which cannot be differentiated from +our waking thoughts may make contributions to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>dream content.... It is an expression of the <i>esprit d’escalier</i> +on the part of the psychic censor.... The result +is that the dream loses the appearance of absurdity and +incoherence [given it by distortion] and approaches the +pattern of an intelligible experience.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_71_71" href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> That is, we half +wake up, and give to the manifest dream a specious logic—which +the psycho-analyst warns us to ignore.</p> + +<p>Now it is clear that the principle of symbolical interpretation, +if once admitted, will open wide the gates for +whatever “meanings” it is necessary to find in order to +establish the general theory. For these are not “arbitrary” +symbols, like “those used in stenography.” They are such +symbols as may be taken from “folk-lore,” or any other +available source, their meanings loosely worn. All that +is required of them is that they shall yield a general +sexual significance whenever sufficiently squeezed.</p> + +<p>For example,⁠<a id="FNanchor_72_72" href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> an “intelligent and refined young lady” +related the following dream to Freud: “Her husband +asks: Should not the piano be tuned? She answers: It +won’t pay; the hammers would have to be newly buffed.”</p> + +<p>This, we learn, “repeats an actual event of the previous +day,”—for in every dream there is a “day-remnant” to +furnish stuff for the manifest content, as well as a suppressed +infantile wish to give it its real “meaning,” and +some of this remnant at least must relate to the waking +experiences of the past twenty-four hours. Once we grasp +the general idea, we shall see meaning after meaning, each +one deeper than the preceding, revealing itself like so +many skins peeled from an onion.</p> + +<p>The lady’s husband had actually asked her about the +piano; but that, being real, amounts to nothing. What is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>more significant is that the lady, lying upon Freud’s couch +and relaxing, refers to the piano as “a disgusting old box,” +and says that it was one of the things which her husband +had before his marriage.</p> + +<p>The outer onion-skin has now come off. But it promises +to be so unsavory that we would better drop this particular +bulb and take up another. For dream onions are not +only laminated, but there are always several onions to +every dream. Let us regard the one from which sprang the +phrase, “It won’t pay.” The outer skin here was a visit +the patient had made the day before to a lady friend +who asked her to take off her coat; but as she had to +go in a moment she replied that it would not pay. And +here again I am forced to drop the subject, or at least +to avoid the line of thought which is immediately suggested +by a knowledge of the symbolism here involved. +Freud himself takes a new lead by remarking that during +a previous analytical séance this same patient <i>had</i> taken +off her coat, “a button of which had opened,”—taken it +off with a gesture which seemed to say, “Please don’t look +in this direction; it won’t pay.” From which he concludes +that among the many things which “disgusting old box” +refers to is “chest,” or “bust.”</p> + +<p>Were this lady but an American we might now conclude +(without exaggerating the Freudian procedure in +the slightest) that this means “Pike’s Peak or Bust”; +that this in turn recalls a bust which she went on when +she was younger and in the neighborhood of 142nd street, +New York, locally known as “Pike’s Peak”; that the +peak of her ambition was to marry a Jew—with incidentally +a hidden desire to be peeked at; and that because of +her failure to realize these wishes she was piqued, and +suffered accordingly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p> + +<p>But as she seems to be an Austrian we must be content +with the idea that “the interpretation of the dream +leads directly to a time in her bodily development when +she was dissatisfied with her shape.” She wanted to be +fat—an eminently Austrian thought. And from here we +are led to a yet earlier period. For the words “disgusting” +and “bad tone,” make it necessary, Freud informs us, to +remember “how often in allusions and in dreams the two +small hemispheres of the ... body take the place—as +a substitute and as an antithesis—of the larger ones.” +That is, the piano was a dream disguise for the buttocks.</p> + +<p>It now hardly seems necessary to remark that “the +dreamer, owing to a peculiar set of circumstances, may +create for himself the right to use anything whatever as +a sexual symbol.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_73_73" href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> Still less to add that, generally +speaking, “all elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks and +umbrellas, all sharp weapons, knives, daggers and pikes,” +are masculine symbols; while “all little cases, boxes, +caskets, closets and stoves” have a feminine signification; +or that “stairways, stairs, ladders ... or anything analogous +to them” are to be regarded as specifically erotic +suggestions. And to make the system complete, whenever +a symbol refuses to fit in with the desired significance, +we are at liberty to regard it as “misplaced emphasis” +due to distortion, and to interpret it in an opposite sense. +So pain may mean pleasure, and a crowd a secret.</p> + +<p>Nor is even this enough. He goes on and invents a veritable +grammar of dreams. Logical connection (in the +latent content) is rendered (in the manifest content) by +simultaneousness; causation is expressed by succession; +“either—or” by “and—and” (you dream of both alternates +as being true); similarity or agreement is pictured +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>by the concentration of several images into a fantastic +unity, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>Freud commits the common and fatal error of proving +too much. He should have been warned by the fate of +the late Ignatius Donnelly, once Lieutenant-Governor of +Minnesota. Donnelly, having shown that Bacon wrote +Shakespeare’s plays, went on to show that he also wrote +Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s +Progress.” And having discovered that these works +had all a sort of sense when read from left to right, proceeded +to demonstrate (in “The Great Cryptogram”) that +they had an even better sense when read more or less +from right to left.</p> + +<p>Using the Freudian premises, we are forced to conclude +that the average child’s aversion to the multiplication +table is a blind to cover his unconscious but shamefaced +eagerness for illegitimate parenthood. The very +name, “Multiplication,” gives us the key. Freud has met +this objection by saying that he does not permit himself +to wander at random over the field of conjecture, but is +always guided by a principle. What principle? That +dreams come from suppressed erotic desires—the very +principle he is trying to prove. No, the court does not +admit evidence at random, it measures it by the supposition +that the defendant is guilty.</p> + +<p>The Multiplication Table is quite admissible, for +dreams are not the only things which may be subjected +to dream-analysis. Waking thoughts are interpreted in +the same way. If a patient refuses to dream, the analyst +pounces upon his inventions, his replies to questions. The +“Œdipus Tyrannus” of Sophocles and Shakespeare’s +“Hamlet” fall naturally into the dream category.</p> + +<p>“We are far too much inclined to over-estimate the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>conscious character of intellectual and artistic productions,” +since “from communications of some of the most +highly productive persons, such as Goethe and Helmholtz, +we learn that the most essential and original parts +in their creations came to them in the form of inspirations +and reached their preceptions almost finished.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_74_74" href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p> + +<p>But though a dream can compose a “Hamlet” or an +“Œdipus,” it cannot compose a speech. “No matter how +many speeches and answers may occur in dreams, analysis +always shows ... that the dream has only taken +... fragments of speeches which have been delivered +or heard.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_75_75" href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> What, then, is this dreaming faculty which +is at once so competent and incompetent? Is it a gift, +or a disease?</p> + +<p>“A dream,” says Freud, in the Introductory Remarks +to the book we have been following, “is the first link in +a chain of abnormal psychic structures whose other links +[are] the hysterical phobia, the obsession, and the delusion.” +Then on page 482 he declares, “The dream is +not a pathological phenomenon and does not leave behind +[it] an enfeeblement of the mental faculties.”</p> + +<p>Those whose mental faculties have not been too much +enfeebled by the attempt to reconcile these two statements, +may try their logic’s teeth upon page 437, where it is +said that “in view of the complete identity [to be] found +between the peculiarities of the dream-work and the +psychic activity forming the psycho-neurotic symptoms, +we shall feel justified in transferring to the dream the +conclusions urged upon us by hysteria.” Or one may turn +to page 471, and read: “It is condensation that is mainly +responsible for the strange impression of the dream, for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>we know of nothing analogous to it in the normal psychic +life accessible to consciousness.” Remember, too, that +Freud does not think that in regard to “falling in love +with one member of the parental couple and hatred of the +other,” psycho-neurotics are “sharply distinguished from +ordinary human beings.”</p> + +<p>Now if you are not very sharply distinguished from +ordinary human beings you naturally indulge in “typical +dreams,”—the dreams that everybody has. And among +typical dreams is the Œdipus dream of the death of parents +or other near relatives. But here a difficulty arises.</p> + +<p>“These dreams show the very unusual case where the +dream-thought, which has been created by the repressed +wish, completely escapes the censor, and is transferred +to the dream without alteration.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_76_76" href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> Is the theory then at +fault? No; but the censor is. “There is no wish which we +believe further from us.... The dream censor is therefore +not prepared for this monstrosity, just as the legislation +of Solon was incapable of establishing a punishment +for parricide.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_77_77" href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p> + +<p>Objections to the Freudian theory are vain; the theory +bends to accommodate whatever it encounters, then +straightens out and goes its way as if nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>If we are consciously anxious about our dear ones, the +wily unconscious merely takes advantage of that fact to +stage a dream about somebody’s death, well knowing that +the conscious anxiety will blind us to the deep-down truth. +But there is consolation in the thought that “if someone +dreams ... that his father or mother, his brother or +sister has died,” Freud does not “use the dream as a proof +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>that he wishes them dead <i>now</i>.... The theory of dreams +... is satisfied with concluding that the dreamer has +wished them dead ... at some one time in childhood.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_78_78" href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> +And to console us still further, he adds (p. 214) that a +child has no idea “of the terror of the Infinite Nothing.”</p> + +<p>Pursuing the infinite nothing of this now happily satisfied +dream theory, we discover that “dreams of the death +of parents predominately refer to that member of the +parental couple which shares the sex of the dreamer,” +except, of course, in the case of the homo-sexual. Or, +“to express the matter boldly, it is as though a sexual +preference becomes active at an early period, as though +the boy regards his father as a rival in love, and as though +the girl takes the same attitude towards her mother ... +a rival by getting rid of whom he or she cannot but +profit.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_79_79" href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> Dr. Watson, though he knew not the reason, +was certainly right in saying that bringing up children +was a perilous business. What else would the fate of +Laius and Jocasta lead us to expect?</p> + +<p>To put the matter beyond doubt, Freud cites the case +of an eight-year-old girl of his acquaintance, who, if her +mother happens to be called away from the table, reveals +her psychic enormity by saying, “Now I shall be +Mamma. Charles, do you want some more vegetables?”⁠<a id="FNanchor_80_80" href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> +Freud is not a man to be deceived by the seeming innocence +of play. And he blames “that sanctity which we +have ascribed to the injunctions of the Decalogue”⁠<a id="FNanchor_81_81" href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> for +the dullness which keeps us from perceiving the incestuous +and homicidal tendencies of our young.</p> + +<p>It may be admitted that “no other impulse has had to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>undergo so much suppression from the time of childhood +as the sex impulse”;⁠<a id="FNanchor_82_82" href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> and, the parental instinct +of self-preservation being what it is, the fact is not surprising. +And these suppressive tactics seem to have been +in vogue from the earliest times. “The obscure and primitive +ages of human society give us an unpleasant idea +of the power of the father” and the ruthlessness with +which it was used. Kronos devours his children as the +wild boar devours the brood of the sow; Zeus [in the +rôle of retributive justice] castrates his father ... and +takes his place as ruler.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_83_83" href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> + +<p>Now, as I remember this legend, Zeus operated with a +sickle—an immemorial image of Time. And as Kronos is +himself a symbol of Time, I long supposed that here was +a figurative way of saying that Time (Kronos), which +devours all things (his children), shall himself eventually +be devoured, as it were by himself—the sickle. But evidently +the theory of dreams cannot be satisfied by symbols +when they are used to interpret mythology.</p> + +<p>Evidently, too, the time has now arrived in this, our +Freudian era, for Kronos to suffer again and as literally +as before, notwithstanding the “frantic attempts” of modern +parents to hold on to “whatever remnants of the +... <i>potestas patris</i>” remain. The newspapers certainly +chronicle occasional incidents of this childish rebellion, +if not of the frantic efforts which are being made to resist +it. Freud even knows of a little girl—this one not +yet three years old—who “tried to strangle a suckling in +the cradle, because she suspected its continued presence +boded her no good.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_84_84" href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> So not the parents alone are in +danger. In the case of his own children, “who followed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>one another rapidly,” he “missed the opportunity to make +such observations,” the supplanted baby always being too +young to be dangerous at the time when its nose was +broken—another argument in favor of large families.</p> + +<p>He foresees, however, what is to be dreaded later, for +he describes the predicament of a man of 31 who had +a compulsion-neurosis which took such a pronounced +homicidal form that he (the young man) was forced to +lock himself in his room and to give the housekeeper +the key for fear that he should one day commit a +murder. The father in this case was dead and beyond the +reach of reprisals, so “the obsessive reproach transferred +itself to strangers.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_85_85" href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p> + +<p>I do not wish for a moment to suggest that this case +was unreal or to belittle its horror. I am dealing merely +with a peculiarity of the diagnosis. You will observe +that the blame is laid to a “reproach.” Had the patient +never reproached himself he would have remained normal. +Now if he was guilty of nothing but some childish fit +of temper, and, because of some senseless system of +early training, led to magnify it beyond all reason, the +diagnosis may be sound. The danger comes from the attempt +to elaborate from these instances of abnormality +a general system of philosophy applicable to life in general. +The implication that reproaches should give way and +any sort of conduct spared even criticism, is inescapable. +For example, Freud says⁠<a id="FNanchor_86_86" href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> that “a compulsion-neurosis +... corresponds to a super-morality, imposed upon the +primary character.” He chooses morality by name as the +target of <i>his</i> “reproach.”</p> + +<p>In the case under consideration, the patient remembered, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>under psycho-analytic treatment, that at the age of +seven he had “expressed enmity” towards his father, and +(still under treatment) at once “realized that the hatred +lay much deeper still.” Remorse, awakened by the father’s +painful last illness, had brought about that fatal “super-morality,” +without which the son might have remained +unrepentant, normal and happy. “Anyone,” Freud ominously +adds, “capable of wishing to push his own father +from a mountain-top into an abyss is certainly not to +be trusted to spare the lives of those not so closely bound +to him. He does well to lock himself into his room.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_87_87" href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p> + +<p>Here the psychiatrist distinctly gives to the childish +wish that very importance which would naturally lead to +excessive repressive measures and to abnormal interior +reproach. Moreover, it follows that all of us who are +not “sharply distinguished from ordinary human beings” +would do well to lock ourselves up. For we are not only +capable of entertaining such a wish, we have—so Freud +has been telling us through fifty or sixty pages—already +entertained it, time and time again. Which brings us to +our—</p> + +<p><i>Sixth and Last Assumption</i>: That the cure for hysterical +symptoms (and these include most of the ills to which +flesh is heir) is the recapture by consciousness of the lost +knowledge of that circumstance which drove the original +wish-thought into the limbo of the lower psychic locality.</p> + +<p>The procedure is for the patient to dream a dream, or +if he cannot do this to make up a dream, which the psychiatrist +“analyzes.” Then the patient lies down on a +couch, “relaxes,” and repeats whatever random thoughts +come into his head as the various parts of the dream +are brought to his attention. These “associated” thoughts +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>are analyzed in their turn. If there is reluctance, the operator +knows he has encountered modesty (“resistance,” +he calls it) and has got the range. He can now tell where +to train his guns. For all these neuroses, psychoses and +psycho-neuroses (mental troubles in general and their +physical results) are, according to the hypothesis, the +children of shame. Kill shame, and the brats perish. That +is what it amounts to.</p> + +<p>It may have seemed unaccountable that it should have +been thought necessary to invent an elaborate system of +dream interpretation when the psychiatrist is convinced +from the moment his office door-bell rings that he is about +to be confronted with a case of suppressed incest. But +the hocus-pocus serves its turn. Never has the ingenuity +of man devised a more effective excuse for the discussion +of the abominations of the human heart.</p> + +<p>“But,” cries Freud, “my analyses bring about cures!”</p> + +<p>Granted. But that only proves that Freud the man is +better than Freud the scientist and philosopher.</p> + +<p>The world is full of miserable wretches whose early +education was of the most atrocious kind; who were first +permitted improper contacts, and then taught that their +infantile imaginings were unpardonable sins. The doctor +poo-poos the whole matter, and they are relieved. In other +words, if he is a wise doctor, he tries to remedy the defects +of education by re-education. So long as he has to +deal with those suffering from abuse, or from starvation +of natural desires—desires which have failed of their +ordinary satisfaction without having been sublimated by +devotion to higher aims—so long as he deals with these +unwilling anchorites and pitiable social victims, he does +well.</p> + +<p>But what if he writes books, circulating in huge editions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>among the normal and spreading the doctrine that +mental disease comes from restraint, and not from the +rank growth of passions, undisciplined or merely balked?</p> + +<p>As to this, I will quote the opinion of Judge William +McAdoo, Chief Magistrate of the City of New York. +The Judge sees some half-million criminal cases pass +through the courts every year, so can hardly be accused +of speaking without opportunities for gathering information. +And he says in a recent article⁠<a id="FNanchor_88_88" href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> that psycho-analysis +is one of the most “active” evils “effecting modern +youth.” Parents, he tells us, have been led to believe that +any attempt to “suppress” the desires of their children is +likely to lead to dangerous “complexes.” Hence “the complete +collapse of parental authority,” of what Freud himself +has called “the antiquated <i>potestas patris</i>.”</p> + +<p>But Freud is but one of the figures in a movement, and +by following his dreaming for a few more pages we shall +be able to learn yet other strange things which are not so, +and some—yet stranger—which are.</p> + + +<h3 id="5_FREUD_THE_METAPHYSICIAN"> + 5. FREUD THE METAPHYSICIAN +</h3> + +<p>Superficially considered, Freud is the very antithesis of +Dr. Watson. The behaviorist, indeed, will have none of +him. In his “Myth of the Unconscious” he accuses him of +having “resorted to voodooism instead of falling back +upon his early scientific training.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_89_89" href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> He even suggests that +the psychiatrist was “much influenced in his youth by the +fable of the devils who took flight into the Gadarene +swine.” Nevertheless, Watsonianism and Freudianism are +parts of the same gigantic piece of mystification.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span></p> + +<p>Freud may speak of the “unconscious” and Dr. Watson +of the “unverbalized”; the one of “unconditioned +reflexes,” the other of “a primary psychic apparatus”; +but both agree in effect that the will is a mere phenomenon +resulting from the preponderance of forces, that the self +is a collection of movements after the things which move +have been taken away. In other words, both are mechanists. +Their difference is in temperament.</p> + +<p>Nor is even this difference very profound. The two philosophies +have but one effect—to sanction <i>laissez-faire</i> +in matters of sex. A verbalized but otherwise unconditioned +“gut-reaction” is but a conscious “libido” freed +from the suppression which might create a “complex.” +Dr. Watson’s superiority lies in his insistence upon education +where sex is not involved. Freud’s superiority is literary.</p> + +<p>But there are two Freuds, the literary and the metaphysical. +In telling dreams no mortal ever dared to tell +before, he uses language that he who runs may read. In +his book on “Wit in its Relation to the Unconscious”—one +of the most complete compendiums of smutty stories +in the world—he proves himself a lively raconteur. But +when he seeks to plunge deep down to the roots of things, +his style suddenly becomes a Chinese puzzle. Take, for +instance, the following paragraph from pages 478 and +479 of “The Interpretation of Dreams”: “When I termed +one of the psychic processes in the psychic apparatus the +primary process, I did so not only in consideration of the +order of precedence and capability, but also as admitting +the temporal relations to a share in the nomenclature. As +far as our knowledge goes there is no psychic apparatus +possessing only the primary process, and in so far it is +a theoretic fiction; but so much is based on fact, that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>primary processes are present in the apparatus from +the beginning, while the secondary processes develop gradually +in the course of life.”</p> + +<p>In the original German this seems, to me at least, even +less like language than it does in the Brill translation. So +much less that one evening as I was puzzling over it, trying +in vain to make it fit into any conceivable sense, I fell +asleep. And as I slept I dreamed; and as I dreamed Freud +appeared to me, and, after considerable persuasion, proceeded +to re-translate:</p> + +<p>“When I said that one of the psychic processes was +the primary process, I meant that it was not only first +in capacity but first in the time of its appearance.”</p> + +<p>“Very good,” said I. “Kindly go on.”</p> + +<p>“As far as we know,” he did go on, “there is no psychic +apparatus in existence, and there never was one, which +possesses only the primary process. Therefore it is a +theoretic fiction to suppose that there can be a primary +process standing alone.”</p> + +<p>“Why then,” I interrupted, “do you complicate matters +with a theoretic fiction when they are complicated enough, +in all conscience, if we bother only with facts?”</p> + +<p>“Because,”—and his tone showed some asperity, as if +he were addressing a stupid pupil, “because the primary +processes are present in the apparatus from the beginning, +while the secondary processes develop gradually in +the course of life.”</p> + +<p>I gasped. “According to that there <i>is</i> a time when the +primary apparatus <i>does</i> stand alone, viz, the time before +the secondary process develops. I thought you just said +there was no such time?”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t be rude,” said the great man. “Nobody is +supposed to read these obscure passages. But I have to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>write them, just as a doctor has to talk a little Latin +when you go to him for a prescription. You wouldn’t +respect him if he didn’t. Besides, what difference does it +make whether the primary apparatus ever stands alone +or not?”</p> + +<p>In my dream I pondered this for a long time before +replying:</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it doesn’t make any difference, in a theoretic +fiction. But if you mean that the primary apparatus is +real, the idea that it can come first and stand alone seems +to imply that it really comes first and really stands alone, +not only in the individual but in the universe. That would +mean that the universe was built from the bottom upwards.”</p> + +<p>The Freudian dream-image nodded. “Of course—just +the way we build a house.”</p> + +<p>“But,” I objected, “if we build a house <i>we</i> build it—the +house does not build itself. Therefore the house begins +with something even higher than its roof. So it is really +built from the top down. So is the cosmos, if you will +admit that its builder and maker was God. But if I let +you build a man from his primary psychic apparatus up, +you will be saying next that the universe was built from +<i>its</i> primary apparatus up—that is, from a theoretic fiction.”</p> + +<p>Freud lighted a dream-cigar and sat down. “I’m no +worse than the theologians,” he smiled. “They say the +universe was created out of nothing.”</p> + +<p>“What theologian,” I retorted, “ever said that the universe +created itself out of nothing? Your own Old Testament +suggests that God created the universe out of nothing +but Himself.”</p> + +<p>“And you profess to understand that?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p> + +<p>“Certainly not. The beginning and the end are postulated +together in one great mystery. But it isn’t a mystery +which we invented. We found it here. It is a mystery with +force in it—something which goes.”</p> + +<p>“We are such stuff as dreams are made of,” said +Freud. “And dreams come from a suppressed libido.”</p> + +<p>“So? How about a dog’s dream?” I suddenly asked. +“Does that, too, come from a suppressed libido—a suppressed +puppy libido? Or is it due to a super-morality restraining +a mother-fixation?”</p> + +<p>“How do you know that dogs dream?”</p> + +<p>“In the same way I know that you dream. I infer it +from the way you act.”</p> + +<p>“To dream of a dog,” he responded heavily, paraphrasing +one of his own pages, “is to dream of the major +function—French, <i>chien</i>; German, <i>Chier</i>.” He had willfully +missed the point.</p> + +<p>And so the dream went on and on, until I finally woke +up and began idly to turn the pages of the great Dream +Book itself. It was difficult to believe that I was not still +asleep, for I kept coming upon such passages as the +following, from page 442: “To speak figuratively, it is +quite possible that a day-thought plays the part of the +contractor (<i>entrepreneur</i>) in the dream. But ... no matter +what idea the contractor may have in his mind, and +how desirous he may be of putting it into operation, he +must depend upon a capitalist to defray the necessary expenses; +and this capitalist ... is invariably and indisputably +a wish from the unconscious. In other cases the +capitalist himself is the contractor for the dream; this, +indeed, seems to be the more usual case. An unconscious +wish is produced by the day’s work, which in turn creates +the dream. The dream processes, moreover, run parallel +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>with all the other possibilities of the economic relationship +used here as an illustration. Thus the <i>entrepreneur</i> +may contribute some capital himself, or several <i>entrepreneurs</i> +may jointly supply the capital required by the <i>entrepreneur</i>.”</p> + +<p>This is certainly a moving picture. We seem to be +looking upon a lively scene in the financial district, with +contractors and capitalists running hither and thither, +forming combinations for the prosecution of great works. +Yet it is a scene which belongs properly to “Alice in +Wonderland,” not in a book purporting to be scientific. It +is a conjurer’s trick, worked by that initial phrase, “To +speak figuratively.”</p> + +<p>Now anybody who admits the existence of God, of a +life which is vital rather than mechanical, has the right +to speak figuratively. With him figures are the signs and +symbols of real things. They have force because they +are the personifications of real forces whose existence he +is prepared to admit outside of metaphor.</p> + +<p>But with the materialist, figures of speech are dishonest +subterfuges. They make the impossible seem possible +and reasonable. By being admittedly figures of speech, +they escape criticism when they come upon the stage. +And once there, they act parts possible only to entities +possessing energy and will—the very things which the +mechanistic hypothesis professes to exclude from the picture. +And in the end it is claimed that all things which +may be done by these flesh and blood actors may be done +by the nothings which they stand for.</p> + +<p>This psychic contractor of Freud’s has something “in +his mind” which he is “desirous” of putting into operation! +On the stage he is as full of reason, consciousness +and vim as is Mr. Douglas Fairbanks. But in the Freudian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>philosophical system, literally considered, he is one +of the processes of a primary psychic system standing +alone—that is, a process in a state of things admittedly +fictitious.</p> + +<p>But the Great Man goes on:</p> + +<p>“The story of Œdipus is the reaction of the imagination +to these two typical dreams [of murdering one’s +father and marrying one’s mother]. And just as the dream +when occurring to an adult is experienced with feelings +of resistance, so the legend must contain terror and self-chastisement. +The appearance which it further assumes +is the result of an uncomprehending secondary elaboration +which tries to make it serve a theological purpose. +The attempt to reconcile divine omnipotence with human +responsibility must, of course, fail with this material as +with every other.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_90_90" href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<p>So it is an “uncomprehending” elaboration which busies +itself with trying to reconcile divine omnipotence with +human responsibility. One would hardly expect an uncomprehending +elaboration to succeed in such a task. As +to actual incompatibility of the two ideas, it is such a large +question that I prefer to consider it later under another +head. Freud goes on:⁠<a id="FNanchor_91_91" href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> + +<p>“The unconscious idea, as such, is altogether incapable +of entering into the foreconscious, and ... it can exert +an influence there only by uniting with a harmless idea already +belonging to the foreconscious, to which it transfers +its intensity and under which it allows itself to be +concealed.”</p> + +<p>“Allows itself to be concealed!” It has intelligence and +purpose, this unconscious thought. A cunning fellow for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>a mere reflex in a process antedating memory and reason. +But the theatre has suddenly become dark with purple +shadows through which absurdity stalks, obscure but +naked and unashamed. The unconscious wish is incapable +of entering into the foreconscious, but, without entering +it, nevertheless manages to exert an influence there, by +means of what go-between Freud only knows; for the +“harmless idea” with which union is to be made is already +beyond reach in the foreconscious. Nor is this all.</p> + +<p>“The relations existing for the repressed idea are similar +to the situation existing in Austria for the American +dentist, who is forbidden to practice unless he gets permission +from a regular physician to use his name on +the public signboard and thus cover the legal requirements. +Moreover, just as it is naturally not the busiest physicians +who form such alliances with dental practitioners, so in +the psychic life only such foreconscious or conscious ideas +are chosen to cover a repressed idea as have not themselves +attracted much ... attention.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_92_92" href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> + +<p>The <i>entrepreneur</i> (French for “undertaker”) has now +become a dentist, and the entire Austrian code of civil +procedure has been introduced into the psychic apparatus. +Yet, such is the lure of figurative speech, so easy is it +to fancy that whatever can be true of the figure is necessarily +true of the abstraction for which it “doubles,” that +even Freud obviously thinks he is saying something.</p> + +<p>He proceeds to speak of “occupation,” meaning not occupation +but the possession of energy. And in this way +we come to the problem of Will, in these words:⁠<a id="FNanchor_93_93" href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> “It is +probable that the principle of pain first regulates the +displacements of occupation automatically, but it is quite +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>possible that the consciousness of these qualities adds a +second and more subtile regulation which may even oppose +the first.... The automatic control of the primary principle +of pain and the restriction of mental capacity connected +with it are broken by the sensible regulations which +in their turn are again automatisms.” And again: “The +mental processes are in themselves devoid of quality except +for the excitement of pleasure and pain accompanying +them,” which, as we know, are to be held in check as +possible “disturbers of thought.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_94_94" href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p> + +<p>This, if it means anything, means that energy in the +primary psychic system is automatically regulated by pleasure +and pain. But the primary processes are not only unconscious, +they are incapable of becoming conscious. +“There are,” we are told,⁠<a id="FNanchor_95_95" href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> “two kinds of unconscious ... +both are unconscious in the psychological sense; but in +our sense the first, which we call the unconscious, is likewise +incapable of consciousness.” Freud, like Dr. Watson, +attempts to conceive of pleasure, pain and unconsciousness +altogether. He, like the great behaviorist, subtracts the +quality of painfulness from pain and the quality of pleasurableness +from pleasure, and fancies that he has something +left—something capable of regulating our unconscious +conduct automatically.</p> + +<p>Even when we come to the secondary process, with its +“sensible regulation,” these “in their turn are again +automatisms.” And though they have no quality except +as exciters of pleasure and pain, this excitement must be +held in check as a possible disturber of thought—of the +sensible regulations. So these higher mental processes, +which have no quality save the one of which they are deprived, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>yet exercise a control at once “sensible” and “automatic” +over their more humble neighbors in the psychic +basement. And somewhere there is “a restriction of mental +capacity.” With this last statement I have no quarrel.</p> + +<p>“What part,” Freud wants to know,⁠<a id="FNanchor_96_96" href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> “now remains in +our description of the once all-powerful and all overshadowing +consciousness?” Very little, one would think. +“None,” he says, “other than that of a sensory organ for +the perception of psychic qualities.... The psychic +process which is turned to the outer world is itself the +outer world for the sensory organ of consciousness.”</p> + +<p>So the lower sensory organ, turned towards the world, +is unconscious. And the higher sensory organ, turned +towards the lower, is an automatism. No doubt it is true +that “the most complex mental operations are possible +without the cooperation of consciousness,” and that “the +state of becoming conscious depends upon the exercise of +a certain psychic function, viz, attention.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_97_97" href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> But not even +attention can be moved about by nothing. And one complex +mental operation which cannot operate without consciousness +is rational control. To suppose that the boss of +a job does not know what he is doing is to suppose that +the job is without a rational boss.</p> + +<p>For yet another time the attempt to create a psychology +without a veritable Psyche falls to the ground. Freud’s +fictional apparatus lands him squarely upon the spot +marked by Dr. McDougall’s X. Once more his verbalization +has brought him into complete agreement with the unappreciative +Dr. Watson. But what has all this to do with +science? Let us find out.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3 id="FOOTNOTES_3"> + FOOTNOTES: +</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47_47" href="#FNanchor_47_47" class="label">[47]</a> “Psycho-Analysis,” by R. B. Hingley, B.A., Edinburgh, second +edition, 1922, p. 17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48_48" href="#FNanchor_48_48" class="label">[48]</a> “The Interpretation of Dreams,” p. 172.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49_49" href="#FNanchor_49_49" class="label">[49]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 244, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50_50" href="#FNanchor_50_50" class="label">[50]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 241.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51_51" href="#FNanchor_51_51" class="label">[51]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 388.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52_52" href="#FNanchor_52_52" class="label">[52]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 195.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53_53" href="#FNanchor_53_53" class="label">[53]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54_54" href="#FNanchor_54_54" class="label">[54]</a> At the bottom of p. 171.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55_55" href="#FNanchor_55_55" class="label">[55]</a> “What is the price of Graz?” An expression used by the Viennese +when they wish to boast of wealth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56_56" href="#FNanchor_56_56" class="label">[56]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57_57" href="#FNanchor_57_57" class="label">[57]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 325.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58_58" href="#FNanchor_58_58" class="label">[58]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 474.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59_59" href="#FNanchor_59_59" class="label">[59]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 405.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60_60" href="#FNanchor_60_60" class="label">[60]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61_61" href="#FNanchor_61_61" class="label">[61]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62_62" href="#FNanchor_62_62" class="label">[62]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 439, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63_63" href="#FNanchor_63_63" class="label">[63]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 456.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64_64" href="#FNanchor_64_64" class="label">[64]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 439.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65_65" href="#FNanchor_65_65" class="label">[65]</a> “The Interpretation of Dreams,” p. 240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66_66" href="#FNanchor_66_66" class="label">[66]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 224.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67_67" href="#FNanchor_67_67" class="label">[67]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 221.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68_68" href="#FNanchor_68_68" class="label">[68]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 439.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69_69" href="#FNanchor_69_69" class="label">[69]</a> <i>The Century Magazine</i>, September, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70_70" href="#FNanchor_70_70" class="label">[70]</a> “The Interpretation of Dreams,” p. 136.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71_71" href="#FNanchor_71_71" class="label">[71]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 390.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72_72" href="#FNanchor_72_72" class="label">[72]</a> <i>Vide</i> p. 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73_73" href="#FNanchor_73_73" class="label">[73]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 246.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74_74" href="#FNanchor_74_74" class="label">[74]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 486.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75_75" href="#FNanchor_75_75" class="label">[75]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 329.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76_76" href="#FNanchor_76_76" class="label">[76]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 226.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77_77" href="#FNanchor_77_77" class="label">[77]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 226.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78_78" href="#FNanchor_78_78" class="label">[78]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 211.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79_79" href="#FNanchor_79_79" class="label">[79]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 216-217.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80_80" href="#FNanchor_80_80" class="label">[80]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81_81" href="#FNanchor_81_81" class="label">[81]</a> <i>Vide</i> <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 217.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82_82" href="#FNanchor_82_82" class="label">[82]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 240.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83_83" href="#FNanchor_83_83" class="label">[83]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 217.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84_84" href="#FNanchor_84_84" class="label">[84]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 213.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85_85" href="#FNanchor_85_85" class="label">[85]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 221.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86_86" href="#FNanchor_86_86" class="label">[86]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 212.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87_87" href="#FNanchor_87_87" class="label">[87]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 221.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88_88" href="#FNanchor_88_88" class="label">[88]</a> <i>The Ladies’ Home Journal</i>, October, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89_89" href="#FNanchor_89_89" class="label">[89]</a> <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, September, 1927</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90_90" href="#FNanchor_90_90" class="label">[90]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 224.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91_91" href="#FNanchor_91_91" class="label">[91]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 443.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92_92" href="#FNanchor_92_92" class="label">[92]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 444.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93_93" href="#FNanchor_93_93" class="label">[93]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 388-489.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94_94" href="#FNanchor_94_94" class="label">[94]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 490.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95_95" href="#FNanchor_95_95" class="label">[95]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 488.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96_96" href="#FNanchor_96_96" class="label">[96]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 489.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97_97" href="#FNanchor_97_97" class="label">[97]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 469-470.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V"> + CHAPTER V + <br> + THE FAIRY HALLS OF SCIENCE + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>1. THE IDOLS OF THE TRIBE</h3> + +<p class='drop-cap'><span class='allcap'>Whenever</span> I stand beside one of those wonders +of modern achievement, a great turbine +engine, for example, smoothly and silently performing +the work of a myriad men, I feel like taking off +my hat to the geniuses (for the most part unnamed and +unknown) who have made such a thing possible. There +may be two opinions about the social effect of machinery, +but there can be no two opinions about the prodigies of intelligence +which have gone into its making.</p> + +<p>Everybody knows that machinery is scientific. And because +of the vast esteem which our master mechanics +rightly enjoy, the word Science has come to command a +reverence once accorded only to the name of God. It is no +longer possible to advertise a toy or a tooth-brush without +calling it “scientific.”</p> + +<p>But what is Science? Is it a synonym for Truth? By no +means. It is not even a search for truth. Truth is something +general; the highest truth is universal. The search +for it is called Philosophy. Science, as we now understand +it, did not begin to have an independent existence until it +definitely abandoned Truth as its province and devoted +itself to the study of those—not general but particular +phenomena known as facts. When we say that Science is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>classified knowledge we mean that it is our classified +knowledge of facts. And in that word “classified” lies +the root of its only difference from common sense.</p> + +<p>Science is also a method for ascertaining new facts as +well as the classification of those we already know. What +do we mean when we say that science is a method? What +is its method? Every schoolboy can answer, “The method +of science is the experimental method.”</p> + +<p>The experimental method itself is less generally understood. +To experiment without an object in view is like +starting on a journey with no destination in mind. In the +vernacular phrase, it does not get you anywhere. The +object of an experimenter is always to prove or to disprove +something. And what is there for him to prove? A +fact, once established, is already proven. But behind one +fact there always lies another, and behind that yet others. +We soon leave the world of certainty and find ourselves +in the world of theories. It is a theory, then, which the +experimentalist seeks to prove—his own theory, while +disproving that of somebody else. Theories, dignified by +the name hypotheses, are as necessary to science as are +microscopes and scales. They are invented generalities used +as conveniences in a region where Truths are too much to +expect. A hypothesis does not even pretend to be true. It +is merely the best approximation, the best guess, possible +under the circumstances.</p> + +<p>Every scientist worthy of the name has at one time or +another said something like the following: “The only +thing we positively know about a hypothesis is that it is +to a certain extent wrong. Progress is made by gradually +substituting the less erroneous for the more erroneous, until +the hypothesis is finally established in a modified form +as a fact, or becomes so untenable that it must be abandoned +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>altogether. In either case, it has served its turn.” +Thus Darwin, true scientist that he was, characterized his +theories as to the descent of man as “highly speculative,” +adding, “Some will no doubt prove erroneous.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_98_98" href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p> + +<p>The ideal scientist, therefore, never becomes dogmatic, +never cocksure. He knows that though Truth be not relative, +Knowledge is. He forever deals with conclusions +which are highly tentative, and constantly waits for that +appeal to experience which will reveal his mistakes. Unfortunately, +scientists are but men, and the ideal scientist +no more exists than does the ideal Christian. Only those +whose specialties keep them constantly close to experience +remain truly scientific for any length of time—which +is one of the reasons why most of our progress +has been made in physics and chemistry.</p> + +<p>Francis Bacon, who is generally credited with having +first put science upon the firm ground of inductive reasoning, +or generalizing from observed particulars, says in +his <i>Novum Organum</i>:⁠<a id="FNanchor_99_99" href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> “Having first determined the +question according to his will, man then resorts to experience; +and bending her into conformity ... leads +her about like a captive in a procession.”</p> + +<p>How well Bacon understood our human nature’s proneness +to determine questions according to its will, and then +to bend experience to fit the occasion! But he did not call +this method the scientific method. On the contrary, he described +it as one of those “Idols of the Tribe,” or habits +leading to error, to which everybody is subject. And he +only <i>hoped</i> that science would avoid it as much as possible.</p> + +<p>True science has avoided it—as much as possible. But +how little true science we have! The experimental method +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>is so limited in its application that there are few matters +important to human life which can be put to the test of +immediate experience. We must wait long years for experience +in general to tell its tale, and even then its conclusions +are not always convincing. To be convincing, experience +must take place under conditions of our own +contriving, every unknown influence eliminated. And the +experience must be repeated time and again. The field of +true science is, therefore, one of the narrowest in the +world. Much that goes by the name of science is but semi-science, +pseudo-science, false science, or no science at all.</p> + +<p>The ideal scientist, having suffered an initial experience, +then forms a tentative hypothesis merely to direct his subsequent +experiments, and never for an instant permits his +enthusiasm for theory to warp his judgment regarding +fact. But as there are no ideal scientists, what is to be +done? Bacon thus notes what is to be expected:</p> + +<p>“The human understanding, when any proposition has +been once laid down ... forces everything else to add +fresh support and confirmation: and although most cogent +and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet +[the understanding] either does not observe, or despises +them, or it gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, +with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than +sacrifice the authority of its first conclusions.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_100_100" href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> + +<p>How highly fateful, then, must have been those first +propositions which modern science laid down in its infancy. +But man is not to be balked by his own infirmities. +Since he cannot hope to abolish the worship of this particular +Idol of the Tribe, cannot hope to be led by non-existent +ideal scientists, he will make a virtue of his +necessity and reap what good he may from his very shortcomings. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>Men will not abandon their fetishes and become +reasonable. Very well, then, we will incorporate the Idol +of the Tribe in our general method, and let abuses correct +themselves. We will give them rope until they are hanged +thereby.</p> + +<p>This is precisely what has been done. Bacon’s Idol of +the Tribe, the human tendency to bend experience to suit +theory, has been put upon a pedestal and crowned with +the high-sounding name of a principle called “The Economy +of Hypotheses.”</p> + +<p>Of two possible explanations of a phenomenon, that +one is chosen which requires the fewer suppositions, the +least departure from hypotheses already existing.</p> + +<p>This is nothing more nor less than the principle of +conservatism, and probably, in the long run, it does more +good than harm. It is a protection against wild and radical +theories. It gives men a chance for that long and intense +application which they will give to nothing but to the +defense of old and cherished beliefs. But it makes the +correction of a fundamental error a very slow business, +and though a part of the now recognized methods of +science, it is not scientific.</p> + +<p>It is, however, immensely popular, this principle of the +economy of hypotheses. The other ideal—that of submitting +continually to the stern discipline of trial—never +appealed to the man in the street. For ages he was prejudiced +against science altogether. He left it to monks and +such people. Then, finally—and not so very long ago—the +idea, having proved a money-maker, was “sold” to +him. He swallowed it hook, line and sinker, until today +he will not admit that he has a pain in the stomach unless +he finds in his basic theories something which will let him +account for it. What we need now is to be reminded to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>economical not with our hypotheses but with our credulity, +our acceptance of hypotheses as final. For there are still +many things in heaven and earth not dreamed of in our +major syntheses.</p> + +<p>A major synthesis, of course, is that broadest, most +shadowy, least dependable, but widely inclusive hypothesis +by which it is sought to bind all minor theories into +one more or less coherent system. It is the point where +science most nearly approaches to philosophy, the point +where, according to its own premises regarding the authority +of experience, it should be most cautious and humble. +The making of a major synthesis is an awesome business. +The fall of a major synthesis marks the end of an +epoch. We are now living at the end of such an epoch, +though the pseudo-scientists do not appear to be yet aware +of the fact. And the major synthesis which has fallen is +that which sought to bind all phenomena together as manifestations +of matter—the Mechanist Hypothesis.</p> + +<p>That the Mechanist Hypothesis should be the first generalization +of modern science was inevitable. It began +with astronomy, the first science to dare to call itself +“exact.” In astronomy we cannot experiment. We cannot +take planets and comets and suns, and subject them to +laboratory conditions. But we can at least make observations; +and what we observe appears to be matter, pure and +simple.</p> + +<p>Then came physics and chemistry, throwing off the attempt +to be magic and buckling down to practical jobs. +Both experiment and observation were possible here—and +still matter held the field. Matter, it was soon noted, had +exceedingly regular habits. And when it failed to follow +one habit, continued observation would discover that it +was only following some other. These habits came to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>called laws, and it was practically impossible not to +confound laws with force.</p> + +<p>In the back of the scientific mind were those human +laws—customs, behind which was Government, always +ready to manifest itself as the force in a policeman’s club. +And back of that was the idea of the laws of God—of a +real God with all the force of the universe in His hand.</p> + +<p>“Our laws are the laws of God,” said the early scientist, +quite rightly. And then, after he had abandoned that +ancient idea, the “hypothesis of a God,” he continued to +say it, not realizing how ridiculous and empty his notion +of “law” had become. Eventually he did begin to see this, +and was minded to drop force altogether. A law became +merely the way things acted under given circumstances, +and force merely a persistence in such action—in other +words, the way in which other things would act which +stood in the way.</p> + +<p>A given amount of some substance put into a scale pan +will lift the same amount of the same substance to a level +with it, and this behavior of the substance in the second +pan is the measure of the “force” of gravity moving the +substance in the first pan. As to the nature of force itself, +the scientist came to say that it lay outside of his province—which +was well and good. Pseudo-sciences went further, +and said that there was no such thing as force—quite another +pair of shoes. But long before this, which marks +the end and not the beginning of the last scientific epoch, +the Mechanist Hypothesis had been formulated in terms +recognizing both force and matter, and brought to the +attention of the average man through the writings of +Newton.</p> + +<p>Sir Isaac Newton had one of the greatest minds granted +to a human being since the Reformation; yet inadvertently +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>he did his fellows about the most evil turn which modern +history records. He robbed them of their belief in free +will—or if not quite that, he at least induced them to +abandon those fundamental propositions upon which alone +the belief in free will can reasonably be based.</p> + +<p>Free will presupposes force—real force—at the disposition +of the will. A will without force is a powerless +will—no will at all. And a man without will is not a man; +he is not even an animal. He is on a level with his own +lawn-mower. Upon free will depends not only all religion, +all ethics, all sense of human responsibility, but +our physical and mental well-being, our happiness, our +very self-respect. If we are but weathercocks, blown this +way and that by every breeze, it is folly to talk of striving; +of reasoning; of good or of evil; of loyalty or of +treason; of anything which makes us act indeed like human +beings. It is folly to speak even of consciousness. +What good could it do us? We might as well surrender +to Dr. Watson at once—and it is folly for him to write +books to tell us so, though a folly which he cannot help. +To rob man of his will would be to rob him of his life, +and to rob him of his belief in the freedom of his will is +to rob him of all faith in any means proposed to make +life better. Yet our mechanists one and all pretend to be +philanthropists, and nearly all are reformers. Every day +of their lives is a self-contradiction.</p> + +<p>Sir Isaac Newton, when he saw the apple fall and deduced +the law of gravitation, did not intend to precipitate +another Fall of Man. He seems to have been quite unmindful +of the evil reputation of the fruit in question. Nor +would much harm have been done had not his discovery +been one of those rare scientific ventures which are “good +theatre.” Everybody has seen apples fall. Nobody can +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>ignore gravity. The law was the best newspaper story of +a scientific sort since Copernicus and Galileo dislodged the +earth from the center of the universal stage. It gave Newton +such prestige that his slightest word became Gospel.</p> + +<p>Much of this prestige was deserved. His laws were, and +still are, mighty monuments of human genius. The trouble +came from the implications that were drawn from them. +The mechanistic hypothesis had long been in existence—no +fruit of science, but both root and branch of an old +mechanistic philosophy. Descartes had brought it up to +date. So Newton adopted it in preference to any other +philosophy. And his worship of that Idol of the Tribe, the +economy of hypotheses, led him to arrange his laws so as +to cause as little disturbance to Cartesianism as possible.</p> + +<p>The result was a world in which the Conservation of +Energy was the only real God. Neither energy nor matter +could be created or destroyed. Whatever went into anything, +that or its equivalent came out. A “free” creature +gives out more energy than it receives. Therefore to believe +in freedom was to be crazy.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the “laws” did account very well for most +of the known physical phenomena of the day. There were +then no Becquerel rays, X-rays, actinium, radium, protons, +electrons, quanta or ultramicroscopy to be dealt with. +Accurate observation was in its infancy. Materialism was +in the very air. Had not science won its first triumphs by +looking at matter and ignoring everything else? Newton +lived some two hundred years ago. His “closed system” +of a universe in which all creative activity had ceased, +though it gave us a life without a future, a life wherein +everything had already as good as happened, a life that +was really a moving death with its future behind it—this +all fitted amazingly well with the static ideas of the age. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>It was a Calvin’s universe, unlit by the fires even of +fanaticism. Prayer was futile. Initiative an illusion. +Heaven and hell either non-existent or foredoomed. We +were here but to turn the pages of a book printed long +before we were born.</p> + +<p>Actual mechanics, busy at their work-benches, satisfied +with a hypothesis which was accurate enough for their +immediate needs, thought very little of these far-reaching +implications. But here were weapons forged to a nicety for +the hands of the leaders of that vast movement which today +we loosely and inaccurately call modern paganism—it +being neither pagan nor modern, but an old, old disease +marked by the hardening of the arteries of the soul self-deprived +of conscious communion with God. Pains were +taken to bring Newton’s findings home to every intellect. +Popular science became intensely interesting, and hot with +fervor; for in reality it was not science at all but anti-religious +propaganda—and this even when it sugar-coated +itself, as it sometimes did, with phrases having what might +pass for a pious taste.</p> + +<p>But it was more than even the “tough-minded”—that +is to say, sclerotic-brained—long could endure. Oliver L. +Reiser, of the University of Pittsburg (a writer for <i>The +Monist</i>) goes so far as to say that “had Newton been +able to foresee the inevitable logical consequences of his +doctrine in the godless universe of Laplace, he might have +been constrained towards a more hospitable regard for the +views of Leibniz”—the reference, of course, being to the +attempt of Leibniz to reconcile the mechanical Cartesian +universe with the idea that creation, after all, has a meaning +and a purpose. Newton, indeed, might have done even +more than this.</p> + +<p>But he died leaving us nothing but a big machine which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>continued to dominate men’s minds until about the year +1890, when the whole thing suddenly broke down. Says +R. A. Millikan, of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of +Physics, writing recently for <i>Scribner’s</i>: “In [the discovery +of radio-activity and the electrical constitution of +matter] the physical world changed in our thinking over +night in its fundamental elements from a fixed, changeless, +static, dead thing, to a changing, evolving, dynamic, +living organism. Two principles, conservation of mass and +conservation of energy, are now gone, clean gone, as distinct +and separate verities.” In other words, matter and +energy are now thought to be capable of changing, the +one into the other. In the opinion of G. Urbain,⁠<a id="FNanchor_101_101" href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> the experiments +of Rutherford entitle us to say that there are +“two chemical elements, the electron and proton, out of +which the universe is made.” But—“we physical chemists +of today do not tell what matter is.... The least metaphysical +among us all see in electrons and protons merely +centers of convergence of lines of force. That evidently +explains nothing fundamental.... It makes for us a +world formed of minute hairy points, the hairs strikingly +abstract.”</p> + +<p>So matter itself is force and nothing else—or rather it is +two forces, electrons (negative electricity) and protons +(positive electricity) locked together in a strange conflict +whose resistance to interference gives tangibility and +“hardness” to the things of the world—all of which sounds +rather as if it had been translated from the Rig-Veda. +Gone by the board is the idea that matter is the fundamental +reality, that nothing can happen in the mind but +what has first happened in the brain.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span></p> + +<p>But has mind itself to obey the old law? Is it but a more +subtile manifestation of the preponderance of exterior +forces? We shall have to penetrate yet farther into these +fairy halls of science before finding an answer to that +question.</p> + + +<h3 id="2_SOME_NEBULOUS_MATTERS"> + 2. SOME NEBULOUS MATTERS +</h3> + +<p>Of all the facts of the old science, none was more firmly +established than what was known as the “Nebular Hypothesis.” +The name “hypothesis” clung to it always, because +“nebular hypothesis” makes an imposing mouthful +of syllables. Yet it was everywhere treated as a fact. Indeed, +after the “fact” of the conservation of energy, it +was just about the fact of facts. What has become of it +now?</p> + +<p>A. Vibert Douglas, M.B.E., M.Sc., writing in <i>Discovery</i> +for August, 1925, says, “The nebular hypothesis of +Laplace and the planetesimal hypothesis of Chamberlain +have gone into the history of science as great and lasting +<i>monuments</i> to their originators.”</p> + +<p>Monuments! Memorials marking the last resting place +of things now dead.</p> + +<p>How carefully Herbert Spencer used to explain the manner +in which a lot of star-dust, scattered somehow through +the space marked roughly by the orbit of the planet Neptune, +started to contract, revolve, grow warm, and to +throw off rings (since known as Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, +Earth, Mars, <i>et cetera</i>) and ended by central concentration +in our glowing sun. There was nothing difficult to +understand about the theory except the language in which +Spencer couched it—that is, unless one tried to look beyond +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>and into some of the things which it took for +granted. In that case certain questions arose. What scattered +the dust in the first place? Would it scatter it again, +again, and yet again, thus creating the universe of recurrent +phenomena imagined by the horror-loving Nietzsche? +What force separated the rings from the mass and rolled +them neatly up into planets? Why haven’t Saturn’s rings +rolled up? Will they, in time? What is keeping them back? +These matters, and various details which had been observed +but by few, troubled the mathematicians.</p> + +<p>They hardly caused the average citizen to lose a wink +of sleep. Saturn looked like a working model preserved for +school-room purposes. And the nebular hypothesis was a +pleasant story to tell to children. But the contrary observations +increased and multiplied—for the most part without +getting into the newspapers—until now we have Vibert, +with a host of competent astronomers ready to echo his +words, saying, “A nebula giving rise to a solar system +[is] an impossible hypothesis in the light of modern +knowledge.”</p> + +<p>The hypothesis itself has not been altogether carried +away to the bone-yard. Like an old and faithful horse, it +has been taken from the shafts and turned out to grass so +that it may enjoy its declining years in comparative peace. +The latter pastures of the nebular hypothesis are sufficiently +large, for it is being used now to help make stellar +systems. As there is little in this far region save +assumptions to drag around, the work is light. Fit ending +for an honorable career. But astronomers have grown +cautious. It is not likely that any of them will be rash +enough ever again to impose the weight of a real star, let +alone a system, upon the already broken back. They at +least know the hypothesis for what it is—a hypothesis, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>a dying one. Only laymen, half asleep over their Sunday +supplements, now think it was ever anything else.</p> + +<p>And what has come to take its place? The “Big Star +Theory.” An astronomer named Jeans brought forward +this entry in 1919. He said that if a big star had ever come +near enough to the sun, it might have caused a fearful +tide of solar substance—a long arm of stuff more or less +gaseous and very hot—to reach out millions of miles into +space. And from this hypothetical arm (there were really +two, but let us not complicate matters with details), broken +into several pieces, the planets might have originated.</p> + +<p>This time there was plenty of force at hand, enough to +satisfy all the equations which the mathematicians were +likely to contrive. No need to try to think how the dust +had been scattered. The force came from the big star, +which Jeans made a very big star indeed, with a diameter +of eight thousand million kilometers—say about twice +the distance of the farthest planet from the sun. Anyway, +there was a very big star concerned. Too big. The mathematicians +could not use all the force thus put at their disposal. +Dr. Harold Jeffers therefore reduced the mammoth +to a diameter of a mere forty million kilometers.</p> + +<p>The mathematicians still objected. It was no longer a +question of force. But the theory of probability, they said, +made it almost unreasonable to suppose that a collision or +near collision could actually have happened within the lifetime +of the sun. So astronomers set to work again, some +of them to lengthen the past life of the sun, others to bring +the stars in general closer together so as to increase the +risks of collision. Both parties succeeded admirably. Jeans +himself published a calculation which made the sun a million +million years of age—seven thousand times older than +any other calculation had ever made it. There were now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>seven thousand times more chances of a collision having +taken place than there had been when he started.</p> + +<p>Others (you may read an account of their observations +in an article on the Spiral Nebulæ, by C. Wirtz, in <i>Scientia</i>, +November, 1925), discovered that when you look long +enough and deep enough into the gulf of space (about +three hundred thousand light-years is as far as you need +to go), it looks as if all matter were outward bound, and +moving faster and faster all the time. Therefore the stars +used to be much more thickly placed here around home +than they are now. A collision becomes easy to imagine.</p> + +<p>But why is matter going away from here? Apparently +for the same reason that rats leave a sinking ship. Our +own galaxy, the Milky Way, ought to be five times more +thickly settled with stars. As things stand, it is much too +light for its size. It cannot hold itself together and is being +deserted by its outer fringe of suns all the time. Nor +is this the worst of it. The very matter of our solar system +is fifty-two times less dense than it should be. Its +critical point—that is, the point where it will fly to pieces +at the slightest provocation—has long since been passed. +Some day, a few million years hence, when you get up in +the morning the morning is likely not to be there. This is +not such a good story to tell to the children.</p> + +<p>Nor is the situation any better if you turn your back to +the stars, and look at those little stars within things which +we call atoms. Very much to the contrary. Some meteorologists +created considerable consternation a few years ago +by prophesying that one of the glacial epochs, probably the +last one, was coming back to play a return engagement—decidedly +not by request. But what is a glacial epoch or +two compared with atoms in the state ours are in?</p> + +<p>“We owe to Sir Ernest Rutherford [the great English +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>physicist] what is basic in our actual ideas about atoms,” +says Urbain.⁠<a id="FNanchor_102_102" href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> This savant was once a pupil of Pierre +Curie, discoverer of radium, and speaks with authority. +And he asks: “As to the atom, have we attained something +real, or only a model, symbolic of observed phenomena?” +He then answers his own question by declaring +that “it is difficult to say.... Rutherford allowed the +electrons [in the atom] to radiate, since it was supposed +that the model must obey the standard laws.” The difficulty +was that such an atom as Rutherford’s ought, all +agreed, to be luminous. And all atoms are not luminous. +Another difficulty was this. “Each outer electron must +gradually approach the central nucleus,”—I still quote +from Urbain—“finally falling into it, which means death.” +Presumably it is not intended to be implied that the same +electrons which were allowed to radiate ended by falling +into the thing they radiated from. Anyway, Urbain continues: +“We might have accepted the death of the stars +... but we cannot that of the atoms. That would mean a +definite death of the universe.”</p> + +<p>For once, even scientists were appalled. What was to +be done? Something, evidently. So an astronomer named +Bohr rose to the occasion. He constructed—not another +atom, but another “model.” This one was guaranteed to +last forever, and if real atoms would only conform to it +all would be well.</p> + +<p>“Bohr’s atom,” says Urbain, “is not a clear explanation, +for the privileged orbits [he gave the electrons +‘privileged orbits’ to keep them contented without either +flying off into space or into the deadly nucleus] are not +understandable in themselves; neither are the quanta of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>energy set free by the electrons in leaping from one +privileged orbit to another.... Bohr’s models have their +own laws with no necessary relation to the law of ordinary +experiments, and he thus turned scientific thought into a +new and unknown direction.... In the future are +theories to be built upon such contradictions?”</p> + +<p>Apparently they are. We have now observed so many +things that it is flatly impossible to grapple with them, or +to find out which ones are so and which are not. The +“new and unknown direction” into which scientific thought +has been turned is clearly that of imagining artificial +working-models known to be at variance with reality, getting +what satisfaction can be had from the models, and +leaving reality to shift for itself until some really serious +collision with fact damages the model beyond repair. It +is not such a new direction, after all, but merely a new +frankness which acknowledges the shortcomings of a +hypothesis from the start without a period of pretending +that it is a genuine “explanation.” Every new discovery +makes the universe—not easier, but more difficult to explain. +Progress uncovers our ignorance much faster than +it brings us knowledge—arm-chair progress, of course excepted.</p> + +<p>So Urbain is thankful for the new model atom, and says +that “Bohr, in reviving our hopes, is a great benefactor.” +Adding, “It seems necessary either to resign ourselves to +not understanding, as Bohr has done, or to resign ourselves +to a model in flagrant violation with experience.”</p> + +<p>Those sufficiently resigned to not understanding I now +ask to return with me for a short and final visit to those +suburban stellar districts situated some three hundred +thousand light-years from our sun, where matter is moving +ever faster and faster away from us. By a strange contradiction, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>time in those regions seems to be moving slower +and slower, as if tired with the long journey and no longer +able to keep up the killing pace set by the stars. Light, too, +appears to be losing the race. Professor Michelson, of the +University of Chicago, established the velocity of light not +long ago at 299,796 kilometers per second—roughly 186,000 +miles. But now Monsignor E. J. Gheury de Braye, in +an article in <i>L’Astronomie</i>, official organ of the Astronomical +Society of France, declares that the velocity of +light decreases by four kilometers every second. We may +perhaps grasp a moment’s understanding by saying that +this is relativity, that light merely travels slower in comparison +with the quickened pace of time and matter in the +outer stellar spaces.</p> + +<p>This, however, will not serve us long, for W. de Sitter, +the Dutch astronomer, taking all these things into consideration, +must needs offer an “explanation.”</p> + +<p>“The world of de Sitter,” says Wirtz in summing it +up, “is a four-dimensional continuum of space and time, +forming the surface of a sphere in five-dimensional co-ordinates.”</p> + +<p>If you look wise and pretend in scientific circles that +you understand this, you go to the foot of the class. A +four-dimensional sphere with a surface in five-dimensional +co-ordinates does not pretend to be comprehensible. To +declare it to be graspable by the human mind is to insult +it. But it can be used in equations, like any other “imaginary” +quantity, though—again like any other imaginary +quantity—it is quite unimaginable.</p> + +<p>Imaginary quantities are not such awesome nonentities. +Anybody can make a few for himself and play with them +as well as can anybody else. Let us take nothing to begin +with, thus—0. Write a 2 under it—0/2. We have now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>one-half of nothing. Now multiply a cipher by 2, and we +have twice nothing, or 2(0)—not for a moment to be +confounded with twenty. Then one half of 2(0), or twice +nothing, equals two times 0/2, or one-half of nothing, +because each is equal to nothing at all and things which +are equal to the same thing are equal to each other—and +for various other reasons.</p> + +<p>Abstractions are other imaginary no-things which cannot +be imagined. A mathematical point has, by hypothesis, +neither length, breadth nor thickness. We always think of +it as a very small dot, having all three. Yet in dealing +with it, mathematically, we ignore these dimensions in +the result. A line has length, but no breadth or thickness. +We think of it as something long and very slender. It +is the edge of a solid. A plane has length and breadth but +no thickness, theoretically speaking. We think of it as a +very thin slice of a solid. Try to think of the surface of a +solid without thinking of the solid! Abstractions are conveniences +when we wish to travel light without carrying +all the mystery of material reality about with us. They are +like Bohr’s model atoms. And like all other unreal things, +they have a danger of their own.</p> + +<p>The practical man, especially if he be a physicist or a +chemist, a worker in those domains where our greatest +scientific triumphs have been won, has experience always +at his elbow ready to correct his errors whenever they +pass beyond a certain point. Invent a machine, or a shaving +soap, and you are immediately compelled to prove that +your invention will work. And the only proof which those +who invest in such things will accept is the sort of proof +which we require of a pudding when we eat it.</p> + +<p>Experience has shown that not even the best calculations +ever quite verify themselves when put to the test of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>novel circumstances. A small model may run smoothly, yet +a large machine made in the same way will develop unexpected +flaws. Even increased size is sufficient to upset +the forecast. A machine may run for a week, yet become +cantankerous if we try to make it run for a year. Time +adds a new element. So does speed. Chemical compounds +which cannot be made to explode in minute quantities—coal +dust, for example—sometimes work havoc in large +quantities.</p> + +<p>Now the physical sciences, like chemistry and astronomy, +deal with the simplest and most tangible things of +which we have any knowledge. Yet those who make them +their study confess themselves baffled at every turn. In +these dreadful regions, Science, the real Simon Pure, +humble, beautiful and courageous, tries to maintain itself +under the pitiless bombardment of facts, smoky with the +infinite mystery from which they come, that rain every +year more violently upon its defenseless head.</p> + +<p>What has become of the Sunday-supplement, positive, +dogmatic, you-are-a-fool-if-you-do-not-agree-with-what-I-say +attitude? These men, who do not wish to be mystics, +engage in more ghostly talk than did the delegates to the +Meta-Physic Congress which met last year at the Sorbonne +in Paris to discuss telepathy, haunted houses, and +kindred matters. Gone is the cocksure vanity of the closing +nineteenth century. Gone is the God-defying materialistic +impiety, the arrogance, the hard-heartedness of +an older and more ignorant day. In this ultimate dim +Thule where the higher syntheses are born, kissing the +dust is today the only permitted posture. Hypotheses +hardly dare to call themselves even hypotheses any more. +They are content to be known as assumptions, postulations, +fancies, guesses, and thankful if they may be allowed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>to live their unreal existences from the time of the +publication of one pamphlet to that of the next. Early +modern science was drunk with victory. New science is +dizzy with awe.</p> + +<p>How comes it, then, that our Dr. Watsons can say that +there is no mystery in the building of a man? A man! Ah, +that is different. We have as yet hardly touched upon those +positively certain “sciences” which deal with human nature, +with love, life and destiny.</p> + + +<h3 id="3_THE_BED_OF_PROCRUSTES"> + 3. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES +</h3> + +<p>Hans Driesch, at Jena, working in the very laboratory +of Ernst Haeckel shortly after the death of that master +argument-maker for the mechanist conception of life, inadvertently +broke a fertile egg in two—and thereby broke +not in two but into smithereens the whole mechanism +of the mechanist which he had been taught to defend. For +the egg hatched, each half producing a perfect creature as +if nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>Driesch then reduced a fertile egg fairly to hash—and +still each fragment functioned like a whole egg. As long +as the egg was not killed—and the eggs of primitive creatures +are tough eggs except where temperature and certain +poisons are concerned—hashing merely multiplied the +hatch.</p> + +<p>The biologist was much disturbed. For it seemed fairly +obvious that if the design which growth was to follow lay +anywhere in the material of the eggs, division of said eggs +would—if it did not bring the whole vital process to an +end—result at least in the division of the incubated organisms. +One half of an egg should, if it hatched at all, hatch +a head; the other half a tail—and so on. But this not being +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>what happened, design could no longer be located in +egg material. Any part of the material was ready to develop +into either head, or tail, or wing, or antennæ, or +what not, according to the direction of something beyond +the dividing process—something which remained whole +in each part.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the experiment was not conclusive. In these +days of model atoms no doubt somebody can construct a +model egg, each atom of which is, potentially, a complete +chicken. But what troubled Driesch was the immediate +necessity of violating a primary principle and being compelled +to be extravagant in the matter of hypotheses. Even +a model egg required a great many changes in Haeckelianism.</p> + +<p>Now if Driesch had been of an older generation or of a +different persuasion, he would have found the ideas of +Haeckel, not the idea of exterior design, extravagant. +For one of the most ancient hypotheses in the world assumes +that the design for everything lies outside of its +material self. And I sometimes wonder if the principle of +economy should not have been earlier applied, before so +many of us abandoned this grand old major synthesis +which found its highest expression in a belief in God. If +it did not explain everything, it at least left room for the +explanation of everything. All we had to do was to struggle +for a truer and clearer conception of what it meant. +Astronomers, for instance, would not now be so hard put +to it in the matter of inventing Big Star theories, nor +physicists in making model atoms which neither work nor +exist, if they were at liberty to suppose that a forceful +spirit lay behind phenomena, lending a guiding hand to +all. Intellectually that would be at least as satisfactory as +points of force surrounded by highly abstract hairs.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span></p> + +<p>But the idea of God as it emerged from the nineteenth +century presented itself to many minds as the idea of +a rather ridiculous monster—the monster that Sinclair +Lewis dared to strike dead,—the monster that Stephen +Crane once fancied as lying “dead in heaven,” and at another +time warned not to shake its bloody spears at him if +its “sublime ears” did not wish to “hear curses.” Neither +Crane nor Lewis need have shocked anybody. They had +each seen a straw man set up, and were but proceeding to +knock it down. The only shocking thing was the idea, the +deformity, which had been presented to them. Where it +came from it is not my present purpose to enquire.</p> + +<p>Astronomers and physicists have now gone far beyond +Crane and Lewis and are looping back—saving their faces +(i.e., hypotheses) as much as possible—and picking up +ever more and more of the ancient belief thrown away in +the hour of materialistic extravagance. Chemists, too, are +beginning to realize that there is no use going on and pretending +that our thoughts, our feelings, our every manifestation, +can be reduced to a mechanical basis, since not +even a sea-urchin or a pismire can be so reduced.</p> + +<p>This something which we call life shows itself, ordinarily +at least, only when certain physical elements are +present. But it shows sufficient independence of these elements +to make it impossible for any rational, unprejudiced +being with the facts before him to continue to confound +life with matter.</p> + +<p>Yet many learned professors do continue to confound +them. Why? In some cases it is, perhaps, not too much to +say that the holder of a university degree is not necessarily +in possession of all the facts. And very few of us, professors +or not, are without prejudice. We must remember +the Idol of the Tribe, the capacity of the mind to become +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>so clouded by passion and biased zeal that it sheds unwelcome +evidence as readily as a duck’s back sheds water.</p> + +<p>It was Herbert Spencer who first popularized the notion +that materialistic science could explain everything. It had +not been invented with an eye to explaining everything—only +a few things, with the hope of getting hold of them +in a way that might be useful. But so great was the success +of the early applications of the method that the temptation +to turn it into a synthetic philosophy was too great +for mortal to resist. Spencer had the advantage of not +knowing very much. His early education had been neglected. +And his powers of invention were practically without +limit.</p> + +<p>It is always easier to explain when not burdened with +too much first-hand knowledge. Hearsay, and what we +learn from books, is the stuff for theories. But the facts +which have entered intimately into our own lives are stubborn. +We are too familiar with their edges to fancy that +they fit into whatever space may be contrived for them. +Ignorance is satisfied with almost any account. Those +who deal a good deal with retorts and crucibles may speak +of men and women as retorts and crucibles. This is impossible +to those whose knowledge of human nature has +made them distinguished in affairs. The books of a closet +economist satisfy everybody but business men.</p> + +<p>If you have spent much of your time in observing, say, +the behavior of rats on inclined planes, you may come to +think of animals as machines. One such investigator has +recently discovered that rats are “negatively geotropic.” +That is, they are afraid of falling; and when the plane is +tipped will scramble away from the lower edge. A pet rat +would have taught him not only this, but that, under kind +treatment, the rat is one of the cleverest and most affectionate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>four-footed creatures in existence. A scientist bores +holes in a dog’s cheek to measure his autocoid secretion; +or he removes part of a dog’s brain, scratches the animal’s +leg, notes that a kick results, and comes out of the laboratory +convinced that we all walk—not with a desire to get +anywhere, but because of the irritating effects of the +ground on the soles of the feet. Go tell that story to a +man who knows dogs!</p> + +<p>Those who love and understand animals cannot be made +to believe that animals are devoid of sense and feeling, or +act blindly in response to stimuli. Why then should we +listen only to those who know nothing of animals and +care less? Lovers of flowers will even go so far as to attribute +a sort of sentience to vegetation. Are they necessarily +wrong because their opinions are contradicted by +teachers in flowerless school-rooms?</p> + +<p>J. C. Bose, the great Hindu scientist, has lately intrigued +the whole world by writing a book in which he +shows that trees have eyes, nerves, veins, something which +corresponds to a heart; are capable of pain; of fatigue; +can be poisoned; and to a certain extent seem to remember +what has happened to them. What is the result? Why, our +mechanists have hurried to invert the Bose philosophy +and to describe it with its heels in the air. It is “<i>la fin du +mythe de la force vitale</i>,” cries Pierre Guitet-Vauquelin.⁠<a id="FNanchor_103_103" href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> +Bose, according to this ingenious writer, has discovered +“<i>l’unité de la matière vivante et non vivante</i>,” and the +conclusion is drawn that said unity has been arrived at by +making the <i>non vivante</i> universal.</p> + +<p>The Idol of the Tribe, the economy of hypotheses, has +become a Procrustean bed, to which everything must be +stretched or cut to fit. But unfortunately this particular +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>bed was made by chemists and physicists in Newton’s time +to fit certain facts and approximations to truth in which +they were dealing for the moment. It was then a convenient +bit of furniture. Now it is very awkward. We cling +to it only for old time’s sake.</p> + +<p>The modern experimental method as at first developed +has proven woefully inadequate when universally applied. +Even the study of outward behavior is very difficult, +especially if the subject be human, for we cannot +duplicate in the laboratory the exact circumstances of real +life—and every variation is fatal to accuracy, especially as +its influence is often unsuspected and totally unknown. We +cannot control our own species, because we are not placed +above it—though many of us would like to be.</p> + +<p>This entails another difficulty. As we are not above it +in power, so we are not above it in intelligence. The mind +in attempting to study itself has the disadvantage of being +both the eye and the picture. No wonder the so-called +social sciences have failed to duplicate the triumphs of +physical science. They have tried to steal a prestige which +they have not earned, to work with borrowed tools instead +of developing proper tools of their own.</p> + +<p>But since it is the habit of the age to look below for its +sanctions, let us look a little more intently—at the findings +of the new science.</p> + + +<h3 id="4_THE_NEW_PHYSICS"> + 4. THE NEW PHYSICS +</h3> + +<p>Unfortunately, the new physics is difficult, or at least +can be made to seem difficult. Few lay readers have any +first-hand knowledge of it; few lay readers have ever read +a book of science in their lives, new or old. In fact science +does not publish itself directly in books, but in short monographs, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>editions limited to two or three hundred copies. +At best these papers make their appearance in small, +specialist magazines. And they are couched almost entirely +in mathematical symbols interspersed with long words +barbarously derived from the Greek and Latin. True +scientists have not yet learned to advertise.</p> + +<p>We are therefore at the mercy of the popularizer, and +the popularizer is under every temptation to bolster up +popular prejudices and misconceptions. There is also the +“story interest” which he must consider.</p> + +<p>These are times when government is not by reason, by +principle, by expedience, or by experience. We are governed +by story interest—the thrill such as we get from a +good detective yarn. Most of us must get the bulk of our +information from the newspapers, magazines, and the +most accessible and widely distributed of books. These +depend upon story interest for their sales. We buy those +periodicals and those volumes which promise to thrill us +most; it is so much more pleasant to be thrilled than not +to be thrilled. Thus it becomes to the interest of editors to +see that we are thrilled as much as possible, without regard +to ultimate consequences. Fiction tends ever more +and more to become the moulder of public opinion.</p> + +<p>It is of course a better story if Voronoff’s transplantations +of goat and monkey glands result in prolonged life +than if they do not so result. To say that chemicals will +take the place of male sperm in the fertilization of sea-urchins’ +eggs (as Loeb, a few years ago, used to claim) +produces a greater thrill than to say that this consummation +so devoutly wished by some has yet to materialize. It +is even thrilling to be told that life is mechanical, for that +gives man the flattering idea that some day he will be +able to create life in his own workshops and set up an independent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>business as a god. We do not stop to think of all +the implications of such a theory—and we buy the paper. +We go further, and enact laws which take the truth of +the articles in the paper for granted.</p> + +<p>So, when the modern popularizer deigns to give his attention +to modern physics, he has a single eye to the +“story.” The difficult parts, the parts expressing doubt, +the parts which do not fit with the pet fads of his readers, +he can omit. Or he can take an entire theory and stand it +on its head. The effect will be exciting—and marvelous.</p> + +<p>There are those who are becoming tired of this childish +procedure, those who would really like to know what +is going on without having to perfect their Greek and +Latin or master the higher mathematics. They would even +like to know if it be true, as has been claimed, that the +attempt to reconcile the omnipotence of God with human +free will and responsibility has always been found scientifically +impossible—to know if belief in either will or God +be in itself unscientific and contrary to mathematics. +Probably they will go on believing in God and free-will +anyway—for those who do not have not yet become tired +of childish procedures. But it will be with a certain sadness. +The man who must hide his faith from his reason +in fear of attack, is not a complete or a happy man. Few +of us realize how much depends upon our conception of +the fundamental truths of physics, how we lean upon what +we understand to be the laws underlying the material +world.</p> + +<p>The Scholastics claimed that the existence of God—even +the great truths of Christianity—could be demonstrated +by reason alone; but few have sufficient philosophical +training or inclination to follow such arguments to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>their end. Science, while it has often claimed to be able to +disprove religion, has never claimed to be able to establish +either religion in general or any one religion in particular. +The most that can be asked of it, I think, is the removal +of those barriers which, some time since, it erected +in the way of belief in the supernatural.</p> + +<p>Science has always had its Mendels, its Voltas, its +Galvanis, its Ampères, its Pasteurs—men who believed as +heartily in God as they believed in his works. But I do +not wish to discuss the religion of scientists. It will be +enough to show the bearings of recent science upon an +antiquated but still pretendedly scientific materialism. So +let us chose a single paper by a modern worker—a man +comparatively obscure.</p> + +<p>He will of necessity be comparatively obscure, for no +one can be a scientist pure and simple and be widely known +unless he has invented a popular mechanical appliance, advertised +a cure for some common disease, wandered into +a foreign province as a prophet, or had the luck to say +something startling—such as, “Man descended from a +monkey,” or “Everybody can live to be a hundred years +old,”—and even then fame usually takes time to accumulate.</p> + +<p>Ralph S. Lillie has as yet written no good story. But he +has an interesting article, entitled “Physical Indeterminism +and Vital Action,” in <i>Science</i> for August 12, 1927.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lillie, a worker in the Marine Biological Laboratory, +is the author of “Protoplasmic Action and Nervous +Action,” and his very occupation shows that he is engaged +in the business of wrestling knowledge rather than +thrills from the phenomena of the world. What he says, +however, is much more thrilling than the most incestuous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>dreams ever dreamed by a Freudian, or all the discoveries +ever made by dropping babies upon pillows in the laboratories +of Dr. Watson.</p> + +<p>For he says that we are free; that there has been observed +under the microscope certain actions which look +much like the veritable finger of God, glimpsed for an instant +through the screen of matter behind which His +power forever works—a power that we so often fail to +recognize because, from our infinitesimal observation of +it, it acts according to laws—laws we have for the most +part made ourselves and to which we almost invariably +give a personality and an omnipotence we would feign +deny to the Deity whose doings they so imperfectly record.</p> + +<p>But how does Lillie say all this? In the most lamentable +manner—in Scientese. You will not wonder why I called +him obscure after you read the following sample paragraph:</p> + +<p>“Science and philosophy, but especially science, have +found great difficulty in reconciling the apparent indeterminism +of many vital manifestations, particularly voluntary +action, with the strict determinism of physical science. +The traditional problem of freedom, with all its implications, +is the classical expression of the difficulty.”</p> + +<p>True, this is by no means as cloudy as Freud when +Freud plays schoolmaster and propounds incomprehensible +metaphysics intended to inspire our awe. It contains no +confusion of thought. But it is sufficiently cold and forbidding. +Lillie totally lacks the literary ability of Freud, +the raconteur of spicy stories. It is evident, however, that +he means to point out the difficulty which science has +found in reconciling the doctrine of blind reaction with +that appearance of choice which is often to be noted in +the conduct of the higher forms of matter. Living matter, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>apparently, does not respond to external stimuli as mechanists +think it ought to. It is inclined to behave as if it had +some force, some will of its own. In other words, it seems +to a certain extent to be interiorly determined.</p> + +<p>There would, of course, never have been any controversy +as to this had those who took the negative been +honest enough to accept a rational definition of will and of +freedom. Nobody ever claimed that the will is free in all +respects. Nobody supposes that a man set upon by a mob +can go his way as if nothing had interfered with him. He +may be dragged to the stake or the scaffold. Physically, +there are circumstances in which his movements are most +certainly exteriorly determined. The most that he can do +is to refuse his consent to those motions he is forced to +perform, so that the resulting conduct is none of his.</p> + +<p>But psychologists have assured us that the giving or +withholding of this consent is automatic; that physical +forces are still at work; that a man has a mob inside of his +head even when there is no mob without; and that what +he does seemingly of his own volition is but the net result +of the pullings and haulings of this interior horde of instincts, +desires and stimulators. Moreover, these forces +themselves came either from parents or environment, and +the man himself is but their sum—he is his own inner +mob. Nor can it be denied that the law of the Conservation +of Energy gave psychologists the right of the argument. +Since Newton, only the very wisest of men have +had any intellectual excuse for believing themselves either +real or free.</p> + +<p>“Analysis, in tracing down the sources of [physical +action],” says Lillie, “seems always to restate determinism; +it shows the will to be motivated; motives have their +natural origins; actions not consciously motivated are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>either habitual and referable to past motivation, or are +instinctive and determined by heredity. In either case we +seem to have a mechanistic determination.”</p> + +<p>Having thus fairly stated the enemy’s argument, he +goes further and admits that “although voluntary action +affects mechanical change and seems free, the ‘energy +balance sheet’ of a man shows no conflict with the law of +conservation, indicating that there is no creation of energy +within the organism.... Classical physics thus seems +definitely incompatible with the idea of freedom. Accordingly, +scientific men—and somewhat curiously biologists +in larger proportion than physicists—have commonly regarded +freedom as a delusion. In so doing they have +created more difficulties than they have resolved; certainly +the inner conviction of freedom has not been abolished in +the minds of most thinking men.”</p> + +<p>There are one or two points to be noted here. “Somewhat +curiously, biologists in larger proportion than physicists” +have been willing to abandon the free-will hypothesis. +He doubtless means comparatively recent biologists, +men who have taken their foundation physics from the +books regarded as authoritative in their school days. Or +perhaps there is another reason. Following the Idol of the +Tribe, they look below them for their models, and seem +to feel obliged to make their subjects as much like the +machinist’s subjects as possible. And when they deal with +man they are shut off from the corrective influences of +free experiment. Mistakes in speculative biology are not +at once apparent. They are not immediately applied, and +returns are slow in coming in. But I am willing that the +enemy should take what comfort he can from the biologists. +He may say, if he likes, that biologists are the ones +who call life mechanical because biologists are the ones +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>who work closest to life. Lillie happens to be a biologist +himself—a biologist of details, not of generalities.</p> + +<p>As to the “energy balance sheet” of the individual, I +think he leans over backward in his endeavor to be fair. +Considering the exceedingly minute quantities of energy +involved, it cannot rightly be claimed that the energy balance +sheet even of a wayside daisy has ever been experimentally +worked out with an accuracy fit to be called +conclusive. Only recently have we even begun to measure +quantities of this order of magnitude. Only recently did +we know how very little energy we needed at our disposal +in order to rid our inner conduct of external compulsion—and +it is inner conduct alone with which we are +here concerned. We do not ask to be able to shake a physical +leg at will, but merely to be capable of shifting our +attention to legs if and when we chose, or to entertain +the desire to shake.</p> + +<p>But once more let us grant the point to the adversary. +Let him prove the balance sheet of the individual if he +can—it will avail him nothing. Lillie, in seeming to leave +intact the Law of Conservation, is but planning a flank +attack. For a curious reason soon to appear, the law may +rule and yet leave us free. It will then cease to be of +moral importance. Our biologist goes on: “We must regard +it not as a coincidence but as highly significant that +the only region where physical science gives evidence of +... externally uncontrolled, or individual, action, is in +the field of ultra-microscopic phenomena.”</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, there is a coincidence here. The field +where Lillie has noted externally uncontrolled individual +action is his own field. As a worker in a marine biological +laboratory, the minutest forms of life are objects of his +daily study.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span></p> + +<p>If I wanted to settle the question by authority and a +show of erudition, I could now quote from Jordan’s “The +Philosophical Foundations of the Quantum Theory.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_104_104" href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> +While if it depends merely upon famous names I could +cite Einstein and Smoluchowski, who have found that the +second law of thermo-dynamics (according to which heat +is said to pass from higher to lower temperatures in direct +proportion to the energy which is extracted from it—another +way of expressing our old friend, Conservation) +does not hold true when the time and space involved +are sufficiently small. And to this Svedberg, in his +“Colloid Chemistry,” agrees by saying that in microscopic +systems it is obvious that “fluctuations of entropy” +(variations in the amount of a given energy which is +found to be “available”) undoubtedly occur.</p> + +<p>But there is no need to follow such a thorny path as +this. Lillie sufficiently sums up the situation by declaring +that “the universality of the rule of physical determination” +as regards very minute, or “quantum” phenomena, +is now subject to question; and that “in the highest manifestations +of life, prediction [that is, the discovery of a +mechanical law governing conduct] is not possible at all.” +And he adds: “It follows that the regularity of macroscopic +[or large] phenomena, in which determinism is for +all practical purposes complete and trustworthy, is in reality +a <i>statistical regularity</i>.”</p> + +<p>What can he possibly mean?</p> + +<p>Here is in reality a flash of light in darkness, the gist +of the whole matter, the way out, the explanation of a +thousand riddles. And he must put it in such language +as this!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span></p> + +<p>For a statistical regularity is of course nothing but the +regularity to be observed in averages. Individuals vary +in a way which groups do not. No one is compelled to +commit suicide this year. If I do such a thing it will +be because I am individually a fool. And nobody knows +whether my good sense is going to last another twelvemonth +or not. Yet every actuary in every life-insurance +company’s office in the world knows how many people are +going to commit suicide this year, and next year, and +the year after; and the quota which each civilized country +is going to furnish. Their knowledge may not be absolutely +accurate as to the last digit. There is a very slight +margin for mistake. But they are almost as certain of +the figures as they are of the figures for last year, or the +year before. Mass action is sufficiently regular to make +calculations based upon a comparison of its future with +its past exceedingly profitable. Groups, and groups alone, +obey the Law of Conservation. It was group action observed +among atoms which gave rise to the formulation of +that law. Individuals behave capriciously, obeying the laws +of their unique natures, laws known only to God.</p> + +<p>But it will be objected: is not man a mass of atoms, or +a mass of whatever ultimate particles science finally arrives +at? And the answer is an emphatic <i>no</i>. His body is +such a mass, but it is so formed as to be controlled, in +so far as its movements are voluntary, by an individual +self whose inner essence is single. The only way to make +group action out of one man’s conduct is to observe him +over a long period of time. His average may be guessed +at. But nobody can say how he will act in a new and unusual +circumstance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="5_CHANCE"> + 5. CHANCE +</h3> + +<p>Pious people have always been prone to declare that +there is no such thing as chance. They have been afraid +that belief in chance implied a disbelief in the omnipotence +of God. Never were pious people more mistaken—or +perhaps I should say misinformed. The doctrine of probabilities +is one of those things belonging to mathematics +which the pundits have decided it were better for us common +people not to understand. So they have carefully refrained +from stating it in interesting, or even human, +language, pretending that we were barred from comprehension +by the inadequacy of our intelligence and education.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless we all inhabit a world upon the phenomena +of which the doctrine of probabilities is founded. We are +compelled to live every day surrounded by events “obeying” +the Law of the Greatest Probability. And those of +us who have made any success in life have become pretty +good mathematicians, though we may know no mathematical +symbols beyond the signs of addition, subtraction +and division.</p> + +<p>It is of course misleading to say that events <i>obey</i> the +law of the greatest probability. Events do not obey any +of the laws which science has formulated. On the contrary, +the laws were, in so far as they are laws and not +mere errors, formulated in obedience to the events. But to +say that there is no such thing as chance is to say that +there is no such thing as ignorance, which to my mind is +hardly a pious idea. For chance, rightly understood, is +but the measure of our ignorance. Nothing more.</p> + +<p>Given total ignorance, the chance of guessing right is +too remote to be calculable and can be expressed only by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>the meaningless formula, “nothing to infinity.” Given +total knowledge, certainty leaves no room for probability. +In all other circumstances, chance is the balance in which +we weigh what we know against what we do not know. +Gambling is called a vice because nobody ever uses the +word except to describe some form of chance-taking +which he considers vicious—the vice usually consisting in +a foolish attempt to get something for nothing. It is considered +particularly immoral to lose. But in a broad sense, +everyone gambles who lives. I hope I will be pardoned, +then, if I take my illustrations from actual games.</p> + +<p>If we know that a penny is a disk of equally weighted +sides and is to be tossed in the air by an unknown amount +of force which will cause it to turn over an unknown +number of times, the chance of its falling head up is the +same as that of its falling head down. We say the odds +are even. If we do not know what a penny is, we cannot +reckon the odds. If we know exactly what a penny is, +know its present position in relation to the table-top, and +know that it is going to turn over three times, say, there +are no odds to calculate. Ignorance has been supplanted +by knowledge.</p> + +<p>But why do we say that an even-sided disk, thrown at +hap-hazard, is as likely to fall head up as it is to fall tail +up? Because observation in the past has taught us that +such is the case. We may reason subsequently about momentum, +gravity, and the like, but observation lies at +the bottom of our knowledge. Very well. The sun rose +this morning. I know that. What is the chance of its rising +tomorrow morning?</p> + +<p>If I know nothing but what I have stated, the chance, +from my point of view, is as one to one. The odds are +even, nothing more. It is just as likely not to rise as it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>is to rise. From the standpoint of an Omnipotent God, +this is not the case. He knows whether it is going to rise +or not. To God there is indeed no chance.</p> + +<p>But to mankind at large? Surely the chances of the sun +rising tomorrow are better than even? To be sure they are. +For mankind at large knows not only that the sun rose +yesterday morning, but the morning before that, and on +ever so many other mornings. How many? Upon the answer +to this question rests the actual chance of its rising +again, for the answer shows the amount of our knowledge. +The more knowledge, the more certain the chance.</p> + +<p>Let us say we know that the sun has risen for a billion +mornings. Tomorrow, if there be a tomorrow, will mark +a billion and one. Then there are a billion and one events, +or sunrises, under consideration, and only one of them is +still in doubt. The chances of the sun’s rising tomorrow +are therefore a billion to one. If we know it has already +risen a trillion times, they are a trillion to one. As knowledge +increases, certainty approaches.</p> + +<p>I have heard it objected that, according to this theory, +the chance of a one-year-old child to live another year +must be only even, while a man of 99 has 99 chances in a +hundred of rounding out his century. This would indeed +be true if we knew nothing about either babes or nonogenarians +but their years. But we have a great deal of +other information—statistics—bills of health. We must +put all of our knowledge into the calculation.</p> + +<p>Almost everybody is now willing to admit this method +of reckoning probability when it is applied to dawns or +to life insurance. It seems quite natural to say that we +know the sun will rise again because, so far as we know, +it always has risen; or to say that a baby has a longer +prospect of life than has a very old man because we have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>observed that babies generally live, while very old men +generally die. But when we apply the same method to the +calculations of certain other things—the behavior of our +penny, for instance—we shall meet, strangely enough, +with a lot of heretics. If a penny has fallen heads for +twenty times in succession, there are those who will say +that the chances of heads coming on the next throw are +much worse than one to one. “It is time for a change,” +they will contend. And nothing can keep them, if sportingly +inclined, from wagering their money on tails. But +a mathematician will coldly bet on heads. <i>He knows that +there is something the matter with that penny!</i></p> + +<p>So come what are known as “runs of luck,”—a subject +apparently remote from that of free will, but not so remote +as it seems. Runs of luck are the result of unknown +influences; for if the influences are known we do not say +“luck,” we use a harsher term. The oftener a thing has +happened before, the more likely it is to happen again. +Some large force must be at work, or there would not +have been the run. This is such an important rule that +anyone who doubts it would do well to convince himself +of its validity. He will in that way not only improve his +mind, he will save money be he never so little of a “gambler” +in the vicious sense of the term. Losers are always +playing the stock-market and the world for “reactions” +that “must come.” Winners always “go with the trend.” +They are vicious only when their prizes are evil.</p> + +<p>“But what,” some will say, “of the change of luck +which wipes out the winnings? What of those larger +cycles which bring the smaller cycles to an end?” Just +this. We know nothing of the larger cycles until we, or +somebody whose word we can trust, has begun to experience +them. Therefore our ignorance is complete in most +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>cases, and we have no chance against the larger cycles +or rhythms at all—which is why sensible people usually +keep out of the stock-market. Doubtless there is some +larger cycle in cosmic events which will some day put out +the sun. But unless we have somehow been able to put +our finger already upon its pulse, we must ignore it in +our calculations. We cannot bring it to book. When any +one cycle has kept up a faithful performance as long as +the sun has kept on rising, it must be a rather large cycle +and is pretty safe to depend on for our remaining days.</p> + +<p>But I did not enter into this digression merely to give +a few tips on gambling, or the advice not to gamble at +all when gambling can be avoided. The calculation of +probabilities is of vast utility in matters infinitely more +important than markets or games. With it mathematicians +have put mere telescopists to shame. Give a mathematician +the past course of a planet, and he will calculate its future +course without taking the trouble to find out a thing about +the nature of planets. This is no chimera. It has been done. +The vagaries of the motions of a heavenly body fall into +series; into cycles; into cycles within cycles. Accuracy in +prediction is determined by accuracy and amount of past +observations, and by nothing else.</p> + +<p>But what has this to do with the human will? Everything. +The so-called “laws” of science, including the Law +of Conservation, are the laws of chance, nothing more. +They are founded upon the behavior of great masses of +particles, or the behavior of one or a few particles (more +accurately, <i>particulars</i>) over long periods of time. As +Lillie phrases it, the regularity of nature is a “statistical +regularity,” like the regularity of the statistics of suicide. +It does not interfere with the freedom of the individual, +of the particular. Here is the answer to Freud’s absurd +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>statement that the attempt to reconcile human free will +with divine omnipotence is always a failure. The actuary +calculates the number of suicides that are going to take +place—does he thereby compel you to kill yourself?</p> + +<p>There is, of course, this difference between an actuary +and Omniscience. The actuary only knows the total result. +Omniscience must know the individuals who will help +to make up that result. Omniscience knows just what we +are, individually. Omniscience knows every Psyche, and +knows what it will chose. I may know that a pair of dice +are so loaded that they will always come up sixes. Is it +my knowledge which compels them so to fall?</p> + +<p>But some will say that if our human dice are loaded, +it must have been God who loaded them, and that beneath +that load free will disappears.</p> + +<p>It might have been that way, I will admit. Omniscience, +being also Omnipotence, might have loaded the dice, beyond +question. Omnipotence was under no compulsion to +grant free will to anything. But by the same reasoning, +Omnipotence was free to withhold Its hand, and to let +us determine to a certain extent our actions for ourselves. +Even the finite mind has been able to see how this can +be without interfering at all with that regular march of +events which characterizes a cosmos in distinction from +a chaos. A cosmos of free particulars will still have a +“statistical regularity.”</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, this system of delegated authority, +of limited grants of real power, seems to run through all +nature. The Commander-in-Chief leaves certain details to +his generals; the generals leave certain details to their +captains, the captains to their lieutenants. The private +soldier has his particular duty to perform. And each +one is held responsible for the performance of his own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>duty within his own limited sphere of action—a duty +which he is free to perform or to leave undone. Whenever +an individual is rewarded or punished for something +which he was not free to do or not to do, our natures recoil +from what we term an “injustice.” With no free will +at all, any reward or punishment would be unjust. And +it is to this sort of a world our materialistic psychologists +and philosophers have been trying to introduce us. +No wonder they shied away from the conception of consciousness. +Sentience without freedom seems unjust. Even +with limited freedom, it seems unjust. Man’s sense of justice, +therefore, has compelled him to regard this life as +a fragment; to say that only willfully endured or provoked +pains and privations are deserved, to believe in +another life beyond the grave without waiting for further +proof of it. Thus Dante was constrained to write even +over the gates of Hell, “<i>Giustizia mosse ’l mio Alto Fattore</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_105_105" href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p> + +<p>If we return now to the doctrine of probabilities and +to Lillie we shall find him nodding, for he says: “It already +seems clear that many of the physical laws with +which we are familiar in the realm of microscopic phenomena +cease to apply on the scale where events are determined +by the ‘chance’ fluctuations of molecular movement.”</p> + +<p>Chance here is clearly not the proper word. It contradicts +his whole argument. Obviously he is using it in a +very loose sense—much as behaviorists use it when they +say that the first synapse between dendrite and axone in +the brain is chance-determined. As a mathematician he +must know that these isolated phenomena of the exceedingly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>minute are precisely those to which the law of +probabilities cannot be applied. As much cannot be said +of the behaviorists. Their attaching of the word “chance” +to the word “synapse” is due to no slip of the pen, but +rather to some regrettable individual action behind the +synapse itself.</p> + +<p>“Ultra-microscopic phenomena,” Lillie goes on, in a +way which quite confirms the foregoing explanation of +his lapse, “thus give evidence ... of control by individual +action rather than by statistical or mass action. The +laws relating to such [microscopic] action ... assuming +such laws to exist ... are as yet imperfectly known. +But they are certainly entirely different from physical +laws.”</p> + +<p>This may seem remarkable, but after all it is only what +we should have expected. In the ultra-microscopic world +we are approaching individual action and leaving mass +action, the average action of many individuals, behind. +The illusion of bondage begins to disappear.</p> + +<p>What makes this so important is the fact that we are +so built that the minutest imaginable interior events may +determine our largest actions. I lift a pound weight, but +it was the movement of the all but impalpable particles +of the brain which decided what the movement was to be. +A touch upon the trigger fires the gun. And the force at +the disposal of will needs to be only enough to move these +tiny particles in the vital field. The trigger-touch, the precipitating +circumstance, is traceable, says Lillie, “to ultra-microscopic +events in the nerve cells.” And it is precisely +this fact, with the opportunity it offers for central control, +which makes a man’s behavior, even as to his body, +something other than the result of a struggle of blind +forces. Man is not a mass of particles like a dumb-bell.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span></p> + +<p>There is, Lillie contends (and he is supported by Maxwell +and Boltzman), “a smoothing off, or obliteration of +detail” in “effects controlled by mass action.” So we say +that we lose ourselves in a crowd. “Mass action” represents +the “sum of numerous fluctuating minutiæ.” What +we see is like a composite picture, with individual traits +more or less obliterated. Excess in one unit is off-set by +deficiency in another, so to our sight the individual is +obscured. “The relation between a smoothed curve and +the distribution of the points showing the individual data +is a relation of a similar kind,” he adds for the mathematically +minded. And then he throws an almost literal bombshell +into the determinist camp, with these words:</p> + +<p>“Every now and then an unexplained catastrophe occurs +in stores of high explosives. We know from observation +... as well as from theoretical considerations of +probability, that at infrequent intervals an internal molecular +movement of unusual amplitude occurs. Such a +movement may exceed the critical minimum below which +no chemical reaction results,”—and so blow up the whole +mass.</p> + +<p>But what we are here interested in is that unexplained +molecular movement of unusual amplitude. It is almost +like coming upon the creative spark itself, and—as is frequently +the case with creative sparks—the immediate result +is destructive to existing conditions.</p> + +<p>Not that I think that here is actually the naked finger +of God. I am no Monist. So far as human experience, at +least, is concerned, I believe that however far we pursue +matter, either into its minute or its starry depths, it remains +matter; and that spirit is separate and apart from +it. The ultimate knot cannot be untied. The seamless veil +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>has been drawn too tightly across the face of Deity for +it ever to be penetrated by physical science.</p> + +<p>Call matter but force, if you will. Admit that even material +force is of a spiritual nature, that its materiality +consists in what we call its material effects. Nevertheless +there is a gulf between those locked forces and spirit +properly so-called. Saying that everything is God is only +an indirect way of saying that there is no God—no God +but what is locked up.</p> + +<p>If all be matter, how can we, who too must then be +matter, manage to contemplate the universe? We must +conclude with Dr. Watson that we do not contemplate it. +The same thing cannot at once be both subject and object. +If all be spirit, then what separates us from the +Great Spirit? Why is not our knowledge and comprehension, +our power and our duration of days infinite and +commensurate with ourselves here and now? For in the +case supposed, we would ourselves be God. There would +be nothing to come between.</p> + +<p>Spinoza, who claimed that all is God, contradicted himself +by calling his philosophy a philosophy, a search for +truth. Were his theory true, we should not have to search. +We would be already one with the All. Nor could any of +the diverse phenomena of creation exist. There could be +no separation between part and part, even in our sense +perceptions. With nothing but spirit, out of what could +those shadows, those lapses, those ignorances between +this and that be made? Of nothing? But nothing is nothing. +It is not even empty space, nor darkness, nor a shadow. +Even the Vedantic philosophers had the wit to see +that there must be a gulf between Brahma on the one hand +and Vishnu and Siva on the other. They had no explanation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>to offer. Modern would-be Brahmins have assumed +that there is no inexplicable. Instead of rising to the Gospels, +they have fallen below the Vedas.</p> + +<p>Lillie seems not to have fallen into this error, for he +says that “microscopic events” are determined by “sub-microscopic +events”; that “behind or internal to the sub-microscopic +events, we must assume a series of ultra-microscopic +events reaching back by convergence into +the field where the known types of physical determination +are replaced by another type of determination, the special +conditions of which we do not know.” But as the action of +the brain-cell determines the motion of the arm, so the +action of something yet more minute determines the action +of the cell, and so on until we come to the ultimate +physical basis of the series. In this field of the physically +ultimate, events are self-determined. They occur through +no compulsion from without.</p> + +<p>“If by free we mean externally uncontrolled, it would +appear that the ultimate local centers or units of action +should be independent of one another, i. e., a radical discontinuity +should exist at the base of physical reality. +Something of the kind seems to be indicated by quantum +phenomena,”—phenomena of an ultra-minute variety. +Men have often spoken of the eternal loneliness of the +soul. Here we see that in this very loneliness lies its +freedom. If it chooses to surrender this, for good or for +evil, its surrender is still a choice.</p> + +<p>And in conclusion, Lillie most rightly adds that one +may “hesitate to call [this ultimate physical field]” the +“metaphysical field,” or the field beyond matter. Our +author makes no attempt to taper his matter off into spirit +merely by subdividing it. And he goes on:</p> + +<p>“If would seem, however, that there must be some final +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>support or substratum of the physical to which only the +term metaphysical can be applied.” Which I take to mean +that he believes in a substratum which is not physical. +And having thus shown that back of matter experimental +science feels that there is something else, and that we +in our inner selves are quite free from external control, +whatever compulsion may be put upon the actual motions +of our bodies by things beyond our power, he rounds out +his argument by saying:</p> + +<p>“There is also the general philosophical position that +the universe, considered in its totality, must be the expression +of free action, since an all-inclusive whole cannot +be determined externally, i. e., by conditions outside of itself,”—there +being nothing outside of itself. In other +words, not only are we free, but God is omnipotent; +and the two facts, instead of being contradictory, are +found to be but the different ends of the same chain of +reasoning. Freud’s dictum proves to be not quite so final +as it seemed. Lillie has torn it to bits in a single article.</p> + +<p>And had we not gone to Lillie we might have gone to +Cassier, LeBon, Claude Bernard, Lucien Poincaré, or to +any of a multitude of clear-headed scientists, philosophers +and mathematicians. They may not give us all we seek, +but they at least give us this. Let behaviorists and psychoanalysts +say what they will, reason has not yet vanished +from the world. Neither has unreason, for that matter—as +the next chapter will show.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3 id="FOOTNOTES_4"> + FOOTNOTES: +</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98_98" href="#FNanchor_98_98" class="label">[98]</a> “The Descent of Man,” p. 780.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99_99" href="#FNanchor_99_99" class="label">[99]</a> “The <i>Novum Organum</i>,” i. 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100_100" href="#FNanchor_100_100" class="label">[100]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, i. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101_101" href="#FNanchor_101_101" class="label">[101]</a> <i>Vide Le Recueil des travaux des Pays Bas</i>, No. 44, pp. 281 to +304, for the year 1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102_102" href="#FNanchor_102_102" class="label">[102]</a> <i>Le Recueil des travaux des Pays Bas</i>, No. 44, pp. 281 to 304, +1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_103_103" href="#FNanchor_103_103" class="label">[103]</a> In the Paris <i>Matin</i>, September 4, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_104_104" href="#FNanchor_104_104" class="label">[104]</a> <i>Nature</i>, vol. 119, 1927, p. 566.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_105_105" href="#FNanchor_105_105" class="label">[105]</a> “Justice moved my High Maker,” Dante’s “<i>Inferno</i>,” canto III, +line 4.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI"> + CHAPTER VI + <br> + THE FAMILY TREE + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I. ARE MONKEYS PEOPLE?</h3> + +<p class='drop-cap'><span class='allcap'>Nobody</span> was ever humiliated by the seventh +verse of the second chapter of Genesis, which +says, “God formed man of the dust of the +ground.” But when Darwin wrote,⁠<a id="FNanchor_106_106" href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> “There can ... +hardly be a doubt that man is an offshoot from the Old +World simian stems; and that, under a genealogical point +of view, he must be classed with the catarrhine division,”—when +Darwin wrote that the offense was general. Why? +Certainly a catarrhine ape is higher in the scale of being +than is the dust of the ground.</p> + +<p>But the Bible account had added, “And [God] breathed +into his nostrils the breath of life.” Darwin left out any +saving addition. So those who say today, “We came from +the monkey,” invariably mean that we were contained in +the monkey even as an oak is contained in an acorn.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the oak is not contained in the +acorn. An acorn is merely the means through which an +oak may eventually become manifest. It is an instrument +which enables an oak to become. The substance of the oak +is still widely scattered when the acorn which is to be its +parent falls from the tree. Some of it is in the soil; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>some of it is in the air; some of it is far off in the sun. +The acorn is like a lens through which light bends to a +focus. It is something which brings together parts of the +earth, the air and the sun and welds them into the body +of a tree. That something which we call life uses the +acorn as a business man uses a little shop, a going +concern which he buys as the foundation of a great +department-store. But the shop could never become the +store did the business man add nothing to it. The question +therefore is, was the catarrhine ape the lens through which +the elements of man were brought together? And what, +if anything, was added which were not added in the case +of the ape itself?</p> + +<p>So stated, Darwin’s theory loses most of its religious +and therefore its popular significance. For the public in +general is not interested in biology, it is interested only in +God and in man’s relation to God. Even atheists are interested +chiefly in God, or they would speak of other +matters and spend less time in denying Him. Even biologists +and psychologists are interested chiefly in God, not +in their own subjects. Otherwise they would not be +forever straining to make a theology, though but a +negative or devil’s theology, out of what pretends to be +science.</p> + +<p>Whether it is orthodox to believe that we number monkeys +among our ancestors, theologians must decide. Certainly +the Church would not have to alter a single one +of its major tenets nor a line of its ritual in order to include +Darwinism among the articles of faith. Whether +the dust of the ground evolved into ape before it evolved +into man during those long periods which the laconic +poetry of Genesis allows to slip by between the lines, or +whether the change from dust to man was immediate, is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>immaterial to the doctrine of the Fall of Man, which +concerns man’s subsequent history alone.</p> + +<p>Darwin, himself, regarded his views of human descent +as mere theories, useful for biological purposes. “Many of +the views which have been [here] advanced,” he wrote⁠<a id="FNanchor_107_107" href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> +“are highly speculative, and some no doubt will prove +erroneous.” Had the modesty of the great scientist been +emulated by his disciples, we would have had no Scopes +trial, and few of us would ever have heard of Evolution.</p> + +<p>Even now that we have heard so much, few of us seem +willing to take the trouble to find out what it is, or even +to learn to distinguish between the theory of evolution in +general and that particular theory of evolution which +Darwin advocated. Considered broadly, evolution is merely +the idea that living things—and even things which we +do not ordinarily call living, including, perhaps, intangible +things, like thoughts and feelings—appeared on earth +in a certain order, the lower and simpler ones first. This +idea is as old as the hills, and was fully set forth in Moses’ +account of creation.</p> + +<p>Moses held further that the upward climb was interrupted +at a certain point, and that another cycle, another +upward climb, then began. But as neither the Fall nor +Redemption are supposed to be biological, this line of +thought does not concern us here.</p> + +<p>A more narrow view of evolution regards the resemblances +to be noted among things as the resemblance of +children to parents. According to this theory, the tie +which binds the universe together is the tie of heredity. +Nebulæ give birth to suns, suns to planets, planets to the +lower forms of life, the lower forms to the higher. The +notion is not so popular among astronomers as it used to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>be, but it is still dominant among scientists in general +and biologists in particular. Nor can there be any doubt +that evolution in this sense has been the supreme hypothesis +of modern times. Curiously enough, the most extreme +Darwinians among our literary scientists usually balk at +it, holding that while man certainly must have had an ape +for ancestor, thoughts, customs and sentiments can be +generated spontaneously. They trace their brains straight +back to the amœba, but claim to have minds which are +brand new. They scorn any philosophy which cannot prove +that it was born yesterday—or at least since the present +period of prosperity began in the United States—and born +out of nothing. “Men,” says Albert Edward Wiggam, in +“The New Decalogue of Science,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_108_108" href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> “have never been +really righteous because they did not know how.” Meaning, +of course, that they didn’t know how until the “New +Decalogue” was published, which was in 1922.</p> + +<p>Darwinism, itself, is the belief that the different species +originated not only one from another, but that the difference +now existing between one species and another is +due to the slow accumulation of those minute particulars +in which children do <i>not</i> resemble their parents; and +further that these differences were preserved and added +one to another through succeeding generations because +they were useful from the first, increasing the likelihood +that their possessors would survive and breed; while those +not born with these variations, or had variations which +were useless or perhaps harmful, would be killed off in +the struggle for existence. This selection of fortunate +individuals in a world where there is not room enough for +all is called “natural selection,” and variations which increase +the chances of survival are said to have a “survival-value.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>Darwin did not pretend to know what caused variations. +Darwinism is merely the theory that species originate +by the accumulation of useful variations through +natural selection, and that intermediate forms then die +out, leaving gaps. Were none of the links missing from +the record Darwin believed that it would now be impossible +to tell where one species began and another left +off.</p> + +<p>The hypothesis itself was but a variation of an older +one. Lamarck had taught that species originated gradually, +but he held that it was chiefly through the inheritance +of “acquired characters.” Now an acquired character +is something we are not born with, as for example, +the ability to play the piano; and if it could have been +proved that such acquirements descend from parent to +child, Lamarckianism would have had smoother sailing.</p> + +<p>But great pianists persist in having children born without +the ability to play the piano, children who have to begin +at the beginning just as the great pianists themselves +did. Every effort has been made to demonstrate the contrary, +but the facts are stubborn. The best that can be +said for the theory of the inheritance of acquired characters +is that, in some instances, if a single character +is acquired by a sufficient number of generations there is +a slight possibility that eventually it may begin to leave +some trace of a hereditary nature. Hundreds of generations +of rats have had their tails cut off without producing +a natural-born tailless rat.</p> + +<p>What looks like the inheritance of an acquired character +always turns out to be a phenomenon which can +be accounted for by early education. The Bach family was +a family of wonderful musicians, but the Bach children +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>all received the best of musical training from the moment +they could begin to lisp.</p> + +<p>But Darwinism, though it would profit greatly could +the heritability of acquired characters be proven, was +especially constructed to get along with the heritability of +inborn characters. To be a Darwinian it is not necessary +to believe that the giraffe originated by the neck-stretching +of a lot of prehistoric calves anxious to feed as high as +possible upon the trees of the pasture. It is enough to believe +that the calves who happened to be born with the +longest necks were the most apt to survive, and that they +passed their longer necks on, minus any acquired stretch, +so that in each generation the accidental or unaccountable +long-neck variations could begin at a higher level—and +so on down, or up, to the present.</p> + +<p>The theory works very well with the giraffe. Every +fractional inch of additional neck seems to have a survival +value. But unfortunately for Darwin, this is not +the case with all variations. Many are useless or positively +harmful until their accumulation has gone on until a new +and workable mechanism is formed, and it is beyond the +imagination of man to devise a way in which they can +have been accumulated by natural selection. Fabre, the +great French naturalist, pointed out hundreds of instincts +among insects which could have had no survival value +unless they were complete at the start—whole chains of +instincts, each link positively worthless in itself. We are +forced to believe that all the links arrived on the scene +simultaneously and in perfect working order.</p> + +<p>The body of man, to take another example, is—in so +far as it varies from an ape’s body—a variation in the direction +of weakness. If the catarrhine, old world Simians +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>began once upon a time to have children a little more human +in body than the catarrhines themselves, they at that +very moment began to have weaker and shorter-armed +children, less well calculated to survive in the struggle for +existence. It may be argued that the half-human children +survived because they had better brains. And it may be +argued further that it was the deflection of energy to the +brain which caused the rest of the body to shrink. This is +at least imaginable. What is lacking is any positive evidence +that half-human children ever arrived upon the +worldly scene through the genitals of monkeys. The theory +is merely a working hypothesis which works somewhat +less well every day.</p> + +<p>Will Durant, writing of Bergson,⁠<a id="FNanchor_109_109" href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> says that “all his +(Bergson’s) criticism of Darwin has proved effective; +the specifically Darwinian features of the evolution theory +are now generally abandoned.” This is too sweeping a +statement. Hilaire Belloc hews closer to the line of truth +when, in “A Companion to H. G. Wells’ ‘Outline of History,’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_110_110" href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> +he names 41 outstanding scientists who hold +with Bateson that “for men of clear intellect Darwinism +has long been dead.” In other words, the old jolly row is +still on, with the anti-Darwinians gaining ground but the +pros still flying their flag. The flag, itself, however, shows +some sign of accumulating variations.</p> + +<p>This makes it the more surprising that Sir Arthur +Keith should have seen fit, upon his election to the presidency +of the British Association for the Advancement +of Science, in 1927, to say in his Inaugural Address, “So +strong has his [Darwin’s] position become that I am +convinced it can never be shaken.” A hypothesis which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>could not be shaken would be a unique thing in the history +of science. And for his remark, Sir Arthur received +the following congratulatory telegram: “We hail with +joy your uncompromising championship of the ape ancestry +of man. Your boldness and plain speaking will encourage +atheists the world over.”</p> + +<p>No, this is not a message from a learned society. It +came from The American Association for the Advancement +of Atheism, popularly known as “The Four A’s,” +an incorporation parented by Charles Smith, an attorney +of Oklahoma, and Freeman Hopwood, of New Jersey. +It claims a number of branches or chapters among the +undergraduates in various colleges—chapters bearing such +names as “The Damned Souls,” of the University of +Rochester; “The Devil’s Angels,” of Los Angeles, and +the like. From time to time gems of thought reach the +world from the Association’s Headquarters, such as: +“Edison believes in a Supreme Intelligence, but is a vice-president +of the Thomas Paine National Historical Association.” +“Aristotle was what today would be called +an atheist.” “No wonder people above the intellectual +level of a paramecium don’t take any stock in Christianity.”</p> + +<p>The reckless use of language makes strange bedfellows. +Surely Sir Arthur must have been a little intoxicated +with his new honors to speak so much in the manner of a +Grand Kleagle. He even went on and compared vital activity +to what takes place in an automobile factory. “In ... this +factory,” he said, “there is no apprenticeship.... Every +employee is born, just as a hive-bee is, with +his skill already developed. No plans or patterns are supplied; +every workman has the needed design in his head +from birth.... There is neither manager, overseer nor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>foreman to direct and co-ordinate the activities of the vast +artisan armies.... And yet there must be some method +of co-ordination.”</p> + +<p>This factory without patterns or overseer, co-ordinated +by a “method” with nothing to carry it out, must have +been located in Russia in the days of Lenin. Even there +we have yet to see automobiles producing spontaneous +variations of a survival value, or big trucks begetting +little roadsters which grow upon gasoline till they reach +the size of their ancestors. We therefore seem to be a +long way from the factory of life. But instead of myself +attempting to take Sir Arthur to task, I prefer to compile +a little dialogue out of extracts from his speech interlarded +with quotations from a review of it written by the +biologist, Francis P. LeBuffe.⁠<a id="FNanchor_111_111" href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p> + +<p><i>Keith</i> (third paragraph of his address): “Owen ... cited +evidence which suggested a much earlier date for +the appearance of man on earth than was sanctioned by +Bible records.”</p> + +<p><i>LeBuffe</i> (who is a member of the Society of Jesus): +“He [Sir Arthur] ought to know that whatever calculations +as to the age of man have been made from ‘Biblical +records’ are entirely problematical, and that the 6006 +years so frequently adduced as Biblical is merely the inference +of scriptural scholars years ago.”</p> + +<p><i>Keith</i>: “Darwin ... succeeded in convincing himself +that, immeasurable as are the differences between the mentality +of man and ape, they are of degree not of kind. +Prolonged researches made by modern psychologists have +but verified and extended Darwin’s conclusions. Huxley’s +‘Evidence of Man’s Place in Nature’ ... settled for all +time that man’s rightful position is among the primates +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>and that ... his nearest living kin are the anthropoid +apes.”</p> + +<p><i>Le Buffe</i>: “That man is a primate is as true in the doctrine +of immediate creation as it is in the theory of evolution; +and while a non-evolutionist would dispute the +statement that the ape is man’s nearest kin, he would admit +that he is the animal that is the most like him.”</p> + +<p><i>Keith</i>: “The evidence of man’s evolution from an ape-like +being obtained from the study of fossil remains is +definite and irrefutable.”</p> + +<p><i>Le Buffe</i>: “Let us take up the ‘irrefutables’ one by one.”</p> + +<p>And he does, describing minutely how the hunt for the +“missing link” now stands. For brevity’s sake I paraphrase +his text as follows:</p> + +<p>First Irrefutable: <i>Pithecanthropus erectus</i>, “one time +inhabitant of Java.” Irrefutable? Then why did Dr. +Moir⁠<a id="FNanchor_112_112" href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> state before the Berlin Anthropological Society that +it did not differ essentially from other types of human +skulls, and that it coincided very closely with that of +Aurignacian man? Scott Elliot says, “The skull is considered +a human skull by six ... celebrated authorities, +who for the most part are English. It is thought to be a +missing link by eight, mostly French. It is considered an +ape’s skull by six others, mostly German. Only one authority +makes the femur that of an ape, thirteen consider +it human, and six make it out intermediate.”</p> + +<p>Second Irrefutable: Dawson’s “Dawn Man.” Irrefutable? +What have we here? A shattered, imperfect brain-case, +part of the mandible and a canine tooth. Keith says +that Sir Arthur Smith Woodward rightly recognized that +the skull and jaw were part of the same individual. Then +how do Waterson and Miller say that the jaw is a chimpanzee’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>and does not belong to that skull? and Hrdlička +that it is human, but again does not belong to that skull? +and Ray Lankester, who wrote to one, H. G. Wells: “I +think we are stumped, baffled?”</p> + +<p>And so on, until we have Keith repeating with approval +the words of G. Elliot Smith, “The difference between +the human and the ape brain is only quantitative.”</p> + +<p>And Le Buffe responding: “Then why did Dr. Arthur +S. Woodward say ‘We cannot of course go by the size, +for the Neanderthal man has a larger brain cavity than +some of us at the present day. It is quality not quantity +that counts’? That is surely true, we hope, as the heaviest +brain ever found (weight, 2850 grammes) was that of +an epileptic idiot.”</p> + +<p>Here is a true picture of the state of modern science +as it relates to man—a few disputed bones and any quantity +of disputed conjectures. Keith’s picture is obviously +false. He should visit the excavations at Glozel, France, +where the findings are declared by some savants, “<i>du +mérite le plus incontesté</i>,” to be of the “<i>époque néolithique</i>”; +and by other savants, “<i>dont les travaux font authorité +dans le monde</i>,” to pertain not to the neolithic but +to the “<i>époque néo-fumiste</i>.”</p> + +<p>But what if someone were actually to find the missing +link? It would be merely a skeleton intermediate between +that of ape and man. It would prove nothing; settle nothing. +What is needed is the spectacle of a female monkey +in the act of giving birth to a human child; and as nobody +claims that well-bred monkeys do that sort of thing +nowadays, the prospect is not hopeful.</p> + +<p>Yet Albert Edward Wiggam says in “The New Decalogue +of Science”⁠<a id="FNanchor_113_113" href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> that the “Darwinian generalization,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>after a “battle with entrenched opinion, authority, prejudice +and vested interests, has at last received the universal +assent of practically all educated men.”</p> + +<p>I do not see how a “universal assent” can include “practically +all,” if by that is meant anything different from +simply all. But this is tabloid, pre-digested science, with the +hulls of opposing opinion carefully removed. The implication +is that non-Darwinians, however eminent, are <i>ipso +facto</i>, ignorant. Those who do not feel themselves properly +brow-beaten must have thicker skulls than <i>Pithecanthropus +erectus</i>. But I think Mr. Wiggam is here showing +a variation from the paramecium of very doubtful +survival-value.</p> + +<p>Since Darwin many efforts have been made to improve +his theory by supplementing it with others. Hugo +DeVries, for example, believed that he had solved the +problem of the survival of variations which need to be +complete before they can be useful. He discovered a bank +of evening primroses on an English hillside which seemed +to be in the very act of producing new species—not +by degrees but all at once. It was announced throughout +the world that organic evolution had proved itself experimentally, +though not along Darwinian lines. The variations +here were too marked to be called variations, so they +were called “mutations.”</p> + +<p>But the primroses were but hybrids, and what had been +seen was not the evolution of new species but the action +of the law of mixed heredity long before formulated +by Mendel. The new species were only throw-backs, revealing +hereditary traits which had been latent in their +immediate ancestors, as when a boy resembles not his +father but his grandfather.</p> + +<p>More recently a school of biologists has risen whose +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>members call themselves “Emergent Evolutionists.” According +to their idea, the finger of God occasionally +“emerges” so plainly that man can see it. Here again we +have the idea of sudden mutations, where the ordinary +course of events seems at certain points to be broken by +the impulse of a higher law—as when life, sensation, reason, +or man first appeared. Alfred Russell Wallace, Darwin’s +co-discoverer of the “law” of Natural Selection, +laid the foundation for this conception as long ago as +1889. More recently men like Lloyd Morgan; General +Smuts; Herbert Spencer Jennings, of Johns Hopkins +University; Sir Bertram C. A. Windel, professor of anthropology +in Saint Michael’s College, Toronto, and many +others, have sought to give Emergency its place among the +recognized hypotheses of science.</p> + +<p>But, as far as I am aware, it has never yet been completely +stated, nor any logical reason given why the emergence +at one point in the evolutionary scale differs except +in degree from the emergence of any event, even the most +trifling. Once we accept the belief that matter is a mere +instrument in the hands of something which is not matter, +it seems necessary to regard all phenomena as the +emergence either of the direct power of God or of the will +of some creature to whom has been delegated a limited +freedom. If this be the underlying idea, then a special +emergence might be defined as one of so marked and +rare an importance that it stands out from every day +happenings, forming part of a broader rhythm whose +beat is apparent only when all the great emergences of +which we have evidence are taken together. Or it may go +even beyond this, and stand as an event unique in man’s +experience, constituting what we call a miracle.</p> + +<p>The advantage of the theory of emergent evolution is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>that it furnishes the evolutionary process with a power +capable of bringing it about, while the idea of matter +evolving itself implies a universe trying to lift itself by +its bootstraps. It also removes the difficulties of time (of +which there is never enough for thoroughgoing Darwinians) +and of finding survival value for half-developed +mechanisms.</p> + +<p>“<i>Bien des choses s’expliqueraient si nous pouvions connaître +notre genéalogie véritable</i>,” wrote Flaubert—much +more wisely than he knew. Perhaps not only many things +but nearly everything will be explained from the moment +our true genealogy is recognized. But it must be our +true genealogy, not a part of it. Emergent Evolution permits +us to have our place in the natural order, and yet +remain children of God. The soul may be the greatest—or +next to the greatest—emergence of all.</p> + +<p>Is it such a distressing idea? That should not trouble +the realists, for they notoriously attribute reality to things +in proportion to the amount of unpleasant odor which +things exhale. Thus they unite with the Hindus in considering +life a curse. Matter taken by itself certainly is +either painful or boresome, and if one wishes to stop +with the half and consider only matter as real, I know of +no way in which one may logically escape despair.</p> + +<p>The trouble with the idea, then, is that it is not distressing. +The moment we agree that something more divine +may emerge through matter, or at least thrust up +beneath it till matter rises here and there to a glorious +psychic mountain peak (“emergence” is not quite the +right word, for there still remains the material covering)—from +that moment even evolution loses its repellent +features. From that moment the greatest thinkers of all +the ages are on our side—which is sometimes a comfort. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>We develop a strange capacity for happiness. Is this an +evidence that we are fools?</p> + +<p>“<i>Le malheur</i>,” says Paul Bourget in “<i>L’étape</i>,” “<i>démontre +l’idée fausse, comme la maladie la mauvaise hygiène.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_114_114" href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p> + +<p>That probably is not conclusive reasoning if you are +not convinced beforehand. But why is happiness any more +apt to be the result of illusion than is misery? We do +not say that the best body is the one which suffers the +most pain. Have not the pessimistic philosophers accustomed +us to some strange and monstrous inversion of +thought?</p> + +<p>Let emergence, then, have its way. We are no longer +contained in our physical ancestors. The man is not even +contained in the child. We change from day to day. +There is a continuity, yet it is added to—or subtracted +from. The soul accepts this and rejects that.</p> + +<p>So Psyche rebuilds her house, continually tearing it +down and reconstructing it. Sometimes the lighting system +gets out of order. Fuses blow out—and we say she +is mad. Sometimes the house falls, or burns, or succumbs +to a flood—and we say she is dead. And from +the dead house some conclude a dead Psyche, or that +there never was a Psyche—which is like concluding that, +if the telephone line goes dead, it proves that there never +was anybody talking at the other end except the batteries +and the wires.</p> + +<p>No; monkeys are not people, no matter what kind +of children they may have had. Nor are people monkeys—not +to the extent which Mr. Wiggam seems to suppose.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="2_BURBANKING_THE_HUMAN_RACE"> + 2. BURBANKING THE HUMAN RACE +</h3> + +<p>The effect of Darwinism has been to popularize an exaggerated +idea of the importance of heredity. Darwin, of +course, depended quite as much upon environment to select +his variations as he did upon heredity to hand them down. +But it is from Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, that most +people have acquired their Darwinism, and it so happens +that Spencer was not primarily a Darwinian but a Lamarckian. +“The Origin of Species” was not published until +Spencer was a middle-aged man.</p> + +<p>Therefore an immense amount of confusion has arisen +in the minds of amateur biologists, and a tendency to +believe in heredity as the destiny which shapes our ends. +Hence the Eugenists. Hence this Mr. Albert Edward +Wiggam, already referred to.</p> + +<p>The idea of dominant heredity is flattering to parents, +who like to think that they live again in their children; +who are unwilling to grant that children have souls of +their own. It pleases those scientists who still hope to +prove that acquired characters are handed down. It pleases +determinists, who see here another way of making us +slaves to something. It pleases those naturalists, who have +acquired their ideas of man from the study of animals, +plants and insects. And as animals, plants and insects +form the readiest subject for experiment, it pleases materialistic +biologists in general.</p> + +<p>But reasoning from lower forms of life to higher is +reasoning by false analogy. Luther Burbank, a great artist +with plants, worked wonders in his garden; and in +his book, “The Harvest of the Years,” he expresses the +regret that his methods could not at once be applied to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>human beings. But Burbank was not a scientist, not a +thinker, but merely a super-gardener, incapable even of +keeping an accurate account of his innumerable experiments. +So it is not remarkable that he failed to realize +that when we say what is sauce for the goose is sauce +for the gander we are speaking of beings of the same +order, while man and plants are not of the same order.</p> + +<p>If heredity be dominant in the garden, it does not follow +that it is dominant even in the menagerie, let alone +in the street. Conclusions arrived at in the study of insects +are not necessarily true of Indians. Indeed, there is +every reason to believe that man, because of his long period +of infancy, is much less determined by heredity +than is any other form of life. This in itself knocks the +foundation from under nine tenths of the arguments we +hear upon the subject.</p> + +<p>Even profound changes in the body may be produced by +(or with the aid of) environment. The third generation +of immigrants to America are said to have higher cheek-bones—that +is, to be more like redmen—than the immigrants +themselves. The discovery of the functions of the +ductless glands shows how food, or the manner of life, +may be at work in cases where germ-plasm used to get all +the credit. The notion that heredity is destiny has altogether +broken down.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_209" style="max-width: 63.0625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_209.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <span class="smcap">Albert Edward Wiggam</span> +<br> +<span class='norm'> The Devil take the hindmost!</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Says Professor Herbert S. Jennings, of Johns Hopkins, +in an article entitled “Heredity and Environment” +in the <i>Scientific Monthly</i> for September, 1924: “Clearly +it is not necessary to have a characteristic merely because +one inherits it. Or more properly, characteristics are not +inherited at all; what one inherits is certain material that +under certain conditions will produce a particular characteristic; +if those conditions are not supplied, some other +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>characteristic is produced.” Thus heredity becomes a +mere capacity—and that we do inherit certain capacities +need not be denied.</p> + +<p>The fundamental laws of heredity were first made +known in 1866, when Gregor Mendel, a monk of the +Augustinian order, read his now world-famous paper +upon heredity in plants before the Naturalists’ Society of +the little town of Brünn, in Moravia. He had made more +than 10,000 observations upon the peas growing in the +garden of his monastery—wonderful observations. Their +results, too complicated to be fully described here, may +be sufficiently summarized in a few words—and in order +that there may be no mistake, I shall take the words from +Mr. Wiggam himself,⁠<a id="FNanchor_115_115" href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> omitting only his running comment:</p> + +<p>“If you cross tall peas with dwarf peas the offspring +will be as tall as the parents. The dwarfness has completely +vanished. If you cross these tall offspring back with +a dwarf, one-half of the offspring of this cross will be +dwarfs and one-half will be talls. However, instead of +crossing the talls back with dwarfs, if you place capsules +over their blossoms so they will not get crossed, and then +sow their seeds, one-fourth—not one-half—of their seeds +will come up dwarf and three-fourths will come up tall.”</p> + +<p>In this case, tallness, because it supercedes dwarfness +in the first generation, is called a “dominant” trait, and +dwarfness, because it disappears, is called a “recessive” +trait. As Wiggam correctly says,⁠<a id="FNanchor_116_116" href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> the fundamental principle +is that “the units contributed by two parents separate +in the offspring without having had any influence on each +other,” or practically none. A trait either shows in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>offspring, or it does not show. And where the inheritance +is hybrid, the reappearance or disappearance of traits may +be calculated, given a sufficient number of instances, by +application of the law of greatest probability.</p> + +<p>Everybody knows that one may inherit a Roman nose +from a grandfather even though one’s father’s was a snub +and one’s mother’s retroussé. The mathematical implications +are amazing. But all that I wish to call attention to +is the fact that we all are hybrids, and that unless our +ancestry for many generations back is known to the minutest +detail it is utterly impossible to calculate the hereditary +phenomena to be looked for in our children.</p> + +<p>Mendel believed in unit characters, but it has been found +that unit characters, such as blue eyes, are far from being +units and are made up of an unknown number of smaller +units. This greatly increases the difficulty of even guessing +what hereditary possibilities the children of any given +couple will receive. Nevertheless, twenty-three states have +already, at the behest of eugenists, passed laws permitting +the sterilization of the “unfit” by means of enforced +surgical operations. And under these laws, 6244 +operations have actually been performed—and my statistics +are of the year 1927 and not complete at that! What is +the idea? I will let Mr. Wiggam explain.</p> + +<p>“The Nordic elements of our population are being +forced out by other races whose representatives in this +country are of distinctly lower average mental alertness +and of less social coherence and political capacity.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_117_117" href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p> + +<p>“This race has contributed a vast share of all political +wisdom and scientific discovery to the modern world. It is +probably the one race on earth which has steadily advanced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>in these respects for the past several thousand +years.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_118_118" href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> + +<p>“Cattell has shown that in America not a single day +laborer’s son has become a man of scientific distinction. +The wholesale rise of the masses to power may be the +death knell of their biological progress. Like a bottle of +old wine, which, when uncorked, for a time sparkles and +fumes with life but soon becomes inert and stale, so it +seems that men, when freed from oppression for a time, +bubble with genius. But ambition is sterilized by its own +success. Indeed, without biology as the basis of social +processes, success spells failure and achievement brings +decay. Like caged animals, those who rise cease to breed.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_119_119" href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p> + +<p>“There were one hundred two Pilgrims who came +over in the <i>Mayflower</i>.... No finer stock to found a +great national breed of men and women ever set out to +sea.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_120_120" href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p> + +<p>“The genealogy of 12,722 New England wives of the +old Colonial stocks. In one hundred twenty years their +blood has been vanishing from the racial stream as follows: +1750-1799, children per family, 6.43 ... 1870-1879, +children per family, 2.77.... There is the story +of the decline of the old American stock.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_121_121" href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> + +<p>“In 1920 the school-teachers of America who had had +any children had given birth to 2.2 children per family; +the bootblacks had come within one-tenth of giving birth +to four!... This crude birth rate, however, does not +measure to the full the relative contributions of bootblacks +and school-teachers to the citizenship of tomorrow. Nearly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>all bootblacks marry and have children, while scarcely +half our school-teachers ever marry at all.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_122_122" href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p> + +<p>“In this same year, 1920, the lawyers and judges of +America who had families had 2.2 living children, while +janitors and sextons had 3.4; authors, editors and reporters +had 2.1, workers in stone quarries and gravel pits +3.6.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_123_123" href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p> + +<p>“Every school child knows that Burbank, Schull, Hanson, +Davenport and others achieve their triumphs solely by +selecting the best specimens as parents. Farmers ever since +Eden have done the same thing.... But, suppose they +bred chiefly from their worst! Well, that is precisely what +America ... is doing.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_124_124" href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p> + +<p>There is the situation. School teachers are practicing +either celibacy or birth-control; bootblacks are not. Janitors +and sextons and workers in gravel pits are breeding +lawyers, editors, authors and reporters off the map. The +masses are rising, like an uncorked bottle of old wine and +bubbling with genius. Up till now they have not produced +their first distinguished man of science, but there is +no saying what may happen if the bubbling continues. +Fecundity is passing from New England wives, from +the captain’s lady, and descending to Mrs. O’Grady. The +radio, invented by the “Nordic” Marconi sends out the +S.O.S. What is to be done?</p> + +<p>The remedy is very simple. Castrate as many of the +masses as may be necessary to enable the biologically +“superior” to keep up in the race of life with biologically +(and socially) “inferior.”</p> + +<p>No, Mr. Wiggam does not openly advocate any such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>crudely frank measure. In the first place, the operation +is called asexualization, and leaves the subject free to uplift +the morals of the community by sexual activity complete +in every detail except the minor one of fruitfulness. +And in the second, the choice of life-imprisonment is to +be offered in certain instances to the eugenically condemned.</p> + +<p>Who is to do the condemning? And what are the requirements +for passing the examination?</p> + +<p>“Unless you can measure men you cannot select them,” +says Mr. Wiggam.⁠<a id="FNanchor_125_125" href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> “It is often said that eugenics is +hopeless because it does not know what it wants in human +nature—it has no ideal. To this Dr. Morton Prince of +Boston aptly replied: ‘Yes it has; it wants such men as +William Graham Sumner and William James.’ This certainly +sets a lofty ideal.... Yet, in all soberness it is +doubtful if we want a whole race of such men. Men like +these would doubtless clean our streets and remove our +garbage a hundred times better than it is now done, but +they could not at the same time be teachers, writers, lecturers +and philosophers, unless perchance a society of +such men would be so perfect that the street cleaner +and philosopher would willingly interchange their tasks +from hour to hour or from day to day. Pending such a +possibility, however, eugenics is content with a much less +but more inclusive ideal, namely, the increase of health, +sanity and energy.”</p> + +<p>This is a little obscure to me. It is difficult to picture +William James (or Henry, for that matter) as a superlative +street-cleaner. But the goal of the eugenist seems +clear—health, sanity and energy. These are excellent +things. But as Mr. Wiggam estimates—by what method +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>I do not know—that we owe to heredity fully nine-tenths +of what we are, it would not seem advisable that the +name of an invalid should be made to perish from the +land of the living until we are able to know much more +than we can as yet possibly know of the quality of the +“germ-plasm” we are dealing with.</p> + +<p>Energy presents another difficulty. The rattlesnake possesses +considerable energy, and is usually in good health. +Chicago’s gunmen are energetic enough in all conscience. +Obviously the direction of energy will have to be taken +into consideration. And here again we are confronted by +the question, Who is to decide what directions are right +and what directions are wrong?</p> + +<p>“Let us,” says Mr. Wiggam,⁠<a id="FNanchor_126_126" href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> “see to it that those to +whom our sympathies have extended the privilege of a +happy life instead of sounding for them the death knell +of the jungle, shall not have the high biological privilege, +which should always run parallel with social privilege and +always be under social control, namely, the privilege of +reproduction.”</p> + +<p>Never before in the history of the world has the idea +of special privilege reached such heights as this. Through +our “sympathies” we have, it appears, extended to certain +persons we do not approve of the “privilege” of a +happy life instead of killing them outright as we perhaps +should have done. But we are not to allow our sentimentality +to carry us so far that these persons shall +have the further “privilege” of reproduction.</p> + +<p>In “The Fruit of the Family Tree,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_127_127" href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> Mr. Wiggam, +speaking to women voters, says that he does not care to +outline for them “any complete eugenical program.” Then +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>he continues: “The very nature of the vast problems themselves +... indicate what such a program is bound to be. +As one first plank in her program, most assuredly, the +woman voter should advocate a survey of the human +family.... The pedigree of every family in America +should be put on record.... These family histories +would be among the most priceless archives of the nation, +for it is upon the biological assets of the nation that all +truly statesmanlike legislation must be based.”</p> + +<p>Legislation again! Mr. Wiggam does not favor the +Eighteenth Amendment—for the curious reason that he +believes alcohol dangerous to but a small fraction of the +population and that indulgence by all would tend to exterminate +those weaklings who do not carry their liquor +well—doubly curious reasoning considering the splendid +efficiency of prohibition liquor as an exterminator. He +thinks (as I do, for that matter) that Prohibition was a +great mistake. Yet he is doing more than any other one +man in America today to further another prohibition +movement compared with which Volsteadism is a mere +trifle. His books sell by the tens of thousands. He has +become one of the signs of the times. And he wants legislation +to make the “privilege” of having children run parallel +with “social privilege.” Family histories doubtless +contain much interesting information—they have even +been known to contain manufactured information. When +they become the <i>sine qua non</i> of full citizenship the artificial +growing of suitable family trees will doubtless make +bootlegging look like a very minor member of our great +national industries.</p> + +<p>But we begin to see who is to do the choosing.</p> + +<p>“Another plank in woman’s eugenic platform should be +the establishment in every state of a State Board of Heredity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>and Eugenics. This board would work in cooperation +with the State University, the Boards of Charities and +Correction, the State Prison Board, the Department of +Public Health and indeed with every agency of social +uplift and advancement. It would have on its staff expert +psychologists [Freudians or Behaviorists?] biologists +and statisticians for the direction of measures of public +mental hygiene, the mental survey of schools and the +prescription of minimum mental requirements for marriage.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_128_128" href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p> + +<p>And these agencies (with of course the coöperation +of the Eugenic Society) will measure our health, sanity +and energy. The opportunities for graft are so staggering +that it seems impossible that the more energetic among us +will rest content till the whole plum is theirs—for as yet +eugenic legislation applies only to the inmates of public +institutions, like jails, poor-houses and asylums. Mr. Wiggam +has shown the way to a mine that ought to be worth +a mountain’s weight in solid radium.</p> + +<p>Under such circumstances it is perhaps idle to ask +what is the biological warrant for this worship of heredity? +We are face to face with a political and social, not a +scientific, movement.</p> + +<p>Yet Mr. Wiggam is a good biologist—at least he is +able to quote a great deal of good biology. And so long +as he confines himself to observed facts he is both instructive +and interesting. But biology mingles with the +bread of its facts an intolerable deal of the sack of deduction, +guessing, theory and surmise. Mr. Wiggam seems +to state facts merely for the privilege of reveling in +subsequent “reasoning.” And his reasoning is of such a +character that for a long time I mistook him merely for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>one of those sprightly writers from whose mental equipment +the handicap of logic has been happily left out. But +I wronged him. There is method in his madness. He +wishes, I believe, to camouflage the strong meat of his +doctrine so that we babes may not too abruptly recognize +what sort of cuts are being offered us.</p> + +<p>Thus he says,⁠<a id="FNanchor_129_129" href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> “Eugenics is ... not killing off the +weaklings. Not a scheme for breeding supermen.... +Not a scheme for breeding human beings like animals.... +Not a departure from the soundest ideas of sex +morals.”</p> + +<p>Then what is it?</p> + +<p>“Eugenics is a method ordained of God and seated in +natural law for securing better parents for our children.... +Modernizing the definition of its great founder, Sir +Francis Galton [who was a cousin of Darwin], eugenics +is the study and guidance of all those agencies that are +within social control which will improve or impair the inborn +qualities of future generations.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_130_130" href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a></p> + +<p>“Guidance,” again—i. e. legislation. But the bitter pill +has been presented in a sugar-coating. And in another +place in this same book he goes so far as to say, “Had +Jesus been among us, he would have been president of the +First Eugenics Congress.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_131_131" href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p> + +<p>If I may be permitted to extend this gratuitous blasphemy +so as to connect it with facts, I wish to point out +that when Christ did live he was crucified by precisely +the healthiest, sanest and most energetic of his contemporaries, +measuring these qualities by eugenic standards. +A bill declaring Him both insane and criminal could unquestionably +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>have been put through the Jewish Sanhedrim +without a dissenting vote.</p> + +<p>What is insanity? The sterilization of the insane is the +strongest appearing plank in the whole eugenic platform. +Yet even here troubling questions arise, bidding us stay +the knife. And what is crime? For eugenists are sterilizing +criminals also—and in at least one instance the crime +was “drunkenness.”</p> + +<p>I once wrote to a prominent eugenist in hopes of finding +out what makes a crime a crime—and I did find out. +He told me that the essence of crime was non-conformity. +He had hit the nail squarely on the head. That is the essence +of crime exactly, non-obedience to some law. But +what law? Here my correspondent showed himself to be +entirely at sea. He could refer to nothing but the statute +law momentarily in effect in the place where the crime +was committed.</p> + +<p>Are we to preserve one sort of germ-plasm in California +and another in Massachusetts? A willingness to +conform to any and every statute which a legislature +anywhere may see fit to pass is certainly a curious test +of human virtue, of the right to leave an impress on +future generations.</p> + +<p>As to the nature of insanity, my correspondent was +willing to leave it to the doctors—more especially as Prof. +Lombroso, then quite prominent, had lately identified it +with genius. Mr. Wiggam has a theory of both crime +and insanity which at least removes all vagueness from +the terms. Whose germ-plasm is to be allowed to go on +down the ages? The germ-plasm of those who have been +able to get named in “Who’s Who!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="3_SALVATION_BY_WHOS_WHO"> + 3. SALVATION BY WHO’S WHO +</h3> + +<p>I admit that this is an exaggeration—at the present +moment. Eugenists assure us that they mean to be very +temperate. But we know from experience how temperate +a reform movement is likely to become, once it is fairly +launched.</p> + +<p>In substance, the “Who’s Who” theory of unnatural +selection is actually developed in a series of articles by +Mr. Wiggam reviewing Professor Lewis M. Terman’s +“Genetic Studies of Genius,” which appeared in <i>The +World’s Work</i> during 1926. As usual, Mr. Wiggam beguiles +us for a time with pleasant writing. In this instance +it deals with the old legend of the poor country-boy +and his supposed chance of becoming distinguished. +A formidable array of statistics is brought out to show +that it is not much of a chance. The advantage, it seems, +all lies with city-children—stimulated, as they no doubt +are, by breathing the fumes of gasoline.</p> + +<p>Three per cent of the people (and these belong to the +“professional classes”) have in America produced nearly +one-half of our artists, we are told. One third of the +population (described as being “above early struggles”) +have been responsible for three-fourths of America’s writers. +Something must be the matter. Too much struggle +it would appear. Writer-bearing strata are to be pampered. +Good!</p> + +<p>Some, of course, will say that what American literature +is waiting for is a few more words from the two-thirds +of the population who are not above early struggles—that +even some of our rich and famous authors wrote +better when they were young and poor. But as I do not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>know the pedigree of these objectors I shall pass them +by and follow the Wiggam argument as he finds it in +Terman.</p> + +<p>“Superior intelligence,” says Professor Terman, himself, +“is approximately five times as common among children +of superior social status as among children of inferior +social status.”</p> + +<p>The flaw in the argument here is of course forgetfulness +of the fact that, whether intelligence descends or +not, tradition undoubtedly does. This same flaw emasculates +the eugenic argument everywhere. It saps the force +from Mr. Wiggam’s eulogy of the Edwards family in the +first chapter of “The Fruit of the Family Tree.” He +himself admits that in Doctor Winship’s study, which +he makes the foundation of his own, “the factor of heredity +has not been completely separated from the factor of +environment.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_132_132" href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> And he goes on:</p> + +<p>“One can readily imagine that the twelve college presidents +that have been in the [Edwards] line of descent +might not all have been men who were really great educators +or executives. Some of them may have attained the +official position by the fact that their relatives may have +been trustees of the various colleges, and simply voted +them into office. Yet an immense part of the distinction +of the Edwards family, beyond question, has been due +to their superior natural qualities. We know this partly +from the great achievements of many of the members; +and also we know from studies of other families, where +the factors of heredity and environment have been adequately +separated.”</p> + +<p>Great achievements? Certainly. But does not family +tradition, pride and culture play its part in great achievement? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>Did not Harry Leon Wilson’s immortal Bunker +Bean do wonders spurred on by the mere illusion that he +was descended from an Egyptian mummy? And who has +“adequately separated” the factors of heredity and environment +in the history of any family? If Freud and +Watson have done nothing else, they have shown the immense +importance of <i>very early</i> training. The technic +which will separate the effects of blood from those of education +and example has yet to be devised. And tradition, +or the lack of it, must be taken into account before we +draw conclusions from the history of so-called “degenerate” +families, the Kallikaks and the Jukses. Who can +pretend to interpret the heredity of such unfortunates +when the very point of the whole argument is the fact that +they were prostitutes and thieves?</p> + +<p>Family tradition derives from the inexhaustible springs +of human shame and human pride. The blood even of +the super-man tends to get thin, very thin, through successive +generations. “Conification” doubtless thickens it, +for conification is the tendency of like to marry with +like. Mr. Wiggam advocates cousin-marriages to help +conification along. Logically he should advocate incest +pure and simple. In discussing the Pharaohs he does have +a good word to say for it, but he warns us that it is +baneful when practiced by any but the best families.</p> + +<p>But one’s chief objection to the eugenist’s argument +is its deficiency in good faith. Wiggam admits that he +has presented only “star cases.” What he does not admit +is that he has presented them incompletely. Thus of +Elizabeth Tuthill, first wife of Richard Edwards, the Connecticut +lawyer who founded the distinguished branch of +the Edwards clan, he says only⁠<a id="FNanchor_133_133" href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> that she was “a marvelous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>girl.” Horatio Haskett Newman, professor of Zoology +in the University of Chicago, in chapter XLIV of +his “Evolution, Genetics and Eugenics,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_134_134" href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> adds the following +details:</p> + +<p>“Elizabeth Tuttle [so he spells the name], grandmother +of Jonathan Edwards ... is described as ‘a woman of +great beauty, of tall and commanding appearance, striking +carriage, of strong will, extreme intellectual vigor and +mental grasp akin to rapacity, but with an extraordinary +deficiency in moral sense.’ She was divorced from her +husband on the ground of adultery and other immoralities. +The evil trait was in the blood, for one of her sisters +murdered her own son and a brother murdered his own +sister. Richard Edwards married again after his divorce +and had five sons and one daughter, but none of their +numerous progeny rose above mediocrity.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Wiggam agrees with this latter estimate, for he +says, “Later in life Richard Edwards married Mary +Talcott. She was an ordinary, every-day, commonplace +woman. She had ordinary, every-day, commonplace children. +The splendid heredity of Richard Edwards was +swamped by the mating.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_135_135" href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p> + +<p>So, if the eugenists had been in control three hundred +years ago, Mary Talcott would have been allowed to +marry. But Elizabeth Tuthill would have been refused a +marriage license even had she escaped a worse fate. +Crime and insanity seemed to have marked her for their +own. And yet it was from her, not from the normal Mary +Talcott, that descended (I quote from “The Fruit of +the Family Tree,” page 17): “Timothy Edwards, one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>of the founders of Yale University. He was the father +of Jonathan Edwards. From Jonathan Edwards, who +married also a wonderful woman, Sarah Pierpont, have +descended 12 college presidents, 265 college graduates, +65 college professors, 60 physicians, 100 clergymen, 75 +army officers, 60 prominent authors, 100 lawyers, 30 +judges, 80 public officers—state governors, city mayors +and state officials—3 congressmen, 2 United States senators +and 1 vice-president of the United States.” And he +goes on to mention other notables in this line of the +family, including Aaron Burr; Mrs. Eli Whitney; Winston +Churchill; Edith Carow [widow of Theodore Roosevelt +and mother of his daughter Ethel and of his four +sons]; Robert Paine: the Marchioness of Donegal; the +Fairbanks brothers (of platform-scales fame); Melville +W. Bigelow; Morrison R. Waite (former Chief Justice +of the United States); Bishop Vincent (founder of the +Chautauqua movement); George Vincent (head of the +Rockefeller Foundation); Grover Cleveland; and U. S. +Grant.</p> + +<p>The only thing which Mr. Wiggam omitted was the +trifling circumstance which shows that The Eugenics Society +would, if it could, have inadvertently prevented each +and every one of these notables from coming into being.</p> + +<p>Yet he thinks that he has discovered a way of distinguishing +between the influences of heredity and of environment—when +applied to families.</p> + +<p>“Environment,” he says,⁠<a id="FNanchor_136_136" href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> “is important in determining +character, but precisely how important I doubt very much +if we have any means at present for determining, when +it comes to one individual, whether we consider one particular +act or the sum total of his character.... I doubt if +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>we shall ever be able to determine whether a particular +act by a particular individual, say whether he takes a +drink of alcohol ... or whether he commits a crime, +is due to his heredity or to his environment. The causes +are so hopelessly intertwined that no one so far as I am +aware has presented the slightest hope of measuring the +relative influence of the two forces <i>within the individual</i>.... +For all we know a man may commit a particular +crime or take a particular drink entirely from environment.... +But when it comes to the question as to which +one of two individuals is the more likely to commit a crime +at some time in his life or take to excessive drink, we +are in reality dealing with a different set of scientific problems. +And when we come to the question as to which +family is likely to have more members who, in any one +age of the world, will be unable to adjust themselves to +sound social behavior ... we are in a field where we can +measure the factors involved by fairly exact methods.”</p> + +<p>That is to say, we can measure results—after they have +happened. It may even be granted that we can calculate +roughly a family’s likelihood of producing distinguished +descendants, basing the calculation on past performance. +But obviously this in no way decides between the relative +importance of environment and heredity. The question as +to whether the family’s distinction came from its blood +or from its traditions remains precisely where it was. +Mr. Wiggam’s reasoning is quite of a piece with his reliability. +He himself exclaims⁠<a id="FNanchor_137_137" href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> about “the very, very few +people in the world who can think ... the enormous +number of people who cannot think, but who think they +can think, and who mistake their mystical half-knowledge +for social wisdom and act upon it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span></p> + +<p>What “mystical half-knowledge” may be I do not know. +Mystical knowledge, being intuitive knowledge of God, +is by its very definition complete knowledge or nothing. +One must accept or reject it <i>in toto</i>. Mr. Wiggam also +uses this word as a term of reproach when⁠<a id="FNanchor_138_138" href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> he says, +“Vitalism usually leads its adherents to mysticism.” But +he declares himself to be no mechanist. “I have no personal +objection to a purely mechanistic description of the +life process itself. I have been so far unable to see, however, +how stimuli which are inconsistent and unrelated +can build up consistent and controlled behavior.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_139_139" href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> And he +adds: “While I believe biology has triumphantly demonstrated +the mechanistic nature of the life processes themselves, +it has hopelessly failed so far to explain to me +thought and behavior. I see no explanation of this except +some sort of dualistic conception ... a universe in +which there is something which is not aimless mechanical +force. We can call this substance ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’ or any +other convenient term.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_140_140" href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p> + +<p>This is his perfectly valid objection to Watsonian behaviorism. +But he does not seem to see that the use of +such convenient terms as mind or spirit is in its very essence +mystical, nor that admitting a mystic vitalism puts +in his hand a means for freeing himself from the tyranny +both of environment and heredity. If there be spirit, man +may have a soul. It may be the choice of this very soul +which controls the strange selection of traits from the +parental “chromosomes,” or carriers of heredity, which +he so eloquently describes. That this choice follows in the +long run the law of the greatest probability is what such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>a hypothesis would lead us to expect. Thus Psyche would +not only build and rebuild her house, but in a measure +select her building materials from the very start. Mr. +Wiggam thinks that the idea of a dominant environment +flatters parents, just as I think that the idea of a dominant +heredity flatters them. Perhaps we can both unite in believing +that the idea of power-owning individual souls +in children flatters nobody and appeals to something much +higher than the instinct of self-regard.</p> + +<p>According to a statement prepared by Professor Irving +Fisher, of Yale,⁠<a id="FNanchor_141_141" href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> the Second International Congress +of Eugenics appointed as long ago as 1921 a committee +(of which he was chairman) to organize the eugenics +movement in the United States. Since then the movement +has been competently engineered, its avowed objects +being education, selective immigration laws, the elimination +of defectives, the “proper direction of research,” and +the securing of legislative and administrative aid.</p> + +<p>Professor Fisher says, “The Eugenics Society would +like to see every school, college and Chautauqua give regular +courses in eugenics.... Some laws need to be +passed and a eugenical code established.... This depends +very largely upon education of the legislators.”</p> + +<p>So “education” does not mean a campaign for human +betterment through education. It means a campaign to +educate people to vote for human betterment through +eugenic means—such as “the elimination of defectives,” +“selective immigration” and “proper” research. “By cutting +off the defectives,” says Professor Fisher, “the general +average of our people can ... be raised.” We know +without telling, from memories of the prohibition campaign, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>how legislators can be “educated.” A “eugenical +code” would naturally provide conditions under which +marriage licenses would be granted. We are dealing here +with no chimera but with a party with plenty of power, influence +and money already at its disposal. The question +of “who is to choose” seems already to have been settled. +Further to determine who is to be chosen, we may go +back for a moment to the “Who’s Who” method.</p> + +<p>Dr. Cyril Burke, the English psychologist, devised a +problem (described by Mr. Wiggam in his review of the +Terman volume already referred to) which he put before +various classes of school children. Slum children required +an average of 123 seconds to arrive at a solution, while +merchants’ children took but 91, and “the children of +professors and bishops” (presumably Anglican bishops) +only 74. Nor do I wish to conceal the fact that “in the +general run of people there is one eminent man out of +every four thousand,” while “among the sons of English +judges there is one eminent man out of every eight.” +Ought we not to import some germ plasm from the British +Bench? Anyway, all of the famous biologists and +psychologists and sociologists upon whose findings the +Wiggam arguments are based, took their successful men +either from “Who’s Who,” from some dictionary of +biography, or measured it frankly in dollars and cents.</p> + +<p>It might be suggested that not all desirable human +traits are those which lead to wealth or conspicuous position. +No Lives of the Saints are consulted to show the +effect of poverty and self-denial upon the growth of holiness—holiness, +presumably, not being hereditary, perhaps +not even eugenic. Prof. Terman does say that nearly all +gifted children come from good homes. But what is a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>good home? One which tends to produce Christians, or +Mohammedans, or Methodists, or Christian Scientists, +or Poets, or Plastic Dancers?</p> + +<p>Anyway, under democracy, according to Mr. Wiggam, +the poor are being bled white and ever whiter through the +opportunity given to the best of them to mount the ladder +to something better still, leaving the residua to their +poverty and shame. “Nothing on earth,” he says in the +course of the <i>World’s Work</i> articles, “would improve the +condition of the poor as much or so permanently as decreasing +their numbers.... Just in so far as democracy +works successfully in giving the masses opportunity, it +defeats its own end, biologically.... Democracy and +liberalism will fail and plunge men back into a social and +intellectual Dark Ages unless they have the will and vision +to provide a constant and adequate eugenical remedy for +the biological disaster brought about by their own success.”</p> + +<p>And in “The New Decalogue” (G. Stanley Hall says +“one lays it down with the feeling that biology is the basis +of a new decalogue as important and as authentic as the +old one.”): “Your wise men are searching for a cure for +tuberculosis, insanity, etc.... Should they find such a +panacea ... every biologist would apply it without a moment’s +hesitation. But if you apply that panacea and do +nothing else you will wreck the very race you have +saved.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_142_142" href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a></p> + +<p>What else must we do, then? It appears that we must +first make the environment hard, so as to kill off the unfit, +and then make it easy for the survivors. Do you get +the point? And it is going to be made selectively difficult +for those not approved of by the Eugenics Society. An +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>easy environment is safe only for those who have passed +their examinations.⁠<a id="FNanchor_143_143" href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a></p> + +<p>Mr. Wiggam is planning for an army in which all are +generals. Poverty, inconspicuousness, slummishness, are +relative terms. No sooner have you eliminated one grade +than you are logically bound to eliminate another. There +will remain no hewers of wood and drawers of water—as +if the world could exist for a day deprived of these +blessed and humble “failures.” But in the eugenic utopia +no more shall it be said, “if one cannot paint, one must +grind the colors.” All must paint, or become as the barren +fig-tree.</p> + +<p>But if the poor are to be eliminated, why not the recalcitrant? +Why not those, who, in the old phrase of Grover +Cleveland, show “offensive partisanship”—for some cause +not approved of by the ruling party? Granted the principle, +why should Protestants tolerate Catholics? Or Baptists +Presbyterians? Or Old-School Baptists New-School +Baptists? Why, even, should Professor Terman and Mr. +Wiggam tolerate J. B. Eggen, who has written, “The +long-standing problem of heredity versus environment has +been solved in favor of environment?” Or, for that matter, +Professor Terman Mr. Wiggam himself? If we are to +have uniformity of this sort, let us have it. Let there be +a driving from life’s stage of those who would presume +to raise any chickens but Plymouth Rocks, and may the +devil take the hindmost.</p> + +<p>Personally, I have nothing to fear. I am myself descended +from our early English settlers—though, as I +watch the antics of some of my remote cousins, I sometimes +am anything but proud of the fact. Nor do I like +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>to think that my blood shall flow down through the generations +by any “privilege” granted by Mr. Wiggam and +his ilk.</p> + +<p>He speaks of sanity as a test for survival, and then +speaks of “the kind of peace that came to Nietzsche, bravest +soul since Jesus.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_144_144" href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Does he not know that the only +peace that ever came to Nietzsche was the peace of final +mental decay? And what does he mean when he dares +to exclaim:⁠<a id="FNanchor_145_145" href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> “Oh, for a Socrates, a Seneca, a Pasteur, a +Huxley, a Nietzsche, a Jesus in every nursery and school-room?” +A Nietzsche and a Jesus! Has Mr. Wiggam never +heard of that scourge of small cords which was once used +upon the backs of those who sought to make of the +Father’s house a den of thieves?</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3 id="FOOTNOTES_5"> + FOOTNOTES: +</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_106_106" href="#FNanchor_106_106" class="label">[106]</a> <i>Vide</i> “The Descent of Man,” second edition, Collier and Son, +1905, vol. I, p. 205.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_107_107" href="#FNanchor_107_107" class="label">[107]</a> “The Descent of Man,” p. 780.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_108_108" href="#FNanchor_108_108" class="label">[108]</a> “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_109_109" href="#FNanchor_109_109" class="label">[109]</a> “The Story of Philosophy,” p. 506.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_110_110" href="#FNanchor_110_110" class="label">[110]</a> <i>Vide</i> the appendix, pp. 115 to 117.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_111_111" href="#FNanchor_111_111" class="label">[111]</a> <i>Vide</i> <i>America</i>, September, 17, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_112_112" href="#FNanchor_112_112" class="label">[112]</a> Cf. <i>Journal of the American Association</i>, April 22, 1922.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_113_113" href="#FNanchor_113_113" class="label">[113]</a> “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_114_114" href="#FNanchor_114_114" class="label">[114]</a> “Unhappiness indicates wrong thinking, just as ill health a +bad regimen.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_115_115" href="#FNanchor_115_115" class="label">[115]</a> “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” pp. 22 and 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_116_116" href="#FNanchor_116_116" class="label">[116]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_117_117" href="#FNanchor_117_117" class="label">[117]</a> “The New Decalogue of Science,” by Albert Edward Wiggam, +p. 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_118_118" href="#FNanchor_118_118" class="label">[118]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_119_119" href="#FNanchor_119_119" class="label">[119]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_120_120" href="#FNanchor_120_120" class="label">[120]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 179.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_121_121" href="#FNanchor_121_121" class="label">[121]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 180.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_122_122" href="#FNanchor_122_122" class="label">[122]</a> “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 172.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_123_123" href="#FNanchor_123_123" class="label">[123]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_124_124" href="#FNanchor_124_124" class="label">[124]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 173.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_125_125" href="#FNanchor_125_125" class="label">[125]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 136.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_126_126" href="#FNanchor_126_126" class="label">[126]</a> “The Next Age of Man,” p. 126.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_127_127" href="#FNanchor_127_127" class="label">[127]</a> “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” p. 300.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_128_128" href="#FNanchor_128_128" class="label">[128]</a> “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” p. 301.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_129_129" href="#FNanchor_129_129" class="label">[129]</a> “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 100.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_130_130" href="#FNanchor_130_130" class="label">[130]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 100-101.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_131_131" href="#FNanchor_131_131" class="label">[131]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_132_132" href="#FNanchor_132_132" class="label">[132]</a> “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” p. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_133_133" href="#FNanchor_133_133" class="label">[133]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_134_134" href="#FNanchor_134_134" class="label">[134]</a> Page 602. He is quoting in substance from “Human Conservation +from Genetics,” by Herbert E. Walter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_135_135" href="#FNanchor_135_135" class="label">[135]</a> “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” pp. 16-17.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_136_136" href="#FNanchor_136_136" class="label">[136]</a> “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” pp. 332-333.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_137_137" href="#FNanchor_137_137" class="label">[137]</a> “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_138_138" href="#FNanchor_138_138" class="label">[138]</a> “The Next Age of Man,” p. 133.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_139_139" href="#FNanchor_139_139" class="label">[139]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_140_140" href="#FNanchor_140_140" class="label">[140]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 134.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_141_141" href="#FNanchor_141_141" class="label">[141]</a> <i>Vide</i> “The Fruit of the Family Tree,” appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_142_142" href="#FNanchor_142_142" class="label">[142]</a> “The New Decalogue of Science,” p. 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_143_143" href="#FNanchor_143_143" class="label">[143]</a> See “A parable of Wheat and Men,” “The Next Age of +Man,” p. 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_144_144" href="#FNanchor_144_144" class="label">[144]</a> “New Decalogue of Science,” p. 253.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_145_145" href="#FNanchor_145_145" class="label">[145]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 278.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII"> + CHAPTER VII + <br> + THIS UNBELIEVING WORLD + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>1. DORSEY</h3> + +<p class='drop-cap'><span class='allcap'>We</span> have now to consider some of our minor +misbehaviorists, and may as well begin with +George A. Dorsey, Ph.D., former Professor +of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and author +of “Why We Behave Like Human Beings.”</p> + +<p>I would hate to be asked to analyze this book or to reduce +its contents to an understandable outline. No matter +what philosophy I attributed to it, I could be flatly contradicted +by quotations from the book itself. Thus in one +place he says, “Biologically, rape and the theft of a loaf +of bread are natural behavior; celibacy and asceticism are +crimes against nature.” And in another place he describes +the courtship habits of various mammalia, showing that +rape at least is by no means biologically natural even +among the lower animals. The author is an eclectic, wandering +freely through the pages of Darwin, Bergson, Dr. +Watson and many others, picking and choosing what for +the moment pleases his fancy, untroubled by the clashing +of the various views which his staccato style records.</p> + +<p>Dorsey, though he says nothing new, constructs a curious +puzzle of inconsistencies, but Dr. Watson, I think, +is the key. He even says that Dr. Watson read the last two +chapters prior to their publication, which sounds like a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>claim that the great behaviorist approved of them. It would +seem that he did not read them very carefully. Nevertheless, +though marked by the bar-sinister, “Why We Behave +Like Human Beings” is clearly a Watsonian child.</p> + +<p>It begins, as do so many of our “thoughtful” books, +with anatomy, physiology, biology, a long history of the +lower forms of life, of the protozoa and the amœba and +their kin, of the physical details of the human body, in +embryo and out of it. The public thirst for facts of this +sort is too great not to be taken advantage of by all who +have psychological or philosophical axes to grind.</p> + +<p>And having posed his facts, and duly mixed them with +alleged facts, he proceeds in the time-honored manner to +attribute to his own inferences the authority due only to +the facts themselves. He also makes large use of the custom +of speaking of alleged “mechanisms” in metaphorical +terms, personifying them and thus making them “go” +with an energy which they are not supposed to possess. +Thus he lends a vividness as of life to what is in reality a +picture of death. And having denied God in substance, he +does not forget now and then to fling Him a kind word.</p> + +<p>Man, we have been told, cannot by taking thought add +a single cubit to his stature. Other creatures seem to be +more fortunate, for we learn on page 66 that “some Primates +experimented in fingers.” And on this same page +“a lemur lost his second finger.” No, he did not advertise. +He lost it on purpose, the way Freud lost the book his +wife gave him when he was vexed at her. But in this case +the object was to “give the thumb more grasping space.” +And “some tried claws instead of nails.”</p> + +<p>Thus are evolutionary processes given aims and wills +of their own. As a mode of literary expression it would, +of course, be proper enough did it not serve to smuggle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>into the argument a multitude of those vital things which +the makers of such arguments are forever pretending to +exclude. Could primates really “experiment” with their +fingers the way a Curie can experiment with pitchblend, +choosing, rejecting, moulding the very substance of themselves +in accordance with some “purpose,” Darwin need +not have troubled himself trying to discover how species +originated. We would all know.</p> + +<p>What Dorsey really feels behind his smoke-screen of +rhetoric can be seen on page XIII of his Preface, where +he says:</p> + +<p>“As philosophy was moonshine before it began to investigate +the elementary properties of matter and energy, +so, I suspect, religion will be subject to quackery and +hypocrisy until humanity itself becomes more human than +human nature and religion itself ceases worrying about +heaven and hell and devotes its energies to making this +earth a paradise.”</p> + +<p>That is, when religion ceases to deal with the supernatural +it will cease to be subject to quackery and hypocrisy. +Very likely. It would be difficult for either hypocrisy +or quackery to attach itself to anything which had ceased +to exist. How, then, is this earthly paradise to be brought +about? Dorsey does not tell us in so many words. But he +says that we may soon hope for the discovery of a method +whereby the several hundred ova of the human female may +be removed and fertilized outside of the body.</p> + +<p>This method is already employed with fish in the modern +hatchery. Its advantages are obvious. In the first place, we +could almost do away with the necessity of raising males, +or at least could let the surgeon see to it that few of them +remained males. This would solve a great many social +problems and release a lot of energy for industrial employment. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>As it is, millions of spermatozoa go to waste in +every man. Also, the females, having furnished the ova, +would no longer be females in any troublesome sense of +the word. More saving. Nor should it be difficult to induce +the Eugenics Society to superintend the whole business. +Of course some will object that this is not a picture +of a terrestrial paradise, that it looks more like some +particularly repulsive corner of Hell which Dante forgot +or forbore to describe. But such malcontents can be dealt +with by removing their germ-plasm from the stream of +our national life and refusing it a place in the government +hatcheries. Progress of this sort need not be suffered +to halt on account of the existence of a few persons not +socially minded.</p> + +<p>But how about philosophy? It was moonshine until it +began to investigate the elementary properties of matter +and energy, and elementary properties are ultimate properties. +And religion will be subject to quackery and hypocrisy +until it ceases worrying about ultimate properties and +busies itself with making earth a paradise. So moonshine +mixed with quackery and hypocrisy is the substance of +those movements having other than a narrow, earthly aim. +No coins are liable to be counterfeited save those which +are honored at some bank outside of our humdrum sphere. +And as science is supposed to be matter of fact and practical, +quack scientists become unthinkable.</p> + +<p>When, however, was it that philosophy left off being +moonshine? It must have been some time ago, for even the +ancient Greeks—to say nothing of the Hindus and Chinese—were +eager to investigate the elementary properties of +matter and energy. As they were in the habit of keeping +their science a secret from the common man, we do not +know how much science they had. But it is evident from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>their philosophy that they were always thinking about +matter and energy. Their conclusions may sound quaint—though +not quite so quaint today as a half-century ago—but +it is certain that moonshine was largely mixed with +observation until modern metaphysics, predominantly German, +took the field. I cannot stop to prove this, but I +refer Mr. Dorsey to any Story of Philosophy, even Will +Durant’s. I also recommend that he read some good history +of science, for he says on page 86: “Science knows +nothing of the ultimate origin of the source of energy; +it only accepts both facts [what facts?] and goes on with +its business of trying to find out what matter is and what +energy can do. In other words, the problem of the origin +of life is locked up in the origin of matter and of energy.”</p> + +<p>One often hears this allegation—that science goes on +with its own business, leaving the problem of ultimate +origin aside. Yet every major hypothesis which science has +ever constructed is an attempt to account for this very +ultimate origin—or primal origin, if you prefer. It could +not be otherwise. How could science try “to find out what +matter is” without at the same time trying to find out +how matter originated? Neither matter nor energy is a +fact, isolated and handed out on a plate for human use. +Science must needs attempt to discover the nature of that +with which it works. And the only way to explain a fact, +let alone acquiring the power of producing phenomena at +will, is by discovering a preceding or accompanying fact.</p> + +<p>If we find the dead body of a man in the kitchen, and +then find a knife sticking into his heart, the knife helps to +explain the dead body. A bloody finger-print of the cook’s +thumb helps further. If we then learn that the dead man +had been the cook’s lover and that he had been flirting with +the second-parlor maid, we have taken another step. But +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>if we want to know how to prevent such incidents (or to +bring them about, if that be our aim) we must go on and +learn “Why We Behave Like Human Beings.” The very +title of Mr. Dorsey’s book shows it to be a search for the +ultimate. Does he wish us to understand that it is therefore +unscientific moonshine?</p> + +<p>But let him proceed with his personifications. “Nature,” +he says,⁠<a id="FNanchor_146_146" href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> “can mean anything.” Whether he is referring +to the word “nature” or to the sum of things commonly +called “nature” I do not know. When we were talking of +primates, the thing nature appeared to mean a great deal, +since it could experiment with fingers and weigh nails +in the balance against claws. Or was the primate an independent +experimenter, and not a part of nature? Dorsey +goes on by speaking of a certain development as being “an +amazing tribute to the persistence of nature,” and of a +time when “nature” began to branch out on “new lines.” +Clearly nature here is something with will, force and +purpose.</p> + +<p>He writes also of “the vertebrate idea,” as if it were +an idea possessed by some backbone—in the days, too, +when the only backbone in the world was a thread-like +notochord, such as that of the amphioxus. So the idea was +originally the notochord’s!</p> + +<p>But through all this verbal debris something seems to +shine like a skeleton through the dark, which it is not difficult +to recognize as the <i>élan vital</i> of Bergson—that God +which nothing developed out of nothing, which <i>inheres</i> in +things of an origin as tenuous as its own and is determined +to go somewhere but is by no means certain where—nor +can the imagination of man picture how.</p> + +<p>The motion pictures have accustomed us to demand a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>continuous stream of action, of facts or of what look like +facts. Nothing but motion seems any longer to interest +us. Probably we have fallen into the habit of ignoring all +comment which may be made upon it. The danger is that +the comment nevertheless may impress us, reaching our +minds when our intelligence is off its guard, so that we +end by mistaking comment for something else. We remember +that we came upon it in company with facts; and +are not conclusions, like men, to be judged by the company +they keep?</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, facts cannot choose their company, and +may be mustered in to screen the nakedness of any theory +whatsoever. To discover the <i>non-sequitur</i>, the disharmony +between the facts and their evil companions, requires +mental effort—and against mental effort, also, the movie +has somewhat prejudiced us.</p> + +<p>However, it does not require much mental effort to +sift fact from fancy in Dorsey. “The drive for a mate,” +he assures us,⁠<a id="FNanchor_147_147" href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> “is backed by a sensori-motor mechanism +which functions till the mate is secured.” But everybody +knows that the mechanism in question does not continue to +function until a mate is secured; lacking a mate (to say +nothing of the possibility of sublimation), its force will +eventually be drained away through other channels. He +himself admits this a few lines later on. But first he must +say (on this same page) that “the mate-impulse is driven +by an unconscious mechanism, and not by any desire of +offspring.”</p> + +<p>Let it be granted that sex will function without desire +of offspring—even in the face of a deadly dread of offspring. +If it were not so, contraceptive methods would +hardly have been invented to sterilize the sexual act. But +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>how about this precious “mechanism” being unconscious? +Does he mean that the mechanism itself is unconscious? +Or that it acts without our being conscious of it? He +leaves us in the dark, and we are driven to seek such light +as our own experience may supply. And why does he leave +us in the dark? Because, regarding us as mechanisms, he +sees no difference between unconsciousness in ourselves +and unconsciousness in the sex-glands and their accompanying +organs!</p> + +<p>So he leaves us with the biologically natural raper who +is unconscious of his rapacity, or whose body is ignorant +of its biological naturalness. We may take our choice of +interpretations. To say that the knife is ignorant of the +murder committed with it, and to say that the murderer +is ignorant of the murder he commits with the knife, is +therefore saying one and the same thing. Both knife and +murderer are mechanisms. And so, it is to be hoped, is the +murdered one. Unconsciousness on his part would certainly +help murder to fall unnoticed into the procession of +the biologically natural.</p> + +<p>And now we turn to page 434 and learn that “as one +calls the roll of the men who have rendered useful social +service, one is impressed by the notion that most of them +have succeeded not because but in spite of their training.” +Here is the behaviorist, who calls in Dr. Watson to read +his manuscript, delivering us suddenly hand and foot over +to the hereditarians, to the eugenists—whom on other +pages he professes to abhor. For it is utterly impossible to +suppose that Dorsey means that the great succeed in spite +of all circumstances through exercise of individual will +inherited from nobody, and all their own.</p> + +<p>Then, two pages further on, we come to the eternal +question of woman’s sphere. “Freedom of movement is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>soon limited for girls. Some learn to skip the rope and +play jackstones only under parental frowns.... And as +for climbing trees, playing marbles, going off swimming, +who ever heard of such a thing!”</p> + +<p>I turn at once to the date line at the end of the preface, +and learn with astonishment that it reads, “New York +City, June 1, 1925.” So New York parents are frowning—at +least some of them are—when their girls skip the +rope or play jackstones. Or were in 1925. What changes +must recently have taken place, or how the newspapers of +the world must have lied about New York! But anyway, +this looks like a whole-souled endorsement of the more +modern way of bringing up girls and a condemnation of +the ultra-conservatism of New York—unless Dorsey was +thinking of the girls of Thibet and forgot to mention it.</p> + +<p>He is still modern on page 439, where he says: “It is +psychologically significant that children of both sexes are +born with erogenous zones.... The sex-mechanism is +inherently perfect at birth. The [interior] impulse for a +mate appears later, at puberty. But the mechanism itself +is so built into our structure that inaction is biologically +abnormal. Yet we speak of ‘control’; and dose youth with +endless formulæ.”</p> + +<p>Let us, then, cease to speak of control—at least long +enough to enquire into the meaning of these Dorsey adjectives. +Here we have “psychologically” significant, and +“biologically” abnormal, with the adverb “inherently” attached +to the word perfect. (I also note, on page 103, +that, “biologically,” immortality is a figure of speech.)</p> + +<p>Does he mean that the erogenous zones are insignificant +when viewed, say, from a social rather than a psychological +standpoint? Does he mean to admit that their inaction +is normal if we could once get away from whatever +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>is implied by this ubiquitous biology of his? And who is +to guess what is meant by a perfection which inheres in +anything at birth?</p> + +<p>To inhere, I believe, means to be fixed or to exist in +something else; to be an essential part of; to be innate. At +least my dictionary says it does. Now what is a perfection +which inheres in a just-born erogenous zone? Does it +mean that the zone is born ready to perform all its functions? +But this is contrary to notorious fact. Or is the +zone born imperfect, and permitted to use its inherent +perfection only later? But we have just been told that inaction +is biologically abnormal. If any meaning is to be +supposed to inhere in words, Dorsey must here be trying +to tell us that between the time of birth and the time of +puberty, the erogenous zones should not be subjected to +the biologically abnormal condition of inactivity.</p> + +<p>And yet, on this same page, he continues: “What happens +to the sex-response mechanism between birth and +marriageable age? Biologically nothing; nothing is expected +of it.” That is to say, biologically speaking, nothing +is expected of the erogenous zones before puberty except +that they shall endure the biologically abnormal condition +of inaction. But perhaps “biologically nothing” +means just nothing, and perhaps just nothing is the meaning +of the whole passage. Let us hope so.</p> + +<p>“Raise the standard of man’s morality!” he next admonishes +us—we are now at pages 443 and 444. “But not +by talk. Work will do it. Many a boy is so hard at work +he has no further energy left. His sex-impulse is expended +in life impulse activities.” Admirable! This is evidently +biologically abnormal and in complete contradiction with +what has gone before, but it is nevertheless good sense and +capital ethics.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span></p> + +<p>“Girls begin to find outlets for their energy in action, +in sports and games, and in the broader affairs of life interests.” +Admirable again. But what has become of the +frowns of their jackstone-hating parents? And the next +line reads: “All-night dances can dissipate a lot of energy +for both sexes.” Readers who doubt the existence of this +line are referred to the book, page 444. The all-night dance +has at last found its place among the means recommended +for curbing sexual precocity.</p> + +<p>We skip a dozen pages, and read: “Until recently it was +a woman-made world we lived in. The wife-mother was +the center of the home.” This is refreshing. We have heard +it so often said that until recently, when universal suffrage +came to the rescue, this was a man-made world. +Dorsey lays the blame on women, which is at least a +change. But how came woman to make the world when it +was the home and not the world which she was the center +of? Be that as it may, “it was her interest to make [the +home] a real center. It became a hive of industry and a +swarm of children.” It certainly did. And we are back +boosting the good old times again. Nor are they quite over +yet, for “women generally married for love, as they do +now if their mate-hunger is unimpaired.”</p> + +<p>That flicker of partiality for sports and games for girls +seems to have died out. Dorsey returns to conservatism. +And the argument proceeds: “Now women have their +‘rights.’ In obtaining ‘rights’ she abdicated a throne: she +no longer rules by divine right. The children that ‘bless +the home’ are turned over to the nurse while mother presides +at bridge.... All this, of course makes for ‘progress.’ +But in our social progress we have acquired special +schools where boys may learn to be pimps and girls to be +prostitutes.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span></p> + +<p>This seems to me a little severe. But at least we are sure +of Dorsey now. Girls used to be restrained, and he favors +restraint. “Social conditions are changing, but the average +American girl still approaches her majority fitted for +no economically independent career. Brought up as a social +parasite, it is her belief and the all-around understanding +that marriage is her career.”</p> + +<p>What does this mean? That marriage was a girl’s career +was the all-around understanding in the days when the +wife-mother was the center of a home that was a hive of +industry and a swarm of children. And now we are asked +to believe that girls still brought up with such ideas are +social parasites. Was woman a parasite when she occupied +the throne which some now have abdicated? This argument +has gone insane. Girls must be brought up as social +parasites or sent to schools for prostitutes. Are we in a +woman-made world now, or in a man-made world? I confess +that I do not know where we are. But I read on: +“Many a mother nearly ‘dies of shame’ when Mamie bobs +her hair and marches off in the garb of a girl scout. ‘Girls +didn’t do such outlandish things in my day!’ They did +not.” The jackstone-hating mother thus comes once more +to the fore, and she believes that her girls are going to +the devil in boy scout’s clothes with bobbed hair to the old +swimming-hole. I hope those schools for prostitutes are +not hard by.</p> + +<p>The girls, too, come in for their meed of shame. For +after saying harsh things of Freud, Dorsey first writes, +“It is natural for the boy to pattern his reactions towards +his mother after his father; for the girl to prefer her +father,”—which seems to have been taken from The Complete +Freudian—and then clenches the matter by adding: +“These innocent tendencies may be shamed into permanent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>attachments, making it difficult for the boy or girl later +to make perfect substitutions.”</p> + +<p>Did Dr. Watson really read this chapter (it is the last +in the book) and pass without remark the statement that a +seeking-motion reflex like the foregoing may have a +substituted stimulus built into it by <i>shame</i>? Or do he and +Dorsey consider shame a pleasant emotion? No; we are +here plainly in the presence of mother and father fixations, +of the Œdipus complex—an innocent thing made dangerous +and eternal by being driven into the unconscious mind +by shame. And Dorsey believes in no unconscious mind, +or in any other sort of mind. Usually he encloses the +hateful word in quotation marks. But he says (on page +11), “We do not use the brains we have.” Is that the solution?</p> + +<p>These are deep waters, so let us get back to our girl +scouts. “For we have to learn anew what our stone-ax ancestors +knew. Girls can be as ‘outlandish’ as boys! The +girls themselves are just beginning to discover it.” Are +they? Bless their hearts! Everybody else has always known +it. What follows, however, is news. “Marriage behavior +is in for further conditioning. The sex-complex may become +simple again.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_148_148" href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p> + +<p>Dorsey’s attitude towards the woman question at last +becomes clear. It is a return to the stone-age to which he +hopefully looks forward—the stone age and the simple, +unconditioned reflex of the erogenous zone stimulated by +exterior contacts, with no inner-born, nonsensical, complex +sentiments to render it biologically abnormal. We +have finally re-established harmonious relations with the +gut-reactions so much admired by Dr. Watson.</p> + +<p>Dorsey says that he does not see how the Darwinian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>theory of evolution by means of the accumulation of +minor variations through natural selection can have +worked unless the theory of the inheritance of acquired +characters be taken for a fact. Nevertheless he informs +us⁠<a id="FNanchor_149_149" href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> that “our ancestral primate was a small, warm-blooded, +primitive mammal with forty-four teeth, four +short legs, all alike, and feet with five toes armed with +claws.” This forbear “lived on insects, fruit and nuts. +Who was <i>its</i> ancestor? Where did it get its mammæ?” +he then asks. And he answers himself: “Circumstantial +evidence points to a dog-toothed, low-browed, Tirassic +reptile, called Cynodont.”</p> + +<p>No, Dorsey has not become a convert to the theory of +the inheritance of acquired characters. He does not much +believe in heredity. Upon undivulged circumstantial evidence, +however, he settles the moot question of human +descent. And he calls his book a bit of “propaganda for +<i>critical</i> judgments.”</p> + +<p>He settles also the problem of will.</p> + +<p>“As for will, it is as free as air. And much more difficult +to catch.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_150_150" href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> The meaning here is itself a little difficult +to catch. Nor is the following quite clear: “Our +psychology is human, but our behavior is individual.” +When did our psychology become human? It is welcome +news. Our behavior has always been individual, of course. +But Dorsey, as a behaviorist, should have said that it was +the collectivity of our reaction-mass—which certainly cannot +be either free, individual or human unless it is controlled +by some psychic power.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_247" style="max-width: 62.375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_247.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <span class="smcap">Dr. George A. Dorsey</span> +<br> +<span class='norm'> “We do not use the brains we have”</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Psychic power?” Dorsey exclaims. “I know what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>power is; I know what psyche is; I also know that knowledge +may be power. But I can discover only one way to +get knowledge into my head: through my sense perceptions. +And only one way to get any power out of that +knowledge: by inference, by reason.... When I want +magic I go see Houdini.”</p> + +<p>Good! But why, if reason can turn knowledge into +power, go to Houdini for magic? Turning knowledge into +power is real magic, glorious, white and true. It happens +every day. Even Dorsey can lead us to the eternal verities, +it seems. But he will not permit us long to remain even +in their neighborhood. “We learn to think logically,” he +declares, “just as we learn to speak correctly or to behave +decently. I may think well, I may shave well ... who +shall say? My way of thinking and my way of shaving are +my own ways.... I may change both tomorrow; someone +is always inventing new ways of adjustment, new ways of +exciting human protoplasm to change its shaving soap. +New thought also. Why not? We have new books, new +scandals, new elements, new diseases, new razors, new +glands, new logic.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_151_151" href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p> + +<p>“The point is that there is no thought without muscular +or glandular activity. This is true whether the stomach +thinks hunger, the dreamer thinks air-castles, the prisoner +thinks freedom, or the maiden thinks of her lover. Thinking +is a bodily act as coughing or scratching one’s head. +During thinking energy is consumed, mechanism is involved.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_152_152" href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a></p> + +<p>Do you comprehend? The man who scratches his head +has always been supposed to be thinking. Now we know +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>that the scratching is the thinking—thinking is a bodily +act. The rumbling of the bowels is thinking. The stomach +thinks. Everything thinks but ourselves.</p> + +<p>No wonder we have new thoughts when so many new +thinkers come forward. New logic. My stomach may think +that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal +to twenty-three right angles, or that a bite of mince pie +is bigger than the whole pie. It is <i>my</i> stomach. What it +thinks is nobody’s business. And by tomorrow my +stomach’s protoplasm may become so excited that it will +think some other way.</p> + +<p>I can see how we have new scandals at the same time +that we have new books. But I don’t see how we are going +to get back merely to the stone age by our new ways +of thinking. They will certainly take us back much further +than that. And I wonder what our physicians will say to +the suggestion that our glands are new? They have been +offered to us as new discoveries, but this Dorsey seems to +hint that they may be new inventions. I “think” we might +better have gone to see Houdini after all. For “rational +conduct is a dream” on page 470, and on page 455 it is the +only way of converting knowledge into power. Over this +mystery I scratch my head in vain.</p> + +<p>Then there is the Church.</p> + +<p>“As a projector of unsocial behavior,” says Dorsey, +“the so-called Christian Church, with its endless squabbles +over forms, creeds and rituals, and its eternal betrayal of +humanity, is not far behind.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_153_153" href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> Not far behind what? +Good form. For “good form is in the saddle; it is ruthless, +it is mighty, and it does prevail. It is not founded on +intelligence.”</p> + +<p>I am glad that the Church has at least good form to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>keep it company. But I confess that I do not know what +church is the “so-called Christian” one; whether it is +Protestant or Catholic; nor what the real, honest-to-goodness +Christian Church, if any, calls itself in Dorsey’s +mind.</p> + +<p>“Socially useful behavior is not more prevalent, because +sociably fashionable behavior has a better lobby.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_154_154" href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> Our +Dorsey is now turning radical, for he goes on: “By +Fashion I do not mean the, or a Four Hundred; I mean +those in power of money and of government, our bosses; +the people who are trying to make us buy their wares, +join their club, vote their ticket, think their thoughts, and +help them kill or cripple their enemies.” Radical and +pacifist. But I had not heard that force was being used by +anybody to make people join their clubs.</p> + +<p>“What,” the now thoroughly aroused former professor +of anthropology demands—page 473—“can be of less consequence +to you than whether I <i>believe</i> in this or that +kind of a God, Savior, government or society? What is of +consequence to you, to society, and to me, is what I do.”</p> + +<p>Very true, Mr. Dorsey. And I for one apologize. But +we were under the impression—seemingly mistaken—that +your beliefs might, at times, influence your conduct, or +even enable us to guess what, under given circumstances, +you were likely to do before you actually did it and it +was too late.</p> + +<p>I hope I have not given the impression that Dorsey is +unimportant. He—like the one who is to follow—is immensely +important. He has a large and enthusiastic public. +I have never seen the rationality of his argument seriously +questioned in any periodical of general circulation. And +that fact, perhaps, is the most important one of all.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="2_THE_BRAZEN_BOUGH"> + 2. THE BRAZEN BOUGH +</h3> + +<p>Lewis Browne’s “This Believing World,” which ran +through four large printings within the first four months +of its existence, is an interesting example of the sort of +reasoning that passes with a generation devoted to materialism, +mechanism, humanism, monism and the newer +psychologies, and yet is not quite ready to pay the consequences +of its position or to abandon altogether the +banner of the cause which it has deserted.</p> + +<p>Browne is what may be termed an “admirer” of Jesus +Christ. He treats him always with the utmost kindness, +speaking of him⁠<a id="FNanchor_155_155" href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> as “a gentle, loving, helpless youth ... +the very incarnation of perfection,”—a perfection with +which an “insistent pacifism” is soon included. “The spirit +of Jesus,” it also appears, “was innately Jewish and +puritanical.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_156_156" href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> Moreover, “Jesus, one must remember ... +like every other great Jewish prophet ... preached only +ethics.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_157_157" href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p> + +<p>Thus the great fame of the Nazarene, which rests upon +the idea not that He was the incarnation of perfection +but the Incarnation of God, is sought to be preserved and +appropriated by an eclectic modernism which denies the +very basis of His title to supreme distinction. Robert +Ingersoll and Thomas Paine are thought to have been +a little crude in some of their anti-religious tirades. But +they addressed a people that was at least familiar with +its Bible. They never presupposed such childish ignorance +of history and scripture as is everywhere taken for granted +in “This Believing World.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span></p> + +<p>Browne, who naturally has small use for the Church of +Rome, is sympathetic towards such leaders of the Reformation +as Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Zwingli and Calvin. +But not even Protestantism wins his unqualified approval. +He says⁠<a id="FNanchor_158_158" href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> that “Protestantism includes every type of religious +thought,” and “only slowly, and with many pangs” +is “shaking off the religion about Christ. Only slowly, +very slowly, is it beating its way back to the religion of +Jesus.”</p> + +<p>This seems like a fairly clear thesis, uttered by one who +has never read either the New Testament or the Old, and +who consequently is able to look upon Christianity, or “the +religion of Jesus” (i.e., the religion which he thinks was +taught by Jesus), as an excellent system of human morality +of which he has heard good report, and holds that it +should not be confused with supernaturalism, or “the religion +about Christ,” of which he has heard bad and understands +has been invented somehow without historical +warrant.</p> + +<p>Were this all, I might pass him unmentioned. One cannot +stop to complain of every popular author who speaks +without information. But the total depravity of the +Browne method of thinking, of argument, of logic—to +employ such words in his connection; the illimitable +naïveté with which he propounds mutually exclusive +and antagonistic assumptions in that agreeable and easy-flowing +style of his, positively cries out for remark. How +he “gets by with it,” is more than I can understand. “This +Believing World” is logical only in two particulars. It +follows the same author’s short history of the Jews, entitled, +“Stranger than Fiction”; and it is dedicated to +H. G. Wells. Such substance as it has marks it as a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>less aureate branch sprung from Fraser’s “The Golden +Bough.”</p> + +<p>“In the beginning,” it begins, after certain preliminaries—we +are now in fact on page 27,—“In the beginning was +fear; and fear was in the heart of man.... Boulders +toppled and broke his bones; diseases ate his flesh; death +seemed ever ready to lay him low. And he, poor gibbering +half-ape nursing his wound in some draughty cave, could +only tremble.”</p> + +<p>Is it necessary to remark that there is no evidence whatever +pointing to this as the early state of man? That it is +merely an assumption assumed to help along one particular +theory of evolution, and is contradicted by those +modern researches tending to show that savages, when +actually degraded, are degenerate rather than primitive? +Yet Browne illustrates his text with an original pen-and-ink +sketch of this Missing Link. The drawing is extremely +good and spirited. One only wishes it were a photograph. +And he continues: “Since blows could not subdue the +hostile rocks or streams [the rocks were hostile, evidently, +because they supplied caves, and the streams because they +supplied fish], our ancestor tried to subdue them with +magic.... Self-preservation must have forced them to +[the] certainty [that spells would work], for without it +self-preservation would have been impossible. Man had +to have faith in himself or die—and he would not die. +So he had faith [in himself, you will note] and developed +religion.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_159_159" href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p> + +<p>This is so vivid that it sounds like the description of an +eye-witness. And he goes on in a no less certain tone: +“By the word faith we mean that indispensable—and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>therefore imperishable—illusion in the heart of man that, +though he may seem a mere worm on the earth, he nevertheless +can make himself the lord of the universe. By the +word religion, however, we mean one special technique by +which man seeks to realize that illusion. It was by no +means the first such technique to be invented by man; and +it may not be the last, either. Long before man thought of +religion, he tried to control the ‘powers’ of the universe by +[this] magic.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_160_160" href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p> + +<p>Very well. Man, once half ape, has become, in seeming +at least, a mere worm; but he entertains an indispensable +and “therefore” imperishable illusion that he can make +himself lord of the universe—certainly a strange conviction +for either a worm or an ape to entertain. To support +this illusion, he first invents magic, which is an attempt to +coerce the “powers,” and then invents religion—which +Browne later explains as an attempt to “cajole” the powers. +Religion and magic are merely two different kinds of +technic, each designed to fool the technician until by dint +of fooling illusion becomes reality. The “powers” are not +fooled because they are always enclosed in quotation +marks, which I understand to indicate that they do not +exist. What next?</p> + +<p>“He [‘dawn man’] saw on every side of him the fell +and bewildering ‘powers,’ and illogically but naturally his +first concern was not how they worked but how they could +be avoided.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_161_161" href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p> + +<p>We thus make our acquaintance with the Browne idea +of “logic.” A logical dawn man would have waited to be +devoured by the fell powers, imaginary or not, before trying +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>to avoid them. Logic would have compelled him to understand +before doing anything else. Fortunately for us, +dawn man was illogical. He escaped extinction.</p> + +<p>And so we read on, up to the beginning of the fifty-ninth +page, becoming better and better acquainted with our +ancestor all the while. The conviction grows that Browne +was there. Then, suddenly, he tells us that, though he is +aware that his narrative has made it seem “as though the +writer knew for certain just what had happened ... +actually he knows nothing of the sort. All he knows is +what many learned anthropologists after much painstaking +research, have <i>surmised</i>.” The italics are his own. “Of +course,” thus begins page 60, “they may have surmised +quite badly. Their underlying theory may be entirely +wrong, and religion, instead of having been originally +created to elude or conquer fear, may have arisen quite +independently of it. Religion may be an altogether primal +instinct in the human race—something just as old and +fundamental and innate as fear itself. Who knows?”</p> + +<p>As candor, this is flawless. But it is disturbing. If +learned anthropologists, after much painstaking research, +can be entirely wrong (and indeed a great many other +learned anthropologists, after equally painstaking research, +have time and time again declared these particular learned +anthropologists to be wrong altogether) why cannot the +learned anthropologists and biologists who furnished the +data for the spirited pen-and-ink sketch of our gibbering, +half-ape <i>aïeul</i> be wrong as well? What if this surmising +about monkeys and worms be as badly done as may be this +surmising about religion? And what is the use of going on +with all this if it be just a guess?</p> + +<p>Shall we continue because it is stranger than fiction? +But it is not in itself as interesting as is fiction. We were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>lured into reading by the idea that it was being presented +as truth. And now we are haunted by the fear that it may +be a blasphemous invention—that religion rather than +this anthropology may have some truth in it.</p> + +<p>So we skip “What Happened in India,” “What Happened +in China,” “What Happened in Persia,” and “What +Happened in Israel,” since, after all, it may never have +happened; and turn to part seven, “What Happened in +Europe.” Here, as near home as this, we ought to be on +safe ground, with dependable historians instead of surmising +anthropologists to act as guides. This is the portion +of the book which deals with the Christian religion, +in itself of more interest to most than are the Shebatum +taboos, Taoism, or the heliotropisms of Zoroaster. What, +then, did happen in Europe in the days when Christianity +was born?</p> + +<p>“The prologue of the story of that new religion opens +in Galilee. Almost two thousand years ago there was born +in the Galilean village of Nazareth, a Jewish child to +whom was given the name of Joshua, or Jesus. We do +not know for certain how the early years of this child +[Browne adheres to the lower cases in all emergencies] +were spent. The Gospels recount many legends concerning +his conception, birth, and youth, but they are no more +to be relied upon than the suspiciously similar legends told +many centuries earlier about Zoroaster.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_162_162" href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a></p> + +<p>The anthropologists were only possibly wrong; but the +Gospels recount legends, and Browne here does not say +maybe. Neither does he say where he gets his information +concerning the birthplace of Christ. Had he ever read even +the first Gospel he would have learned that Christ was +born in Bethlehem of Judæa. Perhaps our author referred +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>himself only to his own stranger-than-fiction history of +the Jews.</p> + +<p>Anyway, he goes on to declare that this Child “cherished +many of the primitive notions of the simple folk to whom +he belonged, believing that disease and sometimes even +death were caused by the presence of foul demons, and +could be removed by prayer. He knew little if any Greek, +and could never have even heard of Greek science or +philosophy. All he knew was the Bible, and probably the +text of that had been taught him only by rote.... +Above all he must have been taught to prize as dearer than +life the old obsession of his people that someday they +would be miraculously freed by the Messiah. Indeed, so +well was that last drilled into him that, as he matured, the +hunger for the realization of the hope became his all consuming +passion.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_163_163" href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p> + +<p>We now have One “who preached only ethics,” and +yet cherished an all-consuming passion for the realization +of the obsessive hope of His people that someday they +would be miraculously freed by a Messiah.</p> + +<p>If Browne will turn to another book with which he +seems to be as unfamiliar as he is with the Bible, the dictionary, +to wit, he will find ethics defined in some such +manner as follows: “Ethics, the science that treats of the +principles of human morality and duty; moral philosophy; +morals.” An obsessive belief in miracles is something quite +beyond ethics, either of a puritanically Jewish or any other +variety. Nor do the cherished primitive notions of simple +folk to the effect that diseases may be cured by prayer +savor much of ethics. I do not of course mean that Christ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>had no ethics; but Browne has introduced Him to us as +one who preached ethics only. Did He, then, keep his one +“all consuming passion” out of his preaching?</p> + +<p>This attempt to distinguish between “the religion <i>of</i> +Jesus” and the “religion <i>about</i> Jesus,” is as old as modern +ignorance of the subject. But Browne, given all the ignorance +in the world, seems unable to state it without letting +it sting itself to death with its own tail. And he goes on, +still further to murder the dead body of his own philosophy: +“Now ... there was in the land an evangelist +... called John the Baptizer.... Jesus was for a time +a follower of John, one of a multitude of young Jews and +Jewesses who believed in the mission of the wild prophet. +His gospel was much like that of his teacher. ‘The time +is fulfilled,’ he cried, ‘and the Kingdom of God is at +hand.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_164_164" href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> That is, the new gospel was the messianic +gospel of a wild prophet—and the “follower” who +preached it preached only ethics!</p> + +<p>And—“when the stories of that young preacher’s wandering +[the reference is to Christ, not to John] were +gathered together in later years and set down in writing, +it was said that he performed all manner of miracles as he +went about the land. Perhaps there is a fragment of truth +in that tradition, for if people will only believe with sufficient +faith, miracles become not at all impossible.... +And Jesus could quite command implicit faith. He himself +believed; with all his heart and soul he believed that +soon would come the Great Release.... He spoke without +the slightest flourish, using plain words and homely +parables. He indulged in no philosophy or theology, for, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>after all, he was an untutored toiler who knew nothing of +such vanities. Nor, seemingly, did he preach any inordinate +heresies.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_165_165" href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p> + +<p>How does Browne know how He spoke? Surely he +cannot be depending upon the “stories of that young +preacher’s wanderings” that were “gathered together in +later years and set down in writing,” for he has already +told us that “they are no more to be relied on than the +suspiciously similar legends told many centuries earlier +about Zoroaster.” Again it seems to be suggested that +Browne was there.</p> + +<p>But this at least seems clear: Browne holds that Jesus +preached “The Kingdom of God is at hand”; that it is not +at all impossible that He performed miracles, though only +of the faith-cure sort (I have insufficient space for the +discussion of miracles as distinguished from faith-cures); +and that He did not preach “any inordinate heresies” from +the Jewish standpoint. “He was not a heretic in the sense +that Ikhanaton or Zoroaster were heretics. Outwardly he +was distinctly a conforming Jew.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_166_166" href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a></p> + +<p>“Yet [on the same page] for all his conformity ... +Jesus was definitely a rebel.... His whole gospel was +intended but to comfort the disinherited, for it declared +that no matter how unlettered they might be they could +nevertheless be taken into the Kingdom of God when it +came.... Now such a gospel was literally saturated +with heresy.”</p> + +<p>Saturated with heresy, but not with inordinate heresy—is +that it?</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_261" style="max-width: 64.375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_261.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <span class="smcap">Rabbi Lewis Browne</span> +<br> +<span class='norm'> Stranger than fiction</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Because it [Christ’s gospel] denounced the rich and +commanded them to divest themselves of all their possessions, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>it attacked the whole sacrificial cult.... A +people without possessions could never possibly afford fat +bullocks to burn or skins of oil to pour away.... Moreover, +because this gospel minimized the importance of +learning, and commanded men to keep merely the spirit +of the law, it attacked the whole Rabbinical cult.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_167_167" href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p> + +<p>Again I wonder where Browne obtained these details +without having recourse to “legends.” And so he goes on +down to the bottom of the page, by which time this +same gospel has become “charged with quite devastating +heresy.” Devastating, but not inordinate!</p> + +<p>If Browne’s mind works in this way, so presumably do +the minds of his readers. Religion aside, not a few results +may be expected from a “modern temper” of this sort—from +the fact that there are in this Republic a large number +of people incapable of being troubled by equivocations, +by the glaring inconsistencies of flatly contradictory +statements living at seeming peace in the midst of the +same argument, or people incapable of remembering or +too careless to remember more than one statement at a +time.</p> + +<p>This “modern temper” makes it possible for men and +women who do not accept the supernatural character of +Christ to beg His authority for their own notions, no +matter how opposed those notions may be to what is +said in the New Testament records. In interpreting a +statute one is compelled by a rule of law to consider all +its parts together. In interpreting the Bible one indulges +in the habit of selecting here a jot and there a tittle. Those +selected become authority. Those rejected become legendary +by the very act of rejection even at the hand of +caprice or lack of information.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span></p> + +<p>Browne speaks, on page 268, of “the stupid and silly +and gross extravagances,” the “pious embellishments and +patent falsehoods that clog and confuse the Gospel accounts.” +But the method for distinguishing the false from +the true seems to be very simple. If a line of Scripture fits +in with your preconceptions, it is wise and genuine. If +not, it is either a forgery or the author was wrong. The +principle of “the economy of hypotheses” is thus conserved.</p> + +<p>It will be objected that this is what we do with any +book, and that one who does not attribute divine authority +either to the Bible or to the Church which promulgated +it as canonical scripture, is guilty of no intellectual malpractice +in using individual judgment.</p> + +<p>But no ordinary book is treated in this way. An author +whose good faith is impugned in one particular becomes a +doubtful author. If he is convicted of one inaccuracy, his +reputation for accuracy suffers to that extent. If his proofs +have been carelessly read, one ceases to put much credence +in individual words which possibly may be misprints. And +if the book is suspected of being actually fraudulent in +essential particulars, it ceases altogether to be of any +documentary value except in so far as it be confirmed by +other sources of information regarded as more trustworthy.</p> + +<p>But our Brownes call the Gospels stupid, silly, grossly +extravagant legends piously embellished with patent falsehoods—and +then proceed to quote them (though it may +be at second hand) as conclusive evidence where such +quotation suits their purpose. Where quotation does not +suit their purpose, they use paraphrase. If that won’t do, +they rewrite entire passages as they claim they should +have been written, creating doctrines out of whole cloth, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>which, whatever may be the nature of the weave, certainly +bear no evidence of having come from a scriptural +loom. Everywhere the gospel according to Browne claims +to be the Gospel of Jesus. It seeks protection beneath the +shadow of the Cross. Why?</p> + +<p>It would seem that many who deny Christ’s divinity +still regard Him with a sort of reverence, even a sort of +fear. They would find it uncomfortable to think that they +were not following His precepts. So they meet the admonitions +of theologians with the allegation that said theologians +have corrupted the intent of the sayings of this +Great Teacher. These “individualists” are afraid to stand +alone. They have ceased to follow the so-called “higher +criticism.” It is apt to get too high. It has even been known +to give aid and comfort to the theologians. The lower +criticism, the no-criticism, is much easier.</p> + +<p>Thus we have come to have a public which buys the +books of the Brownes—men and women who have habituated +their minds to a scorn of those rational processes +which would tell them that certain assumptions entail certain +consequences. They want to hunt with the hounds, +and also to run with the hares. Browne’s masterpiece of +dual allegiance, however, relates, as we shall see, not so +much to the Carpenter as to the Apostle to the Gentiles. +But he is not yet ready for that bit of double-dealing. He +first must say:⁠<a id="FNanchor_168_168" href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> “What really marked Jesus as one unlike +any preacher who had come before him was not so much +what he said, as the particular authority on which he said +it.” (The particular authority of a preacher of ethics?) +“Every other prophet had uttered his heresies in the name +of God.... But this carpenter from Nazareth, for all +his meekness and humility, spoke only in his own name. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>‘Take <i>my</i> yoke upon ye,’ he said. So did he speak, not +as the mouthpiece of God, but as one vested with an almost +divine authority of his own.... Such a tone would +have sounded blasphemous ... even in a prince or a +learned man.... But it ... created and sustained the +impression that he was a transcendent person, and bestowed +upon him the power to take cringing serfs and +make them over into towering men. Only because he believed +in himself so firmly ... could he make others +accept his words. His tone was not that of a mere prophet, +but almost that of God Himself.</p> + +<p>“It was not merely that he could perform what were +thought to be miracles.... It was more that he could +carry himself with the divine assurance of an ‘Anointed +One.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_169_169" href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p> + +<p>Strange conduct, surely, for One who preached merely +ethics; who went about crying, “The Kingdom of God is +at hand!” and meant only that the Kingdom of Good +Moral Conduct was at hand. Why not say that He meant +“The Kingdom of Eugenics is at hand!” and be done +with it? And what can Browne mean by an “almost” +divine authority, or a tone “almost” that of God Himself? +It would seem that Christ was the Son of God, or was +not; that He claimed to be the Messiah, or did not claim +to be the Messiah. Browne, ignoring the law of the excluded +middle term, attempts to insert a middle term by +means of the word “almost.” And he adds: “Whether +Jesus himself was convinced he was the Messiah is a +problem still unsolved.... Charlatans and madmen, arrant +knaves and driveling fools, had time and again been +hailed by the hysterical mob as the Awaited One. Is it any +wonder therefore that an exalted person like this young +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>carpenter, Jesus, should have been hailed likewise?”⁠<a id="FNanchor_170_170" href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a></p> + +<p>But that is not the question. We are not concerned with +what hysterical mobs may have thought about charlatans, +madmen, arrant knaves and driveling fools, but with what +Jesus thought about Himself. We are also concerned with +what Jesus did when He was hailed as the Awaited One. +It would seem that an exalted person, not self-convinced +of his Messiahship, would have been constrained by his +own exalted character to enter a disclaimer in such a +case.</p> + +<p>Of course, if one could quote the Gospels without fear +of setting Mr. Browne to thinking of “all the stupid and +silly and gross extravagances, all the pious embellishments +and patent falsehoods that clog and confuse the +Gospel accounts,” one could prove even to him that Jesus +actually claimed to be the Messiah. For in the Gospel +According to St. John it is written,⁠<a id="FNanchor_171_171" href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> “Jesus said unto +him [Thomas], I am the way, the truth, and the life: no +man cometh unto the Father but by me.” And, “He that +hath seen me hath seen the Father.”</p> + +<p>Doubtless Browne considers these and similar passages +as suspiciously similar to certain legends told many centuries +earlier about Zoroaster. But in any case his own +argument should force him to conclude that Jesus was the +Messiah; or was self-deluded; or was a charlatan. Or +does Browne consider it possible to be a charlatan and an +exalted person at one and the same time? Out of charity +we must conclude that he decides in favor of the delusion +hypothesis. Of the other alternatives, his text +forbids one and his presumable sanity forbids the other. +So it was the victim of a delusion which we are not even +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>certain that he entertained who took cringing serfs and +made them over into towering men.</p> + +<p>“This Believing World” continues: “By the time Jesus +reached the capital his fame had already preceded him. A +great mob rushed out ... wildly throwing their cloaks +to the ground beneath the feet of the colt on which he +rode. They hailed him as their Messiah.... ‘Hosanna!’ +they cried, ecstatically, ‘Blessed be he that cometh in the +name of the Lord!’”</p> + +<p>Browne quotes the Gospels! But what makes him think +that this triumphant entrance into Jerusalem is not a +pious embellishment, or even a patent falsehood? He only +tells us that “One wonders whether those poor wretches +out of the alleys and dunghills of old Jerusalem understood +who the man Jesus really was. One wonders whether +even his own disciples understood—or whether even his +most pious devotees today understand. To that frantic +mob, at least, he was simply an arch-zealot, a martial +hero who had come to lead them in bloody rebellion +against Rome.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_172_172" href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p> + +<p>If this meant anything to the author it would mean that +he himself was a believer in the divinity of Christ. He +seems here to be chiding the Jerusalem mob, to say nothing +of Christ’s pious devotees of today, for not being +sufficiently aware of the spiritual nature of the miraculous +Messiah’s mission. But no. Browne is thinking of +a “gentle, loving, helpless youth”; of a spirit “innately +puritanical,” a heretic who was outwardly “distinctly a +conforming Jew” with an insistent pacificism, who adopted +a tone that would have “sounded blasphemous even in a +prince,” and surely was astonishing in a teacher of ethics.</p> + +<p>“The priests,” Browne goes on, “... were afraid of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>Jesus ... not merely because his heresies endangered +their own position.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_173_173" href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> “Had he been stronger in body no +doubt he would never have joined the school of John the +Baptist and become a saver of souls. Instead, he would +have joined the Zealots, fighting with the sword against +Rome.... From the beginning his strength must have +been not the strength of the body but of the soul; and +towards the end even that strength must have ebbed low +in him.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_174_174" href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p> + +<p>“And then he died. But he died only to come to life +again, to come to a life more enduring, more wondrously +potent than had ever been vouchsafed to him in the days +before his shameful death. Indeed, he literally came to life +again ... according to those who had most earnestly +followed him.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_175_175" href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a></p> + +<p>“It was enormously difficult to prove that he had really +been the Promised One. No doubt that was why the +disciples began to piece together those genealogies we find +in the Gospels. No doubt that, too, was why those extravagant +legends concerning the conception, birth, childhood, +and ministry of Jesus began to be devised. Uncharitable +critics may say the disciples resorted to fraud +in these matters—but it was all intensely pious and well-intentioned +fraud. Before the ordinary Jew could be made +to accept Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus simply had to be +proved a descendant of David.... The disciples may +not have been even remotely conscious that they were departing +from the truth.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_176_176" href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p> + +<p>Thus Browne seeks to destroy all reason for admiring, +and at the same time pretends to continue to admire. Such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>passages need no comment. Being no uncharitable critic +myself, I will merely remark that the world now learns +for the first time that the ordinary Jew can apparently be +made to accept Jesus as the Messiah by means of the +genealogies which are a part of the gospel story as it has +come down to us. And what happened in Europe after +this?</p> + + +<h3 id="3_ST_PAUL_AS_SCAPEGOAT"> + 3. ST. PAUL AS SCAPEGOAT +</h3> + +<p>“On a sudden—at least, so it seemed to those who +had not marked the mounting of its steady ground swell,” +Browne proceeds, “that little Nazarene sect,” the followers +of Christ after the Crucifixion, “became a high sea +that broke and rolled across the whole Roman Empire +... sweeping over one land after another until finally +it had inundated the whole face of the West and half the +face of the East.</p> + +<p>“To explain how that could have happened, one must +remember what was going on just then in the Roman +Empire. A great hunger was gnawing at its vitals, a +desperate hunger for salvation.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_177_177" href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a></p> + +<p>Now what does Browne mean by salvation in this instance? +Ethical salvation? Salvation by law and order? +Or salvation in the miraculous Christian sense, i.e., salvation +from the macula of original sin? He is evidently writing +from vague memories of what he has read and heard, +from a host of facts, fancies and prejudices which he +has uncritically allowed to find lodgment in his mind. It +is not likely that he means anything in particular. But he +tells us that—</p> + +<p>“The whole Roman world seemed to be writhing in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>throes of death, and the fear of that death drove it to a +frantic and panicky clutching after any and every chance +of life. As a result, the mysteries, those secret cults [of +Greece and Rome] which whipped men into orgies of +hopefulness, flourished everywhere.... Those mysteries +... in origin ... were largely Oriental, and in essence +they grew out of the belief that by certain magic rites a +man could take on the nature of an immortal god.... +That same legend was told—with variations—concerning +Dionysus, Osiris, Orpheus, Attis, Adonis, and heaven +knows how many other such gods. Arising out of the +common desire for an explanation of the annual death and +rebirth of vegetation, that legend was common to many +parts of the world.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_178_178" href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a></p> + +<p>It seems that what so agitated the Romans was a desire +to explain the annual death and rebirth of vegetation—a +phenomenon almost unknown in the climate of Rome. +Anyway, they ran to these explanations in the midst of +their panicky fear. But surely those mad pagan orgies +which whipped men into hopefulness were not puritanical, +ethical orgies.</p> + +<p>Nor were early Christian orgies, according to Browne. +For “By the first century of this era, the legend [of +Christ] had spread to every civilized province of the +Roman Empire ... and had everywhere made the people +drunk with the heady liquor of its mystery salvation.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_179_179" href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a></p> + +<p>So Browne now admits that Christianity, even in the +first century of its era, had ceased to be a mere ethic and +become a “mystery salvation.” Granting for the sake of +an argument which is no argument that, coming from One +whose “all consuming passion” was the obsessive hope of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>His people that some day they would be “miraculously +freed” by the Messiah it could ever have been anything +else—granting this self-contradictory assumption, where +are we to suppose the heady liquor came from? Answer, +“From more learned folk.” For—</p> + +<p>“Side by side with these religious cults flourishing +among the lower elements ... different schools of philosophic +thought flourished among the more learned +folk. One of these was the philosophy developed in the +city of Alexandria by an Egyptian Jew named Philo. According +to this philosophy, God, the Father of All, manifested +himself only through an intermediary called the +Logos, the Word. This Logos, which was sometimes +called the ‘Son of God,’ or the ‘Holy Ghost,’ had created +the earth and was the sole mediator between it and +heaven.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_180_180" href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p> + +<p>So—“If in later years the Nazarene faith began to +take on the color and shape of those heathen cults and +strange philosophies, these Palestinian Nazarenes were +not in the least responsible. It was one from outside the +original brotherhood, a Jew from beyond the borders of +Palestine, who was responsible. It was Saul of Tarsus +[later called Paul] who brought on that change.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_181_181" href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p> + +<p>You will note that St. Paul was responsible for coloring +Christianity not only with the strange philosophy of +learned folk but with the color of mystery cults which, +originating in a desire to explain the annual death and rebirth +of vegetation, whipped men among the lower elements +of society into orgies of hopefulness. And he did +this notwithstanding the fact that before his own conversion +Christianity, originating with One who was a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>transcendant person who spoke in a tone “almost” that of +God himself, and yet was but an ethical teacher, an insistent +pacifist who but for bodily weakness would have +taken up arms against the Roman Empire and perished +by the sword—Christianity had already become drunk +with the heady liquor of mystery salvation.</p> + +<p>There seems to be some idea floating around in +Browne’s head. He seems vaguely aware that since the +Crucifixion there had come a change. Indeed, there had. +But it was not a change from ethics to religion, nor a +change from a belief in a non-miraculous Messiah to a +belief in a Messiah who was miraculous. Nobody ever believed +in a non-miraculous Messiah. A non-miraculous +Messiah is a contradiction in terms. But since the Crucifixion +it had become evident even to charlatans, madmen, +arrant knaves and driveling fools that Jesus was not to +found a temporal, national kingdom of the Jews. Even +the people were beginning to understand that Christ’s +Kingdom was spiritual and at least as broad as the earth. +And if the Palestinian Nazarenes were not responsible, it +must have been because their own belief and their own +preaching signally failed of effect.</p> + +<p>But let us get back to this Saul of Tarsus, who “must +have had rather more than a passing acquaintance with +Greek and Alexandrian philosophy.”</p> + +<p>“Most important of all, he must very early have learnt +from slaves in the household or from Gentile playmates, +of the mystery cults ... and of the savior-gods in whom +the masses put their impassioned trust.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_182_182" href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> And Christianity +was already one of these mystery cults, a heady +liquor that was to become a high sea and break over all +the West and half of the East by the end of the first +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>century—or as soon as the disciples, who were not in the +least responsible, had invented a sufficiency of legends to +make up a technic capable of fooling the people. Or are +we to understand that St. Paul wrote the Gospels?</p> + +<p>“Now Saul was a person of very violent likes and dislikes. +He is said to have been an epileptic, and certainly he +was a man of strange temperament. Whatever he did, he +did with an intensity and extravagance that were distinctly +abnormal.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_183_183" href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> The Eugenics Society should take note of +this, in case another St. Paul arises among us. “But on his +way to Damascus [to persecute the Nazarenes] a queer +thing happened.... He was suddenly overcome by a +seizure of some sort.”</p> + +<p>Browne does not attempt to name it, but a “seizure” +in an epileptic subject is usually called an epileptic fit. Why +does he not name it? Because he wants to help folks believe +that they may continue to call themselves Christians +while assuming that everything which marks Christianity +is a disease. But the disease must be a polite one.</p> + +<p>“And when, trembling and astonished, Saul came to +himself, behold he was a changed man.... When he got +to Damascus he ... had become a complete convert ... believing +in the Messiahship of Jesus and in his resurrection.... +He was but little interested in the gospel of the +man Jesus,”—the ethics which cried, “Behold, the Kingdom +of God is at Hand!”—he was interested only in the +death and rebirth of the savior-god, Christ.... “Saul +[under the name of Paul] became the great preacher of +‘Christ crucified.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_184_184" href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p> + +<p>“Jesus ... was not the founder of Christianity, but +its foundling.... Nor had his immediate disciples created +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>the new faith.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_185_185" href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> “The Messiah put forward by them +had all along been the Jewish Messiah.” Thus once more +Browne confuses the idea of a Jewish Messiah with non-miraculous +morality. “Nor was it Saul, the studious young +Pharisee, who founded the new faith, but his other self, +Paul, the citizen of Rome.... It is unfair to compare +Paul to Jesus, for the two belonged spiritually and intellectually +to entirely different orders of men.... The one +was a prophet and a dreamer of dreams; the other was +an organizer and a builder of churches.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_186_186" href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a></p> + +<p>According to this, it was a prophet and a dreamer who +inspired the early disciples with the idea that he was the +Jewish Messiah—those same disciples who saw in him +a teacher of ethics only, yet corrupted the Gospels in the +attempt to prove that he was something more—those same +disciples who were not in the least responsible for the +belief in Christ as divine that afterward crept into the +Church through the door of epilepsy. And this ethical +teacher is the same Being who believed with all His soul +in the Promised One and permitted Himself to be greeted +as the Promised One!</p> + +<p>This amazing series of contradictions does not come +from confronting Browne with other authorities, but +merely from confronting Browne with Browne and without +going outside of one chapter of one single book. +Strange indeed is the behavior of those who seek to eat +their cake and at the same time to throw it away.</p> + +<p>For Browne would have it that Jesus, the prophet, +dreamer and inspirer of belief in His Messiahship, was +made a foundling in his own spiritual house by His antithesis, +Paul—who accomplished this feat of dispossession +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>by winning general acceptance for the very belief +in question. Or does Browne think that when the Jewish +Messiah came to be understood as the Savior of the +World, the idea was less dreamlike and prophetic?</p> + +<p>Paul is evidently now drunk with the heady liquor of +mystery-salvation. He has had a seizure. But Browne has +been telling us how Paul’s other self, Saul, the studious +young Pharisee, has been listening all his life to tales +of mystery-cults and savior-gods from the lips of household +slaves and Gentile playmates; how he has acquired +more than a passing acquaintance with the Logos philosophy +of a Jew residing in Alexandria. All this is heady +liquor. Jew and Gentile, high and low, slaves and playmates—none +of them are exactly Puritans or ethical rationalists. +And the new religion, most heady of all, appeals—not +to the youthful Saul, who might supposedly be +the dreamer of the pair, but to the more mature Paul, the +Roman citizen, organizer and man of affairs.</p> + +<p>Of course it is historically correct to say that the new +religion did appeal to Paul rather than to Saul. But what +happened on the road to Damascus was not, even on +Browne’s own showing, a change from a disbelief to +belief in miracle religion, but a change from disbelief to +belief in Jesus as the Son of God. An epileptic fit, we +are about to be told, makes a common man over into +a moral and intellectual giant. It transforms a listener +to tales and mystical philosophies into a cold thinker. And +this cold thinking leads to the acceptance of Christianity +in its original form. I am not questioning that cold thinking +might not lead to such a result; am not trying to +intimate that there is anything antagonistic between a +cold brain and a warm heart. Browne’s fallacy here is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>historical—the attempt to prove that Paul was a cold +thinker and pretended to be nothing else.</p> + +<p>As to a touching belief in the efficacy of disease, we +may find it in minds much less confused than Browne’s. +It runs through such books as “The Psychology of Religious +Mysticism,” by James H. Leuba, professor of +psychology at Bryn Mawr. According to Browne, mental +unbalance produces indomitable courage and inflexible +will. According to Professor Leuba, the hysterical saints +lived lives of “joyful activity, broken only by transports +of surpassing love and peaceful rest.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_187_187" href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> Not a very comprehensive +description of the lives of saints. But if there +be such hysteria as this, such epilepsy as Browne describes, +it is a pity that the germs cannot be isolated, propagated, +and sown broadcast.</p> + +<p>These authors are among those who ruin their hypotheses +by inadvertently accounting for too much. Their +hysteria and epilepsy, stretched to meet all demands, lose +the quality of disease and take on the quality of genius. +Would it not be well at least to distinguish two types of +hysteria (some writers make even epilepsy hysterical), +the malignant and the benign? Or if the word hysteria +merely means emotion, why not recognize the fact that +an emotion may indicate conditions as categorically opposite +as those reflected in the sensations of pleasure and +of pain? It is grossly irrational to narrow it down to a +single sinister meaning if it is to be put forward as the +“cause” and the “explanation” of such diverse effects as +those which are clothed in the willing garb of a Sister +of Charity and those which lead to the unwilling wearing +of a straight-jacket.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span></p> + +<p>Nor is it any less absurd to say that St. Paul, having +partaken of heady salvation-liquor such as was drunken +of aforetime only by charlatans, madmen, arrant knaves +and driveling fools, and adding to its potency by insisting +upon its universal applicability—to say all this even by +implication, and then to add as Browne does⁠<a id="FNanchor_188_188" href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> that “in +his own class, Paul was one of the stupendously great +men of the earth.”</p> + +<p>“He was,” the narrative continues, “a superb statesman. +And he was possessed of an energy, a courage, and +an indomitable will, the like of which have rarely been +known in all the history of great men.... Again and +again he was scourged and imprisoned.... And yet he +persisted, never resting from his grueling labor of carrying +his Christ to the Gentiles, incessantly running to and +fro, preaching, writing, arguing and comforting, until +at last, a tired and broken man, he died a martyr’s death +in the city of Rome.... It was in the year 67, according +to tradition, that Paul was beheaded.”</p> + +<p>Once again Browne considers himself privileged to +repudiate all that a man stands for, his sole claim to distinction, +and yet to put him on a pedestal of insincere +rhetoric. When he speaks of Paul’s “own class” does he +mean the class of “charlatans, madmen, arrant knaves +and driveling fools”? Indeed, St. Paul himself is reported +to have said, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, +we are of all men most miserable.”</p> + +<p>But Browne has yet stranger things in store. He proceeds +to write the history of the Church.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="4_THE_CHURCH_AS_SCAPEGOAT"> + 4. THE CHURCH AS SCAPEGOAT +</h3> + +<p>Paul, says Browne, “had spent perhaps thirty years in +the labor of spreading the idea of Christ, and by the time +of his death that idea had already struck root far and +wide in the Empire. It had divorced itself from Judaism, +taking over the Sunday of the Mithraists in place of the +Jewish Sabbath, and substituting Mithraist ritual for the +Temple sacrifice.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_189_189" href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> [The Mithraist ritual centered in the +slaughter of a bull!]</p> + +<p>“Through Judaism, the religion of Persia left its mark +also on Christianity; and not merely through Judaism, +but also through Mithraism.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_190_190" href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> [Mithra is personified diffused +sunshine!]</p> + +<p>“In most of the cities there were already thriving +christian brotherhoods, little secret societies much like +those of the mysteries.... With the passing of the +years, the pagan element grew.... The life-story of +Jesus was embellished with a whole new array of marvels +and miracles, and the man himself was made over into +a veritable mystery savior-god. His character and nature +fell into the maw of an alien philosophy, and then came +drooling out in sodden and swollen distortion. He became +the Lamb whose blood washed away all sin. He became +the Son of God supernaturally conceived by the +Virgin.... He became the Logos and the Avatar and +the Savior.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_191_191" href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p> + +<p>Browne here is complaining of alleged corruptions from +Persian and other sources, all largely Oriental; as were +in their origin the Greek and Roman “mysteries,” of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>which he has complained hitherto. But he goes on to +allege that “Although the religion of Jesus and of the +first disciples was distinctly Oriental, although the whole +Messiah idea was markedly a thing of the East, the religion +about a Savior Christ was largely European.... +Indeed, one gravely doubts whether Jesus, the simple +peasant teacher in hilly Galilee, would have known who +in the world that Savior Christ was.”</p> + +<p>Geography is evidently too much for Browne. Persia +has suddenly become European. And St. Paul, with his +“more than passing acquaintance” with the Logos philosophy +of Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, and his subsequent +conversion to the “distinctly Oriental ... Messiah idea,” +is of the West. Perhaps Alexandria was not in Africa in +the early days of the Christian era, and maybe Persia +was then in the extreme Occident.</p> + +<p>“It was inevitable for that change to come about. Christianity +... was gaining too many converts too rapidly.... +It would not have been so bad had they been converts +from a world of ignorance.... But they were +converts instead from a world of what we would call +stupidity.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_192_192" href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p> + +<p>So preaching founded upon the epistles of St. Paul, a +man “who was one of the stupendously great men of +the earth,” and “a superb statesman,” appealed chiefly +not to the ignorant but to the naturally stupid! “No such +testaments [as the stupid epistles of St. Paul and the silly +legends and pious frauds called the Gospels] could be +offered by the priests of Mithra, Cybele or Attis. For their +deities were after all mythical. Only the Christians had +a real man to worship; a unique and divine man, it is +true, but nevertheless a person who had known human +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>woe and pain, who had suffered, and who had for at +least three days been dead. That element of naturalism, +of closeness to human reality, must have made Christianity +a faith of extraordinary attractiveness.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_193_193" href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a></p> + +<p>Surely Browne does not believe that a simple teacher +of ethics, who, with good health, would have been a soldier, +was actually dead and rose again, for he has told us +that such a legend arose from pious frauds suspiciously +like the frauds practiced long before in the case of Zoroaster. +He must be meaning to say that the stupid followers +of St. Paul and later preachers of miracle religion +<i>believed</i> Christ to have been a Divine Man who was once +dead. They must, then, have believed in the Resurrection. +Is that to be regarded as an element of naturalism?</p> + +<p>“There was a wondrous comfort in that religion”—of +the stupid; “a mighty zeal that made it possible for +the martyrs to go to their death actually with a smile on +their lips. It took vile slaves out of the slums where they +rotted, and somehow breathed supernal heroism into them. +It told them that ... death for the truth would mean +only life everlasting.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_194_194" href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a></p> + +<p>“Then came Constantine, and, in the year 313, an end +to the persecutions.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_195_195" href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> An end to the persecution of a +corrupt yet wonder-working Christianity originated by +the abnormal St. Paul, you will observe, which must have +worked through the powers of hysteria, epilepsy and suggestion. +One would think that there was little harm left +for Constantine to do. Nevertheless, “It was a costly triumph +for Christianity, as every other such triumph has +been in all history. What happened to Buddhism when it +set out to conquer the Far East, now happened also to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>Christianity in the West.” What, did it lose its power? +No. “It became an official and successful institution—and +so degenerate.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_196_196" href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p> + +<p>A Mithraist ritual, draped in the rags of dying pagan +mysteries and Philo-Pauline doctrines from an European +Africa, manages to degenerate! It staggers on its downward +way, growing more and more drunken with the +heady liquor of mystery salvation drawn from a Europe +located in the Orient.</p> + +<p>“A faith cannot be institutionalized,” Browne informs +us, “for it is a thing of the spirit.”</p> + +<p>An institution, then, is something which subsists in matter. +Men with faith in anything cannot be drawn together +into an institution. Only men who believe in nothing +can belong to institutions.</p> + +<p>“Even dogmas or rites, which are things almost of the +flesh, cannot be organized beyond certain bounds.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_197_197" href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p> + +<p>What bounds? And within or without what bounds +is it possible for a rite not to be organized? And to what +extent is a dogma, like that of the Logos, for example, +“almost of the flesh”? Anyway, “even after Christianity +became primarily a thing of dogmas and rites, it nevertheless +began to crack and crumble.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_198_198" href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></p> + +<p>Why “nevertheless”? After what he has said of dogmas +and rites he should have said “because of.” And does +he say “began” to crack and crumble when it had already +suffered the corruptions of St. Paul and Constantine?</p> + +<p>Yes; and it begins to crack and crumble just as it is +setting out as a tidal wave to overwhelm the West and +half of the East! And as faith cannot be institutionalized, +a sufficient lack of faith might have kept it from cracking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>and crumbling, also from “drooling out in sodden and +swollen distortions.”</p> + +<p>“Paul,” continues our author, “had used his theological +terms rather loosely.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_199_199" href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> His stupendous greatness, then, +was not as a teacher of religion. “Paul [same page] had +spoken of Jesus as a savior.”</p> + +<p>Browne then tells of the controversies which arose over +the doctrine of the Trinity and other matters, adding: +“Scores of such questions arose.... Jesus had not been +conscious of even the most ponderous of such questions. +That dear, fervent young preacher, who had lived and +died in the sublimity of a simple faith could never possibly +have been conscious of them. Had he heard them posed, +he would probably have shaken his head in mute bewilderment.... +When one puts beside the Gospel accounts +of the preaching of Jesus the official records of +the wrangling and bickering of those church fathers, one +feels that here is to be found the most tragic and sordid +epic of frustration that the whole history of mankind +can tell.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_200_200" href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p> + +<p>Browne omits to name the church fathers he has in +mind. But why put beside records, which are at least +official, the silly legendary gospels which unconscious +zealots corrupted into drooling distortions to suit their +fancy?</p> + +<p>And if Jesus could not have been conscious of even +the most ponderous of theological questions, what is he +supposed to have thought of the multitudes who greeted +his entrance into Jerusalem, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed +be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” That would +seem to pose a rather ponderous theological question.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span></p> + +<p>Moreover, all histories of the Jews which are not +stranger than fiction give the impression that the Scribes +and Pharisees of Christ’s day were somewhat given to +discussing theological questions, ponderous and other. +One living in their midst and not being conscious of at +least some of the questions that were to be debated later +by the Church fathers must have been unconscious at +all points.</p> + +<p>“More than sixteen hundred years have passed since +Christianity was made the state religion in the decadent +Roman Empire. Throughout all those years [notwithstanding +its cracking and its crumbling] it has been extending +its borders.... It is estimated that at the present +time about one third of the entire population of the +world is Christian—approximately five hundred and sixty-five +million souls. And of course, it is to the spirit of +Paul regnant in Christendom that one must credit that +enormous expansion.... It is because countless monks +and healers and warriors and saints have felt Paul’s call +[sic!] to go out and win the heathen to Christ, that +today more souls are turned to Christ than to any other +deity on earth.”</p> + +<p>I do not know if Browne attributes the Pauline triumph +to the Apostle’s loose handling of theological terms, but +he says, “these wholesale increases in numbers were not +made save at a high price.... Just as Buddha had to +be idolized before he could conquer the East, so Jesus +had to be idolized, too, for pagan Europe.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_201_201" href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></p> + +<p>Yet—“despite all these compromises, the new religion +remained always heavens above the old [paganism]. By +assimilating pagan rites and myths ... Christianity became +at last almost completely pagan in semblance; but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>it never became quite pagan in character. The Old Testament +puritanism which had so marked the life of Jesus +was never routed.... If the spirit of Paul insisted that +Cybele be taken over as the Mother of Christ, the spirit +of Jesus insisted that her wild Corybantes with their lustful +rites, and her holy eunuchs with their revolting perversions, +be left severely behind. If the spirit of Paul demanded +that the wild Celtic goddess named Bridget be +accepted into Christianity, the Spirit of Jesus demanded +that first she be made lily-white and a saint.... It [the +Spirit of Christ] set its face hard against sacred prostitution +and against all those other loosenesses and obscenities +which arose out of the pagan’s free attitude towards +sex.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_202_202" href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a></p> + +<p>So it was the spirit of a man who was “in his own +class” one of the “stupendously great men of the earth,” +who favored prostitution, insisted upon taking Cybele into +his loosely-worded theology, and—having failed to secure +the lustful Corybantes and the holy eunuchs who still had +a capacity for perversions—demanded and obtained the +acceptance of a wild Celtic goddess named Bridget.</p> + +<p>Browne describes this Spirit-of-Paul’s Bridget. She +was, it appears, one of three deities who “had already +[2000 years ago] been sufficiently detached from their +physical bodies to be thought of as remote gods and goddesses.” +The other two were Ogmius and Maponus.</p> + +<p>At their festivals, “men and women lay together in the +fields, and behaved as did all other primitive peoples in +their religious festivals.... Not until the Christian idea +of morality was brought to them did the Celts grow conscious +of any wickedness in their old rites. And even then +they did not give them up at once. Indeed, to this day +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>their descendants have not given them up entirely.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_203_203" href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a></p> + +<p>“The difference between [the] Babylonian cult of Ishtar +and the primitive Celtic cult of Bridget was entirely +one of degree.... Both were inspired by dread of the +same evil, sterility: and both sought to attain one end, +fecundity. But one, the Babylonian, was far less primitive +... far less wildly promiscuous and bestial. The +Babylonian rites were conducted within the confines of +stone temples, not out in the furroughs of the torch-lit +fields.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_204_204" href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a></p> + +<p>This undoubtedly gave the Babylonians the ethical advantage. +And it seems that the Celtic gods and goddesses +were not only primitive, but continually kept their followers +alarmed lest they (the goddesses) should forget +how to become fecund. The ritual in the furrows of the +torch-lit fields, “to this day not given up entirely,” was +for the purpose of overcoming the deities’ “bashfulness,” +Browne tells us, and to set them an example of what +was desired. And if the spirit of Paul could have had +its way, such a ritual, though perhaps conducted within +stone temples, would have been established in Rome! +And there it would doubtless have been practiced today—as +it is, I gather from Browne, in present-day Ireland!</p> + +<p>“The spirit of Jesus flickering in Christianity made it +at least nominally a religion of ethics,” Browne goes on. +“For Jesus, one must remember, had not been in the least +concerned with ritual. Like every other great Jewish +prophet, he had preached only ethics. And despite all the +compromises of the world-conquering Pauls, that ethical +emphasis of the teaching of Jesus persisted as a mighty +leaven in the church. It gave to the early Christians that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>gentle nobility which history tells us graced their faith.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_205_205" href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p> + +<p>When was this? Brown says that “of the life of the first +Nazarenes we know exceedingly little.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_206_206" href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> He gives the +year 67 as the date of St. Paul’s martyrdom. Can it be that +the early Christians were gentle and noble even after +the loose sex ideas and loose theological terms of the +great Apostle had been given a chance to begin their deadly +work?</p> + +<p>“The church itself, with its foul record of crusades +and inquisitions and pogroms, cannot be said to have +ever been really civilized. But that admission does not at +all discredit the potency of the spirit of Jesus.... True, +there were indeed Dark Ages in Europe when the power of +the Church was at its height. But who knows how far +darker they might have been, and how much longer they +might have endured, had the Church not existed?”⁠<a id="FNanchor_207_207" href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> +“One must remember that Christianity came into a world +that was sinking.... It alone sought to keep civilization +going. It failed. It could not keep from failing. But +be it said to its glory that at least it tried.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_208_208" href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a></p> + +<p>“The glory of trying to save the world from bestiality +belongs primarily to but one element alone in Christianity; +the original Nazerene element. And that element, one +must remember, was never dominant in the faith save during +those years before it was really Christian. Once Paul +came on the scene, the light of the religion of Jesus began +to fade, and the glare of the religion about Christ +[that is, the doctrine that Christ was the Son of God +and the Redeemer of the World] blazed over all.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_209_209" href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span></p> + +<p>“Yet though the light from Galilee [the light of One +who ‘like every other great Jewish prophet’ taught only +ethics, yet believed with all his soul in the Messianic idea] +faded ... it never was quite snuffed out.... For long +centuries it smouldered.... And then slowly that forgotten +spark began to brighten once more. A devastating +incursion of Huns and Saracens blew the spark to a +flame. As never before in full six hundred years, the +Christians began to think again of their suffering Savior.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_210_210" href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a></p> + +<p>This certainly is what Browne writes, incredible as it +may seem. The Pauline doctrine “about Jesus” has been +overshadowing the world, threatening to extinguish the +spark of the merely ethical religion preached by Jesus +himself. And now the spark blows into a flame—and lo! +it, too, is a religion about Jesus! Men begin to think +again of their suffering “<i>Savior</i>!” Moreover, Jesus was a +pacifist, and all that was needed to fan the spirit of his +teaching into a flame was a devastating incursion of Huns +and Saracens. Was it the ethics of the invaders which +did the trick?</p> + +<p>“Like a mad fire the hope spread over Europe that +the year 1000 would see the return of the Redeemer.” +Yes, the word is “Redeemer.” So Brown does know +what “Savior” means. And we were right in thinking that +he intends to say that the spark so long all but quenched +by a religion about Jesus proved, when it revived, to be +itself a religion about Jesus, a belief in Him as a supernatural +Being, able, if he liked, to return—in short, the +Logos, as had been taught by the “abnormal” St. Paul. +And Browne appears to be utterly unconscious that he has +stultified his whole argument. The fact that he has in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span>effect said that the world expected a helpless teacher of +ethics to return after a thousand years; and has also said +that belief in this helpless ethical teacher constituted a +belief in a miraculous Savior and Redeemer, which belief +had been for hundreds of years all but stifled by the +doctrine that he was indeed a miraculous Savior and +Redeemer—all this troubles the Browne mind not at all.</p> + +<p>“The year 1000 passed, and no Redeemer came—but +Europe was a little redeemed nevertheless.” By the ethical +Huns and Saracens, apparently. “Men turned from what +the Church of Christ insisted on offering them, and instead +began to grope after the gospel of Jesus for themselves. +They took to reading the Scriptures in their original +tongues.” (The people did? Or does he mean in the +vernacular? In either case it must have exposed them to +what Browne gives us to understand is a mass of silly +fables.) “And reading them they began to see at last how +far the Church had wandered from the pristine truth.” +(A truly wonderful feat of discriminating literary criticism. +Were the people so familiar with Zoroastrian tales +that they were able at once to discard all passages having +a suspicious resemblance to them?) “They discovered +at last how shamelessly the priests had substituted rite for +right, how flagrantly they had ritualized all morality.... +The clerical authorities took alarm. Despotically they +issued proclamations prohibiting the laity from even glancing +at the bible.”</p> + +<p>Browne owes it to the world to publish those despotic +proclamations, so that we may know their authors. I have +myself seen the Bible in chains in Italian churches, and +I understand that chains were much more common in the +middle ages than now. But if the object was not to keep +the books from being stolen but to keep them from being +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>read, the riveters of the chains were indeed stupid people. +For they chained the books by the backs and in a manner +which permitted them always to lie open.</p> + +<p>So—“the Bible was read nevertheless.... The flame +of heresy burned on.” But why, if the Church was so +opposed to it, did it gather the Bible together in the first +place? Browne does not say. What he does say is that +“In the fourteenth century, Wycliffe did godly mischief +in England; in the fifteenth John Huss carried on in +Bohemia; in the sixteenth Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin +led the Protestant revolt.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_211_211" href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p> + +<p>“But one must not imagine that Protestantism was ever +purely Nazarene in spirit—any more than Catholicism was +ever unrelievedly Pauline.” (True enough. I have even +heard it said that Catholicism is to a certain extent Petrine.) +“Protestantism includes every type of religious +thought. Only slowly and with many pangs, is even Protestantism +shaking off the religion about Christ.” (Then +that revival of belief in a supernatural Savior and Redeemer, +instituted by the Saracens and Huns, was not a +flash in the pan, but carried over to a certain extent into +the godly mischief of Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Zwingli +and Calvin!) “Only slowly, very slowly is it [Protestantism] +beating its way back to the religion of Jesus.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_212_212" href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> +That is, to ethics.</p> + +<p>“Though the Church of Christ may stand guilty of untold +and untellable evil, the religion of Jesus, ... has +accomplished good sufficient to outweigh that evil tenfold.”</p> + +<p>If the evil referred to expressed itself in facts, why +is it untellable? Browne, I think, should tell it, and in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>detail. He ought not to emulate St. Paul in the loose use +of words. As the page stands, we cannot be sure that +he does not refer to the Church of England and the +hanging, drawing and quartering of Catholic priests during +the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. But the “religion +of Jesus,” i. e. ethics, “Has made life liveable for countless +millions of harried souls. It has taken rich and poor, +learned and ignorant, white, red, yellow, and black—it +has taken them all and tried to show them a way to salvation. +To all pain it has held out a balm; to all in distress +it has offered peace. To every man without distinction +it has said: Jesus died for you! To every human +creature on earth it has said: You too can be saved! And +therein lies Christianity’s highest virtue. It has helped +make the weak strong and the dejected happy. It has +stilled the fear that howls in man’s breast and crushed +the unrest that gnaws at his soul. In a word it has worked—in +a measure.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_213_213" href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p> + +<p>I wish I might let this eloquent passage stand without +comment. Taken by itself, it sounds almost like the words +of a sincere believer in Christ as the supernatural Savior +of Men. But, taken in connection with what has gone before, +it seems to me abominable. Here is a man who has +denied the supernatural nature of Christ time after time +in the preceding 300 pages. And now he is using words +which imply such a miraculous nature, or else mean nothing +at all. Yes, they mean something. They mean that +this light, this balm, this peace, this salvation which is +Christianity’s highest virtue, is an illusion. To every man +this Christianity has said: Jesus died for you! Here the +doctrine of the Vicarious Atonement is indicated. And +St. Paul, in preaching that doctrine, that “religion about +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>Jesus,” founded a new faith and made Christ the mere +foundling of Christianity! True, Browne has also said +a great deal on the other side. That is precisely the trouble. +He thinks it is possible to stand both with the sheep +and with the goats.</p> + +<p>But the final chapter of “This Believing World” (for +Christianity is not its climax) is consistent. It is entitled, +“What Happened in Arabia.” And it thus concludes:</p> + +<p>“Islam ... has been one of the most effective civilizing +forces in the history of Africa and Asia, and in a +measure also in that of Europe.... The supreme gift +of Islam was the idea of unity which it somehow drilled +into the heads of a hundred races—not merely the unity +of God, but even more the unity of mankind.... Every +other great religion taught more or less the same doctrine +[in regard to submitting to Allah], but none with +such fierceness and unrestraint.... Islam excluded no +man from the army of Allah.... And that is why to +this day Islam can still win converts with twice the ease +of any other religion. That is why to this day Islam is +one of the mightiest institutions on earth for the ordering +and beautifying of life in at least the ‘backward’ lands.”</p> + +<p>In the beginning there was fear. In the end there is no +God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet!</p> + + +<h3 id="5_THE_STORIES_OF_DURANT"> + 5. THE STORIES OF DURANT +</h3> + +<p>It is with regret that I include Will Durant among the +Misbehaviorists. He is no crude mechanist, and his popularity +is so great that, like Sinclair Lewis, he has almost +ceased to be a mere individual and become an institution. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>And in some respects his success is a most gratifying and +hopeful sign of the times.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_293" style="max-width: 62.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_293.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <span class="smcap">Dr. Will Durant</span> +<br> +<span class='norm'> Almost an institution</span> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Some say that it was Durant who showed us that we +were fond of serious reading and not of the light novels +which the publishers for so many years fancied that we +craved. But in reality it was “The Education of Henry +Adams” which showed us that. And I am not so certain +that a mere love of heavy reading is such a good sign. By +the time reading becomes substantial it begins to make +some difference what it is weighted with.</p> + +<p>I like to think that “The Story of Philosophy” has been +bought in such quantities because it is, to a very great +and very charming extent, The Story of the Philosophers. +Durant’s ability as a writer of biography amounts almost +to genius. Nor are his accounts of the philosophers’ philosophies +often other than good bits of skillful summing-up +interspersed with apt quotations. My only misgivings revolve +around the stories of Durant—those paragraphs +of criticism and seemingly personal opinion with which +he usually ends his chapters—around those and certain +omissions. What have we here, the story of philosophy, +or only the story of a certain bias purporting to be the +story of philosophy?</p> + +<p>As was to be expected of a born biographer, Durant follows +the method of using environment to explain belief. +The pessimism of Schopenhauer is due to the fact that he +lived in the first half of the nineteenth century, the age +of the Holy Alliance, when Waterloo had been fought, the +Revolution was dead, and the Son of the Revolution rotting +on a rock in a distant sea. “Something of [Schopenhauer’s] +despair came from the pathetic distance of St. +Helena.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_214_214" href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> And when “Mme. Clotilde de Vaux (whose +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>husband was spending his life in jail) took charge of +Comte’s heart, his affection for her warmed and colored +his intelligence.” So Comte’s later Religion of Humanity +was due to the happiness of his illegitimate union, just as +his earlier Positivism had been due to the marital infelicity +which led him to attempt suicide in the Seine.</p> + +<p>It is the method by which Taine years ago sought to +explain all English literature. Durant is an environmentalist—which, +after all, is better than being a mad hereditarian. +One is tempted to enquire into his own environment, +his college, his religious and philosophical surroundings, +and to read dates and geography between his lines. +But I cannot bring myself to apply either the environment +or the heredity hypothesis to the exclusion of that entity +which comes from neither, that ego which learns or does +not learn from its contact with that which is not itself.</p> + +<p>That Durant is not himself a philosopher, is evident—and +in his favor. We really do not need another philosopher +just now—of the sort we would be likely to get. +He has no system of his own, no universal touch-stone, no +central thesis giving unity to his several beliefs. In his +mind Kant, Darwin and Bergson meet, but no more mingle +than do oil and water. An emulsifying <i>tertium quid</i> is +lacking. This lack should have made him an ideal historian +of other men’s theories. And it almost did.</p> + +<p>But there is another lack. The complete historian should +have a complete experience. He should have been submerged +in the main stream of thought, even if he has +failed to sound all its dead-waters to the bottom. And if +environment and the accident of birth do not offer him +such experience, he should have that thirst for knowledge +which leads to exploration and discovery.</p> + +<p>The Durant ego lacks precisely that. It was born in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>lake, and it has no thirst for the sea. Like certain aquatic +creatures, it takes what floats into its mouth, but makes +no explorations. What Durant has given us is simply not +the story of philosophy. It is merely a series of interesting +comments upon the curriculum of a certain type of college +which does not even belong to the University of +World Thought. This provincialism is unfortunate, for +it is certain to deceive provincial readers with the idea +that they have listened to the whole story.</p> + +<p>It is difficult, after the reading of a book which is an +avowed recapitulation of many foreign opinions, to say +what an author’s own opinions may be. It is evident that +Durant is no Catholic; not quite so evident whether or +no he is a believing Protestant. He seems to have little +sympathy with Protestantism as a whole, and less yet with +Fundamentalism. It may be safe to say that his personal +bias takes the direction of a vague Humanism.</p> + +<p>To quote, without taking the greatest precaution not to +pass off some mere explanatory paraphrase as the author’s +own, would be so unfair that I hesitate to quote at all +in proof of anything. There are, however, certain passages +which are clearly Durant, and not Plato, Aristotle or +Nietzsche boiled down—though even here we must be on +guard lest what we see is Durant under the momentary +influence of his subject, not Durant in his daily habit. +It is the wind which does not blow, the things which he +does not say, that speak most eloquently and surely of +the man.</p> + +<p>Chapters, and most of them long chapters, are given +to Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, +Kant, Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, Nietzsche; a chapter +to three contemporary Europeans—Henri Bergson, +Benedetto Croce and Bertrand Russell; and a final chapter +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>to the three American moderns, George Santayana, William +James and John Dewey. There are adequate pages +devoted to Rousseau, Locke, Hegel, and many a lesser +light. Some, you will note, are pre-Christian; some are +atheistic; some deistic, monistic, or agnostic. It is a chorus +which is irreligious with a vast predominance, with here +and there a tolerant voice for modernistic Protestantism. +Bishop Berkeley, represented by a few paragraphs, stands +practically alone as the exponent of a particular faith.</p> + +<p>It will be said that this is the story of philosophy, not +of theology. But I cannot see the force of the explanation. +Theology is certainly philosophy; and why should +one man be barred because he begins with the assumption +that God has revealed Himself in an Incarnation, and +another admitted who begins with the assumption that +God has revealed himself in the human will of a super-man +devoted satanically to selfish ends, or is in the process of +revealing himself in an <i>élan vital</i>, or begins with the assumption +that there is no God? Surely the historian is not +bound to believe every philosophy he outlines. And surely +the Christian assumption is no more of a foregone conclusion +than are the others.</p> + +<p>Nor even if it be granted that the story of philosophy, +because of the current use of the word, is naturally a +story of secular philosophy, does Durant come off any +better. The Chinese philosophers and the Vedantic philosophers +of India may be said to be so widely separated +from us in time and space that they do not belong in a +history of our culture. That was more true in the days +when Durant was a boy than it is today. But let it pass. +What about the Scholastics?</p> + +<p>The Scholastics were not only theologians, but philosophers +and scientists; they dominated the thought of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>Christendom for a thousand years, and still dominate a +large section of Christendom, not counting their influence +in quarters where it is felt rather than recognized.</p> + +<p>Durant admits that his treatment of Scholasticism is +“inadequate,” but excuses himself with the plea that the +inadequacy was due to lack of space. But he finds space +for ten and a half pages about Benedetto Croce—and +no page at all for St. Augustine, Albertus Magnus, or St. +Thomas Aquinas.</p> + +<p>The Angelic Doctor’s name, however, is mentioned. It +appears in a pictorial table of “philosophic affiliations,” +constructed in the manner of a family tree. According +to this table, Aquinas stems from Aristotle, who stems +from Plato, who stems from Socrates, who stems from +the Sophists. There is also a branch line of affiliation extending +to the left like a bar sinister, connecting the great +scholastic with Christian Theology followed by a question +mark. I do not fathom the meaning of the question mark. +But Christian Theology (?) itself stems from Zeno the +Stoic, and he from Diogenes, and he from Antisthenes, +and he from Heraclitus. There is yet another branch line +leading from Antisthenes, touching Socrates, and ending +in Aristippus, of the house of Democritus and Leucippus.</p> + +<p>So Aquinas appears to be quite free from any unquestioned +philosophic affiliation with St. Augustine, Albertus +Magnus, St. Paul, or even Jesus Christ. We begin to be +glad that Durant had no room for an “adequate” treatment +of the Scholastics.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, he does not quite drop them with the +chart. In a note “To the Reader” he refers to them as +“half-legendary.” It is odd that a school which included +the leading thinker, secular or sacred, of the Thirteenth +Century, the age of Dante, should have become legendary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>in the New York of 1926, from which Durant dates his +book.</p> + +<p>Turning from legends, we come to Benedetto Croce, +who, writes Durant⁠<a id="FNanchor_215_215" href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> “is a sceptic with an almost German +gift for obscurity ... an anti-clerical who writes like +an American Hegelian ... an Italian Catholic who has +kept nothing of his religion except its scholasticism and +its devotion to beauty.” And lo, we are back to legend +again! “Perhaps the comparative infertility of Italy in the +philosophy of the last hundred years,” Durant goes on, +“is due in some part to the retention of scholastic attitudes +and methods even by thinkers who have abandoned the old +theology.” Adding,⁠<a id="FNanchor_216_216" href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> “He [Croce] is, after all, a product +of the scholastic tradition ... he is a germanized Italian.”</p> + +<p>Now it is quite true that, though Thomas Aquinas +was a native of the Kingdom of Naples, he studied under +Albertus Magnus at Cologne—probably during the year +1244; returned to Cologne in 1284; and perhaps visited +it several times thereafter. But both he and his illustrious +master were scholastics of the school of St. Augustine, +who died in the year 430. The one German thing about +St. Augustine is that Eucken, the German philosopher, +says of him: “If our age wishes to take up and treat in +an independent way the problems of religion, it is not +so much to Schleiermacher or Kant or even Luther or St. +Thomas that it must refer as to Augustine, and outside of +religion, there are points upon which Augustine is more +modern than Hegel or Schopenhauer.”</p> + +<p>Durant surely cannot mean that a living Italian has +been “Germanized” through having absorbed the teachings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>of a master who died in 1280 and was the follower +of another master, in Hippo, who died in 430. As one +of the chief tenets of Scholasticism is that the Christian +creed can be proven by reason alone without recourse +to Revelation, Croce of course had to repudiate his +scholasticism, German or not, along with his religion. All +that can remain to him, if anything remains, is a certain +training of the mind. Whether he has shown the effects +of such training, or made good use of it, is a matter +of opinion. What Durant shows here is total unfamiliarity +with his subject. He is merely applying certain notions +which he picked up uncritically from unauthorative +sources. But having mentioned this Scholasticism which +he seems not to have read, he goes on, <i>re</i> Croce, to ask: +“How could an Italian be unkind to a Church that had +brought all the world to Canossa, and had levied imperial +tribute on every land to make Italy the art-gallery of the +world?”</p> + +<p>My own rather extended acquaintance of the art-galleries +of the world has heretofore inclined me to believe +that Italy has been more sinned against than sinning +in this regard—and that in Italy, itself, such stolen masterpieces +as are to be seen were largely stolen from the +Church and placed in galleries belonging to an anti-clerical +state. But perhaps I am mistaken—and mistaken also in +thinking that since 1870 the Pope has been self-imprisoned +in the Vatican when in reality he has been roaming for +the (until very recently) irreligious Italian Government +abroad, stealing pictures. Or was it before 1870 that the +thieving from foreigners was done—during the days when +Italy was overrun with foreign armies, and the term Italy +was a mere “geographical expression?” Does he refer +to the marble treasures of the Vatican rescued from war +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>and neglect in Greece and elsewhere? Or were the thefts +of a still earlier date, when most of Europe was comparatively +barbarian? I can think of one such instance. +Some of the decorations for St. Mark’s, Venice, were +brought by the Venetian merchants from the Orient—as +was the body of their patron saint.</p> + +<p>But Durant continues: “So Italy remained loyal to +the old faith, and contented itself with the ‘Summa’ of +Aquinas for philosophy.”</p> + +<p>When? Why, until Giambatista Vico came. He “stirred +the Italian mind again; but Vico went, and philosophy +seemed to die with him. Rosmini thought for a time that +he would rebel; but he yielded. Throughout Italy men became +more and more irreligious, and more and more loyal +to the Church. Benedetto Croce (born in 1866) is an exception.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_217_217" href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p> + +<p>What Durant must mean is that the more irreligious +one becomes the more loyal one naturally is to the Catholic +Church. If that be true, the Italian <i>Risorgimento</i> (the political +movement which led to the union of Italy under an +anti-clerical government) was certainly most loyal—and +it expressed its loyalty by taking the Church’s temporal +empire away from it! But in what respect was Croce an +exception to this devotion and this irreligion?</p> + +<p>For one thing, he was nearly killed beneath the ruins +of a house at Casamicciola during the earthquake of 1883. +For another, he was “given so thorough a training in +Catholic theology that at last, to restore the balance, he +became atheist.”</p> + +<p>But this, apart from the training, was precisely what +the <i>Risorgimento</i> did, so there is no exception here. The +exception, then, must lie in the fact that he did not remain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>loyal. He could not get enough of the Catholic +theology out of his system to be loyal to the Catholic +Church—though he could be loyal enough to imitate the +<i>Risorgimento</i> in repudiating it! This, as Durant himself +says⁠<a id="FNanchor_218_218" href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> of Croce’s philosophy in general, “is as clear as a +starless night.”</p> + +<p>I wish to record my entire agreement with this final +verdict as to the Croce philosophy. From the most absurd +premises in the world, Durant has somehow arrived at a +correct and satisfactory conclusion.</p> + +<p>But he does not stop here. He goes on to say that Croce +“slides easily into logical casuistry and refutes more readily +than he can conclude.” It is easy to see that Scholasticism +is being held to blame here. Durant does not like +Scholasticism, and he does not like Croce. Not that there +is the slightest evidence that Durant ever read a single +scholastic author. I am merely assuming that he has. And +he would like to derive the cause of one dislike from the +source of the other. So he permits himself to use the +word “casuistry” as loosely as Browne would have us +believe St. Paul used theological terms—that is, he uses +it as an old lady sitting by the fire might use it, to denote +sophistry, and sophistry to denote an unsound argument. +A philosopher could never have so forgotten the +original meaning of casuistry as the art of dealing with +cases of conscience, especially when writing of Croce +with the idea that he was a scholastic. But perhaps it was +the “German” scholasticism of his subject which fogged +the Durant mind at this point.</p> + +<p>But how explain the following? He tells of Croce becoming +Minister of Public Education and a Senator, and +denouncing the World War. Then he adds: “But Italy has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>forgiven him now; and all the youth of the land look up +to him as their unbiased guide, philosopher and friend.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_219_219" href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a></p> + +<p>Had Durant but said, “The anti-fascist wing of the <i>Intelligencia</i>, +most of whom are far from young and cling +to the atheistic French Revolutionary philosophy of the +<i>Risorgimento</i>, look up to Croce,” the statement would have +been true—in so far as a member of the <i>Intelligencia</i> may +be said to look up to anybody. Every unbiased person +who has spent much time in Italy of late knows that +most of the youth of that country today look upon Mussolini, +and not Croce, as their guide, philosopher and +friend. And Mussolini is a Catholic. Has Durant never +heard of the Black Shirts or of the March on Rome?</p> + +<p>But perhaps I am wrong in finding fault with Durant’s +fondness for catering to popular misconceptions which +no doubt he shares. He quotes his favorite Bergson as +saying, “The time given to refutation in philosophy is +usually time lost. Of the many attacks directed by the +many thinkers against each other, what now remains? +Nothing, or assuredly very little. That which counts and +endures is the modicum of positive truth which each +contributes.”</p> + +<p>One wonders how this modicum is to be discovered +without criticism, and is informed (still by Bergson) that +“the true statement is of itself able to displace the erroneous +idea, and becomes, without our having taken the +trouble of refuting anyone, the best of refutations.” Is +this not saying that a garden will grow more flowers +if one does not criticise it by trying to pull up the weeds? +Is it not sheer nonsense to talk of erroneous ideas displacing +themselves without anybody taking the trouble to +refute anything, when there was never a time in the history +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>of man when ideas, true and false, did not have to +meet the objections of the fault-finder? No; Durant assures +us that Bergson speaks with “the voice of wisdom +herself,” and that when we “‘prove’ or ‘disprove’ a philosophy +we are merely offering another one.”</p> + +<p>Merely, you understand. Then all philosophies are indifferent +mixtures, one as good as another. Here is pragmatism +mixed with <i>laissez-faire</i>. And like pragmatism +(which at one and the same time holds that whatever you +think is true is indeed true for the moment and as far as +you are concerned, and that nevertheless the test of truth +is the fruit it bears), it does not understand itself.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3 id="FOOTNOTES_6"> + FOOTNOTES: +</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_146_146" href="#FNanchor_146_146" class="label">[146]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_147_147" href="#FNanchor_147_147" class="label">[147]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 429.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_148_148" href="#FNanchor_148_148" class="label">[148]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 446.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_149_149" href="#FNanchor_149_149" class="label">[149]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, page 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_150_150" href="#FNanchor_150_150" class="label">[150]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 454.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_151_151" href="#FNanchor_151_151" class="label">[151]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 155.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_152_152" href="#FNanchor_152_152" class="label">[152]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 456.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_153_153" href="#FNanchor_153_153" class="label">[153]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 437.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_154_154" href="#FNanchor_154_154" class="label">[154]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 473.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_155_155" href="#FNanchor_155_155" class="label">[155]</a> “This Believing World,” p. 298.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_156_156" href="#FNanchor_156_156" class="label">[156]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_157_157" href="#FNanchor_157_157" class="label">[157]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 297.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_158_158" href="#FNanchor_158_158" class="label">[158]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 300.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_159_159" href="#FNanchor_159_159" class="label">[159]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_160_160" href="#FNanchor_160_160" class="label">[160]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 29-30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_161_161" href="#FNanchor_161_161" class="label">[161]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_162_162" href="#FNanchor_162_162" class="label">[162]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 259.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_163_163" href="#FNanchor_163_163" class="label">[163]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 259-260.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_164_164" href="#FNanchor_164_164" class="label">[164]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 261.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_165_165" href="#FNanchor_165_165" class="label">[165]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 263.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_166_166" href="#FNanchor_166_166" class="label">[166]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_167_167" href="#FNanchor_167_167" class="label">[167]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_168_168" href="#FNanchor_168_168" class="label">[168]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 266.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_169_169" href="#FNanchor_169_169" class="label">[169]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_170_170" href="#FNanchor_170_170" class="label">[170]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_171_171" href="#FNanchor_171_171" class="label">[171]</a> St. John, XIV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_172_172" href="#FNanchor_172_172" class="label">[172]</a> “This Believing World,” p. 269.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_173_173" href="#FNanchor_173_173" class="label">[173]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 271.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_174_174" href="#FNanchor_174_174" class="label">[174]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 272.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_175_175" href="#FNanchor_175_175" class="label">[175]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 273.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_176_176" href="#FNanchor_176_176" class="label">[176]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 276.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_177_177" href="#FNanchor_177_177" class="label">[177]</a> “This Believing World,” p. 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_178_178" href="#FNanchor_178_178" class="label">[178]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_179_179" href="#FNanchor_179_179" class="label">[179]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_180_180" href="#FNanchor_180_180" class="label">[180]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 278.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_181_181" href="#FNanchor_181_181" class="label">[181]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_182_182" href="#FNanchor_182_182" class="label">[182]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 280.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_183_183" href="#FNanchor_183_183" class="label">[183]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 280.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_184_184" href="#FNanchor_184_184" class="label">[184]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 281.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_185_185" href="#FNanchor_185_185" class="label">[185]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 282.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_186_186" href="#FNanchor_186_186" class="label">[186]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 284.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_187_187" href="#FNanchor_187_187" class="label">[187]</a> “The Psychology of Religious Mysticism,” p. 189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_188_188" href="#FNanchor_188_188" class="label">[188]</a> “This Believing World,” p. 284.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_189_189" href="#FNanchor_189_189" class="label">[189]</a> “This Believing World,” p. 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_190_190" href="#FNanchor_190_190" class="label">[190]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_191_191" href="#FNanchor_191_191" class="label">[191]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_192_192" href="#FNanchor_192_192" class="label">[192]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_193_193" href="#FNanchor_193_193" class="label">[193]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 288.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_194_194" href="#FNanchor_194_194" class="label">[194]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 289.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_195_195" href="#FNanchor_195_195" class="label">[195]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 290.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_196_196" href="#FNanchor_196_196" class="label">[196]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 292.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_197_197" href="#FNanchor_197_197" class="label">[197]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 292.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_198_198" href="#FNanchor_198_198" class="label">[198]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_199_199" href="#FNanchor_199_199" class="label">[199]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_200_200" href="#FNanchor_200_200" class="label">[200]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 292-293.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_201_201" href="#FNanchor_201_201" class="label">[201]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_202_202" href="#FNanchor_202_202" class="label">[202]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_203_203" href="#FNanchor_203_203" class="label">[203]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_204_204" href="#FNanchor_204_204" class="label">[204]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_205_205" href="#FNanchor_205_205" class="label">[205]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 279.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_206_206" href="#FNanchor_206_206" class="label">[206]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 274.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_207_207" href="#FNanchor_207_207" class="label">[207]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 277.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_208_208" href="#FNanchor_208_208" class="label">[208]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 298.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_209_209" href="#FNanchor_209_209" class="label">[209]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 298-299.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_210_210" href="#FNanchor_210_210" class="label">[210]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 299.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_211_211" href="#FNanchor_211_211" class="label">[211]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 300.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_212_212" href="#FNanchor_212_212" class="label">[212]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 300.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_213_213" href="#FNanchor_213_213" class="label">[213]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 301.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_214_214" href="#FNanchor_214_214" class="label">[214]</a> “The Story of Philosophy,” p. 326.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_215_215" href="#FNanchor_215_215" class="label">[215]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 507.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_216_216" href="#FNanchor_216_216" class="label">[216]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 511.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_217_217" href="#FNanchor_217_217" class="label">[217]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 509.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_218_218" href="#FNanchor_218_218" class="label">[218]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 316.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_219_219" href="#FNanchor_219_219" class="label">[219]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 509.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII"> + CHAPTER VIII + <br> + THE ANCIENT TEMPER + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class='drop-cap'><span class='allcap'>What</span> now about that “modern temper,” which +seeks to do away with the romantic ideal of +a world well lost for love and with the classic +ideal of austere dignity? We have followed it through +many channels of expression, and have discovered that +it was well described. Of either dignity or love it has not +a shred.</p> + +<p>But we have discovered another thing. It is not being +driven from the old ideals by science. Or rather there are +two sciences, one modern, scientific and inspiring. The +other not quite so modern in anything but the names +which it applies to itself, not quite so scientific—indeed, +no longer scientific at all.</p> + +<p>Its chariot comes thundering down Main street, and +all are bidden to throw themselves before it and let its +wheels pass over them. One would think it was the car +of Juggernaut. But its license, when we come to look +it up, proves to have been taken out by Propaganda.</p> + +<p>Sometimes these propagandists descend and try to persuade +us with pleasant words. More often they prefer to +threaten. Those who stand upright before them or try to +block their passage are termed morons, or ignoramuses. +To be snubbed by this new snobbery is almost like not +being in society. Yet after all, a university professor is +sometimes only a school-teacher, and not necessarily a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>good one. The letters <span class="smcap">Ph.D.</span> after a man’s name do not +turn him necessarily either into a scientist or a Venerable +Don Bosco. Beyond question, some of our Misbehaviorists +would have constructed better theories had +they come more in contact with other than diseased or +adolescent minds.</p> + +<p>But why the propaganda? Why this endeavor to make +man out a machine or worse? The ancient hypothesis was +that such teachings emanated from the devil. To discuss +that ancient hypothesis would take us beyond the limits +of the present volume, but it cannot be denied that it +seems rather to fit the case. Certainly the temper of these +gentleman is no newer than is the temperament of Lucifer. +Among the many things which distinguish man from +the animals is this strange perversity, this ability to sink +beneath himself.</p> + +<p>The “modern temper” then is but the ancient temper, +and like the ancient it is of two sorts. This division also +is old—as old as the distinction between good and evil.</p> + +<p>Fundamentally, man never changes. I do not mean the +individual man. He may change immensely, and from +having chosen to turn to the left may turn and choose the +right. But this choice has always been open before him.</p> + +<p>Not even our fashions, our methods, our ways of doing +things are quite as novel as we sometimes like to think. +Albertus Magnus, though he died in 1280, laid down the +principles of our cherished “experimental method,”—and +they were already old. Says Fenelon, “If an enlightened +man were to gather from the books of St. Augustine the +sublime truths which this great man has scattered at random +therein, such a composition ... would be far superior +to Descartes’ ‘Meditations.’” That takes us back to +before the year 430—and wisdom then was far from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>being a child. There is going on about us all the while +a systematic falsification of history so that the present +may seem to stand upon an isolated pedestal, or rest like +a tumbleweed upon a heap of sand, or like a thistledown +to float seemingly upon nothing. Probably this sort of +thing, too, is coeval with the dawn of human life.</p> + +<p>Pyrrho, the Greek philosopher, who attained fame from +having made the remark that “nothing is more one thing +than it is another,”—in other words that black is no +blacker than is white nor white whiter than black—Pyrrho +died 270 years before Christ. He voiced the “modern +temper” of his day as Watson and Freud voice it in ours. +For we have seen that Psycho-Analysis and Behaviorism +spring from the same root. It makes little difference to +what we are slaves, whether to reflexes or passions. If +there be but one stuff, it is the same stuff whether we call +it spirit or matter. No man ever yet succeeded in thinking +of an abstract triangle, let alone an impersonal God.</p> + +<p>So, of old time as today, reason was Psyche’s good +servant but a sorry master. Then, as now, reason died +with the fool who said in his heart, “There is no God.” +Then as now Wisdom cried, not in the class-room but in +the streets, and had its being in that Love—“<i>che muove il +sole e l’altre stelle</i>”—which moves the sun in heaven and +all the stars.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class='transnote'> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes"> + Transcriber’s Notes + </h2> + +<ul> + <li>Footnotes renumbered consecutively and relocated to the end of each chapter.</li> + <li>Obvious typographic and grammatical errors silently corrected.</li> + <li>Variations in hyphenation and spelling kept as in the original.</li> +</ul> +</div></div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77481 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/77481-h/images/colophon.jpg b/77481-h/images/colophon.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..906b2e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/colophon.jpg diff --git a/77481-h/images/cover.jpg b/77481-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb6ea24 --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/77481-h/images/i_057.jpg b/77481-h/images/i_057.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4259bad --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/i_057.jpg diff --git a/77481-h/images/i_077.jpg b/77481-h/images/i_077.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b7307a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/i_077.jpg diff --git a/77481-h/images/i_109.jpg b/77481-h/images/i_109.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3db8cf --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/i_109.jpg diff --git a/77481-h/images/i_209.jpg b/77481-h/images/i_209.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fea23a --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/i_209.jpg diff --git a/77481-h/images/i_247.jpg b/77481-h/images/i_247.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..242ebb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/i_247.jpg diff --git a/77481-h/images/i_261.jpg b/77481-h/images/i_261.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b235510 --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/i_261.jpg diff --git a/77481-h/images/i_293.jpg b/77481-h/images/i_293.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d8d81e --- /dev/null +++ b/77481-h/images/i_293.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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