private interest, the interests of all would be served, provided only the government did not foolishly interfere; and philosophers elaborated systems which explained how we happened to have knowledge of a common world, although we were each one of us hidden away in his own private shell.* The net result is that most modern men regard themselves as self-sufficient individuals with minds of their own. Any reader of this book who confesses to even the faintest approval of its general spirit will realize at once that this notion stands in urgent need of revision. Now for the second point, which is that we are exceedingly self-conscious. We are always analyzing our symptoms, introspecting to determine our precise feelings with respect to this, that, or the other experience, probing to find out just why stray thoughts have floated through our heads, guessing as to the hidden motives and obscure drives that determine our conduct, wondering how near we are to being "abnormal," arguing back and forth with ourselves over matters of slight importance. The popularity of psychoanalysis, the vogue of the psychological novel, our interest in biography and in “human nature," our mannerisms and mechanisms, all show the direction in which we trend. Consider the following passage from Logan Pearsall Smith's valuable little book on the English language:17 Perhaps the most characteristic of all these modern adjectives is the word interesting, which is put to so many uses that we can hardly imagine how life or conversation could be carried on without it. And yet interesting is not found before the XVIIIth Century, when it first meant 'important,' and its first use with its present meaning appears, characteristically enough, in Sterne's Sentimental Journey, published in 1768. About the same time the verb to bore appeared; and we who are so often bored, or interested, must, if we wish to enter into the state of mind of past ages, try to imagine a time when people thought more of objects than of their own emotions, and when, if they were bored or interested, would not name their feeling, but mention the quality or object that produced it. This change is a subtle and yet an important one; it is due to our increased self-consciousness, and our greater sense of the importance of the inner world of feeling. One of the latest products or by-products of this change is the modern habit of taking a conscious pleasure in our own emotions. This 'sentimental' attitude is well dated for us by the appearance of the word sentimental itself about the middle of the XVIIIth Century. It soon became fashionable; and, carried abroad by Sterne's Sentimental Journey, it was borrowed by the French, and translated by the Germans. Self-consciousness is one of the most aggravating of human vices, and the source of many minor mental maladaptations. Max *It would be possible, though not profitable here, to carry the analysis back a bit further. The chief ground for the confusion that has reigned in the modern social sciences ever since they were founded is the fact that they have tried to do business with two radically different sets of categories, the one derived from modern physical science, the other coming down into modern times from the medieval period, and ultimately in large measure from Aristotle and the Greeks. The development of modern biological and anthropological science, as well as recent tendencies in physics, may eventually put an end to this confusion. Eastman for this reason, no doubt, calls the self a "pearl of adult degeneration." 18 It stands at the bottom of nearly all of our insincerities and nauseating self-displays. Sometimes after a brilliant literary meeting where authors read their papers our heart goes out to the simple and spontaneous, natural and single-minded cow, who never flourishes her tail for our sakes, but to remove from her actual haunches an authenticated fly.19 It is by no means desirable that more than a very small part of the processes of life should ever be brought to full consciousness. Natural and healthy activity will take many things for granted, and will not continually be turning in on itself. Samuel Butler was fond of pointing out that whenever nature wants a thing really well done, she always takes pains to see that it is unconsciously performed. Difficulties in judging a culture. Nearly all of us feel uncomfortable when we are thrown among foreigners. Strangers are people who are strange, and who make us feel strange. They act and think differently; and, still worse, they have different ways of feeling. It has been well said that the man who tries to be funny in a foreign land is almost certain to insult or disgust or annoy or shock someone.20 Every man's own ways feel warm to him, while the habits of others leave him cold or hostile. Thus we all naturally have a strong bias towards our own customs, and sometimes more than a little contempt for the other fellow's. This contempt is likely to be unconcealed when we compare ourselves with people whom we are accustomed to regard as inferior, and especially when we compare our civilization with the so-called lower cultures. The Greeks called all non-Greeks barbarians; and it has been suggested that the word was coined as a name for the person who said "ba-ba-ba-ba"-that is, for the man who spoke a strange language. We should not allow this contempt for barbarism or savagery to render us incapable of appreciating these cultures, for it may in turn some day be our portion, since there is no good reason to suppose our culture will last forever. We often find it hard to form a sound judgment of the value of a particular culture because we credit it with the good qualities we should invariably find in any culture whatever. To live in any society at all is a great boon. We are sometimes naïve enough to turn praises of society in general into acclamations of our own particular way of living. The great Edmund Burke himself was not above falling into this fallacy, when in glowing words he pointed out that society is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.21 Society is exactly this; but how from such praises of society could Burke conclude in favor of the existing regime in his own country, or against the French Revolution? Another reason why it is so difficult to estimate the value of our culture arises from the fact that it so clearly works. Millions of persons are living under the conditions it determines, and yet other hosts have lived and died under it far back into what appears as a dimly receding past. But in all soberness it must be remembered that every culture and every institution has worked in this sense; people have always lived in some fashion, whatever the social arrangements. To say that the present scheme works, then, is only another way of saying that it is here. It is necessary, therefore, before settling the merits of a culture or an institution, to inquire into the conditions under which it works and the results that it secures. The prevalence of evolutionary modes of thought leads many to conclude that we and our culture must be the best, since we stand on the very crest of time. Aside from the fact that other cultures also exist at the present moment, and on this basis are entitled to equal consideration, such complacency is very cheaply won, for, as we have seen, evolution has no necessary connection with progress, and least of all with human progress. Vast stretches of the history of this planet are filled with the story of the explorations of various life-forms into what from our point of view must be regarded as blind alleys, and many types of creature alive today (human beings included) are, from any evolutionary standpoint, of low and degraded quality. In man himself there remain vestigial organs which are only inadequately capable of performing their present functions, if indeed they have any. Further, it is by no means clear that evolution aimed at producing man, or that it had any aim at all. The theory of evolution covers far too long a period of time (probably about 500,000,000 years so far as life is concerned) to be of much use in interpreting or evaluating the few thousand years of human history. Bertrand and Dora Russell in a recent book entitled "The Prospects of Industrial Civilization" have discussed this question of criteria for judging a social system in a very wise and humane fashion.22 After a consideration of a number of erroneous methods, two questions are named as basic: Does the culture give present well-being? Does it show capacity for developing into something better? The conclusion is as follows: For my part, I should judge a community to be in a good state if I found a great deal of instinctive affection rather than hatred and envy, a capacity for creating and enjoying beauty, and the intellectual curiosity which leads to the advancement and diffusion of knowledge. The ingredients of a good community are summed up by these authors as happiness, friendship, enjoyment of beauty, and love of knowledge. Such an answer to the problem of what constitutes a good society is of course not perfectly definite, and leaves much room for discussion, but it seems to turn attention in the right directions. The chief value of a culture is not to be found in its complexity, its extent, or even its power, but rather in its ability to provide its members with facilities for the good life. REFERENCES 1 I was helped to make this analysis by a study of F. C. Müller-Lyer, The History of Social Development (London, Allen and Unwin, 1920), although I do not subscribe to his theory of phases. 2 See Adam Smith's classic, though now antiquated, discussion of this point at the beginning of his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). 3 E. S. Ames, Social consciousness and its object, Psych. Bull., Vol. 8 (1911), 415. 4 Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 1. 5 Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Works, Vol. 1, 69). 6 Edward Carpenter, Civilization: Its Cause and Cure (13 ed., London, Allen and Unwin, 1914), 1, 47. See also Stanton Coit, Is Civilization a Disease? (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1917). ? It is excellently recounted in J. H. Randall, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1926). See also F. M. Stawell and F. S. Marvin, The Making of the Western Mind, a short survey of European culture (London, Methuen, 1923), and J. H. Robinson, Mind in the Making (N. Y., Harpers, 1921). 8 Cf. Lucretius, De rerum natura, trans. by Monro, by Bailey, or by Leonard. 9 Samuel Butler, Erewhon, or Over the Range (1 ed., 1872; revised ed., 1901). Cf. also Garet Garrett, Ouroboros, or The mechanical extension of mankind (N. Y., Dutton, 1926). 10 Cf. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Communist Manifesto (1848). 11 F. S. Marvin, The Living Past; A sketch of western progress (3 ed., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1917). 12 J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress; An inquiry into its origin and growth (London, Macmillan, 1920). 13 Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, last stanza. 14 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, 27-30 (Modern Library ed.). 15 See A. C. Barnes, The Art in Painting (Merion, Barnes Foundation Press, 1925), 241-242, for a statement of the effects of printing on painting. See Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris, Book 5, Chapter 2, for a classic account of how printing displaced architecture as the central cultural art. Cf. R. W. Livingstone, The Legacy of Greece (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1921), 266, for an explanation of differences between Greek and modern literature in terms of the influence of printing. 16 Cf. Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (N. Y., Harcourt, Brace, 1922); also his The Phantom Public (N. Y., Harcourt, Brace, 1925). 17 Logan Pearsall Smith, The English Language (Home Univ. Library), 247-248. 18 Max Eastman, Colors of Life; Poems, songs, and sonnets (N. Y., Knopf, 1918). 19 F. M. Colby, Imaginary Obligations (N. Y., Dodd, Mead, 1910), 39. 20 John Palmer, Comedy (N. Y., Doran, 1914), 5. 21 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (ed. by Selby, London, Macmillan, 1902), 107-108. 22 Bertrand and Dora Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (N. Y., Century, 1923), 142–162. The quotation is from page 162. Part II HOW WE COME TO BE WHAT WE ARE CHAPTER 4 GENERAL PHASES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Natural basis of experience. But as a We live in an exceedingly complex world, however simply we may be in the habit of regarding it. Many things are happening even in an empty room. Every particle of matter in the room (and their number far surpasses our power to imagine it) is bound by the invisible chains of gravitation to every other particle, so that the slightest displacement of one of them, were they ever for a single moment still, would immediately set all others into restless movement towards a new equilibrium. matter of fact they are never at rest, but instead keep ceaselessly shifting about at a speed quite beyond our comprehension, while at the same time they are forever emitting impulsions into space which, traveling at some 186,000 miles per second, are reflected back and forth, hither and yon, until the room is a perfect maze of paths and counterpaths. Nor is this all, for the tiny particles are curiously and wonderfully arranged into larger groups, and these too are also in ceaseless motion and are also emitting impulsions, which travel at about a thousand feet per second, and are in turn reflected and re-reflected without intermission. Nor, again, is this all, for in our room substance is acting on substance -wood is slowly decaying, iron is rusting, varnish and paint are silently combining with the materials to which they were applied, pottery is changing its composition-in truth all things are in ever-changing flux. Into all this boundless confusion and chaos of motion and counter-motion there walks a man, and we eagerly note what |