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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78906 ***
+
+
+
+
+                        LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 759
+                      Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
+
+                             How to Conquer
+                                Stupidity
+
+                               Leo Markun
+
+                      HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
+                             GIRARD, KANSAS
+
+
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1927,
+                         Haldeman-Julius Company
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                  Page
+
+  Introduction                       3
+
+  Learning How to Think             17
+
+  Some Common Forms of Stupidity    47
+
+
+                 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO CONQUER STUPIDITY
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Perhaps _stupidity_ is a somewhat vague term. In general, we know what
+it is. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines it as the “Quality
+or state of being foolish; extreme dullness of understanding; crass
+foolishness.” Dr. L. Loewenfeld, in his thorough German treatise _On
+Stupidity_, points out that the word may be applied with regard to
+an individual or with regard to single acts of persons who are not
+considered stupid. The wisest person is capable of occasional foolish
+deeds.
+
+I shall speak here of stupidity not only as weakness of understanding
+but also as improper response of any sort. I shall not, however,
+particularly concern myself with awkwardness of body. Moreover, I have
+considered certain aspects of mental inefficiency in _How to Think
+Logically_ (No. 1063), _Insanity and Other Mental Disorders_ (No.
+1094), and several other Little Blue Books. I shall try not to repeat
+myself except where this appears necessary.
+
+When we speak of a man as being stupid, we mean usually that he has
+less than average intelligence. But here we are again employing words
+which are without exactness. Intelligence cannot be measured as though
+it were a matter of weight or specific gravity. There are so-called
+Mentimeter tests, somewhat similar to the army intelligence tests with
+which some of my readers may be familiar; but they do not entirely
+live up to their name. They do afford a rough index to the possession
+of certain qualities. They should not be used without considerable
+caution, however. There have been a number of unwarranted attempts made
+to draw deductions from these tests as though their value had been
+conclusively demonstrated.
+
+Dr. George A. Dorsey truly says, “I can test your capacity or
+intelligence or your will only as I can pick a winner at a horse race.
+I know at the end of the race.” The whole idea of testing and grading
+seems to be based upon an academic fallacy. Who was more intelligent,
+Socrates or Napoleon? Pasteur or Alexander the Great? Shakespeare or
+Goethe? If these men had been given Alpha or Mentimeter tests, should
+we be able better to answer these questions now? I think not.
+
+Stupidity is a relative matter, just as intelligence is. In a primitive
+tribe, the man who has good muscles, good vision, and good hearing,
+with a certain amount of what we call savage cunning, is amply able to
+take care of himself. He may become chief and he is almost certain to
+be well supplied with food and wives. In a civilized community, if he
+is extraordinarily well supplied with the endowments mentioned, he may
+perhaps make a fortune as an athlete. In this case he will not lack
+for wives, either. But if he is intellectually of low grade, he may
+not be able to retain his large earnings. He is likely to spend them
+quickly for foolish luxuries and to dissipate them by gambling. Then,
+when middle age weakens his muscles, he is forced to adjust himself to
+inferior living conditions. Then he is called a fool--a term seldom
+applied to one actually in possession of considerable wealth.
+
+What is stupidity in a college town may be ordinary intelligence in
+a mine or a sculptor’s studio or on the baseball field. It may even
+be genius. People who are extraordinarily developed in one direction
+may be underdeveloped in others. A man may be a great general or an
+industrial leader without having an ear for music. We are not justified
+in calling a scientist stupid because he absent-mindedly hands the
+conductor a button instead of his ticket. His act is one of stupidity,
+however, as I use the term here. If his absent-mindedness should
+manifest itself frequently while he is conducting important scientific
+experiments, it would be indicative of great stupidity, of unfitness
+for his work.
+
+What we call folly or stupidity may amount to a lack of will power, an
+inability to concentrate upon the problems of life. Or it may be due
+to improper habit formations. Usually, but perhaps not always, it is
+connected with a lack of intellectual capacity in the narrow sense.
+The idea of stupidity is after all subjective. The martyr-masochist
+(we may take Jesus and Socrates as examples, although their lives as
+we have them seem to be masses of legends) is a hero to his follower,
+a “damned idiot” to the unsympathetic. But, from the point of view of
+their own development, they are not stupid. They do what it is within
+them to perform and to suffer. Here I pay no heed to the verdict of
+history, and rank the unsuccessful with the successful Christs. When
+Nathan Hale was hanged, he did not know that the Revolution was going
+to succeed. He did not know that the school books of his country would
+some day set him up as a patriotic example. If these states were still
+British colonies, we should probably think of Hale--if we thought of
+him at all--as a fool. We should probably think of George Washington
+and all the other rebel leaders in the same way.
+
+John Brown’s scheme was absurd. The chance that his expedition should
+succeed was not one in a thousand. It failed, and yet his failure
+helped finally to bring about the abolition of slavery. Edmund Clarence
+Stedman was right when he wrote in 1859:
+
+                And Old Brown,
+                Osawatomie Brown,
+  May trouble you more than ever when you’ve nailed his coffin down!
+
+Would Brown have been more of a fool if the United States had been
+destined to retain Negro slavery? In other words, is failure positive
+proof of stupidity?
+
+I suppose the answer depends in the final analysis upon our definition
+of failure. The man who has given up his life to disinterested service
+can hardly be blamed for not having earned a large fortune. Even if we
+are unable to sympathize with his motives, we must understand that he
+probably succeeded in realizing most of his own ambitions. Sometimes,
+indeed, people work hard in one direction to forget failure where
+success was most desired. The laurel wreath may then fall to ashes amid
+the applause of the unseeing crowd.
+
+But in general we rate a man according to his seeming ability to adjust
+himself to his environment. We soon forget his petty stupidities if he
+is able to do some one thing better than his neighbors, provided only
+that his accomplishment is highly rated. At present the preacher who
+can send his hearers into convulsions of religious ecstasy is almost
+sure to get his name into _Who’s Who in America_ and is fairly certain,
+if he possesses a certain flair for business, to amass a comfortable
+fortune. But the same man, born in an irreligious age might be simply
+a lazy good-for-nothing or even a patient in an insane asylum. What
+became of all the potential scientists who were born in the Middle Ages
+and accomplished nothing? Poor stupid fellows, most of them must have
+been called by their neighbors.
+
+As a matter of fact, we know few people well enough to be justified in
+calling them stupid. Of course not all the feebleminded and demented
+men and women are removed from the world’s work. But it is better
+to keep the definitely diseased mentally out of our conception of
+stupidity. Since we are concerned with the conquest of folly and
+since the mental disorders are either incurable at present or curable
+only by medical treatment of one sort or another, we shall leave them
+out of account. What interests us primarily is the correction by the
+individual himself of his own minor stupidity.
+
+We should understand, though, that mental capacity cannot be enlarged
+by any effort of the will. After an individual has reached his full
+growth, his mental capacity may be decreased by an accident or disease,
+but there is no known way by which he or others can increase it.
+
+Still, mental attainment can be raised, for the reason that it is never
+equal to mental capacity. To elevate the level of mental attainment
+means (in the widest sense of the word) to educate. What we call
+stupidity may really be ignorance or lack of order. Moreover, lack of
+order, that is, an imperfect scientific method or logical system, is
+the most common cause of ignorance. The man who has learned how to
+study, not the one who has acquired a few random scraps of information,
+is on the way to becoming educated. The slow apprentice is sometimes
+undervalued when he is actually laying the proper foundations for his
+work.
+
+Teachers often fail to appreciate the merits of the boys and girls in
+their care. If they are intelligent, they can see that certain bright
+children are properly acquiring their Latin and their English, and may
+some day be teachers themselves. But that the boy who simply cannot
+learn his literary history may have it in him to be a poet--that they
+are ordinarily unable to understand, unless the boy is already writing
+verses for the school magazine.
+
+A high school teacher once asked me why I didn’t think of taking up
+the profession of chemist. I was too amazed to reply. And yet, from
+the ordinary academic viewpoint of grades, he was justified in his
+question. I stood somewhere near the head of his class, relatively
+higher than I did in my English section. The new science was of
+considerable interest to me, even if the mechanics of laboratory work
+proved somewhat irksome. But a professional chemist must attain a
+certain amount of manual dexterity and a considerable interest in the
+mechanics of his work. It is probable enough that some of the boys
+whose work in the high school class was mediocre are now on the way to
+becoming successful chemists.
+
+On the other hand, I feel that I appreciate literature more
+intelligently than the classmates of mine who were better prepared in
+high school to explain the allusions in “Comus” or to tell what Wyatt
+and Surrey wrote. For me, at that time, the subjects were dull because
+they were still unclothed with flesh.
+
+This bit of autobiography is set down here for the light it may shed
+upon problems of development as they are presented to the teacher and
+the parent. It is not always easy to tell the true trend of a child’s
+abilities. Sometimes, indeed, the boy or the girl knows, even if the
+teacher does not. When there is a question of genius, perhaps genius is
+necessary to recognize it. To the world it may be the living image of
+stupidity.
+
+It is true that genius in the restricted sense is such a rare
+phenomenon that most of us need not concern ourselves about the ability
+to recognize it. But the products of genius, especially when they are
+of a novel sort, are likely to prove puzzling. No less a critic than
+Henry James wrote about one of Walt Whitman’s books of verse: “It has
+been a melancholy one to write about it.... It exhibits the effort of
+an essentially prosaic mind to lift itself, by a prolonged muscular
+strain, into poetry.” Despite all Whitman’s tricks of false poetizing,
+this verdict is decidedly unjust. The fact is that James was not
+himself poet enough to recognize poetry except in traditional garb.
+
+To stigmatize difference as inferiority is an egregious form of
+egotism. It indicates a lack of the ability of self-criticism,
+too. Hard-headed business men are wont to look down upon poets and
+philosophers, and these are accustomed to retaliate in kind.
+
+The qualities which enable a man to succeed in business are of course
+different in part--although by no means entirely--from those which make
+an artist. The musician and the sculptor must not be judged too harshly
+for deficiencies in their ability to carry on commercial transactions.
+Many artists find it advisable to leave all matters of business to
+agents or managers.
+
+We must be careful, then, not to consider people stupid simply because
+their experiences and their ways of life do not coincide with our own.
+If they do not possess that particular wisdom which is ours, they may
+be amply compensated in some other way. The man who has lived all
+his life on a farm does not know the city ways: but neither does the
+town-bred man know how to manage cows and chickens.
+
+When the scientist goes into a remote region and finds that the
+inhabitants believe in all sorts of queer superstitions, he should not
+consider them all stupid on this account. They have had no opportunity
+to learn the methods or the conclusions of modern science. They should
+be judged no more harshly than Socrates would be for knowing nothing of
+the geometry of Minkowski and the equations of Lorentz. Living in his
+time, the philosopher could not be familiar with modern mathematics.
+Living where they do, the Arkansas “hill billies” naturally cling fast
+to the superstitions of their fathers.
+
+But the educated man (so called) who believes that breaking a mirror
+will bring him seven years of bad luck is, so far as this belief is
+concerned, stupid. The authors of Genesis are not to be reproached
+for thinking that all the species of men and animals were brought
+simultaneously into being by a fiat of God. Considering the state of
+knowledge in their time, their idea was natural enough. But it is a
+disgrace when men calling themselves scientists now shut their eyes to
+the abundance of testimony for organic evolution. I think we can call
+them stupid without any priggishness.
+
+However, stupidity of one sort does not altogether damn any individual.
+A man with very foolish prejudices and without any particular
+understanding of history may nevertheless be able efficiently to manage
+a great industrial establishment. He may or may not be a good collector
+of antiques. His ability to tell good music from bad must be judged
+without reference to his other elements of mental and physical strength
+and weakness.
+
+The only criterion we have for stupidity is lack of success in one or
+another respect. And yet, as we are all aware, the chance factors play
+a great part in determining success or failure. The successful general
+is not necessarily cleverer than the commander he defeats, even when
+their forces appear to be evenly matched. The millionaire may differ
+from the pauper simply in that he has had better opportunities.
+
+This and other considerations have brought about various attempts to
+measure mental ability directly. We have already considered briefly the
+intelligence tests now being used by various psychologists. Of still
+lower value, by far, is phrenology, the pseudoscience which examines
+the skull to find there an index to the mental faculties and traits of
+character. So far as the mind has any one single organ, this is the
+brain. But it does not seem that the shape of the head or the existence
+of certain “bumps” on it bears any definite relationship to mental
+capacity.
+
+Even the weighing of the brains of the dead does not seem to give
+any absolute conclusions. Pearson and Pearl, examining thousands of
+individual brains, found that the mean average brain weight of the
+adult Englishman was 27 grams less than that of the Bavarians, 57 grams
+less than that of the Hessians, 65 grams less than that of the Swedes,
+and 120 grams less than that of the Bohemians. Are we to conclude that
+the average Bohemian is proportionately more intelligent than the
+average Englishman? Certainly not without additional evidence.
+
+A man who died in an asylum in Vienna was found to have brains weighing
+2028 grams and without any pathological alterations which microscopic
+examination could reveal. Gambetta, the famous French statesman, had
+brains weighing only 1241 grams, or 150 grams less than the average.
+
+Aside from weighing the brains, all sorts of measurements and
+examinations have been made, but these _post mortem_ intelligence
+tests remain of indefinite value. Nevertheless it appears that the
+structure of the brain is responsible for the difference, or for
+part of the difference, between a highly intelligent and a stupid
+individual. But the physiologists and the anatomists have not
+altogether solved the problem.
+
+We do know that certain diseases sometimes reduce intellectual
+capacity. A serious attack of typhus fever, for instance, may leave the
+patient feebleminded or at least comparatively stupid. Injuries to the
+head or tumors of the brain may do serious injury to the mind. Or the
+gray matter of the brain may be injured by various drugs, leading to
+more or less definite mental changes.
+
+Probably a great many fools are such simply because they have never
+had any chance to develop those qualities in which they might
+have excelled. In them we could not find any physical basis for
+their stupidity, I suppose, even if brains gave up their secrets
+in the dissecting room. Of course education is not identical with
+intelligence, but it affords means of arrangement and order. Perhaps
+it is necessary to add that by education I mean more than the formal
+teaching of the schools and colleges. As we have seen, we do not lay
+undue weight upon the minor eccentricities and deficiencies of the man
+who can write a great poem or compose important symphonies. But let
+us suppose that the potential genius never learns his alphabet or his
+musical scales. All that remains to him in life is his stupidity.
+
+It is sometimes said that the man who has genius in him will not be
+stopped by difficulties of this sort. He will somehow educate himself.
+Actually we have seen men with none of the usual advantages display
+sufficient power of will to reach their goal. But we know little of
+those who have been discouraged. Here we have a certain justification
+for the democratic idea of education for all, even if this seems to
+lead to some unfortunate results.
+
+The educated fool, the man whose head is crammed full of facts and who
+may possess a certain fluency in argument but who is yet unmistakably
+stupid, exists among us in large numbers. At least in part, though, the
+fault belongs with the system of education. Specifically, the teacher
+thinks of the multiplication table or the college entrance examination
+as an end in itself, without regard to the individual pupil, his
+capabilities and his needs.
+
+Even in our best educational institutions, little progress has been
+made in the synthesizing of knowledge. The student working at his
+psychology seldom has it borne in upon him that if the science has any
+meaning at all, it is an instrument for criticizing literature and
+for understanding life. Knowledge is not bound up in little packages
+labeled English A and Social Ethics 4 and Biology 9a, as university
+catalogues seem to indicate.
+
+The more we learn, the more specialization becomes necessary. And
+thus it happens that we have admiralty lawyers, physicians who have
+forgotten all that they ever knew except that which pertains to the
+genito-urinal system, specialists in the calculus of tensors or in
+plant histology. This tendency to specialization, which can hardly
+be escaped or regarded as an unmitigated evil, yet stimulates the
+production of wise fools.
+
+If the university professorships are many, there is still room for
+instruction in the art of thinking, which means really the art of
+living. But here, I greatly fear, the qualified experts are pretty
+conspicuous by reason of their absence. It is, after all, a somewhat
+optimistic definition which makes man the thinking animal. Most of our
+reactions are instinctive or habitual or inspired by our emotions.
+In fact, constituted as we at present are, the attempt to do nothing
+except as the result of formal thought would be fatal.
+
+But perhaps the attitude of thinking for oneself might be profitably
+encouraged. The ordinary teacher is literally frightened when a pupil
+discovers something for himself beyond the text and the commentary.
+This is as much as to reproach the teacher for not having done any
+original teaching!
+
+It is a human trait to follow the lines of least resistance. Therefore
+the intelligent pupil reasons out matters for himself only when
+he has failed to prepare the set lesson. Then he calls his act one
+of “bluffing.” If his recitation or his examination paper is found
+satisfactory, he feels that he has outwitted the teacher. Unfortunately
+there is a considerable amount of truth in this assumption. But it is a
+truth which does no credit to our educational methods.
+
+If we are to learn how to think at all, we must learn it by ourselves,
+and largely through many trials and by rejecting a great many errors.
+(In the final analysis, all education is self-education. We cannot
+successfully be crammed full of knowledge by any outsider. A good
+teacher can do no more than stimulate and point out certain pitfalls.)
+Some people never learn to think for themselves--and no thinking which
+is copied from another deserves the name of thought at all. Originality
+is the leading, the differentiating, ingredient.
+
+
+
+
+LEARNING HOW TO THINK
+
+
+“A being who could not think without training,” says John Dewey, “could
+never be trained to think; one may have to learn to think _well_, but
+not to _think_.” The lower animals cannot be taught to think at all,
+because they do not possess the power to generalize. It seems that the
+same thing might be said, with some qualifications, of the less complex
+or “lower” races of mankind. Among us, too, we find a great many
+people of more or less vegetative character. Their thinking is of the
+simplest, and it occurs comparatively rarely.
+
+The elements necessary to thought are, according to Dewey in _How We
+Think_, classifiable under three heads. First of all there must be an
+accumulation of experiences and facts from which suggestions arise. As
+I have tried to show in _How to Think Logically_, all our knowledge
+comes eventually from our sense impressions. The material used in
+thought does not arise mysteriously, out of nothing, in the mind. But
+with the store of experiences and facts are inferences and ideas built
+up out of the data afforded by the sense. Every individual selects and
+combines for himself.
+
+The second element necessary for thought consists of the “promptness,
+flexibility, and fertility of suggestions.” That is, the experiences
+must be available. They must not be too deeply forgotten, but must be
+within easy reach when they are needed.
+
+The third element is the “orderliness, consecutiveness,
+appropriateness, in what is suggested.” The images and ideas may come
+up in large number and yet may not assist efficient thinking. They must
+first of all be relevant. Also they must be available in an orderly
+chain. The principle of order in thinking is of the utmost importance.
+Furthermore, it can be acquired much more easily than the ability to
+gather a great many experiences and to keep them within easy reach.
+Merely to hear and see much is of little avail. We know the people who
+travel all around the world and come home to prove themselves as stupid
+and as ignorant as before. It is the principle of order, indeed, which
+gives the ability to accumulate experiences and facts and to make use
+of them at will.
+
+What causes us to look about us, to listen, to taste, to smell and
+to touch? Instincts and habits of various sorts. Some psychologists
+speak of a special instinct of curiosity, which is at the basis of all
+science. But I suppose the accumulation of knowledge is in general
+strictly utilitarian. Primitive man studied the habits of various
+animals not because he was trying to establish the science of zoölogy,
+not because he had any abstract curiosity, but because he wanted to eat
+certain creatures and to escape being eaten by others, and then because
+he had accidentally stumbled upon the fact that some animals might be
+partially tamed and so rendered of use to the human race.
+
+We learn first of all by doing. Of all the proofs that the earth is
+approximately spherical in shape, the best one to the man without
+special training is the fact that it has been circumnavigated.
+Incidentally, this proof is not of much value until the earth has been
+circumnavigated from north to south and from south to north through the
+poles.
+
+Physics and chemistry did not originate in a disinterested will to
+learn, but in the attempt to solve certain problems of practical
+importance. Even, now, the students of the pure sciences justify
+themselves with the apologetic statement that any scientific discovery
+may prove of important usefulness.
+
+The “Why?” of the child or of the philosopher is at bottom an attempt
+to learn that which may be put to use. At present, indeed, there is
+some tendency to make a parlor game of philosophy, to divorce it from
+real life. But wisdom is not desired as an ornament alone, and the
+true love of wisdom cannot exist in a vacuum. No valid distinction is
+to be made between the wisdom of life and wisdom in the abstract. The
+abstract is, in general, merely a representation in shorthand of the
+concrete. Such words as _fear_ and _valor_ and _justice_ have very
+definite reference to behavior. They are not mere counters to be played
+with by learned professors.
+
+Abstractions are to thought what levers and pulleys and inclined planes
+are in the handling of unwieldy masses. They assist greatly in the
+ease, the range, and the depth of suggestions which come up for the
+solution of a problem.
+
+Thinking is problem solving. But if this word makes us think of
+arithmetic and algebra, we should note at once that we must not
+depend too much upon the answers found in official keys. Teachers
+and preachers and writers are wont to state with all the flourishes
+of authority what nobody knows or what, at any rate, they are not
+intelligent enough to discover.
+
+To turn from thought to unreasoning faith is obviously to confess
+failure. Sometimes this confession covers only a small field, sometimes
+it extends over the whole field of knowledge. The Fundamentalist wants
+to find all his science in the Bible, the Modernist perhaps only part
+of his psychology and philosophy.
+
+Loewenfeld tells of an ignorant old woman who lived with a tubercular
+man. The health authorities warned her against using the same glass
+from which he drank and exposing herself in various other ways. “That’s
+foolishness,” she said. “If God doesn’t want me to get sick, I’ll stay
+well; and if he wants me to get consumption, it won’t do me any good to
+use a separate glass.”
+
+Of course many religious people proceed on the more sensible assumption
+that “God helps those who help themselves.” Even the piety which is
+sure that miracles occurred in olden days does not depend upon their
+recurrence in our time. Yet there is a Christian sect, most of whose
+members belong to the “upper classes” and consider themselves educated,
+which teaches that only faith can cure disease.
+
+There is not room here to discuss the utility of religion or the
+possible existence of a deity. The Little Blue Book reader can find
+ample material dealing with these subjects in a number of the
+booklets, notably the series by Joseph McCabe. But here we may notice
+what a large variety of miscellaneous follies have been upheld in
+the name of religion. For instance, it was formerly declared that
+the building of railroads was inspired by Satan. At times during the
+Middle Ages, all men who were indiscreet enough to show themselves
+more learned than the multitude were denounced as followers of the
+same fallen angel. Mohammed declared that faithful Mussulmans might
+have more than one wife apiece, but that they should drink no wine. Or
+rather he asserted that tasting the first drop is the dangerous thing.
+Some of his followers employed great ingenuity in not tasting the first
+drop but in getting the full advantage of all the rest. When Protestant
+American Christianity borrowed this prohibitory tenet from Islam, some
+of its leaders made mental reservations to find similar evasions for
+themselves. Perhaps some of them have also believed that the enactment
+of Prohibition carried with it the legalization of polygamy. But, of
+course, the scandals which have circulated about certain ministers are
+not enough in themselves to damn religion. They simply prove that human
+nature is human, even within temples, tabernacles, and manses.
+
+Much has been said and written about the stupidity of asceticism.
+If, however, poverty and chastity are really pleasing in the sight
+of God, and if they lead certainly to ineffable eternal bliss, then
+they are amply justified. Many a burglar has gone cheerfully to a term
+of ten years in the penitentiary, his heart gladdened by the thought
+of the little fortune which he has safely hidden away to enjoy after
+his release. Should not all good Catholics hie them to nunneries if
+a little temporary self-denial can assure them of so much hereafter?
+But the priestly leaders see that the consistent application of this
+doctrine would drive a great many into apostasy and would leave no
+Catholics of legitimate birth for the next generation.
+
+In theory, the Catholics have the Bible interpreted for them by the
+Church, but the Protestants read it and decipher its mysteries for
+themselves. As we know, however, each sect has its own creed. Only in a
+few of the Unitarian congregations are the individual members free to
+decide if Jehovah is a man or a sun-myth or a force found in nature.
+Even here I suppose nobody goes to church where he cannot agree with
+most of the minister’s teachings.
+
+It is a common tendency to hear and read only those arguments which
+confirm one’s own beliefs. The organs of orthodox religion circulate
+among the orthodox, the liberal religious papers go to the liberals,
+the anticlerical magazines go chiefly to atheists and agnostics and
+deists. Very few Republicans read the Socialist papers and books,
+unless it be to find ammunition for anti-Socialistic arguments.
+
+In the United States, the party system is such that no particular
+thought is required on the part of the voter. It is much easier to
+follow in one’s father’s footsteps than to attempt to differentiate the
+principles of one party from those of another or to find out which
+candidate for Keeper of the Dog Pound is best qualified for the office.
+In a municipal election, the Republicans always stand for economy
+and needed improvements, the Democrats for needed improvements and
+economy. Whichever party has its principles approved, taxes go up and
+the improvements are postponed. Perhaps I am needlessly cynical: I have
+only lived in two or three of the cities and read about some of the
+others.
+
+The citizen who is not a politician by profession can only give
+part of his time and thoughts to government. On the other hand,
+the political leaders make it their business to have the control
+of things--especially of the treasury--in their own hands. This is
+understandable enough. But the civics teachers in the schools teach
+their pupils that the government of the United States is perfect, or at
+least that it would be perfect if all the qualified voters went to the
+polls. Despite the evidence afforded by their senses, some good people
+continue to cherish this naïve belief.
+
+But it appears that comparatively few minds are capable of probing to
+the root of a matter. Most are contented with shallow suggestions,
+with some easy appeal to authority. It is so easy to answer a complex
+problem with a name; to say, for instance, that a lecturer for world
+peace is a Bolshevist, and with that word to shut off further debate.
+
+This fault is not confined to drug store philosophers and American
+Legion leaders. Professor Graham Wallas--in a book on _The Art of
+Thought_, too--turns upon McDougall and the other psychologists who
+deny the mysterious energies hypothesized by the vitalists with the
+assertion that they are furnishing a system which the Bolsheviks turn
+to account for their propaganda.
+
+Bolshevism is dangerous, many Italians and Spaniards have argued;
+therefore a dictator is necessary. But there is no true question of
+_either_ ... _or_. The fear of Lenin’s ideas has contributed much
+to the decline--temporary, let us hope--of the love of liberty in
+America. The French Revolution had the same effect in England in the
+time of Burke and Godwin. Hazlitt wrote that “waking from the trance
+of theory we hear the words Truth, Reason, Virtue, Liberty, with the
+same indifference or contempt that a cynic who has married a jilt or a
+termagant listens to the rhapsodies of lovers.”
+
+The reason is that these capitalized abstractions had been nothing
+more than words. If liberty is once associated with a reign of terror,
+immediately it seems corrupted to the thoughtless. The abuse, for them,
+reflects upon the proper use. Temporary associations must never be
+confounded with necessary accompaniments.
+
+The rough and ready thinking of the multitude jumps from the frying-pan
+into the fire, from Lenin to Mussolini, from tyranny in the name
+of liberty to tyranny in the names of security and glory. If the
+licensed saloon-keepers were friendly with the police authorities, so
+are the unlicensed bootleggers. Regular medicine is imperfect, but
+chiropractic and Christian Science are absurd.
+
+When business is poor or wheat sells for a low price, then it is time
+to send out the Republicans and to elect Democrats, many people seem
+to think. Meanwhile the attempt to find real correctives is neglected.
+This is as bad as sending for the priest instead of the doctor when a
+child is dying of diphtheria.
+
+Such conduct is surely indicative of disordered thinking, of a
+sightless groping for associations. People accustom themselves to
+living on the instinctive and habitual level, and in times of emergency
+their apparatus for thought is as if rusted by disuse.
+
+Thinking is not simply a discharge. It must be directed against some
+obstacle. Must we then wait for some great difficulty to present itself
+before we employ our intelligence? No, for in that case we should
+invariably find ourselves unprepared. Thinking requires practice at
+least as much as piano-playing does.
+
+But to talk of practice is perhaps to lead astray. For our instinctive
+and habitual and emotional responses are not sufficient in civilized
+life. We must regulate them with thought. Intelligence is always
+useful, provided only that it is worthy of its name. Sometimes it is
+imperatively demanded, but we can use it every day, almost every waking
+moment. This is not to imply that the mind must be in a constant state
+of strain or that we should strive to rid ourselves of our instincts
+and our habits without regard for their demonstrated value.
+
+“Let me take the liberty further to observe,” writes Richardson’s
+Clarissa Harlowe to her hot-tempered brother, “that the principal end
+of a young man’s education is to teach him to reason justly and to
+subdue the violence of his passions.” Is there indeed some connection
+between just reasoning and the control of one’s passions? Or, in any
+case, was either very well taught at Oxford and Cambridge in the
+eighteenth century? Or, for that matter, are the ability to reason and
+the power to control one’s temper communicated to the students in the
+American colleges of the present day?
+
+Self-control is hardly inculcated in our schools above the primary
+grades. Indeed it is largely a matter for parents to attend to
+while their children are young. Moreover, many good reasoners have
+exceedingly violent tempers. In the moment of passion they do what they
+may afterward greatly regret.
+
+Of course it is stupid to act with unnecessary haste and violence. But
+a bad temper is seldom to be mended in adult life. Few persons possess
+sufficient strength of will to correct a tendency which should have
+been checked during their formative years. The hot-tempered are forced
+to patch up with what diplomacy they may possess the consequences of
+their thoughtless actions. Sometimes, indeed, a perverted sense of
+honor causes them to defend in cold blood the wrongs they have done
+while excited. Thus they add stupidity of a gross kind to their former
+folly. To confess that one has been in the wrong is no disgrace.
+
+The egotism which fails to understand this is a common cause of foolish
+actions. Obviously it is difficult to judge oneself in the same way
+that one judges another. We all know that human beings in general are
+fallible. Even the most intelligent of our friends and neighbors make
+mistakes. Why not we? If we truly grant the principle, we may find
+instances in plenty. Then we have an opportunity to correct many of our
+errors. But if we refuse to admit their existence, our hands are bound
+from the very start.
+
+A good sense of humor is a distinct aid here. He who laughs healthily
+laughs sometimes at himself. Thus, consciously or unconsciously, he
+admits his lack of perfection. This confession does not automatically
+open the door to improvement, of course. It seems there are some
+good-natured people who carefully preserve their minor foibles in order
+that they may joke about them. But, if they are at all ingenious,
+surely they may be merry without holding fast to their faults.
+
+The objective conception of self is absolutely prerequisite to the
+attainment of an exact or scientific system of thinking. In the mind
+which overvalues self, immortality is an uncontradictable postulate.
+The sun goes around the earth, and the solar system is the center
+and most important part of the universe. God is like man--like the
+egocentric “thinker,” that is. The white race--or, if it is a Chinese
+speaking, the yellow race--is superior to the rest. The United States
+is the greatest country in the world, Indiana is the fairest state in
+it, and Kokomo should be “boosted” everywhere for the fine city of
+home-loving citizens it is. When civic pride lends to improvement, it
+is thoroughly justified. But when it is a mere expression of vainglory,
+it is no better than any individual’s blatant self-glorification.
+
+The first and most important intellectual task of man is the control
+of his own body. The work of self-control starts early in infancy. The
+child must learn to put its food and drink into the proper place, to
+walk, to speak, and so on. This is not thinking, but it is work for
+the nervous system as well as for the muscles. Perhaps the beginning
+of generalized thought came when the child starts to mark out the
+boundaries between itself and the outside world. This leg can be made
+to move at will, that leg (which belongs to Mother Dear) will move at
+Baby’s command only by special favor. Previously, when Baby’s limbs
+had been under a less exact control and when Mother had run to obey
+the child’s slightest desire, if this could but be understood, the
+distinction between the I and the She had not been so clear.
+
+Definitely to understand the self and its limitations is at once to
+rule out all magic. I cannot destroy an enemy by means of the evil
+eye because there is no ray of malicious animal magnetism proceeding
+from me. There are all sorts of forces in the universe, and my special
+powers conform to the usual order. If I should lean far out of the
+window without in some way being held back, there is no doubt that I
+should fall. Like an apple or a bar of iron or a cat, I am acted upon
+by gravitational forces. Like all living organisms, I feed and excrete
+for a brief period, and presently my body will decompose. If I think
+and the milkweed does not, this does not mean that I, as a man, am
+subject to any special laws of nature. It simply indicates that my
+ancestors have been acted upon in definite ways--not all thoroughly
+understood at the present moment, we must concede.
+
+I have certain senses, and objects exist for me as I see and hear and
+smell and taste them, or as they feel hot or cold or painful to the
+touch. In this way I am revealed to myself, too. If I had been deaf
+from birth but had nevertheless been taught to speak, my voice would be
+little more to me than the sensations in my throat.
+
+Perceptions are important as they are apperceived, that is, interpreted
+in terms of what is already known. Proper observation involves orderly
+arrangement, as has already been said. In training the powers of
+observation, the essential thing to watch for is proper selection.
+
+As a matter of fact, we learn this pretty well without any formal
+teaching. The educational critics who said that people do not observe
+well, because they are unable to tell offhand if the numerals on their
+watch dials are Roman or Arabic, was misadvised. Dewey rightfully
+observes that we pull out our timepieces to find the time, not to see
+if the fourth number is represented by IV or 4. Most of us can make the
+latter investigation without any difficulty when it is necessary to do
+so.
+
+Every act of observation leads to a general intellectual conclusion.
+This thesis, like some others which are stated here, is developed in
+my booklet entitled _How to Think Logically_. At this point we may
+consider it sufficient argument against the educators who would develop
+the art of observation as a thing in itself. Actually no one of the
+mental “faculties” is independent or is capable of its own intellectual
+development. Even the stupid teachers who conceive of education as mere
+memorizing assist to some extent in their pupils’ learning how to think
+and do.
+
+All taught subjects must bear a relation to personal problems. This
+thought is important enough to bear repetition. Without such a unifying
+conception, all attempts at education are certain to be fruitless.
+
+One learns in terms of what one already knows. The child who has seen
+a brook can readily imagine the greater brook which is a river. The
+boy in the city slums who has seen no greater body of running water
+than that contained in the gutter after a rain must begin his study of
+hydrography here.
+
+This sort of learning prevents the formation of two different worlds,
+one of what is contained in books and lectures, the other of the
+experiences of life. No man is a pedant who assimilates his learning to
+actual problems.
+
+Yet Cowper’s words in _The Task_ are frequently justified:
+
+  Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
+  Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells
+  In heads replete with thoughts of other men,
+  Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
+  Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
+  The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
+  Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
+  Does but encumber what it seems to enrich.
+
+The possession of considerable intelligence does not protect one from
+occasional lapses into folly. Certainly those who possess a great deal
+of formal education are not on this account free from stupid thoughts
+and actions. Their great danger is that of failing to see their
+specialties, those subjects in which they are most interested and best
+informed, in their proper relation to the rest of reality. Sometimes
+they imagine that all the world is interested in certain theories which
+they or their teachers have developed.
+
+Men sometimes become interested in a certain reform movement to such
+an extent that nothing else matters. The universe is but a place from
+which alcohol or tobacco is to be driven. Or some form of recreation
+occupies all their thoughts. Life is worthwhile to them because it
+affords a certain amount of time for bowling or playing pinochle or
+cheering on the local baseball team.
+
+Of course the development of the human being must be true to itself.
+We are not justified in quarreling with a man or calling him stupid
+because his interests differ from our own. But the hobby-horse must
+not ride unchecked when it comes into society. The ship-builder, for
+example, need not bore us to death about ships: he may do it quite as
+well talking about his score at golf. But if he would have people call
+him clever, he had better either remain silent and listen to others’
+discussions of their vocations and avocations or else diversify his own
+remarks.
+
+In conversation and in letter-writing, much is merely conventional.
+We could save a good deal of time, no doubt, by never saying “Hello”
+or writing “Dear Sir.” In fact a great many of the things we do are,
+from a certain point of view, rather stupid. But actually we find it
+more troublesome and annoying to revolt against the minor conventions
+of life than to follow them. Taken all in all, etiquette does help much
+to avoid social friction of an unpleasant sort. Yet it is foolish to be
+too slavishly bound by the formal rules of polite society.
+
+A famous heroine in French fiction preferred to be drowned rather than
+to remove her skirts so she could swim. Many people have this same
+attitude toward the conventions. But of course the power of thought is
+of little avail except if it can be applied to a practical criticism
+of fixed habits and rules. Nothing is too sacred for the thinker.
+Everything is to be tested not by the standards of sterile authority
+but by its value in the thinker’s own world.
+
+It is true, though, that we are leaning more than ever upon
+intellectual authority. Who has knowledge enough to consider and
+weigh for himself the evidence against and for the theory of organic
+evolution, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the theory that the
+works attributed to Homer were written by various men and molded into
+something like their present form by ancient minstrels? Surely no one
+man can judge all three theories with reference to the full evidence.
+If we are to have opinions, we must base them upon the conclusions of
+the experts.
+
+Very well, but what are we to do when the experts disagree? Or when we
+are unable to tell who is qualified to pass an opinion? Very often the
+difficulty may be evaded. If we know little of mathematics and physics
+and astronomy, it is by no means necessary that we should hold any
+definite opinion about relativity. The attitude of suspended judgment
+serves well enough.
+
+Let us suppose, though, that we cannot escape in this manner. We are
+serving on a jury. The defendant has killed the woman he loves. The
+state calls a number of experienced alienists who declare the man
+perfectly sane. The defense calls upon a number of equally eminent
+experts who explain his psychosis, dwelling upon his inability to
+distinguish right from wrong. We scratch our heads to indicate that
+we should like to begin thinking but do not know just how to start.
+Probably we should never have been summoned to solve such a problem.
+The long hypothetical questions are too intricate for us to understand.
+How do we actually come to a conclusion? Perhaps we watch the defendant
+to see if he looks like the maniacs we have seen on the screen in
+short comedies. Or we say to one another in the jury room, “There’s
+too much of this murdering. If we let this guy off because he’s nuts,
+there’ll be plenty more doing the same thing.” Actually we should give
+the benefit of any doubt to the defendant. There are infinitely more
+lunatics executed than sane men who escape on the plea of insanity. But
+the ordinary man cannot recognize a malingerer. Sometimes the experts
+require weeks of observation. Yet, after a hurried and necessarily
+perfunctory examination, they are ready to give their solemn opinions
+in court.
+
+Often we are confronted with insufficient evidence and yet are required
+to make up our minds in one way or another. For the manufacturer the
+question may appear in this form: Shall I dismiss my workingmen, whom I
+may not be able to get back when the busy season comes, or shall I have
+them make up stock, which I may be unable to dispose of? Such a problem
+is usually solved with reference to past experiences. But the year to
+come may be unlike those just preceding. There are all sorts of guesses
+about the future. Certain experts draw intricate graphs purporting to
+indicate the trend of business. They speak wisely about cycles and
+counteracting tendencies. Sometimes they are right--no doubt more often
+than the mere guesser. And so the modern manufacturer leans a little,
+not too heavily, upon their wisdom.
+
+Any forecaster able to predict the approximate course of the real
+estate boom in Florida might quickly have earned enough to retire
+from the forecasting profession forever. Here, apparently, was a case
+unexplainable by the thinker: very small causes led to very great
+results. A few legal measures of interest to the wealthy class seemed
+to make gold mines of swamps and deserts. The chief causes of the boom
+were of course psychological. Those speculators who understood this
+took their quick profits and went away. Sometimes they were in too
+great a hurry, and the fools to whom they sold their properties made
+more than they.
+
+But we must not conclude that the stupid people have all the luck.
+Intelligence makes opportunities and employs them to good purpose.
+Folly stumbles and is very conspicuous when it stumbles upon gold. At
+the same time, we must remember that wisdom is not the only factor
+making for success. A beautiful woman or even a handsome man with no
+brains may have the thorns removed from the roses of life just because
+of her or his physical attractiveness.
+
+A matter of luck, obviously. But so is it a matter of luck that one
+should be more intelligent than one’s neighbors. Wisdom can be improved
+upon--but so can beauty. Both are controllable only to a limited
+extent. Perhaps the advantages of clear thinking are not so obvious
+as those of a clear complexion, however. There seems to be a greater
+demand for the latter.
+
+If thinking is somewhat painful, so, I believe, is receiving a
+permanent wave or an application of beauty clay. But it is only
+necessary to have the fee to be seized upon by the beautifiers. While
+the educational institutions in America are usually hospitable enough,
+while they even attempt to seize upon the students who are sufficiently
+unresisting and permanently to “wave” their minds, the results are
+often unsatisfactory. In education the passive attitude is hopeless.
+
+The problem of learning how to think is, then, first of all one for the
+learner himself to solve. Perhaps this little book may be read by some
+high school and college pupils who are dissatisfied with the narrowness
+of their teachers, disappointed that they cannot come into contact with
+more stimulating minds. Ah, but narrow-mindedness and stupidity have
+lessons to teach, too. Sometimes it is better not to be influenced
+unduly by the wise: there is a certain tendency to swallow their
+conclusions whole. Many people accept Emerson’s theory of compensations
+at face value because it is Emerson’s, who would grin cynically at the
+same idea propounded by Dr. Frank Crane.
+
+All our heroes should be honored distinctly this side of idolatry, if
+we are to think for ourselves. Of course we adapt them to ourselves in
+any case. “Every philosopher has his own Kant,” Henri Bergson is said
+to have remarked once, when Kant’s authority was invoked against some
+teaching of his own. We know how Jesus is made to argue for both sides
+of every question. He turned water into wine at the wedding feast in
+Cana, we are told. Yet Sheldon’s clerical hero walking “In His Steps”
+thought it incumbent upon him to destroy the saloons.
+
+It is not the truth which makes one free, but the self-discovered
+truth. Yes, it might be replied, but the important things have already
+been found out. We know how the strainers after novel truths are
+reduced to paradoxes which they display with pride in their mere
+contrariness.
+
+Here there are two replies to be made. In the first place, the truth
+which one laboriously digs out for himself may be either old or new.
+Or it may be both: the ancient idea, as it is discovered by one who
+lives in the modern world, fits properly into his own environment. It
+is no longer Plato’s thought or Aristotle’s, but the new thinker’s. If
+it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, it is also true
+that there is nothing old. I am not what I was yesterday. Neither is
+the street which runs beside my house. Certainly there can be no exact
+replica of Plato or of any Platonic idea in the United States and in
+the twentieth century.
+
+I would not seem to say that the truth is any more true because it
+contradicts old ideas. We are justified in pouncing upon every paradox
+to discover how many fallacies the glitter may hide. The paradoxical
+writers are chiefly valuable because they do make us examine their
+thoughts carefully. It does us little good to have the conventional
+ideas repeated, even when they happen to be true. We are not easily
+tempted to analyze them unless we are naturally of a skeptical
+disposition. But when the ancient idols are rudely brushed aside, we
+are aroused by the noise of the crash. We rush up, perhaps to punish
+the delinquents, perhaps to examine the gods on our own account.
+
+Some, of course, feel that falling upon the iconoclasts is answer
+enough. There have always been people able to answer ideas only with
+blows. But the men and women who have it in them to think are likely to
+pick up the shattered pieces of the idol, to determine for themselves
+if it is worth the trouble of cementing together. If it has once been
+truly broken, of course it can never be the same again. Perhaps the
+bits of metal must be melted down to be cast into a new form.
+
+Just at present there is a great deal of argument, mostly excited,
+about the question: Is war a necessary evil? This is not an “academic”
+matter. Upon our answer depends our attitude to the League of Nations,
+disarmament conferences, military training in the colleges, and various
+other matters. As usual, most people feel qualified to say “Yes”
+or “No” and to defend their opinions hotly. To answer the question
+intelligently, a great deal of specialized knowledge is necessary. Is
+there any fighting instinct in men? Do racial jealousies depend merely
+upon misunderstanding and ignorance--or is there some deeper basis?
+Does war assist in the advancement of culture and civilization? Do wars
+promote manliness or do they weaken the race by killing off the brave
+and the healthy, leaving the cowards and the defective individuals to
+beget the next generation?
+
+Graham Wallas says we fight better than our ancestors knew how, for
+we have better weapons. Yet we are not wiser than they, since we can
+only let accident and inertia prevent a war from breaking out. We have
+no positive means of controlling it, of being sure that international
+peace will be kept.
+
+But we know that many wars have by no means been accidental. For
+example, Bismarck carefully planned the Franco-Prussian War, making
+the French appear to be the aggressors. Certainly most of the diplomats
+of Europe expected the Great War to break out, and comparatively few
+of them made any attempt to avert it. As for the masses of the people,
+they cherished blind hatreds. They did not, of course, understand
+international politics.
+
+Why did the United States join the Allies? Here is a question which
+our historians have not been able to answer satisfactorily. As a
+matter of fact, the question as stated is ambiguous. It calls either
+for causes or for reasons. Perhaps one of the important causes was the
+clever propaganda spread by the Allies, based to a great extent upon
+deliberate falsehoods. One reason frequently given during the war was
+that Germany was led by the godless philosophy of Nietzsche. This is
+utter nonsense, although it is still repeated occasionally by clergymen
+and Y. M. C. A. secretaries.
+
+In 1812, when the young republic was faced with the same problem of
+aggression at the hands of both combatants, the United States declared
+war against Great Britain, not against France. But there was no
+definite alliance with the side which had also acted guiltily. Why did
+things turn out differently in the Great War?
+
+The questions which I leave unanswered my readers may, if they will,
+take for exercises. After all, we citizens of the United States are
+supposed to be able to answer difficult political questions. Often we
+must decide between two candidates for Congress, both of whom we know
+to be unfit to hold such an office, on the ground of their attitude
+for or against the World Court or tariff reduction or some other
+complicated matter.
+
+The elementary textbooks of economics show that the “full dinner pail”
+argument in favor of high import taxes is absolutely fallacious. Yet
+this is relied upon by practically all Republican campaign speakers.
+Again I am not trying to prove anything--except that stupidity is
+widespread. Certainly it would be presumptuous and foolish for me to
+try to settle the tariff question in a single paragraph.
+
+Sometimes, indeed, it seems that Hume was right when he said that
+“reason has no original influence,” that it “is, and ought only to be,
+the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office
+than to serve and obey them.” Of course there is room for discussion
+about the “ought only to be,” in any case. The passions make people
+do ridiculous things: if the condition is hopeless, as Hume suggests,
+we need not approve it. (Not that our approval or disapproval would
+matter, if it were so.)
+
+But the attitude of this little book is not so pessimistic. I prefer to
+consider reason something more than the art of inventing poor excuses
+for worse conduct. At least in some few individuals and at some rare
+times, intelligence is supreme. The implications of such a statement
+are many. I do not think that it contradicts determinism, the doctrine
+necessary to the scientific study of psychology that the condition of
+the mind is fixed by anterior and exterior circumstances. But if we
+admit that the rule of intelligence is ever possible, we are justified
+in trying to learn how to think--not merely how to argue.
+
+Wallas says that thought “may start ... without an immediate stimulus
+of an ‘instinctive’ impulse from the lower brain.” To discuss the
+matter adequately, we should need first of all to consider the various
+definitions of instinct. Yet it seems that there is always some sort
+of stimulus from without. Thought does not arise spontaneously. First
+there is a more or less unpleasant feeling of incompleteness. In other
+words, there is a difficulty, a lack of adjustment to one’s environment.
+
+Thus, while we are wearing our gloves and see them on our hands, we
+do not wonder where they are. But if they are lacking and we remember
+having started out from home with them, we think at once: Where are my
+gloves? If we have entered the Order of Jesus and successfully subdued
+our reason according to the regular system of discipline, we never
+think: Is there a God? But one who has entered a monastery without
+fully subduing his ability to think for himself is likely enough to
+wonder when his sexual impulses trouble him: Is the immortality we are
+promised sure? Is there indeed a God?
+
+But what shall we say of a monk who is fully convinced that he will
+enjoy everlasting bliss if he keeps his oath of chastity and is at the
+same time unable to refrain from fornication? Surely he is ruled by
+his instincts, not by his reason. Even where religion triumphs, the
+victory seems to be won by the emotions, not by the intelligence. Often
+we find a mystical union with God--or with Jesus or Mary, to make the
+picture of heterosexual relations more definite--standing definitely in
+the place of the ordinary manifestations of sex.
+
+At best, we cannot rate reason very highly in any description of
+things as they are. Wallas, defending the originality and the power of
+thought, yet says that some of the most important steps in the process
+are unconscious or half-conscious. This means that they are largely
+uncontrolled, so far as the will is concerned. The Freudian doctrine
+tells us that complex formations actually develop as a result of
+emotional suppressions. This much we know, that the ideas lying below
+the level of consciousness are not arranged in any logical system which
+the conscious mind can accept. Our dreams and reveries offer proof
+enough of this.
+
+Flashes of insight, brilliant guesses which we attribute to intuition,
+demand careful verification. It sometimes happens that a man leaps
+out of bed in the middle of the night with the feeling that he has
+made a wonderful discovery. In the morning, he may not remember what
+it was all about. In this case he is certain that he has missed
+something extraordinary by reason of his failure to have a pad and
+pencil at hand. If he has taken notes, however, he is very likely to be
+disappointed in them. Either they are valuable but yet require much
+laborious amplification or they are palpably worthless.
+
+Robert Graves explains poetic inspiration thus: “When conflicting
+issues disturb his mind, which in its conscious state is unable to
+reconcile them logically, the poet acquires the art of self-hypnotism,
+as practiced by the witch-doctors, his ancestors in poetry.... On being
+interrupted, the poet experiences the disagreeable sensations of a
+sleepwalker disturbed and later finds it impossible to remember how the
+early versions of a poem ran.”
+
+The important thing for us to consider here is that the poet, even if
+he considers his work inspired, nevertheless makes corrections in it.
+Sometimes the defects are small, sometimes they are so great that the
+whole work is worthless. Any interested reader may see what Robert
+Graves did with the later drafts--those he could remember, that is--of
+“Cynics and Romantics.” These he gives in his book _On English Poetry_
+in the chapter called “Surface Faults, an Illustration.”
+
+The four stages in thinking, according to Graham Wallas, are
+preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. The two stages
+referred to by Graves are illumination (or “self-hypnotism”) and
+verification or correction.
+
+Perhaps _education_ would be a fair synonym for _preparation_. For one
+thing, “the ‘educated’ man can ‘put his mind on’ a certain subject
+and ‘turn his mind off’ in a way which is impossible to an uneducated
+man,” as Wallas tells us. In other words, he possesses volitional
+control. But if education, between inverted commas, means attendance
+at a university or at least a good school of secondary grade, the
+statement is only half true. Some self-educated men do lack the ability
+to concentrate upon an intellectual problem. Others do not. The main
+difficulty is to know when to stop thinking about a difficulty. When is
+it truly solved?
+
+When we have found an algebraic X, we can test it, usually without any
+trouble. But sometimes the solutions which flash upon us are not so
+easily tried. For example, I may discover some important new principles
+of government. Yet, not being a professional politician, I have no way
+of introducing even a slight innovation. Shall I test my discovery
+by its conformity to the laws of political science? But there is no
+such science, in any strict use of the word. Well, I may write a book
+explaining my discovery. Thus I should be following the course of
+Plato, when he came to the conclusion that the philosophers should rule
+the state.
+
+Putting one’s ideas into a writing which is published often brings
+about its verification by others. Einstein worked out his theory of
+relativity and tested it as well as he could. Yet his own tests are not
+considered nearly so important as those made by certain astronomers and
+physicists soon after his theory was made public.
+
+Illumination is the only one of Wallas’s four stages which cannot
+easily be controlled. Yet many poets and thinkers have been able to
+use alcoholic beverages and even narcotic drugs to good advantage. If
+the ideas won’t come, sometimes there is nothing to do but wait.
+
+But illumination may fail because the incubation is defective. “We can
+often get more result in the same time,” says Wallas, “by beginning
+several problems in succession, and voluntarily leaving them unfinished
+while we turn to others, than by finishing our work on each problem at
+one sitting.” The associations come up, as it seems, of themselves,
+although voluntary effort fails. If waiting is necessary, perhaps
+another difficulty may meanwhile be attacked.
+
+Or some exercise, like walking, which involves no exceedingly complex
+mental demands of its own, may arouse the fugitive ideas. Idleness as
+well has its uses in the incubation of thought. There is such a state
+as that of being too busy to think. But performing some simple task
+all day, for instance, operating a sewing machine, need not prevent
+constructive thinking. The ordinary workingman of today, doing over and
+over again the same piece of work, is in this respect better off than
+the medieval laborer who made the whole pair of shoes or the whole cart
+by himself. If it is in him to think, his thoughts can incubate during
+his working hours. Moreover, he has a great deal of leisure in which to
+verify his conclusions or to gather material for thought.
+
+He can read books and magazines and newspapers after he is through
+with his work. Yet the man who reads much does not necessarily think
+efficiently. He must leave time for his thoughts to develop and he must
+acquire the art of reading critically: else his reading probably does
+him more harm than good.
+
+
+
+
+SOME COMMON FORMS OF STUPIDITY
+
+
+There is, says H. G. Wells, an “empty gulf in quality between the
+superb and richly fruitful scientific investigations that are going on,
+and the general thought of other educated sections of the community.”
+Graham Wallas points specifically to the lack of perfection in
+politics, jurisprudence, and economics, as well as to deficiencies in
+the coördination of biology, physics, politics, and sociology.
+
+That which is truly scientific is precise. Some of the attempts to make
+the social sciences exact have failed because of undue simplifications.
+Human behavior is a very complex matter, and it cannot accurately be
+set forth with any short formula--or with any long formula that is at
+present available.
+
+The science of psychology, although it is now worthy of the name, is
+yet loosely established. We must remember that all the sciences are
+subject to revision. Einstein appears pretty much to have upset the
+laws of Newton, which have been looked upon with almost religious
+reverence for tens of decades. When we wish to find the truth, we do
+not hesitate to attack the errors to which the names of old authorities
+are attached. Moreover, the man who has the scientific spirit in him
+recognizes that the truth he discovers is very likely relative, that it
+may be overturned by another truth-seeker.
+
+Darwin was a great man. Yet the scientists of today, who accept his
+theory of organic evolution, do not hesitate to criticize his account
+of the machinery bringing about evolution--that is, natural selection.
+So it happens that the ignorant can declare Darwinism discredited, with
+the implication that organic evolution is denied.
+
+Truth which is relative, which is constantly in a state of flux, is
+hard for the lazy-minded to accept. But scientific truth (which is,
+of course, erroneous to an indeterminable extent, which probably will
+never be entirely accurate) is yet infinitely more truthful than any
+fixed dogmas like those of the theologians. So long as scientific
+method remains in use and there are eager workers in the field, we can
+be certain that the truth of the scientists will approach closer and
+closer to absolute truth.
+
+The warfare of science with theology is not yet ended. Where once the
+battleground was in the fields of physics and astronomy, now it is in
+the fields of biology and psychology. When the soul finally goes, what
+will be left for the ministers? Probably a thin residue of ethical
+teachings.
+
+At present the clergy are all more or less afraid of the new biological
+and psychological doctrines. Either they deny them or they attempt
+to adjust their opinions to them, but they cannot help suspecting
+attacks upon their vested interests. Worse still, perhaps, would be the
+uncovering of their own ignorance--an ignorance of great profundity, in
+some instances.
+
+A great many agnostics dislike to see Christianity attacked because
+they believe that religion keeps the masses out of mischief. No matter
+how thoroughly the doctrine of “Whatever is, is right” has been
+spread, however, there have always been criminals and rebels. There
+is no evidence available showing that unbelievers are more ready than
+Christians or Jews or Mohammedans to murder and rob and forge checks.
+
+To set up two standards of truth--one for the “upper” or the more
+intelligent classes, one for those who are regarded as inferior--is
+stupid and dangerous. Absolute truth is supposed to be important
+according to the religious teachings as well as the principles of
+science. When the members of a congregation suspect the minister’s
+agnosticism, their own faith is likely to be troubled. When there is a
+slave morality as well as a separate morality for masters, it must be
+based upon something more tangible than rewards and punishments after
+death. It has usually been maintained with the whip.
+
+But in our civilized communities it seems to be necessary to maintain
+masters and servants without too frequently bloodying backs. I do not
+wish to set forth the Marxian doctrine that there is a great gulf
+between the capitalists and the proletarians. Yet it is obvious that
+some people have power and unlimited luxuries while others go hungry
+on occasion. It is not mere perversity or stupid ignorance, then--as
+James Harvey Robinson and others of his school sometimes appear to
+imply--which causes all sorts of obstacles to be laid in the way of
+the frank teaching of the social sciences. It is the fear that valuable
+privileges will be lost.
+
+It does not seem to me that there is any likelihood in the near future
+of a Bolshevistic revolution in the United States. Those who possess
+intelligence and the qualities of leadership feel that they cannot
+be the gainers by any such overthrow. But a feeling that something
+is being suppressed, that a censorship of ideas exists, if it once
+gains ground, may cause certain individuals to join the revolutionary
+movement.
+
+The present capitalistic system, although it is in many ways palpably
+defective, yet has the merit of working. It is certain that the sudden
+change to a socialistic, syndicalistic, or anarchistic state would,
+at least for several generations, bring about famine and a general
+breakdown in various complex organizations which we consider essential
+for our civilization and culture. Perhaps we may gradually pass into
+socialism. A number of paternalistic tendencies (which I, personally,
+regret) suggest that we are on the way. The importance or lack of
+importance of the Socialistic Party makes no difference. Just now,
+when the Unitarian Church is diminishing in importance, all the old
+doctrines of the Unitarians are being taken over by the religious
+leaders who call themselves modernists.
+
+But if we are in a transition stage, it is well that we should
+know what we are doing. Our fears for vested interests and special
+privileges must not hold us back. All attempts (conscious or
+unconscious) to make ignorance into a Chinese wall are bound to be
+futile. That sort of wall is undermined with dynamite before it is
+erected.
+
+At present, indeed, the free study of sociology seems to mean no more
+than the liberty to exhibit that reason which justifies the actions
+brought about by passion. That is, very little intelligence has been
+brought to bear on the problem of the relations between men. Those who
+argue have opinions which seem to arise out of their own temperaments,
+not out of any objective study of the problem. Thus they would justify
+Hume’s view of reason.
+
+James Harvey Robinson (_The Mind in the Making_) says: “I mean by
+social science our feeble efforts to study man, his natural equipment
+and impulses, and his relations to his fellows in the light of his
+origin and the history of the race.... Human affairs are in themselves
+far more intricate and perplexing than molecules and the chromosomes.
+But this is only the more reason for bringing to bear on human
+affairs that critical type of thought and calculation for which the
+remunerative thought about molecules and chromosomes has prepared the
+way.” He goes on to say in the next paragraph that exact scientific
+results, like those formulated in mechanics, are “of course” out of the
+question.
+
+But we have seen that there is no absoluteness about the laws of
+mechanics. The accepted doctrines of chemistry have been and still
+are being overthrown to a considerable extent. It may be that two or
+three centuries from now the laws of sociology will be as exact as
+those of physics. That is to say, they will be respected until further
+investigation makes it plain that they must be revised.
+
+Precisely as psychology must be founded upon physiology and
+biochemistry, sociology must depend upon psychology. Just at present
+the study of human behavior is in an interesting but somewhat uncertain
+state. The psychoanalysts, Freud especially, have brought in about as
+much new matter as was previously contained in the science. Much of it
+is immediately useful, some of it is worthless or even harmful, a great
+deal will be found useful when it is digested. In a somewhat different
+direction, the experimental behaviorists (not all of whom have
+called themselves by this name) have contributed much to psychology.
+They, too, have made some assumptions which at present seem to be
+unwarranted, but they appear to be working in the right direction.
+The new contributions came just when psychology seemed to be in a
+hopeless state. The teachers had nothing to offer but definitions, and
+originality meant either the invention of new words or the use of the
+old ones in new senses.
+
+Right now we perhaps stand too close to the recent developments
+to understand their full purport. Yet we are justified in feeling
+a certain amount of optimism about the future of psychology and
+consequently about the formation of a genuine science of sociology.
+Only we must take an open-minded attitude, we must not try to draw
+conclusions which will justify our prejudices. That amounts to the
+stupid destruction of unborn knowledge, perhaps also of unborn wisdom.
+Intellectual abortion is never justified and--at least one would like
+to suppose so--never permanently successful. It is healthier to think
+freely, to pursue truth without fear.
+
+After all, we need make no special effort to woo stupidity. It will
+be only too much with us, despite our best efforts to be intelligent.
+Those four “idols” or types of error of which Bacon wrote long ago in
+the _Novum Organum_ still beset the human mind.
+
+The “idols of the tribe” arise out of sensory deficiencies common to
+all men and women. “The human mind,” according to Bacon, “resembles
+those uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different
+objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.”
+
+We may notice in passing that Bacon here takes up definitely the
+scientific point of view. According to some philosophers, objects have
+no existence except as the senses bring them to the minds of men. If we
+were to agree with them, we might not speak of “uneven mirrors” except
+in the case of those individuals who have sensory deficiencies peculiar
+to themselves.
+
+These are, to use Bacon’s fanciful term, “idols of the den.” More
+particularly he applies the term of predilections and prejudices caused
+by the special trend of an individual’s education or by the emotions
+under whose sway he at the moment stands. These warping influences are
+such that we may with Bacon approve the thought of Heraclitus: “that
+men search for knowledge in lesser worlds, and not in the greater or
+common world.”
+
+The “idols of the market” are the errors arising in social intercourse,
+largely through failure to use words in the same precise sense. Even
+in spite of the careful definitions set up by men of science, this
+condition exists. Sometimes, in fact, the scientific definitions
+aggravate the idols of the market; as in those cases where a word used
+in ordinary language is also employed for a somewhat different meaning
+in a field of science.
+
+The “idols of the theater” depend upon the peculiarities of various
+systems of philosophy. It seems to me that these are largely “idols of
+the market,” although the errors described by Bacon under the first two
+heads are also among them.
+
+Of course not all differences in opinion are based upon the varying
+uses of words. If, in a group of one hundred intelligent men, fifty men
+say that they believe in God and fifty that they do not, there may be
+five in each group who really do not disagree. These ten people may all
+believe in some sort of life force which can be called either a vital
+impulse or God. Of course the necessity to answer either “Yes” or “No”
+deprives some of the chance to say, “What way have I of telling?”
+
+In our imaginary gathering, we may suppose that there are Catholics,
+believing in the Holy Trinity and certain that the details of dogma
+are definitely settled by the Church. There are also Protestants of
+various denominations, differing somewhat as to the conception of the
+deity. There are Unitarians, with a still different notion. There is
+a Mussulman, who has no doubt that Allah revealed himself to an Arab
+named Mohammed. There are deists and pantheists and spiritualists and
+agnostics and atheists. Also there are people who seldom think about
+religion, but who call themselves “Baptists” or “Jews” or “Unitarians”
+when an inquiry is made.
+
+Certainly it is not possible to grade people’s intelligence by the
+answers they make in a religious census. There is some evidence that
+the average believer in revealed religion is more stupid than the
+average doubter or unbeliever. Yet the most enthusiastic atheist must
+admit that some who share his opinions are decidedly less wise than
+some who subscribe to, let us say, the tenets of the Roman Catholic
+Church.
+
+Whence arise the differences in belief? The beginning of the answer is
+easy, the rest difficult. Most people belong to a certain religious
+denomination because of the place where they were born and the
+confession of their parents. John Smith is a Methodist because he was
+begotten by James Smith upon Adeline Smith, who was then and who had
+always lived in Atlanta, Georgia. Samuel Cohen is an orthodox Jew
+because he was begotten by Saul ben Isaac Cohen upon Deborah Cohen
+in Cracow. And so with the Buddhist, the Hindu, the American Indian
+believing in a Great Spirit and various little spirits, or the
+Catholic born in Dublin and going faithfully to mass.
+
+Do the countries which are predominatingly Mohammedan have other
+religious needs than those of the predominatingly Christian countries?
+Or is there a peculiar religious instinct inherited among the Turks
+other than that which is inherited among the Irish? Lessing’s wise
+Nathan expresses the view that since we can learn little about God
+through direct experience, we should believe our parents and our
+ancestors. Yet this is but a form of egotism, and a dangerous form,
+too. Why should we consider our ancestors wiser than the ancestors of
+our neighbors who belong to other ecclesiastical organizations?
+
+Robinson’s _The Mind in the Making_ is little more than an attack upon
+this sort of ancestor-worship, although it does not particularly deal
+with religion. But we can hardly help returning again and again to the
+theologians when we discuss the stupidities which are honored chiefly
+because of their antiquity.
+
+Of course, a change in faith, although it represents a revolt
+against meaningless stereotypy, does not always indicate any special
+intelligence. People sometimes change their religions merely as a
+matter of convenience. (Here, of course, we are dealing with words
+more than with genuine beliefs.) Samuel Cohen of Cracow may become
+a convert to the Roman Catholic Church because it will admit him to
+certain political or social advantages or because he cannot marry
+Michalina Riboczech, whom he much loves, on any other terms. Or he
+may come to America and find that he is unable to earn his living
+except by becoming a Methodist minister. Perhaps he does not possess
+enough knowledge of the Talmud to be acceptable as a rabbi, but finds
+ignorance no barrier in a church where he can serve as a living example
+of conversion to the true faith.
+
+What shall we say of the thousands of Japanese and Chinese who
+become Christians without any ulterior motive? They find some sort
+of emotional satisfaction in the new faith which they have not been
+able to find in their ancestral religions. Why? I do not think the
+question can be answered satisfactorily with our present knowledge of
+psychology. Nor can we tell why one brother is a bishop and the other a
+skeptic, except when there is an element of hypocrisy in one case.
+
+The religious attitude is one of belief based upon little or no
+evidence. Beyond the field which we consider religious, we regard such
+an attitude as stupid. As a matter of fact, though, we are influenced
+everywhere by “such factors of belief as fear and hope, prejudice and
+passion, imitation and partisanship, the circumpressure of our caste
+and set.” William James, whose words I have thus employed, argues that
+because these elements are universal, they are therefore justifiable.
+
+Because we have been considering absolute truth and because the
+argument is ingenious, I will here quote some sentences from James’s
+_The Will to Believe_:
+
+  Our belief in truth itself, for instance, that there is a truth,
+  and that our minds and it are made for each other--what is it
+  but a passionate affirmation of desire, in which our social
+  system backs us up? We want to have a truth; we want to believe
+  that our experiments and studies and discussions must put us
+  in a continually better and better position towards it; and on
+  this line we agree to fight out our thinking lives. But if a
+  pyrrhonistic skeptic asks us _how we know_ all this, can our logic
+  find a reply? No! certainly it cannot. It is just one volition
+  against another--we are willing to go in for life upon a trust or
+  assumption which he, for his part, does not care to make.
+
+But if this be unanswerable, then it destroys the system which James
+is trying to erect. If _truth_ has any meaning at all, it must not be
+applied to that which is unproved and seemingly unprovable. If we are
+to think with any accuracy, of course we must recognize that _truth_
+and _proof_ are not absolutes. This recognition gives us no cause for
+returning to the physiology and astrology of the Middle Ages or for
+postulating God and immortality and free will, when these conceptions
+seem to be unnecessary for modern scientific thought.
+
+James wrote _The Will to Believe_ as an attack upon the attitude
+represented in _The Ethics of Belief_ by William Kingdon Clifford. Of
+Clifford’s viewpoint there is a brief summary in his own words:
+
+
+  We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when it is
+  inferred from that experience by the assumption that what we do not
+  know is like what we know.
+
+  We may believe the statement of another person when there is
+  reasonable ground for supposing that he knows the matter of which
+  he speaks and that he is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.
+
+  It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence; and
+  where it is presumption to doubt and to investigate, then it is
+  worse than presumption to believe.
+
+These seem to be principles which we can apply. Certainly there
+exists no general need to believe whenever intellectual options
+present themselves. Often, as we have seen, we are expected to act
+on insufficient information. Thus, the man who declares that he does
+not know whether there is or is not a God who wishes to be worshipped
+must either attend church--as though he believed in this sort of
+divinity--or stay away--as though he did not. Or, though he conceives
+the possibility that Jehovah wishes to be praised, he may refrain from
+church attendance and prayer because he has no way of knowing what may
+be the proper manner in which to go about the matter.
+
+It is not what one believes that matters, except as this is shown in
+what one does. Therefore a deficiency in will power is at the bottom of
+much stupidity. Our worldly hells are paved with good intentions. “It
+is in human nature,” according to Anatole France, “to think wisely and
+to act in an absurd fashion.”
+
+The shrewdest of business men are caught unaware and imposed upon
+by swindlers. Many of the tricks commonly employed depend upon the
+victim’s readiness to share in a doubtful deal. He is made to feel a
+great joy at the thought of his own acuteness, which joy occupies him
+to such an extent that his intellectual powers are impaired. Moreover,
+the victim is given to suppose that great haste is required. At last,
+when he discovers that he has been beswindled, his vanity usually makes
+him keep silent. He would be loath to have people know that he is
+neither as honest nor as wise as he is reputed. Egotism is one of the
+chief causes of folly, as we have already had occasion to notice.
+
+Some people who are not conspicuous for direct vanity yet show the vice
+indirectly, through their blind preferences for their own families,
+their own parties, their own causes. “Wrong or right, my country,” is
+no wiser a saying than “Right or wrong, my prejudices.” The recent
+attempts to make out a case for Germanic or Nordic supremacy are
+entirely ridiculous. As a matter of fact, most Englishmen are racially
+about the same as most Frenchmen.
+
+It is by no means so evident as it once seemed that the white race is
+far superior to those of a darker hue. There are even Europeans and
+Americans who declare the Chinese and the Japanese are wiser than we.
+As to the negro race, there is but little evidence that it stands on a
+low intellectual level because of organic limitations. A few colored
+people of pure blood have performed outstanding achievements. We have
+reason to believe that their accomplishments are exceptional only
+because the negroes have had few educational opportunities. The colored
+people living in the north seem to be more alert and less stupid than
+those working in the fields of Mississippi and Florida.
+
+Woltmann declares that the negroes are inferior because they attain
+the age of puberty sooner. At this time, according to some students of
+the matter, brain development ceases. If this were the case, and if the
+rate of brain development while it lasts were the same in all races,
+then we should be able to grade intelligence among races according to
+climate. We should expect the Eskimos, to whom nubility comes late, to
+be far more intelligent than the Spanish and Italians, to whom it comes
+early. But we have no reason to come to any such conclusion.
+
+Otto Ammon, after studying the people of Baden, came to the conclusion
+that the Nordics (with long heads, blue eyes, and blond hair) are
+superior to those of Alpine derivation (with short heads and dark
+hair). But he and the writers in Germany and other countries who
+agree with him have assumed rather than proved their conclusions. By
+way of rebuttal, Loewenfeld declares that the two greatest German
+philosophers, Kant and Schopenhauer, were both short-headed. Goethe,
+whatever shape his skull may have had, certainly possessed dark hair
+and eyes. The assumption of Nordic superiority is based upon prejudice
+rather than upon scientific evidence.
+
+Is stupidity more common among the poor than among the rich? Of course
+we are unable to answer such questions accurately because of the lack
+of dependable criteria. But we know that most persons want to become
+wealthy and we may reasonably infer that those who acquire fortunes
+do excel in certain intellectual characteristics. That these traits
+or general mental superiority is transmitted to rich men’s children
+is sometimes asserted. Of course they are likely to have special
+educational facilities. Besides this, they have unusual opportunities
+to show what they can do in positions of responsibility.
+
+And yet they often prove to be inferior in business or in the
+professions to the children of the poor. Often they have failed to
+acquire habits of industry. Or else they are anxious to do no work
+which might seem menial or undignified.
+
+There can be no question that most dynasties have been founded by
+men of unusual ability. Nevertheless, the kings and queens of Europe
+are in most cases persons of merely average intellect. Psychoses and
+neuroses are not rare among them. Perhaps a partial explanation of
+royal degeneration is to be found in their inbreeding. The mixed fruit
+of royalty and the common people is almost always declared illegitimate.
+
+Very few great men have had children gifted with genius. So far,
+the laws of heredity explain comparatively little about the sudden
+appearance of remarkable traits. But the children of intelligent people
+are likely to be less stupid than those whose parents are fools. The
+factors of original nature and of education are both in favor of the
+former class.
+
+Forms of stupidity vary much with time and place. The tendency to do
+as one’s fellows do is a strong one. Especially in a mob, it sometimes
+appears that the prevailing level of intelligence is that of the most
+stupid members. But mob psychology deals in general with states of
+excitement. Sometimes actions are attributed to mere numbers which are
+due to emotional stress felt by all the individuals in the crowd.
+
+For intelligence is no guarantee against impulsive action. Love and
+hate and fear and jealousy and sympathy make normally wise people do
+exceedingly foolish things. The mob is capable of killing innocent
+persons. So is almost any man, when his hate is aroused.
+
+  And all men kill the thing they love,
+    By all let this be heard,
+  Some do it with a bitter look,
+    Some with a flattering word.
+
+These verses of Oscar Wilde’s are justified. The passions do not exert
+themselves in a definite and controlled direction. Therefore love can
+slay about as well as hate. Probably better, for the opportunities are
+greater.
+
+Physical ill health is at the bottom of much stupidity. Although the
+direct influence upon the higher nervous centers may be little, there
+are all sorts of indirect effects caused by illness. Frequently the
+patient is in a constant state of suppressed anger. Any trifle makes
+him find fault with his physician and his attendants.
+
+Sometimes, indeed, the patient does not become angry with his
+nurse. He may fall into an attitude of dependence upon her. This
+occasionally--especially in the case of men just entering the first
+stage of senile dementia--leads to foolish marriages.
+
+Old age, like childhood, is more or less the scene of folly.
+Comparatively few individuals are as intelligent in the 70’s and 80’s
+as they were in the 30’s and 40’s. Most men are physically strongest at
+about the age of 25. The height of mental power comes later, perhaps
+at about 45. After that the memory tends to decline. The other mental
+traits become impaired usually in the 60’s.
+
+The folly peculiar to youth depends largely upon lack of experience.
+Deficiency in self-control is also an important element--one, to be
+sure, that frequently lasts through life. Child prodigies usually show
+a one-sided development. Though they may be quick thinkers, they seldom
+probe deeply.
+
+The thinker is immature until he has a supply of experiences and
+ideas at his service. These will come, if he only learns to apply the
+principle of order. This is the instrument with which we make the most
+of our minds. When we learn how to use order, we become as gods. For
+then we can take the chaos about us and build it into a universe.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+In the .txt version, surrounding characters have been used to indicate
+  _Italics_
+Minor typographical and spelling errors have been corrected
+p. 29 retained unchanged the sentence beginning “The educational
+  critics”
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78906 ***
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+      How to Conquer Stupidity | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78906 ***</div>
+
+<main>
+
+<table>
+<tbody><tr>
+  <td class="tdl">LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO.<br>
+Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="up">759</span></td></tr>
+
+</tbody></table>
+
+<h1>
+How to Conquer<br>
+Stupidity
+</h1>
+
+
+<p class="front">Leo Markun</p>
+<br><br>
+<p class="center">HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS<br>
+GIRARD, KANSAS</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1927,<br>
+Haldeman-Julius Company</p>
+</div>
+
+<br><br>
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="toc-container">
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Page</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">Introduction</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">Learning How to Think</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl">Some Common Forms of Stupidity</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br><br>
+<p class="center">
+  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="fh2">HOW TO CONQUER STUPIDITY</p>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">
+    INTRODUCTION
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Perhaps <i>stupidity</i> is a somewhat vague term.
+In general, we know what it is. Webster’s
+Collegiate Dictionary defines it as the “Quality
+or state of being foolish; extreme dullness of
+understanding; crass foolishness.” Dr. L.
+Loewenfeld, in his thorough German treatise
+<i>On Stupidity</i>, points out that the word may be
+applied with regard to an individual or with
+regard to single acts of persons who are not
+considered stupid. The wisest person is capable
+of occasional foolish deeds.</p>
+
+<p>I shall speak here of stupidity not only as
+weakness of understanding but also as improper
+response of any sort. I shall not, however,
+particularly concern myself with awkwardness
+of body. Moreover, I have considered certain
+aspects of mental inefficiency in <i>How to Think
+Logically</i> (No. 1063), <i>Insanity and Other Mental
+Disorders</i> (No. 1094), and several other Little
+Blue Books. I shall try not to repeat myself
+except where this appears necessary.</p>
+
+<p>When we speak of a man as being stupid, we
+mean usually that he has less than average intelligence.
+But here we are again employing
+words which are without exactness. Intelligence
+cannot be measured as though it were a
+matter of weight or specific gravity. There are
+so-called Mentimeter tests, somewhat similar
+to the army intelligence tests with which some
+of my readers may be familiar; but they do not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>entirely live up to their name. They do afford
+a rough index to the possession of certain qualities.
+They should not be used without considerable
+caution, however. There have been a
+number of unwarranted attempts made to draw
+deductions from these tests as though their
+value had been conclusively demonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. George A. Dorsey truly says, “I can test
+your capacity or intelligence or your will only
+as I can pick a winner at a horse race. I know
+at the end of the race.” The whole idea of testing
+and grading seems to be based upon an
+academic fallacy. Who was more intelligent,
+Socrates or Napoleon? Pasteur or Alexander
+the Great? Shakespeare or Goethe? If these
+men had been given Alpha or Mentimeter tests,
+should we be able better to answer these questions
+now? I think not.</p>
+
+<p>Stupidity is a relative matter, just as intelligence
+is. In a primitive tribe, the man who
+has good muscles, good vision, and good hearing,
+with a certain amount of what we call
+savage cunning, is amply able to take care of
+himself. He may become chief and he is almost
+certain to be well supplied with food and wives.
+In a civilized community, if he is extraordinarily
+well supplied with the endowments mentioned,
+he may perhaps make a fortune as an
+athlete. In this case he will not lack for wives,
+either. But if he is intellectually of low grade,
+he may not be able to retain his large earnings.
+He is likely to spend them quickly for foolish
+luxuries and to dissipate them by gambling.
+Then, when middle age weakens his muscles,
+he is forced to adjust himself to inferior living
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>conditions. Then he is called a fool—a term
+seldom applied to one actually in possession of
+considerable wealth.</p>
+
+<p>What is stupidity in a college town may be
+ordinary intelligence in a mine or a sculptor’s
+studio or on the baseball field. It may even
+be genius. People who are extraordinarily developed
+in one direction may be underdeveloped
+in others. A man may be a great general or an
+industrial leader without having an ear for
+music. We are not justified in calling a scientist
+stupid because he absent-mindedly hands
+the conductor a button instead of his ticket.
+His act is one of stupidity, however, as I use
+the term here. If his absent-mindedness should
+manifest itself frequently while he is conducting
+important scientific experiments, it would
+be indicative of great stupidity, of unfitness for
+his work.</p>
+
+<p>What we call folly or stupidity may amount
+to a lack of will power, an inability to concentrate
+upon the problems of life. Or it may
+be due to improper habit formations. Usually,
+but perhaps not always, it is connected with a
+lack of intellectual capacity in the narrow
+sense. The idea of stupidity is after all subjective.
+The martyr-masochist (we may take
+Jesus and Socrates as examples, although their
+lives as we have them seem to be masses of
+legends) is a hero to his follower, a “damned
+idiot” to the unsympathetic. But, from the
+point of view of their own development, they
+are not stupid. They do what it is within
+them to perform and to suffer. Here I pay no
+heed to the verdict of history, and rank the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>unsuccessful with the successful Christs. When
+Nathan Hale was hanged, he did not know that
+the Revolution was going to succeed. He did
+not know that the school books of his country
+would some day set him up as a patriotic
+example. If these states were still British
+colonies, we should probably think of Hale—if
+we thought of him at all—as a fool. We should
+probably think of George Washington and all
+the other rebel leaders in the same way.</p>
+
+<p>John Brown’s scheme was absurd. The
+chance that his expedition should succeed was
+not one in a thousand. It failed, and yet his
+failure helped finally to bring about the abolition
+of slavery. Edmund Clarence Stedman
+was right when he wrote in 1859:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent14">And Old Brown,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent14">Osawatomie Brown,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">May trouble you more than ever when you’ve nailed his coffin down!</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Would Brown have been more of a fool if the
+United States had been destined to retain Negro
+slavery? In other words, is failure positive
+proof of stupidity?</p>
+
+<p>I suppose the answer depends in the final
+analysis upon our definition of failure. The
+man who has given up his life to disinterested
+service can hardly be blamed for not having
+earned a large fortune. Even if we are unable
+to sympathize with his motives, we must understand
+that he probably succeeded in realizing
+most of his own ambitions. Sometimes, indeed,
+people work hard in one direction to forget
+failure where success was most desired. The
+laurel wreath may then fall to ashes amid the
+applause of the unseeing crowd.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p>
+
+<p>But in general we rate a man according to
+his seeming ability to adjust himself to his environment.
+We soon forget his petty stupidities
+if he is able to do some one thing better
+than his neighbors, provided only that his accomplishment
+is highly rated. At present the
+preacher who can send his hearers into convulsions
+of religious ecstasy is almost sure to
+get his name into <i>Who’s Who in America</i> and is
+fairly certain, if he possesses a certain flair for
+business, to amass a comfortable fortune. But
+the same man, born in an irreligious age might
+be simply a lazy good-for-nothing or even a
+patient in an insane asylum. What became of
+all the potential scientists who were born in
+the Middle Ages and accomplished nothing?
+Poor stupid fellows, most of them must have
+been called by their neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, we know few people well
+enough to be justified in calling them stupid.
+Of course not all the feebleminded and demented
+men and women are removed from the
+world’s work. But it is better to keep the
+definitely diseased mentally out of our conception
+of stupidity. Since we are concerned
+with the conquest of folly and since the mental
+disorders are either incurable at present or
+curable only by medical treatment of one sort
+or another, we shall leave them out of account.
+What interests us primarily is the correction
+by the individual himself of his own
+minor stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>We should understand, though, that mental
+capacity cannot be enlarged by any effort of
+the will. After an individual has reached his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>full growth, his mental capacity may be decreased
+by an accident or disease, but there is
+no known way by which he or others can increase
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Still, mental attainment can be raised, for
+the reason that it is never equal to mental
+capacity. To elevate the level of mental attainment
+means (in the widest sense of the word)
+to educate. What we call stupidity may really
+be ignorance or lack of order. Moreover, lack
+of order, that is, an imperfect scientific method
+or logical system, is the most common cause of
+ignorance. The man who has learned how to
+study, not the one who has acquired a few
+random scraps of information, is on the way
+to becoming educated. The slow apprentice is
+sometimes undervalued when he is actually laying
+the proper foundations for his work.</p>
+
+<p>Teachers often fail to appreciate the merits
+of the boys and girls in their care. If they are
+intelligent, they can see that certain bright
+children are properly acquiring their Latin and
+their English, and may some day be teachers
+themselves. But that the boy who simply cannot
+learn his literary history may have it in
+him to be a poet—that they are ordinarily unable
+to understand, unless the boy is already
+writing verses for the school magazine.</p>
+
+<p>A high school teacher once asked me why I
+didn’t think of taking up the profession of
+chemist. I was too amazed to reply. And
+yet, from the ordinary academic viewpoint of
+grades, he was justified in his question. I stood
+somewhere near the head of his class, relatively
+higher than I did in my English section. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>new science was of considerable interest to
+me, even if the mechanics of laboratory work
+proved somewhat irksome. But a professional
+chemist must attain a certain amount of manual
+dexterity and a considerable interest in the
+mechanics of his work. It is probable enough
+that some of the boys whose work in the
+high school class was mediocre are now on
+the way to becoming successful chemists.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, I feel that I appreciate
+literature more intelligently than the classmates
+of mine who were better prepared in
+high school to explain the allusions in “Comus”
+or to tell what Wyatt and Surrey wrote. For
+me, at that time, the subjects were dull because
+they were still unclothed with flesh.</p>
+
+<p>This bit of autobiography is set down here
+for the light it may shed upon problems of
+development as they are presented to the
+teacher and the parent. It is not always easy
+to tell the true trend of a child’s abilities.
+Sometimes, indeed, the boy or the girl knows,
+even if the teacher does not. When there is a
+question of genius, perhaps genius is necessary
+to recognize it. To the world it may be
+the living image of stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that genius in the restricted sense
+is such a rare phenomenon that most of us need
+not concern ourselves about the ability to recognize
+it. But the products of genius, especially
+when they are of a novel sort, are likely to
+prove puzzling. No less a critic than Henry
+James wrote about one of Walt Whitman’s
+books of verse: “It has been a melancholy one
+to write about it.... It exhibits the effort
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>of an essentially prosaic mind to lift itself, by
+a prolonged muscular strain, into poetry.” Despite
+all Whitman’s tricks of false poetizing,
+this verdict is decidedly unjust. The fact is
+that James was not himself poet enough to
+recognize poetry except in traditional garb.</p>
+
+<p>To stigmatize difference as inferiority is an
+egregious form of egotism. It indicates a lack
+of the ability of self-criticism, too. Hard-headed
+business men are wont to look down upon poets
+and philosophers, and these are accustomed to
+retaliate in kind.</p>
+
+<p>The qualities which enable a man to succeed
+in business are of course different in part—although
+by no means entirely—from those which
+make an artist. The musician and the sculptor
+must not be judged too harshly for deficiencies
+in their ability to carry on commercial
+transactions. Many artists find it advisable to
+leave all matters of business to agents or
+managers.</p>
+
+<p>We must be careful, then, not to consider
+people stupid simply because their experiences
+and their ways of life do not coincide with our
+own. If they do not possess that particular
+wisdom which is ours, they may be amply
+compensated in some other way. The man
+who has lived all his life on a farm does not
+know the city ways: but neither does the town-bred
+man know how to manage cows and
+chickens.</p>
+
+<p>When the scientist goes into a remote region
+and finds that the inhabitants believe in
+all sorts of queer superstitions, he should not
+consider them all stupid on this account. They
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>have had no opportunity to learn the methods
+or the conclusions of modern science. They
+should be judged no more harshly than Socrates
+would be for knowing nothing of the geometry
+of Minkowski and the equations of Lorentz.
+Living in his time, the philosopher could not be
+familiar with modern mathematics. Living
+where they do, the Arkansas “hill billies” naturally
+cling fast to the superstitions of their
+fathers.</p>
+
+<p>But the educated man (so called) who believes
+that breaking a mirror will bring him
+seven years of bad luck is, so far as this belief
+is concerned, stupid. The authors of
+Genesis are not to be reproached for thinking
+that all the species of men and animals
+were brought simultaneously into being by a
+fiat of God. Considering the state of knowledge
+in their time, their idea was natural
+enough. But it is a disgrace when men calling
+themselves scientists now shut their eyes to
+the abundance of testimony for organic evolution.
+I think we can call them stupid without
+any priggishness.</p>
+
+<p>However, stupidity of one sort does not altogether
+damn any individual. A man with very
+foolish prejudices and without any particular
+understanding of history may nevertheless be
+able efficiently to manage a great industrial
+establishment. He may or may not be a good
+collector of antiques. His ability to tell good
+music from bad must be judged without reference
+to his other elements of mental and
+physical strength and weakness.</p>
+
+<p>The only criterion we have for stupidity is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>lack of success in one or another respect. And
+yet, as we are all aware, the chance factors
+play a great part in determining success or
+failure. The successful general is not necessarily
+cleverer than the commander he defeats,
+even when their forces appear to be evenly
+matched. The millionaire may differ from the
+pauper simply in that he has had better opportunities.</p>
+
+<p>This and other considerations have brought
+about various attempts to measure mental ability
+directly. We have already considered briefly
+the intelligence tests now being used by
+various psychologists. Of still lower value, by
+far, is phrenology, the pseudoscience which
+examines the skull to find there an index
+to the mental faculties and traits of character.
+So far as the mind has any one single organ,
+this is the brain. But it does not seem that
+the shape of the head or the existence of certain
+“bumps” on it bears any definite relationship
+to mental capacity.</p>
+
+<p>Even the weighing of the brains of the dead
+does not seem to give any absolute conclusions.
+Pearson and Pearl, examining thousands of
+individual brains, found that the mean average
+brain weight of the adult Englishman was 27
+grams less than that of the Bavarians, 57 grams
+less than that of the Hessians, 65 grams less
+than that of the Swedes, and 120 grams less
+than that of the Bohemians. Are we to conclude
+that the average Bohemian is proportionately
+more intelligent than the average
+Englishman? Certainly not without additional
+evidence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p>
+
+<p>A man who died in an asylum in Vienna was
+found to have brains weighing 2028 grams and
+without any pathological alterations which
+microscopic examination could reveal. Gambetta,
+the famous French statesman, had brains
+weighing only 1241 grams, or 150 grams less
+than the average.</p>
+
+<p>Aside from weighing the brains, all sorts of
+measurements and examinations have been
+made, but these <i>post mortem</i> intelligence tests
+remain of indefinite value. Nevertheless it appears
+that the structure of the brain is responsible
+for the difference, or for part of the
+difference, between a highly intelligent and a
+stupid individual. But the physiologists and
+the anatomists have not altogether solved the
+problem.</p>
+
+<p>We do know that certain diseases sometimes
+reduce intellectual capacity. A serious attack
+of typhus fever, for instance, may leave the
+patient feebleminded or at least comparatively
+stupid. Injuries to the head or tumors of the
+brain may do serious injury to the mind. Or
+the gray matter of the brain may be injured
+by various drugs, leading to more or less definite
+mental changes.</p>
+
+<p>Probably a great many fools are such simply
+because they have never had any chance to
+develop those qualities in which they might
+have excelled. In them we could not find any
+physical basis for their stupidity, I suppose,
+even if brains gave up their secrets in the dissecting
+room. Of course education is not identical
+with intelligence, but it affords means
+of arrangement and order. Perhaps it is necessary
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>to add that by education I mean more than
+the formal teaching of the schools and colleges.
+As we have seen, we do not lay undue weight
+upon the minor eccentricities and deficiencies
+of the man who can write a great poem or
+compose important symphonies. But let us suppose
+that the potential genius never learns his
+alphabet or his musical scales. All that remains
+to him in life is his stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes said that the man who has
+genius in him will not be stopped by difficulties
+of this sort. He will somehow educate
+himself. Actually we have seen men with none
+of the usual advantages display sufficient power
+of will to reach their goal. But we know little
+of those who have been discouraged. Here
+we have a certain justification for the democratic
+idea of education for all, even if this
+seems to lead to some unfortunate results.</p>
+
+<p>The educated fool, the man whose head is
+crammed full of facts and who may possess
+a certain fluency in argument but who is yet
+unmistakably stupid, exists among us in large
+numbers. At least in part, though, the fault
+belongs with the system of education. Specifically,
+the teacher thinks of the multiplication
+table or the college entrance examination as
+an end in itself, without regard to the individual
+pupil, his capabilities and his needs.</p>
+
+<p>Even in our best educational institutions,
+little progress has been made in the synthesizing
+of knowledge. The student working at
+his psychology seldom has it borne in upon him
+that if the science has any meaning at all, it
+is an instrument for criticizing literature and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>for understanding life. Knowledge is not bound
+up in little packages labeled English A and
+Social Ethics 4 and Biology 9a, as university
+catalogues seem to indicate.</p>
+
+<p>The more we learn, the more specialization
+becomes necessary. And thus it happens that
+we have admiralty lawyers, physicians who
+have forgotten all that they ever knew except
+that which pertains to the genito-urinal system,
+specialists in the calculus of tensors or in plant
+histology. This tendency to specialization, which
+can hardly be escaped or regarded as an unmitigated
+evil, yet stimulates the production
+of wise fools.</p>
+
+<p>If the university professorships are many,
+there is still room for instruction in the art
+of thinking, which means really the art of
+living. But here, I greatly fear, the qualified
+experts are pretty conspicuous by reason of
+their absence. It is, after all, a somewhat
+optimistic definition which makes man the
+thinking animal. Most of our reactions are instinctive
+or habitual or inspired by our emotions.
+In fact, constituted as we at present
+are, the attempt to do nothing except as the
+result of formal thought would be fatal.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps the attitude of thinking for oneself
+might be profitably encouraged. The ordinary
+teacher is literally frightened when a
+pupil discovers something for himself beyond
+the text and the commentary. This is as much
+as to reproach the teacher for not having done
+any original teaching!</p>
+
+<p>It is a human trait to follow the lines of
+least resistance. Therefore the intelligent pupil
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>reasons out matters for himself only when he
+has failed to prepare the set lesson. Then he
+calls his act one of “bluffing.” If his recitation
+or his examination paper is found satisfactory,
+he feels that he has outwitted the teacher.
+Unfortunately there is a considerable amount
+of truth in this assumption. But it is a truth
+which does no credit to our educational
+methods.</p>
+
+<p>If we are to learn how to think at all, we
+must learn it by ourselves, and largely through
+many trials and by rejecting a great many
+errors. (In the final analysis, all education
+is self-education. We cannot successfully be
+crammed full of knowledge by any outsider.
+A good teacher can do no more than stimulate
+and point out certain pitfalls.) Some people
+never learn to think for themselves—and no
+thinking which is copied from another deserves
+the name of thought at all. Originality is
+the leading, the differentiating, ingredient.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="LEARNING_HOW_TO_THINK">
+    LEARNING HOW TO THINK
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>“A being who could not think without training,”
+says John Dewey, “could never be trained
+to think; one may have to learn to think <i>well</i>,
+but not to <i>think</i>.” The lower animals cannot
+be taught to think at all, because they do not
+possess the power to generalize. It seems that
+the same thing might be said, with some
+qualifications, of the less complex or “lower”
+races of mankind. Among us, too, we find
+a great many people of more or less vegetative
+character. Their thinking is of the simplest,
+and it occurs comparatively rarely.</p>
+
+<p>The elements necessary to thought are, according
+to Dewey in <i>How We Think</i>, classifiable
+under three heads. First of all there
+must be an accumulation of experiences and
+facts from which suggestions arise. As I have
+tried to show in <i>How to Think Logically</i>, all
+our knowledge comes eventually from our sense
+impressions. The material used in thought does
+not arise mysteriously, out of nothing, in the
+mind. But with the store of experiences and
+facts are inferences and ideas built up out of
+the data afforded by the sense. Every individual
+selects and combines for himself.</p>
+
+<p>The second element necessary for thought
+consists of the “promptness, flexibility, and
+fertility of suggestions.” That is, the experiences
+must be available. They must
+not be too deeply forgotten, but must be within
+easy reach when they are needed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p>
+
+<p>The third element is the “orderliness, consecutiveness,
+appropriateness, in what is suggested.”
+The images and ideas may come up
+in large number and yet may not assist efficient
+thinking. They must first of all be relevant.
+Also they must be available in an orderly
+chain. The principle of order in thinking is
+of the utmost importance. Furthermore, it can
+be acquired much more easily than the ability
+to gather a great many experiences and to keep
+them within easy reach. Merely to hear and
+see much is of little avail. We know the people
+who travel all around the world and come
+home to prove themselves as stupid and as
+ignorant as before. It is the principle of order,
+indeed, which gives the ability to accumulate
+experiences and facts and to make use of them
+at will.</p>
+
+<p>What causes us to look about us, to listen,
+to taste, to smell and to touch? Instincts and
+habits of various sorts. Some psychologists
+speak of a special instinct of curiosity, which
+is at the basis of all science. But I suppose
+the accumulation of knowledge is in general
+strictly utilitarian. Primitive man studied the
+habits of various animals not because he was
+trying to establish the science of zoölogy, not
+because he had any abstract curiosity, but because
+he wanted to eat certain creatures and
+to escape being eaten by others, and then because
+he had accidentally stumbled upon the
+fact that some animals might be partially tamed
+and so rendered of use to the human race.</p>
+
+<p>We learn first of all by doing. Of all the
+proofs that the earth is approximately spherical
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>in shape, the best one to the man without special
+training is the fact that it has been circumnavigated.
+Incidentally, this proof is not
+of much value until the earth has been circumnavigated
+from north to south and from south
+to north through the poles.</p>
+
+<p>Physics and chemistry did not originate in a
+disinterested will to learn, but in the attempt
+to solve certain problems of practical importance.
+Even, now, the students of the pure
+sciences justify themselves with the apologetic
+statement that any scientific discovery may
+prove of important usefulness.</p>
+
+<p>The “Why?” of the child or of the philosopher
+is at bottom an attempt to learn that which
+may be put to use. At present, indeed, there
+is some tendency to make a parlor game of
+philosophy, to divorce it from real life. But
+wisdom is not desired as an ornament alone,
+and the true love of wisdom cannot exist in
+a vacuum. No valid distinction is to be made
+between the wisdom of life and wisdom in the
+abstract. The abstract is, in general, merely
+a representation in shorthand of the concrete.
+Such words as <i>fear</i> and <i>valor</i> and <i>justice</i> have
+very definite reference to behavior. They are
+not mere counters to be played with by learned
+professors.</p>
+
+<p>Abstractions are to thought what levers and
+pulleys and inclined planes are in the handling
+of unwieldy masses. They assist greatly in
+the ease, the range, and the depth of suggestions
+which come up for the solution of a
+problem.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking is problem solving. But if this word
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>makes us think of arithmetic and algebra, we
+should note at once that we must not depend
+too much upon the answers found in official
+keys. Teachers and preachers and writers are
+wont to state with all the flourishes of authority
+what nobody knows or what, at any rate,
+they are not intelligent enough to discover.</p>
+
+<p>To turn from thought to unreasoning faith
+is obviously to confess failure. Sometimes this
+confession covers only a small field, sometimes
+it extends over the whole field of knowledge.
+The Fundamentalist wants to find all his
+science in the Bible, the Modernist perhaps only
+part of his psychology and philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>Loewenfeld tells of an ignorant old woman
+who lived with a tubercular man. The health
+authorities warned her against using the same
+glass from which he drank and exposing herself
+in various other ways. “That’s foolishness,”
+she said. “If God doesn’t want me to
+get sick, I’ll stay well; and if he wants me to
+get consumption, it won’t do me any good to
+use a separate glass.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course many religious people proceed on
+the more sensible assumption that “God helps
+those who help themselves.” Even the piety
+which is sure that miracles occurred in olden
+days does not depend upon their recurrence in
+our time. Yet there is a Christian sect, most
+of whose members belong to the “upper classes”
+and consider themselves educated, which
+teaches that only faith can cure disease.</p>
+
+<p>There is not room here to discuss the utility
+of religion or the possible existence of a deity.
+The Little Blue Book reader can find ample
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>material dealing with these subjects in a number
+of the booklets, notably the series by Joseph
+McCabe. But here we may notice what a large
+variety of miscellaneous follies have been upheld
+in the name of religion. For instance, it
+was formerly declared that the building of
+railroads was inspired by Satan. At times during
+the Middle Ages, all men who were indiscreet
+enough to show themselves more learned
+than the multitude were denounced as followers
+of the same fallen angel. Mohammed declared
+that faithful Mussulmans might have
+more than one wife apiece, but that they should
+drink no wine. Or rather he asserted that
+tasting the first drop is the dangerous thing.
+Some of his followers employed great ingenuity
+in not tasting the first drop but in getting the
+full advantage of all the rest. When Protestant
+American Christianity borrowed this prohibitory
+tenet from Islam, some of its leaders made
+mental reservations to find similar evasions
+for themselves. Perhaps some of them have
+also believed that the enactment of Prohibition
+carried with it the legalization of polygamy.
+But, of course, the scandals which have circulated
+about certain ministers are not enough
+in themselves to damn religion. They simply
+prove that human nature is human, even within
+temples, tabernacles, and manses.</p>
+
+<p>Much has been said and written about the
+stupidity of asceticism. If, however, poverty
+and chastity are really pleasing in the sight of
+God, and if they lead certainly to ineffable
+eternal bliss, then they are amply justified.
+Many a burglar has gone cheerfully to a term
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>of ten years in the penitentiary, his heart gladdened
+by the thought of the little fortune which
+he has safely hidden away to enjoy after his
+release. Should not all good Catholics hie them
+to nunneries if a little temporary self-denial can
+assure them of so much hereafter? But the
+priestly leaders see that the consistent application
+of this doctrine would drive a great many
+into apostasy and would leave no Catholics of
+legitimate birth for the next generation.</p>
+
+<p>In theory, the Catholics have the Bible interpreted
+for them by the Church, but the Protestants
+read it and decipher its mysteries for
+themselves. As we know, however, each sect
+has its own creed. Only in a few of the Unitarian
+congregations are the individual members
+free to decide if Jehovah is a man or a
+sun-myth or a force found in nature. Even
+here I suppose nobody goes to church where
+he cannot agree with most of the minister’s
+teachings.</p>
+
+<p>It is a common tendency to hear and read
+only those arguments which confirm one’s own
+beliefs. The organs of orthodox religion circulate
+among the orthodox, the liberal religious
+papers go to the liberals, the anticlerical magazines
+go chiefly to atheists and agnostics and
+deists. Very few Republicans read the Socialist
+papers and books, unless it be to find ammunition
+for anti-Socialistic arguments.</p>
+
+<p>In the United States, the party system is such
+that no particular thought is required on the
+part of the voter. It is much easier to follow
+in one’s father’s footsteps than to attempt to
+differentiate the principles of one party from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>those of another or to find out which candidate
+for Keeper of the Dog Pound is best qualified
+for the office. In a municipal election, the
+Republicans always stand for economy and
+needed improvements, the Democrats for needed
+improvements and economy. Whichever party
+has its principles approved, taxes go up and
+the improvements are postponed. Perhaps I
+am needlessly cynical: I have only lived in
+two or three of the cities and read about some
+of the others.</p>
+
+<p>The citizen who is not a politician by profession
+can only give part of his time and thoughts
+to government. On the other hand, the political
+leaders make it their business to have the control
+of things—especially of the treasury—in
+their own hands. This is understandable
+enough. But the civics teachers in the schools
+teach their pupils that the government of the
+United States is perfect, or at least that it
+would be perfect if all the qualified voters went
+to the polls. Despite the evidence afforded by
+their senses, some good people continue to cherish
+this naïve belief.</p>
+
+<p>But it appears that comparatively few minds
+are capable of probing to the root of a matter.
+Most are contented with shallow suggestions,
+with some easy appeal to authority. It is so
+easy to answer a complex problem with a name;
+to say, for instance, that a lecturer for world
+peace is a Bolshevist, and with that word to
+shut off further debate.</p>
+
+<p>This fault is not confined to drug store philosophers
+and American Legion leaders. Professor
+Graham Wallas—in a book on <i>The Art of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>Thought</i>, too—turns upon McDougall and the
+other psychologists who deny the mysterious
+energies hypothesized by the vitalists with the
+assertion that they are furnishing a system
+which the Bolsheviks turn to account for their
+propaganda.</p>
+
+<p>Bolshevism is dangerous, many Italians and
+Spaniards have argued; therefore a dictator is
+necessary. But there is no true question of
+<i>either</i> ... <i>or</i>. The fear of Lenin’s ideas has
+contributed much to the decline—temporary, let
+us hope—of the love of liberty in America. The
+French Revolution had the same effect in England
+in the time of Burke and Godwin. Hazlitt
+wrote that “waking from the trance of
+theory we hear the words Truth, Reason, Virtue,
+Liberty, with the same indifference or
+contempt that a cynic who has married a jilt or
+a termagant listens to the rhapsodies of lovers.”</p>
+
+<p>The reason is that these capitalized abstractions
+had been nothing more than words. If
+liberty is once associated with a reign of terror,
+immediately it seems corrupted to the thoughtless.
+The abuse, for them, reflects upon the
+proper use. Temporary associations must
+never be confounded with necessary accompaniments.</p>
+
+<p>The rough and ready thinking of the multitude
+jumps from the frying-pan into the fire,
+from Lenin to Mussolini, from tyranny in the
+name of liberty to tyranny in the names of
+security and glory. If the licensed saloon-keepers
+were friendly with the police authorities,
+so are the unlicensed bootleggers. Regular
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>medicine is imperfect, but chiropractic and
+Christian Science are absurd.</p>
+
+<p>When business is poor or wheat sells for a
+low price, then it is time to send out the
+Republicans and to elect Democrats, many people
+seem to think. Meanwhile the attempt to
+find real correctives is neglected. This is as
+bad as sending for the priest instead of the
+doctor when a child is dying of diphtheria.</p>
+
+<p>Such conduct is surely indicative of disordered
+thinking, of a sightless groping for
+associations. People accustom themselves to
+living on the instinctive and habitual level,
+and in times of emergency their apparatus for
+thought is as if rusted by disuse.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking is not simply a discharge. It must
+be directed against some obstacle. Must we
+then wait for some great difficulty to present
+itself before we employ our intelligence? No,
+for in that case we should invariably find ourselves
+unprepared. Thinking requires practice
+at least as much as piano-playing does.</p>
+
+<p>But to talk of practice is perhaps to lead
+astray. For our instinctive and habitual and
+emotional responses are not sufficient in civilized
+life. We must regulate them with thought.
+Intelligence is always useful, provided only
+that it is worthy of its name. Sometimes it is
+imperatively demanded, but we can use it every
+day, almost every waking moment. This is not
+to imply that the mind must be in a constant
+state of strain or that we should strive to rid
+ourselves of our instincts and our habits without
+regard for their demonstrated value.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me take the liberty further to observe,”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>writes Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe to her
+hot-tempered brother, “that the principal end
+of a young man’s education is to teach him to
+reason justly and to subdue the violence of his
+passions.” Is there indeed some connection
+between just reasoning and the control of one’s
+passions? Or, in any case, was either very well
+taught at Oxford and Cambridge in the eighteenth
+century? Or, for that matter, are the
+ability to reason and the power to control one’s
+temper communicated to the students in the
+American colleges of the present day?</p>
+
+<p>Self-control is hardly inculcated in our
+schools above the primary grades. Indeed it is
+largely a matter for parents to attend to while
+their children are young. Moreover, many good
+reasoners have exceedingly violent tempers.
+In the moment of passion they do what they
+may afterward greatly regret.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it is stupid to act with unnecessary
+haste and violence. But a bad temper
+is seldom to be mended in adult life. Few persons
+possess sufficient strength of will to correct
+a tendency which should have been checked
+during their formative years. The hot-tempered
+are forced to patch up with what diplomacy
+they may possess the consequences of their
+thoughtless actions. Sometimes, indeed, a perverted
+sense of honor causes them to defend
+in cold blood the wrongs they have done while
+excited. Thus they add stupidity of a gross
+kind to their former folly. To confess that one
+has been in the wrong is no disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>The egotism which fails to understand this
+is a common cause of foolish actions. Obviously
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>it is difficult to judge oneself in the same
+way that one judges another. We all know
+that human beings in general are fallible. Even
+the most intelligent of our friends and neighbors
+make mistakes. Why not we? If we
+truly grant the principle, we may find instances
+in plenty. Then we have an opportunity to
+correct many of our errors. But if we refuse
+to admit their existence, our hands are bound
+from the very start.</p>
+
+<p>A good sense of humor is a distinct aid here.
+He who laughs healthily laughs sometimes at
+himself. Thus, consciously or unconsciously,
+he admits his lack of perfection. This confession
+does not automatically open the door to
+improvement, of course. It seems there are
+some good-natured people who carefully preserve
+their minor foibles in order that they
+may joke about them. But, if they are at all
+ingenious, surely they may be merry without
+holding fast to their faults.</p>
+
+<p>The objective conception of self is absolutely
+prerequisite to the attainment of an exact or
+scientific system of thinking. In the mind
+which overvalues self, immortality is an uncontradictable
+postulate. The sun goes around
+the earth, and the solar system is the center
+and most important part of the universe. God
+is like man—like the egocentric “thinker,” that
+is. The white race—or, if it is a Chinese
+speaking, the yellow race—is superior to the
+rest. The United States is the greatest country
+in the world, Indiana is the fairest state in
+it, and Kokomo should be “boosted” everywhere
+for the fine city of home-loving citizens it is.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>When civic pride lends to improvement, it is
+thoroughly justified. But when it is a mere
+expression of vainglory, it is no better than
+any individual’s blatant self-glorification.</p>
+
+<p>The first and most important intellectual
+task of man is the control of his own body.
+The work of self-control starts early in infancy.
+The child must learn to put its food
+and drink into the proper place, to walk, to
+speak, and so on. This is not thinking, but
+it is work for the nervous system as well as
+for the muscles. Perhaps the beginning of generalized
+thought came when the child starts to
+mark out the boundaries between itself and the
+outside world. This leg can be made to move
+at will, that leg (which belongs to Mother
+Dear) will move at Baby’s command only by
+special favor. Previously, when Baby’s limbs
+had been under a less exact control and when
+Mother had run to obey the child’s slightest
+desire, if this could but be understood, the distinction
+between the I and the She had not
+been so clear.</p>
+
+<p>Definitely to understand the self and its
+limitations is at once to rule out all magic. I
+cannot destroy an enemy by means of the evil
+eye because there is no ray of malicious animal
+magnetism proceeding from me. There are all
+sorts of forces in the universe, and my special
+powers conform to the usual order. If I should
+lean far out of the window without in some way
+being held back, there is no doubt that I should
+fall. Like an apple or a bar of iron or a cat, I
+am acted upon by gravitational forces. Like
+all living organisms, I feed and excrete for a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>brief period, and presently my body will decompose.
+If I think and the milkweed does not,
+this does not mean that I, as a man, am subject
+to any special laws of nature. It simply
+indicates that my ancestors have been acted
+upon in definite ways—not all thoroughly understood
+at the present moment, we must
+concede.</p>
+
+<p>I have certain senses, and objects exist for
+me as I see and hear and smell and taste them,
+or as they feel hot or cold or painful to the
+touch. In this way I am revealed to myself,
+too. If I had been deaf from birth but had
+nevertheless been taught to speak, my voice
+would be little more to me than the sensations
+in my throat.</p>
+
+<p>Perceptions are important as they are apperceived,
+that is, interpreted in terms of what is
+already known. Proper observation involves
+orderly arrangement, as has already been said.
+In training the powers of observation, the
+essential thing to watch for is proper selection.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, we learn this pretty
+well without any formal teaching. <span id="critics">The educational
+critics who said that people do not
+observe well, because they are unable to tell
+offhand if the numerals on their watch dials
+are Roman or Arabic, was misadvised.</span> Dewey
+rightfully observes that we pull out our timepieces
+to find the time, not to see if the fourth
+number is represented by IV or 4. Most of us
+can make the latter investigation without any
+difficulty when it is necessary to do so.</p>
+
+<p>Every act of observation leads to a general
+intellectual conclusion. This thesis, like some
+others which are stated here, is developed in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>my booklet entitled <i>How to Think Logically</i>.
+At this point we may consider it sufficient
+argument against the educators who would develop
+the art of observation as a thing in
+itself. Actually no one of the mental “faculties”
+is independent or is capable of its own
+intellectual development. Even the stupid
+teachers who conceive of education as mere
+memorizing assist to some extent in their
+pupils’ learning how to think and do.</p>
+
+<p>All taught subjects must bear a relation to
+personal problems. This thought is important
+enough to bear repetition. Without such a
+unifying conception, all attempts at education
+are certain to be fruitless.</p>
+
+<p>One learns in terms of what one already
+knows. The child who has seen a brook can
+readily imagine the greater brook which is a
+river. The boy in the city slums who has seen
+no greater body of running water than that
+contained in the gutter after a rain must begin
+his study of hydrography here.</p>
+
+<p>This sort of learning prevents the formation
+of two different worlds, one of what is contained
+in books and lectures, the other of the
+experiences of life. No man is a pedant who
+assimilates his learning to actual problems.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Cowper’s words in <i>The Task</i> are frequently
+justified:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">In heads replete with thoughts of other men,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The mere materials with which wisdom builds,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Does but encumber what it seems to enrich.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p>
+
+<p>The possession of considerable intelligence
+does not protect one from occasional lapses
+into folly. Certainly those who possess a great
+deal of formal education are not on this account
+free from stupid thoughts and actions. Their
+great danger is that of failing to see their
+specialties, those subjects in which they are
+most interested and best informed, in their
+proper relation to the rest of reality. Sometimes
+they imagine that all the world is interested
+in certain theories which they or their
+teachers have developed.</p>
+
+<p>Men sometimes become interested in a certain
+reform movement to such an extent that
+nothing else matters. The universe is but a
+place from which alcohol or tobacco is to be
+driven. Or some form of recreation occupies
+all their thoughts. Life is worthwhile to them
+because it affords a certain amount of time
+for bowling or playing pinochle or cheering on
+the local baseball team.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the development of the human
+being must be true to itself. We are not justified
+in quarreling with a man or calling him
+stupid because his interests differ from our
+own. But the hobby-horse must not ride unchecked
+when it comes into society. The ship-builder,
+for example, need not bore us to death
+about ships: he may do it quite as well talking
+about his score at golf. But if he would have
+people call him clever, he had better either remain
+silent and listen to others’ discussions of
+their vocations and avocations or else diversify
+his own remarks.</p>
+
+<p>In conversation and in letter-writing, much is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>merely conventional. We could save a good
+deal of time, no doubt, by never saying “Hello”
+or writing “Dear Sir.” In fact a great many
+of the things we do are, from a certain point of
+view, rather stupid. But actually we find it
+more troublesome and annoying to revolt
+against the minor conventions of life than to
+follow them. Taken all in all, etiquette does
+help much to avoid social friction of an unpleasant
+sort. Yet it is foolish to be too slavishly
+bound by the formal rules of polite society.</p>
+
+<p>A famous heroine in French fiction preferred
+to be drowned rather than to remove her skirts
+so she could swim. Many people have this same
+attitude toward the conventions. But of course
+the power of thought is of little avail except if
+it can be applied to a practical criticism of
+fixed habits and rules. Nothing is too sacred
+for the thinker. Everything is to be tested not
+by the standards of sterile authority but by its
+value in the thinker’s own world.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, though, that we are leaning more
+than ever upon intellectual authority. Who
+has knowledge enough to consider and weigh
+for himself the evidence against and for the
+theory of organic evolution, Einstein’s theory
+of relativity, and the theory that the works
+attributed to Homer were written by various
+men and molded into something like their present
+form by ancient minstrels? Surely no one
+man can judge all three theories with reference
+to the full evidence. If we are to have opinions,
+we must base them upon the conclusions
+of the experts.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p>
+
+<p>Very well, but what are we to do when the
+experts disagree? Or when we are unable to
+tell who is qualified to pass an opinion? Very
+often the difficulty may be evaded. If we know
+little of mathematics and physics and astronomy,
+it is by no means necessary that we should
+hold any definite opinion about relativity. The
+attitude of suspended judgment serves well
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose, though, that we cannot escape
+in this manner. We are serving on a jury. The
+defendant has killed the woman he loves. The
+state calls a number of experienced alienists
+who declare the man perfectly sane. The defense
+calls upon a number of equally eminent
+experts who explain his psychosis, dwelling
+upon his inability to distinguish right from
+wrong. We scratch our heads to indicate that
+we should like to begin thinking but do not
+know just how to start. Probably we should
+never have been summoned to solve such a
+problem. The long hypothetical questions are
+too intricate for us to understand. How do
+we actually come to a conclusion? Perhaps we
+watch the defendant to see if he looks like the
+maniacs we have seen on the screen in short
+comedies. Or we say to one another in the
+jury room, “There’s too much of this murdering.
+If we let this guy off because he’s nuts,
+there’ll be plenty more doing the same thing.”
+Actually we should give the benefit of any
+doubt to the defendant. There are infinitely
+more lunatics executed than sane men who
+escape on the plea of insanity. But the ordinary
+man cannot recognize a malingerer. Sometimes
+the experts require weeks of observation.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>Yet, after a hurried and necessarily perfunctory
+examination, they are ready to give
+their solemn opinions in court.</p>
+
+<p>Often we are confronted with insufficient
+evidence and yet are required to make up our
+minds in one way or another. For the manufacturer
+the question may appear in this form:
+Shall I dismiss my workingmen, whom I may
+not be able to get back when the busy season
+comes, or shall I have them make up stock,
+which I may be unable to dispose of? Such a
+problem is usually solved with reference to
+past experiences. But the year to come may
+be unlike those just preceding. There are all
+sorts of guesses about the future. Certain experts
+draw intricate graphs purporting to indicate
+the trend of business. They speak wisely
+about cycles and counteracting tendencies.
+Sometimes they are right—no doubt more often
+than the mere guesser. And so the modern
+manufacturer leans a little, not too heavily,
+upon their wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>Any forecaster able to predict the approximate
+course of the real estate boom in Florida
+might quickly have earned enough to retire
+from the forecasting profession forever. Here,
+apparently, was a case unexplainable by the
+thinker: very small causes led to very great
+results. A few legal measures of interest to
+the wealthy class seemed to make gold mines
+of swamps and deserts. The chief causes of
+the boom were of course psychological. Those
+speculators who understood this took their
+quick profits and went away. Sometimes they
+were in too great a hurry, and the fools to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>whom they sold their properties made more
+than they.</p>
+
+<p>But we must not conclude that the stupid
+people have all the luck. Intelligence makes
+opportunities and employs them to good purpose.
+Folly stumbles and is very conspicuous
+when it stumbles upon gold. At the same time,
+we must remember that wisdom is not the
+only factor making for success. A beautiful
+woman or even a handsome man with no brains
+may have the thorns removed from the roses
+of life just because of her or his physical
+attractiveness.</p>
+
+<p>A matter of luck, obviously. But so is it a
+matter of luck that one should be more intelligent
+than one’s neighbors. Wisdom can be
+improved upon—but so can beauty. Both are
+controllable only to a limited extent. Perhaps
+the advantages of clear thinking are not so
+obvious as those of a clear complexion, however.
+There seems to be a greater demand
+for the latter.</p>
+
+<p>If thinking is somewhat painful, so, I believe,
+is receiving a permanent wave or an application
+of beauty clay. But it is only necessary
+to have the fee to be seized upon by the beautifiers.
+While the educational institutions in
+America are usually hospitable enough, while
+they even attempt to seize upon the students
+who are sufficiently unresisting and permanently
+to “wave” their minds, the results are
+often unsatisfactory. In education the passive
+attitude is hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>The problem of learning how to think is,
+then, first of all one for the learner himself to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>solve. Perhaps this little book may be read
+by some high school and college pupils who
+are dissatisfied with the narrowness of their
+teachers, disappointed that they cannot come
+into contact with more stimulating minds. Ah,
+but narrow-mindedness and stupidity have lessons
+to teach, too. Sometimes it is better not
+to be influenced unduly by the wise: there is
+a certain tendency to swallow their conclusions
+whole. Many people accept Emerson’s
+theory of compensations at face value because
+it is Emerson’s, who would grin cynically at
+the same idea propounded by Dr. Frank Crane.</p>
+
+<p>All our heroes should be honored distinctly
+this side of idolatry, if we are to think for
+ourselves. Of course we adapt them to ourselves
+in any case. “Every philosopher has
+his own Kant,” Henri Bergson is said to have
+remarked once, when Kant’s authority was
+invoked against some teaching of his own. We
+know how Jesus is made to argue for both
+sides of every question. He turned water into
+wine at the wedding feast in Cana, we are
+told. Yet Sheldon’s clerical hero walking “In
+His Steps” thought it incumbent upon him to
+destroy the saloons.</p>
+
+<p>It is not the truth which makes one free, but
+the self-discovered truth. Yes, it might be replied,
+but the important things have already
+been found out. We know how the strainers
+after novel truths are reduced to paradoxes
+which they display with pride in their mere
+contrariness.</p>
+
+<p>Here there are two replies to be made. In
+the first place, the truth which one laboriously
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>digs out for himself may be either old or new.
+Or it may be both: the ancient idea, as it is
+discovered by one who lives in the modern
+world, fits properly into his own environment.
+It is no longer Plato’s thought or Aristotle’s,
+but the new thinker’s. If it is true that there
+is nothing new under the sun, it is also true
+that there is nothing old. I am not what I
+was yesterday. Neither is the street which
+runs beside my house. Certainly there can
+be no exact replica of Plato or of any Platonic
+idea in the United States and in the twentieth
+century.</p>
+
+<p>I would not seem to say that the truth is any
+more true because it contradicts old ideas.
+We are justified in pouncing upon every paradox
+to discover how many fallacies the glitter
+may hide. The paradoxical writers are chiefly
+valuable because they do make us examine
+their thoughts carefully. It does us little good
+to have the conventional ideas repeated, even
+when they happen to be true. We are not
+easily tempted to analyze them unless we are
+naturally of a skeptical disposition. But when
+the ancient idols are rudely brushed aside, we
+are aroused by the noise of the crash. We
+rush up, perhaps to punish the delinquents,
+perhaps to examine the gods on our own account.</p>
+
+<p>Some, of course, feel that falling upon the
+iconoclasts is answer enough. There have always
+been people able to answer ideas only
+with blows. But the men and women who have
+it in them to think are likely to pick up the
+shattered pieces of the idol, to determine for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>themselves if it is worth the trouble of cementing
+together. If it has once been truly broken,
+of course it can never be the same again.
+Perhaps the bits of metal must be melted
+down to be cast into a new form.</p>
+
+<p>Just at present there is a great deal of argument,
+mostly excited, about the question: Is
+war a necessary evil? This is not an “academic”
+matter. Upon our answer depends our
+attitude to the League of Nations, disarmament
+conferences, military training in the colleges,
+and various other matters. As usual,
+most people feel qualified to say “Yes” or “No”
+and to defend their opinions hotly. To answer
+the question intelligently, a great deal of specialized
+knowledge is necessary. Is there any
+fighting instinct in men? Do racial jealousies
+depend merely upon misunderstanding and ignorance—or
+is there some deeper basis? Does
+war assist in the advancement of culture and
+civilization? Do wars promote manliness or
+do they weaken the race by killing off the
+brave and the healthy, leaving the cowards and
+the defective individuals to beget the next
+generation?</p>
+
+<p>Graham Wallas says we fight better than
+our ancestors knew how, for we have better
+weapons. Yet we are not wiser than they,
+since we can only let accident and inertia
+prevent a war from breaking out. We have no
+positive means of controlling it, of being sure
+that international peace will be kept.</p>
+
+<p>But we know that many wars have by no
+means been accidental. For example, Bismarck
+carefully planned the Franco-Prussian War,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>making the French appear to be the aggressors.
+Certainly most of the diplomats of Europe expected
+the Great War to break out, and comparatively
+few of them made any attempt to
+avert it. As for the masses of the people, they
+cherished blind hatreds. They did not, of
+course, understand international politics.</p>
+
+<p>Why did the United States join the Allies?
+Here is a question which our historians have
+not been able to answer satisfactorily. As a
+matter of fact, the question as stated is ambiguous.
+It calls either for causes or for reasons.
+Perhaps one of the important causes
+was the clever propaganda spread by the Allies,
+based to a great extent upon deliberate falsehoods.
+One reason frequently given during the
+war was that Germany was led by the godless
+philosophy of Nietzsche. This is utter nonsense,
+although it is still repeated occasionally
+by clergymen and Y. M. C. A. secretaries.</p>
+
+<p>In 1812, when the young republic was faced
+with the same problem of aggression at the
+hands of both combatants, the United States
+declared war against Great Britain, not against
+France. But there was no definite alliance
+with the side which had also acted guiltily.
+Why did things turn out differently in the
+Great War?</p>
+
+<p>The questions which I leave unanswered my
+readers may, if they will, take for exercises.
+After all, we citizens of the United States are
+supposed to be able to answer difficult political
+questions. Often we must decide between two
+candidates for Congress, both of whom we
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>know to be unfit to hold such an office, on the
+ground of their attitude for or against the
+World Court or tariff reduction or some other
+complicated matter.</p>
+
+<p>The elementary textbooks of economics
+show that the “full dinner pail” argument in
+favor of high import taxes is absolutely fallacious.
+Yet this is relied upon by practically
+all Republican campaign speakers. Again I
+am not trying to prove anything—except that
+stupidity is widespread. Certainly it would be
+presumptuous and foolish for me to try to settle
+the tariff question in a single paragraph.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, indeed, it seems that Hume was
+right when he said that “reason has no original
+influence,” that it “is, and ought only to be,
+the slave of the passions, and can never pretend
+to any other office than to serve and obey
+them.” Of course there is room for discussion
+about the “ought only to be,” in any case. The
+passions make people do ridiculous things: if
+the condition is hopeless, as Hume suggests,
+we need not approve it. (Not that our approval
+or disapproval would matter, if it were
+so.)</p>
+
+<p>But the attitude of this little book is not so
+pessimistic. I prefer to consider reason something
+more than the art of inventing poor
+excuses for worse conduct. At least in some
+few individuals and at some rare times, intelligence
+is supreme. The implications of such a
+statement are many. I do not think that it
+contradicts determinism, the doctrine necessary
+to the scientific study of psychology that the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>condition of the mind is fixed by anterior and
+exterior circumstances. But if we admit that
+the rule of intelligence is ever possible, we
+are justified in trying to learn how to think—not
+merely how to argue.</p>
+
+<p>Wallas says that thought “may start ...
+without an immediate stimulus of an ‘instinctive’
+impulse from the lower brain.” To discuss
+the matter adequately, we should need first of
+all to consider the various definitions of instinct.
+Yet it seems that there is always some
+sort of stimulus from without. Thought does
+not arise spontaneously. First there is a more
+or less unpleasant feeling of incompleteness.
+In other words, there is a difficulty, a lack of
+adjustment to one’s environment.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, while we are wearing our gloves and
+see them on our hands, we do not wonder
+where they are. But if they are lacking and
+we remember having started out from home
+with them, we think at once: Where are my
+gloves? If we have entered the Order of Jesus
+and successfully subdued our reason according
+to the regular system of discipline, we never
+think: Is there a God? But one who has entered
+a monastery without fully subduing his
+ability to think for himself is likely enough to
+wonder when his sexual impulses trouble him:
+Is the immortality we are promised sure? Is
+there indeed a God?</p>
+
+<p>But what shall we say of a monk who is
+fully convinced that he will enjoy everlasting
+bliss if he keeps his oath of chastity and is at
+the same time unable to refrain from fornication?
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>Surely he is ruled by his instincts, not
+by his reason. Even where religion triumphs,
+the victory seems to be won by the emotions,
+not by the intelligence. Often we find a mystical
+union with God—or with Jesus or Mary,
+to make the picture of heterosexual relations
+more definite—standing definitely in the place
+of the ordinary manifestations of sex.</p>
+
+<p>At best, we cannot rate reason very highly
+in any description of things as they are. Wallas,
+defending the originality and the power of
+thought, yet says that some of the most important
+steps in the process are unconscious or
+half-conscious. This means that they are
+largely uncontrolled, so far as the will is concerned.
+The Freudian doctrine tells us that
+complex formations actually develop as a result
+of emotional suppressions. This much we
+know, that the ideas lying below the level of
+consciousness are not arranged in any logical
+system which the conscious mind can accept.
+Our dreams and reveries offer proof enough
+of this.</p>
+
+<p>Flashes of insight, brilliant guesses which
+we attribute to intuition, demand careful verification.
+It sometimes happens that a man
+leaps out of bed in the middle of the night
+with the feeling that he has made a wonderful
+discovery. In the morning, he may not remember
+what it was all about. In this case he is
+certain that he has missed something extraordinary
+by reason of his failure to have a pad
+and pencil at hand. If he has taken notes,
+however, he is very likely to be disappointed
+in them. Either they are valuable but yet require
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>much laborious amplification or they are
+palpably worthless.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Graves explains poetic inspiration
+thus: “When conflicting issues disturb his
+mind, which in its conscious state is unable to
+reconcile them logically, the poet acquires the
+art of self-hypnotism, as practiced by the
+witch-doctors, his ancestors in poetry....
+On being interrupted, the poet experiences the
+disagreeable sensations of a sleepwalker disturbed
+and later finds it impossible to remember
+how the early versions of a poem ran.”</p>
+
+<p>The important thing for us to consider here
+is that the poet, even if he considers his work
+inspired, nevertheless makes corrections in it.
+Sometimes the defects are small, sometimes
+they are so great that the whole work is worthless.
+Any interested reader may see what
+Robert Graves did with the later drafts—those
+he could remember, that is—of “Cynics and
+Romantics.” These he gives in his book <i>On
+English Poetry</i> in the chapter called “Surface
+Faults, an Illustration.”</p>
+
+<p>The four stages in thinking, according to
+Graham Wallas, are preparation, incubation,
+illumination, and verification. The two stages
+referred to by Graves are illumination (or
+“self-hypnotism”) and verification or correction.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps <i>education</i> would be a fair synonym
+for <i>preparation</i>. For one thing, “the ‘educated’
+man can ‘put his mind on’ a certain subject
+and ‘turn his mind off’ in a way which is impossible
+to an uneducated man,” as Wallas tells
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>us. In other words, he possesses volitional
+control. But if education, between inverted
+commas, means attendance at a university or
+at least a good school of secondary grade, the
+statement is only half true. Some self-educated
+men do lack the ability to concentrate upon an
+intellectual problem. Others do not. The main
+difficulty is to know when to stop thinking
+about a difficulty. When is it truly solved?</p>
+
+<p>When we have found an algebraic X, we
+can test it, usually without any trouble. But
+sometimes the solutions which flash upon us
+are not so easily tried. For example, I may
+discover some important new principles of
+government. Yet, not being a professional
+politician, I have no way of introducing even
+a slight innovation. Shall I test my discovery
+by its conformity to the laws of political science?
+But there is no such science, in any
+strict use of the word. Well, I may write a
+book explaining my discovery. Thus I should
+be following the course of Plato, when he came
+to the conclusion that the philosophers should
+rule the state.</p>
+
+<p>Putting one’s ideas into a writing which is
+published often brings about its verification
+by others. Einstein worked out his theory of
+relativity and tested it as well as he could.
+Yet his own tests are not considered nearly
+so important as those made by certain astronomers
+and physicists soon after his theory was
+made public.</p>
+
+<p>Illumination is the only one of Wallas’s four
+stages which cannot easily be controlled. Yet
+many poets and thinkers have been able to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>use alcoholic beverages and even narcotic
+drugs to good advantage. If the ideas won’t
+come, sometimes there is nothing to do but
+wait.</p>
+
+<p>But illumination may fail because the incubation
+is defective. “We can often get more
+result in the same time,” says Wallas, “by
+beginning several problems in succession, and
+voluntarily leaving them unfinished while we
+turn to others, than by finishing our work on
+each problem at one sitting.” The associations
+come up, as it seems, of themselves, although
+voluntary effort fails. If waiting is
+necessary, perhaps another difficulty may
+meanwhile be attacked.</p>
+
+<p>Or some exercise, like walking, which involves
+no exceedingly complex mental demands
+of its own, may arouse the fugitive
+ideas. Idleness as well has its uses in the
+incubation of thought. There is such a state
+as that of being too busy to think. But performing
+some simple task all day, for instance,
+operating a sewing machine, need not prevent
+constructive thinking. The ordinary workingman
+of today, doing over and over again the
+same piece of work, is in this respect better
+off than the medieval laborer who made the
+whole pair of shoes or the whole cart by himself.
+If it is in him to think, his thoughts can
+incubate during his working hours. Moreover,
+he has a great deal of leisure in which to
+verify his conclusions or to gather material
+for thought.</p>
+
+<p>He can read books and magazines and newspapers
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>after he is through with his work. Yet
+the man who reads much does not necessarily
+think efficiently. He must leave time for his
+thoughts to develop and he must acquire the
+art of reading critically: else his reading probably
+does him more harm than good.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="SOME_COMMON_FORMS_OF_STUPIDITY">
+    SOME COMMON FORMS OF STUPIDITY
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>There is, says H. G. Wells, an “empty gulf
+in quality between the superb and richly fruitful
+scientific investigations that are going on,
+and the general thought of other educated sections
+of the community.” Graham Wallas
+points specifically to the lack of perfection in
+politics, jurisprudence, and economics, as well
+as to deficiencies in the coördination of biology,
+physics, politics, and sociology.</p>
+
+<p>That which is truly scientific is precise.
+Some of the attempts to make the social sciences
+exact have failed because of undue simplifications.
+Human behavior is a very complex
+matter, and it cannot accurately be set
+forth with any short formula—or with any
+long formula that is at present available.</p>
+
+<p>The science of psychology, although it is
+now worthy of the name, is yet loosely established.
+We must remember that all the sciences
+are subject to revision. Einstein appears
+pretty much to have upset the laws of Newton,
+which have been looked upon with almost religious
+reverence for tens of decades. When we
+wish to find the truth, we do not hesitate to
+attack the errors to which the names of old
+authorities are attached. Moreover, the man
+who has the scientific spirit in him recognizes
+that the truth he discovers is very likely relative,
+that it may be overturned by another
+truth-seeker.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin was a great man. Yet the scientists
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>of today, who accept his theory of organic
+evolution, do not hesitate to criticize his account
+of the machinery bringing about evolution—that
+is, natural selection. So it happens
+that the ignorant can declare Darwinism discredited,
+with the implication that organic evolution
+is denied.</p>
+
+<p>Truth which is relative, which is constantly
+in a state of flux, is hard for the lazy-minded
+to accept. But scientific truth (which is, of
+course, erroneous to an indeterminable extent,
+which probably will never be entirely accurate)
+is yet infinitely more truthful than any
+fixed dogmas like those of the theologians. So
+long as scientific method remains in use and
+there are eager workers in the field, we can
+be certain that the truth of the scientists will
+approach closer and closer to absolute truth.</p>
+
+<p>The warfare of science with theology is not
+yet ended. Where once the battleground was
+in the fields of physics and astronomy, now it
+is in the fields of biology and psychology. When
+the soul finally goes, what will be left for the
+ministers? Probably a thin residue of ethical
+teachings.</p>
+
+<p>At present the clergy are all more or less
+afraid of the new biological and psychological
+doctrines. Either they deny them or they attempt
+to adjust their opinions to them, but they
+cannot help suspecting attacks upon their
+vested interests. Worse still, perhaps, would
+be the uncovering of their own ignorance—an
+ignorance of great profundity, in some instances.</p>
+
+<p>A great many agnostics dislike to see Christianity
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>attacked because they believe that religion
+keeps the masses out of mischief. No
+matter how thoroughly the doctrine of “Whatever
+is, is right” has been spread, however,
+there have always been criminals and rebels.
+There is no evidence available showing that unbelievers
+are more ready than Christians or
+Jews or Mohammedans to murder and rob and
+forge checks.</p>
+
+<p>To set up two standards of truth—one for
+the “upper” or the more intelligent classes, one
+for those who are regarded as inferior—is
+stupid and dangerous. Absolute truth is supposed
+to be important according to the religious
+teachings as well as the principles of
+science. When the members of a congregation
+suspect the minister’s agnosticism, their own
+faith is likely to be troubled. When there is a
+slave morality as well as a separate morality
+for masters, it must be based upon something
+more tangible than rewards and punishments
+after death. It has usually been maintained
+with the whip.</p>
+
+<p>But in our civilized communities it seems to
+be necessary to maintain masters and servants
+without too frequently bloodying backs. I do
+not wish to set forth the Marxian doctrine that
+there is a great gulf between the capitalists and
+the proletarians. Yet it is obvious that some
+people have power and unlimited luxuries
+while others go hungry on occasion. It is not
+mere perversity or stupid ignorance, then—as
+James Harvey Robinson and others of his
+school sometimes appear to imply—which
+causes all sorts of obstacles to be laid in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>way of the frank teaching of the social sciences.
+It is the fear that valuable privileges
+will be lost.</p>
+
+<p>It does not seem to me that there is any
+likelihood in the near future of a Bolshevistic
+revolution in the United States. Those who
+possess intelligence and the qualities of leadership
+feel that they cannot be the gainers by
+any such overthrow. But a feeling that something
+is being suppressed, that a censorship
+of ideas exists, if it once gains ground, may
+cause certain individuals to join the revolutionary
+movement.</p>
+
+<p>The present capitalistic system, although it
+is in many ways palpably defective, yet has
+the merit of working. It is certain that the
+sudden change to a socialistic, syndicalistic,
+or anarchistic state would, at least for several
+generations, bring about famine and a general
+breakdown in various complex organizations
+which we consider essential for our civilization
+and culture. Perhaps we may gradually pass
+into socialism. A number of paternalistic tendencies
+(which I, personally, regret) suggest
+that we are on the way. The importance or
+lack of importance of the Socialistic Party
+makes no difference. Just now, when the Unitarian
+Church is diminishing in importance, all
+the old doctrines of the Unitarians are being
+taken over by the religious leaders who call
+themselves modernists.</p>
+
+<p>But if we are in a transition stage, it is well
+that we should know what we are doing. Our
+fears for vested interests and special privileges
+must not hold us back. All attempts
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>(conscious or unconscious) to make ignorance
+into a Chinese wall are bound to be futile.
+That sort of wall is undermined with dynamite
+before it is erected.</p>
+
+<p>At present, indeed, the free study of sociology
+seems to mean no more than the liberty
+to exhibit that reason which justifies the actions
+brought about by passion. That is, very
+little intelligence has been brought to bear on
+the problem of the relations between men.
+Those who argue have opinions which seem
+to arise out of their own temperaments, not
+out of any objective study of the problem.
+Thus they would justify Hume’s view of reason.</p>
+
+<p>James Harvey Robinson (<i>The Mind in the
+Making</i>) says: “I mean by social science our
+feeble efforts to study man, his natural equipment
+and impulses, and his relations to his
+fellows in the light of his origin and the history
+of the race.... Human affairs are in
+themselves far more intricate and perplexing
+than molecules and the chromosomes. But this
+is only the more reason for bringing to bear on
+human affairs that critical type of thought and
+calculation for which the remunerative thought
+about molecules and chromosomes has prepared
+the way.” He goes on to say in the
+next paragraph that exact scientific results,
+like those formulated in mechanics, are “of
+course” out of the question.</p>
+
+<p>But we have seen that there is no absoluteness
+about the laws of mechanics. The accepted
+doctrines of chemistry have been and
+still are being overthrown to a considerable
+extent. It may be that two or three centuries
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>from now the laws of sociology will be as exact
+as those of physics. That is to say, they will
+be respected until further investigation makes
+it plain that they must be revised.</p>
+
+<p>Precisely as psychology must be founded
+upon physiology and biochemistry, sociology
+must depend upon psychology. Just at present
+the study of human behavior is in an interesting
+but somewhat uncertain state. The psychoanalysts,
+Freud especially, have brought in
+about as much new matter as was previously
+contained in the science. Much of it is immediately
+useful, some of it is worthless or
+even harmful, a great deal will be found useful
+when it is digested. In a somewhat different
+direction, the experimental behaviorists (not
+all of whom have called themselves by this
+name) have contributed much to psychology.
+They, too, have made some assumptions which
+at present seem to be unwarranted, but they
+appear to be working in the right direction.
+The new contributions came just when psychology
+seemed to be in a hopeless state. The
+teachers had nothing to offer but definitions,
+and originality meant either the invention of
+new words or the use of the old ones in new
+senses.</p>
+
+<p>Right now we perhaps stand too close to
+the recent developments to understand their
+full purport. Yet we are justified in feeling a
+certain amount of optimism about the future
+of psychology and consequently about the formation
+of a genuine science of sociology. Only
+we must take an open-minded attitude, we
+must not try to draw conclusions which will
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>justify our prejudices. That amounts to the
+stupid destruction of unborn knowledge, perhaps
+also of unborn wisdom. Intellectual abortion
+is never justified and—at least one would
+like to suppose so—never permanently successful.
+It is healthier to think freely, to pursue
+truth without fear.</p>
+
+<p>After all, we need make no special effort to
+woo stupidity. It will be only too much with
+us, despite our best efforts to be intelligent.
+Those four “idols” or types of error of which
+Bacon wrote long ago in the <i>Novum Organum</i>
+still beset the human mind.</p>
+
+<p>The “idols of the tribe” arise out of sensory
+deficiencies common to all men and women.
+“The human mind,” according to Bacon, “resembles
+those uneven mirrors which impart
+their own properties to different objects, from
+which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure
+them.”</p>
+
+<p>We may notice in passing that Bacon here
+takes up definitely the scientific point of view.
+According to some philosophers, objects have
+no existence except as the senses bring them
+to the minds of men. If we were to agree with
+them, we might not speak of “uneven mirrors”
+except in the case of those individuals who
+have sensory deficiencies peculiar to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>These are, to use Bacon’s fanciful term,
+“idols of the den.” More particularly he applies
+the term of predilections and prejudices
+caused by the special trend of an individual’s
+education or by the emotions under whose
+sway he at the moment stands. These warping
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>influences are such that we may with
+Bacon approve the thought of Heraclitus:
+“that men search for knowledge in lesser
+worlds, and not in the greater or common
+world.”</p>
+
+<p>The “idols of the market” are the errors
+arising in social intercourse, largely through
+failure to use words in the same precise sense.
+Even in spite of the careful definitions set up
+by men of science, this condition exists. Sometimes,
+in fact, the scientific definitions aggravate
+the idols of the market; as in those cases
+where a word used in ordinary language is also
+employed for a somewhat different meaning
+in a field of science.</p>
+
+<p>The “idols of the theater” depend upon the
+peculiarities of various systems of philosophy.
+It seems to me that these are largely “idols
+of the market,” although the errors described
+by Bacon under the first two heads are also
+among them.</p>
+
+<p>Of course not all differences in opinion are
+based upon the varying uses of words. If, in
+a group of one hundred intelligent men, fifty
+men say that they believe in God and fifty that
+they do not, there may be five in each group
+who really do not disagree. These ten people
+may all believe in some sort of life force which
+can be called either a vital impulse or God.
+Of course the necessity to answer either “Yes”
+or “No” deprives some of the chance to say,
+“What way have I of telling?”</p>
+
+<p>In our imaginary gathering, we may suppose
+that there are Catholics, believing in the Holy
+Trinity and certain that the details of dogma
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>are definitely settled by the Church. There
+are also Protestants of various denominations,
+differing somewhat as to the conception of the
+deity. There are Unitarians, with a still different
+notion. There is a Mussulman, who has no
+doubt that Allah revealed himself to an Arab
+named Mohammed. There are deists and pantheists
+and spiritualists and agnostics and
+atheists. Also there are people who seldom
+think about religion, but who call themselves
+“Baptists” or “Jews” or “Unitarians” when an
+inquiry is made.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly it is not possible to grade people’s
+intelligence by the answers they make in a
+religious census. There is some evidence that
+the average believer in revealed religion is
+more stupid than the average doubter or unbeliever.
+Yet the most enthusiastic atheist
+must admit that some who share his opinions
+are decidedly less wise than some who subscribe
+to, let us say, the tenets of the Roman
+Catholic Church.</p>
+
+<p>Whence arise the differences in belief? The
+beginning of the answer is easy, the rest difficult.
+Most people belong to a certain religious
+denomination because of the place where they
+were born and the confession of their parents.
+John Smith is a Methodist because he was
+begotten by James Smith upon Adeline Smith,
+who was then and who had always lived in
+Atlanta, Georgia. Samuel Cohen is an orthodox
+Jew because he was begotten by Saul ben
+Isaac Cohen upon Deborah Cohen in Cracow.
+And so with the Buddhist, the Hindu, the
+American Indian believing in a Great Spirit
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>and various little spirits, or the Catholic born
+in Dublin and going faithfully to mass.</p>
+
+<p>Do the countries which are predominatingly
+Mohammedan have other religious needs than
+those of the predominatingly Christian countries?
+Or is there a peculiar religious instinct
+inherited among the Turks other than that
+which is inherited among the Irish? Lessing’s
+wise Nathan expresses the view that since we
+can learn little about God through direct experience,
+we should believe our parents and
+our ancestors. Yet this is but a form of egotism,
+and a dangerous form, too. Why should
+we consider our ancestors wiser than the ancestors
+of our neighbors who belong to other
+ecclesiastical organizations?</p>
+
+<p>Robinson’s <i>The Mind in the Making</i> is little
+more than an attack upon this sort of ancestor-worship,
+although it does not particularly deal
+with religion. But we can hardly help returning
+again and again to the theologians when
+we discuss the stupidities which are honored
+chiefly because of their antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, a change in faith, although it
+represents a revolt against meaningless stereotypy,
+does not always indicate any special intelligence.
+People sometimes change their religions
+merely as a matter of convenience.
+(Here, of course, we are dealing with words
+more than with genuine beliefs.) Samuel
+Cohen of Cracow may become a convert to
+the Roman Catholic Church because it will
+admit him to certain political or social advantages
+or because he cannot marry Michalina
+Riboczech, whom he much loves, on any other
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>terms. Or he may come to America and find
+that he is unable to earn his living except by
+becoming a Methodist minister. Perhaps he
+does not possess enough knowledge of the Talmud
+to be acceptable as a rabbi, but finds
+ignorance no barrier in a church where he can
+serve as a living example of conversion to the
+true faith.</p>
+
+<p>What shall we say of the thousands of Japanese
+and Chinese who become Christians
+without any ulterior motive? They find some
+sort of emotional satisfaction in the new faith
+which they have not been able to find in their
+ancestral religions. Why? I do not think the
+question can be answered satisfactorily with
+our present knowledge of psychology. Nor can
+we tell why one brother is a bishop and the
+other a skeptic, except when there is an element
+of hypocrisy in one case.</p>
+
+<p>The religious attitude is one of belief based
+upon little or no evidence. Beyond the field
+which we consider religious, we regard such
+an attitude as stupid. As a matter of fact,
+though, we are influenced everywhere by “such
+factors of belief as fear and hope, prejudice
+and passion, imitation and partisanship, the
+circumpressure of our caste and set.” William
+James, whose words I have thus employed,
+argues that because these elements are universal,
+they are therefore justifiable.</p>
+
+<p>Because we have been considering absolute
+truth and because the argument is ingenious,
+I will here quote some sentences from James’s
+<i>The Will to Believe</i>:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Our belief in truth itself, for instance, that there
+is a truth, and that our minds and it are made for
+each other—what is it but a passionate affirmation
+of desire, in which our social system backs us up?
+We want to have a truth; we want to believe that
+our experiments and studies and discussions must
+put us in a continually better and better position
+towards it; and on this line we agree to fight out
+our thinking lives. But if a pyrrhonistic skeptic
+asks us <i>how we know</i> all this, can our logic find a
+reply? No! certainly it cannot. It is just one volition
+against another—we are willing to go in for
+life upon a trust or assumption which he, for his
+part, does not care to make.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>But if this be unanswerable, then it destroys
+the system which James is trying to erect. If
+<i>truth</i> has any meaning at all, it must not be
+applied to that which is unproved and seemingly
+unprovable. If we are to think with
+any accuracy, of course we must recognize that
+<i>truth</i> and <i>proof</i> are not absolutes. This recognition
+gives us no cause for returning to the
+physiology and astrology of the Middle Ages or
+for postulating God and immortality and free
+will, when these conceptions seem to be unnecessary
+for modern scientific thought.</p>
+
+<p>James wrote <i>The Will to Believe</i> as an attack
+upon the attitude represented in <i>The
+Ethics of Belief</i> by William Kingdon Clifford.
+Of Clifford’s viewpoint there is a brief summary
+in his own words:</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>We may believe what goes beyond our experience,
+only when it is inferred from that experience by the
+assumption that what we do not know is like what
+we know.</p>
+
+<p>We may believe the statement of another person
+when there is reasonable ground for supposing that
+he knows the matter of which he speaks and that
+he is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient
+evidence; and where it is presumption to doubt and
+to investigate, then it is worse than presumption to
+believe.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>These seem to be principles which we can
+apply. Certainly there exists no general need
+to believe whenever intellectual options present
+themselves. Often, as we have seen, we
+are expected to act on insufficient information.
+Thus, the man who declares that he does not
+know whether there is or is not a God who
+wishes to be worshipped must either attend
+church—as though he believed in this sort of
+divinity—or stay away—as though he did not.
+Or, though he conceives the possibility that
+Jehovah wishes to be praised, he may refrain
+from church attendance and prayer because he
+has no way of knowing what may be the
+proper manner in which to go about the matter.</p>
+
+<p>It is not what one believes that matters, except
+as this is shown in what one does. Therefore
+a deficiency in will power is at the bottom
+of much stupidity. Our worldly hells are paved
+with good intentions. “It is in human nature,”
+according to Anatole France, “to think wisely
+and to act in an absurd fashion.”</p>
+
+<p>The shrewdest of business men are caught
+unaware and imposed upon by swindlers. Many
+of the tricks commonly employed depend upon
+the victim’s readiness to share in a doubtful
+deal. He is made to feel a great joy at the
+thought of his own acuteness, which joy occupies
+him to such an extent that his intellectual
+powers are impaired. Moreover, the victim is
+given to suppose that great haste is required.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>At last, when he discovers that he has been
+beswindled, his vanity usually makes him keep
+silent. He would be loath to have people know
+that he is neither as honest nor as wise as he
+is reputed. Egotism is one of the chief causes
+of folly, as we have already had occasion to
+notice.</p>
+
+<p>Some people who are not conspicuous for
+direct vanity yet show the vice indirectly,
+through their blind preferences for their own
+families, their own parties, their own causes.
+“Wrong or right, my country,” is no wiser a
+saying than “Right or wrong, my prejudices.”
+The recent attempts to make out a case for
+Germanic or Nordic supremacy are entirely
+ridiculous. As a matter of fact, most Englishmen
+are racially about the same as most
+Frenchmen.</p>
+
+<p>It is by no means so evident as it once
+seemed that the white race is far superior to
+those of a darker hue. There are even Europeans
+and Americans who declare the Chinese
+and the Japanese are wiser than we. As to the
+negro race, there is but little evidence that it
+stands on a low intellectual level because of
+organic limitations. A few colored people of
+pure blood have performed outstanding achievements.
+We have reason to believe that their
+accomplishments are exceptional only because
+the negroes have had few educational opportunities.
+The colored people living in the north
+seem to be more alert and less stupid than
+those working in the fields of Mississippi and
+Florida.</p>
+
+<p>Woltmann declares that the negroes are inferior
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>because they attain the age of puberty
+sooner. At this time, according to some students
+of the matter, brain development ceases.
+If this were the case, and if the rate of brain
+development while it lasts were the same in
+all races, then we should be able to grade intelligence
+among races according to climate.
+We should expect the Eskimos, to whom nubility
+comes late, to be far more intelligent than
+the Spanish and Italians, to whom it comes
+early. But we have no reason to come to any
+such conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Otto Ammon, after studying the people of
+Baden, came to the conclusion that the Nordics
+(with long heads, blue eyes, and blond hair)
+are superior to those of Alpine derivation (with
+short heads and dark hair). But he and the
+writers in Germany and other countries who
+agree with him have assumed rather than
+proved their conclusions. By way of rebuttal,
+Loewenfeld declares that the two greatest German
+philosophers, Kant and Schopenhauer,
+were both short-headed. Goethe, whatever
+shape his skull may have had, certainly possessed
+dark hair and eyes. The assumption of
+Nordic superiority is based upon prejudice
+rather than upon scientific evidence.</p>
+
+<p>Is stupidity more common among the poor
+than among the rich? Of course we are unable
+to answer such questions accurately because
+of the lack of dependable criteria. But we
+know that most persons want to become wealthy
+and we may reasonably infer that those who
+acquire fortunes do excel in certain intellectual
+characteristics. That these traits or general
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>mental superiority is transmitted to rich men’s
+children is sometimes asserted. Of course they
+are likely to have special educational facilities.
+Besides this, they have unusual opportunities to
+show what they can do in positions of responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>And yet they often prove to be inferior in
+business or in the professions to the children
+of the poor. Often they have failed to acquire
+habits of industry. Or else they are anxious
+to do no work which might seem menial or
+undignified.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no question that most dynasties
+have been founded by men of unusual ability.
+Nevertheless, the kings and queens of Europe
+are in most cases persons of merely average
+intellect. Psychoses and neuroses are not rare
+among them. Perhaps a partial explanation of
+royal degeneration is to be found in their inbreeding.
+The mixed fruit of royalty and the
+common people is almost always declared
+illegitimate.</p>
+
+<p>Very few great men have had children gifted
+with genius. So far, the laws of heredity explain
+comparatively little about the sudden appearance
+of remarkable traits. But the children
+of intelligent people are likely to be less
+stupid than those whose parents are fools. The
+factors of original nature and of education are
+both in favor of the former class.</p>
+
+<p>Forms of stupidity vary much with time and
+place. The tendency to do as one’s fellows do
+is a strong one. Especially in a mob, it sometimes
+appears that the prevailing level of intelligence
+is that of the most stupid members.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>But mob psychology deals in general with
+states of excitement. Sometimes actions are
+attributed to mere numbers which are due to
+emotional stress felt by all the individuals in
+the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>For intelligence is no guarantee against impulsive
+action. Love and hate and fear and
+jealousy and sympathy make normally wise
+people do exceedingly foolish things. The mob
+is capable of killing innocent persons. So is
+almost any man, when his hate is aroused.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">And all men kill the thing they love,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent2">By all let this be heard,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Some do it with a bitter look,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent2">Some with a flattering word.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>These verses of Oscar Wilde’s are justified.
+The passions do not exert themselves in a definite
+and controlled direction. Therefore love
+can slay about as well as hate. Probably better,
+for the opportunities are greater.</p>
+
+<p>Physical ill health is at the bottom of much
+stupidity. Although the direct influence upon
+the higher nervous centers may be little, there
+are all sorts of indirect effects caused by illness.
+Frequently the patient is in a constant
+state of suppressed anger. Any trifle makes
+him find fault with his physician and his
+attendants.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, indeed, the patient does not become
+angry with his nurse. He may fall into
+an attitude of dependence upon her. This occasionally—especially
+in the case of men just
+entering the first stage of senile dementia—leads
+to foolish marriages.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p>
+
+<p>Old age, like childhood, is more or less the
+scene of folly. Comparatively few individuals
+are as intelligent in the 70’s and 80’s as they
+were in the 30’s and 40’s. Most men are physically
+strongest at about the age of 25. The
+height of mental power comes later, perhaps
+at about 45. After that the memory tends to
+decline. The other mental traits become impaired
+usually in the 60’s.</p>
+
+<p>The folly peculiar to youth depends largely
+upon lack of experience. Deficiency in self-control
+is also an important element—one, to
+be sure, that frequently lasts through life.
+Child prodigies usually show a one-sided development.
+Though they may be quick thinkers,
+they seldom probe deeply.</p>
+
+<p>The thinker is immature until he has a supply
+of experiences and ideas at his service.
+These will come, if he only learns to apply the
+principle of order. This is the instrument with
+which we make the most of our minds. When
+we learn how to use order, we become as gods.
+For then we can take the chaos about us and
+build it into a universe.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">
+    Transcriber’s Notes
+  </h2>
+<p>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">Minor typographical and spelling errors have been corrected</span><br>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">p. <a href="#critics">29</a> retained unchanged the sentence beginning “The educational critics”</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+</main>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78906 ***</div>
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+[Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook [#78906](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78906)