Bme afnllcge of AgricuUuw At OfncttBU Iniiieraitg ffitbrarg Cornell University Library HM 251.P35 The psychology of social reconstruction 3 1924 013 927 003 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013927003 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION BY GEORGE THOMAS WHITE PATRICK, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy in the State University of Iowa ; author of "The Psychology of Relaxation" BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ^be Hiiljerjiitie ^xs^i Catnbtibge 1920 CO?TRXGHT, 1920, BY GEORGE T*. W. PATRICK ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO M. L. P. PREFACE MACAULAY in his essay on Lord Bacon said that it was not Bacon's purpose to make men perfect. His humble aim was to make imperfect men comfortable. This Baconian phi- losophy, whose aim is to exploit all the forces of nature for the comfort and convenience of man- kind, and which finds happiness not in the exer- cise of man's highest powers but in the release and satisfaction of human desires, originally characterized only the English-speaking peoples, but has now extended to the whole world. While personally I believe that a civilization based on such a foundation as this is artificial and ephemeral, nevertheless to write a book to prove this would be a thankless task. It would be just a sermon, fruitful of nothing but yawns. We do not now look with very much alarm at such warnings as Civilization at the Crossroads. We are not greatly impressed when we are told that the kind of society which the social reform- ers promise us is not such a society as we ought to have; just as the laborer is not very much impressed when the capitalist tells him that his poverty is good for him. VIU PREFACE But our attitude toward science is a wholly difFerent matter. If the authority of religion, philosophy, and traditional morality has some- what abated in these days, not so the authority of science. The emblems of authority are now all its own. I have therefore attempted in the following pages to apply certain elementary principles of psychological science to the prob- lems of social reconstruction. For the sake of brevity, I have used the title, "The Psychology of Social Reconstruction." A more appropriate title might have been, "Preliminary notes on the application of psychology to the problem of social reconstruction as represented in cer- tain popular movements of the day." There is, of course, already an extensive lit- erature on the psychology of social reform in its larger aspects. I have quoted from some of these writings in the pages which follow. While I have hoped to make a further slight contribu- tion to this large subject, my immediate pur- pose has been the examination of some of the current and popular plans, for social reform in the light of recent psychological studies — par- ticularly studies in certain forms of instinc- tive human behavior. The early chapters of the book are, therefore, largely negative. In the PREFACE ix later chapters I have tried to indicate my own thought as to the direction social reconstruction should take, if it is to conform to the facts of human nature. Two of the chapters in this book have ap- peared as magazine articles in a slightly differ- ent form. I wish to thank the editors of The Sci- entific Monthly and Natural History for permis- sion to use the articles entitled, respectively, "The Next Step in Applied Science," and "Our Centrifugal Society." Certain parts of the sec- ond, third, and fourth chapters were published in The Scientific Monthly in an article entitled "The Psychology of Social Reconstruction." G. T. W. P. Iowa City August I, 1920 CONTENTS I. Introduction i II. Psychological Factors in Social Re- construction 27 III. Psychological Factors in Social Re- construction (continued) 61 IV. Psychological Factors in Social Re- construction {continued) 90 V, The Psychology of Work i 19 VI. Our Centrifugal Society i74 VII. Social Discipline 199 VIII. The Next Step in Applied Science 237 Index 261 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION THAT the Freudian psychology has a social application no one can doubt who has care- fully observed the world's progress during the last ten or twenty years. It was really about the time the dancing craze burst upon us that the reaction began. When we look back upon those tango days, they seem quite innocent and mild as compared with the present; but it was a wild orgy then. It will be only the youngest of us who cannot recall the exalted social mood in which we lived in the early years of this century. The moral fervor of our heroic action in banishing slavery was still upon us. We were thrilled by a new zeal for breaking also the chains of alcohol. We 2 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION were still priding ourselves upon our wonderful schools and our remarkable freedom from il- literacy. We dimly remembered the horrors of war, but we were providing against any such calamity as a great war by means of peace so- cieties and arbitration treaties ! Most of all, per- haps, we were exulting in the almost miraculous results of the industrial revolution. We had at last gained complete mastery over the forces of nature. Earth and sky and water were subserv- ient to man. Science and invention, the mar- velous bequests of the nineteenth century, were the keys to a kind of terrestrial paradise just opening to us. Best of all, the economic surplus promised to put an end forever to the old pain- economy, in which the world had always lived, and we had visions of a pleasure-economy to extend to all lands and classes. In fact we were all aglow with enthusiasm for something which we called "modern civilization." Furthermore, we were really living up to our high ideals. We had ourselves well in hand. There was a high standard of morals and a high degree of refinement. It was relatively a period of self-control, temperance, thrift, and decency. Although beer, wine, and distilled liquors were everywhere to be had and at a moderate price, INTRODUCTION 3 we were as a people temperate and restrained.^ The house of "modern civilization" looked so genuine and solid that we never suspected that what we saw was just a veneer. We were ig- norant of the new psychology that tells us now of the danger when deep racial impulses are merely suppressed and not properly sublimated and redirected. It was the first symptom of the reaction when the dancing craze burst upon us. From our puri- tan standpoint we were shocked when the whole world took to dancing, and not very decorous dancing at that. Some thought that the whole world had suddenly gone crazy. But this was only the beginning, for it was soon followed by the nation-wide and world-wide amusement crazes. In those staid and proper early days of the century, had some prophet foretold that ten to fifteen million people in the United States would very soon be in daily attendance upon ' In those days we used to hear about the delicate aroma of old wines and burgundies, the rich and mellow taste of rare old whiskies, and the tonic nutritive value of ales and beers made from good barley and hops. But now all this ancient camouflage has been brushed away and men have discovered that what they want is alcohol, and the larger percentage of it the better. Even for two and three quarters per cent they have shown themselves ready to wage a determined and persistent fight. This self-revelation has been humiliating and disillusioning, but self-knowledge such as this will be valuable in the social reconstruction of the future. 4 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION moving-picture shows exhibiting no high dra- matic art, but for the most part tawdry, sensa- tional, and e'rotic, the story would have been as incredible as that in fewer years than twenty there would be a great world war whose direct and indirect cost would be estimated at the unbelievable sum of three hundred and thirty- eight thousand million dollars and in which fifty-nine million men would be called to arms and seven and one half million killed. Had the curtain been drawn still farther aside, revealing the hosts of shameless profiteers and the sudden rush for new wealth both during and after* the war; revealing still further the harsh and ugly picture of post-war conditions, the scramble for territory and power in Europe, the avarice, the cynicism and the deceit, the sac- rifice of human rights to national aggrandize- ment, the low cunning of European diplomacy,^ the frenzy of spending as well as the greed for gain in America, the sacrifice of great world re- forms to petty politics and party, the silly and childish behavior of many of our American people when their self-made dry-laws began to ' Gjmpare articles by E. Alexander Powell, "The New Frontiers of Freedom," Scribner's Magaune, January, February, and March, 1920. INTRODUCTION 5 close down upon them, in their absurd scramble for a last drink or for a stay of the enforcement of the laws, if only for a few weeks or days ■ — had all these things been foreseen, those good people of just one short generation past would have said that such sudden madness of men could be explained only by some new and strange astronomical influences. But the explanation is much simpler. It was a case not of stars but of brain cells. It was a case of a certain kind of culture spread over the surface of a great body of deep racial instincts and desires. It was a case, of getting civiHzed too rapidly, when civilization is understood merely as a kind of social decorum. In those days society was simply being given a course in man- ners, instead of having its deep latent energies redirected into healthy channels by moral, aes- thetic, and social ideals. These energies being suppressed were still working subterraneously, resulting in a social "complex," which took the form of the violent outbreaks mentioned. So- ciety, as well as individuals, may be subject to nervous disorders and have its suppressed "wish." But what is to happen ? Were these waves of 6 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION frivolity and this "dose of savagery" a kind of "fling," which was necessary to restore the so- cial balance, and has society suffered a sort of katharsis, which will leave it purified and har- monious ? Was it merely a case of social tension, which has now been relieved by a period of ex- cess? Are the suppressed desires now "working themselves off," so that we may soon expect a return to normal healthy conditions ? . Although neither the analogy of the Freudian psychology nor the social experience af the past warrants such a hope, nevertheless something like this may take place. There are hopeful con- ditions, as we shall presently see, that greatly redeem the outlook. I am not interested here in predicting either a great social disaster or the speedy return of social calm and serenity. Prob- ably neither will happen. I am interested only in noting the amazing change which has taken place in respect to our confidence about the future. Formerly a few croaking pessimists and alarmists used to amuse us by predicting the downfall of our civilization. We were amused rather than alarmed by these predictions, be- cause we had been taught to believe, and with boundless pride, that we were just entering upon a glorious period of human progress under the INTRODUCTION 7 safe guidance of science and the mechanic arts and through the final long-sought freedom, equal- ity, and fraternity. Now we are suddenly told — and not by alarmists nor pessimists, but by some of those who represent the clearest thought of the day — that our whole western civilization is in grave danger, if not near its end. A writer in a recent number of the "Man- chester Guardian" says of the present times, "It is the kind of situation in which former civilizations have gone down," The Rt. Hon. C. F. G. Masterman, writing in the "Atlantic Monthly" for August, 1919, after a long and careful review of the situation in England, uses these significant words : The shadows lie heavy on the hills. It will be years, it may be decades, before these shadows are dispelled. It may be that never will they be completely dis- pelled. These four years of mad destruction may have struck a blow at Europe's prosperity from which it will never recover. Some of the greatest of the Dominion statesmen have expressed to me their conviction that the result will be a permanent change. They foresee a great and increasing migration from Great Britain, and indeed from all the war-tortured countries, of people fleeing from national bankruptcy in a region haunted by evil dreams. From such a migration they anticipate the building-up of huge white communities in still unsettled lands, which will give a new orientation to the world's future his- 8 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION tory. Canada, South Africa, Australasia, will take the place in this war which was taken by the West af- ter the Civil War in America. However this may be, at home we are in for troublous times. Reconstruction far more vital and profound than anything contem- plated by the present Parliament alone can insure internal tranquillity. Similar testimony could be quoted from a long list of careful writers whom no one would call alarmists. In discussing a question of this kind prelim- inary to our study of reconstruction, we must avoid on the one hand a too easy optimism such as prevailed two decades ago, and on the other hand an unnecessary pessimism due to the re- sults of the war. In these chapters I wish to study certain social and psychological forces which were at work before the war and which will go on hereafter whatever the result of the war may be. I am considering here not any kind of tem- porary reconstruction which shall reinstate eco- nomic conditions as they were before the war, but social reconstruction in the broader sense of social, political, and economic movements de- signed to correct evils inherent in our modern life. We live in the hope that Europe may be able to recover herself after her terrible convul- sion, and that America may in part escape the INTRODUCTION 9 price which Europe must at any rate pay. We may, therefore, here omit the darker picture of conditions in European capitals which so many writers have so vividly drawn, ^ and do so in the hope — a hope perhaps not fully justified — that the waves of crimes both of passion and of vio- lence, the unrestrained and unashamed revelry and frivolity, the reckless extravagance and fool- ish spending, the barbaric and childish display, the apparent complete loss of the sense of social obligation, are merely manifestations of an acute nervous disease due to the strain of those terrible years of war and that the healing will speedily come. As the war passes into the background, as production is resumed, as order is restored, these things will cease to be so much in evidence. Possibly for that very reason we may become forgetful of certain real dangers that threaten the integrity of our modern society. What are these dangers.? That they are real and threatening even the most optimistically inclined cannot doubt. What has seemed to us sometimes the most imminent danger, the tri- umph of Bolshevism, Communism, or Anarchy, * Compare, for instance, the article by Sisley Huddleston, in the Atlantic Monthly for May, 1920, entitled " The Menace of the World." lo SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION may be really the least of the dangers which threaten our civilization. In a country brought to the very verge of ruin by war, it is conceiv- able that these movements might be the occa- sion of the final downfall, but the real cause they could hardly be. If Bolshevism and simi- lar movements may occasionally have the op- portunity of trying themselves out, we shall soon learn how quickly they fuse into old social orders, how human nature triumphs over eco- nomic theory, how the old social and political relations and the old evils, too, remain much the same. The real dangers lie deeper; they lie even deeper than war, although we are beginning to learn that it may indeed be war which will over- throw our civilization. War has lost all its glam- our. In primitive times, and to some extent throughout human history, war has had a vital- izing and salutary effect on the human race, encouraging manly virtues and eliminating the weak and unfit. Now all this is changed. A mod- ern war is a human scourge. It is a decivilizing agency. Its effects are deadening and paralyzing. It eliminates not the unfit but the fit. It selects for its slaughter the prime young men of all the nations. Its cost is so terrific that it buries pes- INTRODUCTION n terity under a crushing debt. It idealizes all the mediaeval virtues — physical bravery, personal sacrifice, unbounding sympathy, and group an- tagonism. It retards perhaps for a hundred years the virtues upon which the health and in- tegrity of modern society depend — commercial honesty, sexual purity, international amity, temperance, and thrift. And it is doubtful whether the effect of a mod- ern war upon the vanquished is worse than upon the victors. The pitiful picture of poverty, the impoverishment of land and of natural resources, the waste and depletion of human vitality, the despair and discouragement of the vanquished are not much worse than the hate and revenge, the greed and the avarice, the profligate spend- ing and the moral deterioration of the victors. Another great war may reduce the world to barbarism. But there is another danger even greater than war which threatens our modern civilization, and that is decadence — physical, mental, and moral. There is evidence of all of these which no thoughtful man can ignore. There is danger that physical degeneracy will follow upon our sedentary manner of living, upon the increase of wealth, ease, and luxury. There is danger that 12 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION mental degeneracy will follow upon the reversal of the law of survival which in the past has eliminated the mentally unfit. There is danger of moral degeneracy in the period of readjustment from religious to purely ethical sanctions of con- duct.^ The decline of the birth-rate among our ef- fective stocks, the disastrous results of modern philanthropy upon racial health, the rapid in- crease of subnormals, defectives, and inefltec- tives of all kinds, the devastation of racial values by the war, the exhaustion of racial reserves such as in ancient times replaced the decadent ' The most serious aspect of this moral decadence is seen in the wave of bad music which has been sweeping the country and the world. The psychology of the jazz music — that is, the ground of its powerful appeal — has not yet been worked out. When this is done its explanation will probably be found to rest on anthropo- logical grounds. It is barbaric music — literally, not figuratively. It recalls echoes of the ancient camp-fire with its barbaric synco- pated strains and its accompanying dance, in which the sex ele- ment is predominant. The dancing craze of the present time, and the rag and jazz, are not, then, to be regarded merely as one phase of the moral decadence which follows a war, nor passed by whim- sically as a temporary craze, having, to be sure, disastrous moral consequences, but condoned or excused as a passing fad. They are to be considered as reversions to a primitive culture and to primitive morals indicating that the upward urge of progress is ceasing. If this interpretation of the case be correct, it is a most serious indictment of our times and our civilization. Let us hope that it is not true, but that it is due to a temporary social fatigue of the higher brain centers resulting from the pressure of our tense and rapid living. INTRODUCTION 13 Romans, — all these present problems com- pared with which the economic questions of the day appear unimportant. According to Mr. Seth K. Humphrey,^ if it could be conceived that society should so arouse itself to its dangers as to see to it that the two million defectives and the three million border-liners or ineffectives in the United States should, either by sequestra- tion, or in other ways, be prevented from further contributing to the deterIora:tion of our racial stock, while we should be saved from the danger of racial degeneracy, we should still be con- demned to mediocrity, owing to our increasing number of "racial slackers." Without passing judgment here upon the ac- curacy of these views, we see that taken all to- gether there are dangers enough which threaten our civilization. Other civilizations have per- ished under circumstances not essentially dif- ferent. Of course at this point the question might be raised whether our civiHzatlon is, anyway, worth saving. If it is not, we need trouble our- selves no further. Lately there has been a general awakening to the fact that our so-called modern ' See his recent book entitled The Racial Prospect. 14 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION culture is after all nothing very wonderful. Even before the war we had begun to doubt whether the great hopes of the nineteenth century for the regeneration of the world through science, inven- tion, and the conquest of nature, and through the economic surplus, were to be realized. What are the final tests of a high civilization ? If they are found in a social system which offers a just distribution of wealth and opportunity, we are told that our present system is a failure. If they are found in art and morals, we have neither in high degree. If they are found in peace and social stability, what we see is war and social unrest. If they are found in physical stamina and racial health, we recall the humiliating revelations of the physical examinations of our five millions of drafted soldiers, showing one third of them physically unfit. If they are found in universal education, we remember that twenty-five per cent of our young men called to the colors were found to be illiterate.^ ' "Illiteracy suddenly revealed itself as a national handicap when we found that the two hundred thousand illiterates drawn into the training camps appreciably delayed our military prepara- tions. The pitiable inefficiency of a school system in which one fourth of all the teachers are scarcely more than boys and girls themselves finds an ominous parallel in the fact that one fourth of the drafted men were reported as being unable to write an intelligi-. ble letter or read'a newspaper intelligently." (W. C. Bagley,)n The New Republic, December 17, 1919, p. 89.) INTRODUCTION 15 Is such a civilization worth the saving? No one with the slightest acquaintance with history will hesitate in his answer to this question. We may realize to the full the defects of our civi- lization, we may realize the much advertised inequalities of our social system — nevertheless every one knows that our civilization is worth saving and must be saved. When all is said, there has been for some centuries a rather steady growth in the things which we have come to prize — freedom, opportunity, security, physi- cal comforts, medical, surgical, and dental serv- ice, control of contagious diseases, household conveniences, conveniences of travel and com- munication, a world-wide news service, the pass- ing of fear and superstition, educational facili- ties for our children, constantly increasing rights and privileges of women, and so on through the long list. We should not care again to face hunger and cold and constant fear, nor should we be willing to sacrifice the security which law and order during the longer and longer intervals of peace have gained for our women and children and for our lives and property. When radical social reformers clamor for the overthrow of our present social system and arraign it as a system of slavery and poverty and cruel injustice, it is i6 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION evident that they use these terms relatively, having in mind some ideal social order in which all our present freedom and security and our comforts and conveniences are to be retained and the glaring imperfections removed. Com- paring our present well-being with any epoch in the past, we are certainly happy in our posses- sion of all those things which we most prize. If on every side we see greed and jealousy and in- equality and injustice and poverty and want and crime and unrest, it is only necessary to look back over the road that mankind has traveled to find at every station of the journey more of each and all of these. It would be wholesome for us more often to look back and compare the degree of social welfare which we enjoy with that of former times. It was not many centuries ago, for instance, that the English peasants lived in hovels with dirt floors, slept on a pile of straw, and were afflicted with vermin. Far more noteworthy than the security, the freedom, and the comforts of the present age — which themselves may be indirectly sources of danger — are its idealism and its visions of better things. When, for instance, we think of our dis- appointed hopes in the Treaty of Versailles, when we are humiliated by the spectacle of INTRODUCTION 17 latred, greed, ^ and revenge, and the display of larrow and selfish nationalism which displaced ;he fine idealism of the early years of the war, ve are ready to despair of any progress and to :ondemn our whole modern civilization. But ve forget that hatred, greed, and revenge are ■amiliar things in the history of the world, while ;he idealism itself is something new. In the year [914 the world was stirred to its depths by an dealism which was the very fruitage of twentj' renturies of Christian civilizationj ,that this re- rolt against autocracy, this mighty cry for fair )lay and justice and democracy which later was ;mbodied in the fourteen points was possible at dl as a great world movement redeems the pic- :ure, at any rate to some extent, and holds out jreat promise for the future. In spite of our self- sh strife for personal advantage, there is grad- lally emerging a social conscience. In spite of )ur frenzied nationalism, there is slowly arising I spirit of international brotherhood. But our civilization is redeemed not merely by ts idealism, not merely by its material blessings, )ut even more by its charity, its sympathy, its aith, and its heroism. Crossness there is indeed 1 "Imbecile greed" is what John Maynard Keynes calls it. See lis book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, p. 147. 1 8 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION a plenty, but "above all this grossness there towers a sweetness and beauty of thought, and an earnestness of purpose, a sincerity of eifort, which makes the present time fuller of moral purpose, fuller of desire to be clean and to help others to be clean, than graced any previous period in the history of either England or America." ^ One of the reasons that our civilization seems so fraught with danger is the startling rapidity of social changes at the present time. The chang- ing social order has become a commonplace in speech and writing, but although the world is at present changing with kaleidoscopic, yes, with cinematographic rapidity, it is comforting to observe that up to the present there is nothing in these changes to be greatly alarmed about. Some of them, such as the enormous burden of bonded indebtedness being piled up now by states, cities, corporations, etc., and the appar- ent growing laxity in some departments of morals, are causes for apprehension certainly. These changes have to do with rather profound aspects of our social life and may stand in the way of progress or result in some kind of social . * Samuel C- Schmucker, The Meaning of Evolution, p. 256. INTRODUCTION 19 stagnation, not catastrophic so much as insidi- ously weakening. But when we contemplate the actual changes in our social order up to date, we must admit that for the most part they are changes for the better. Consider, for instance, the actual steps that have been taken in the socialization and democ- ratization of the world. However sinister or beneficent the extreme socialization and democ- ratization which is proposed may be, what has really happened thus far is a change for the better. Favorable also are the actual steps which have been taken in the securing of social justice by establishing a legal minimum wage; in con- ceding the right of labor to organize and act collectively; in putting increased taxation upon large fortunes, incomes, and inheritances; in the institution of numerous successful plans for harmonizing the interests of capital and labor in many large manufacturing concerns; in making and enforcing laws against child labor; in providing adequate and sanitary houses; in banishing the unsightly and evil-smelling saloon from American towns and cities; in the en- franchisement of women and in their greatly enlarged sphere of action and influence in so- ciety; in the noteworthy steps which have been 20 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION taken in physical training, particularly for women and girls ; and in the advent of some degree of common sense in respect to dress. This list of happy changes could be greatly enlarged, as everybody knows, and these grateful facts, even though we are still convinced that our civiliza- tion is in danger, may ease our anxiety a good deal.i Then there is another alleviating considera- tion. It may be that it is not so much that our social evils have increased, as that sensitiveness to them has increased. Long before the war it had come to be believed that society was on the sick-list, needing drastic treatment, if not a major operation. We had become painfully con- scious of certain social "evils," and our atten- tion was fixed more and more upon certain loudly advertised "cures" for them. Among these evils were the unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity, the constant clashes between labor and capital, the unjust exclusion of women from political and economic privi- leges, the alcohol evil, social diseases, poverty, ' Whoever is pessimistically inclined about social progress should read thdt excellent little book by Edward A. Ross, fFHat is America, and also the book by Walter E. Weyl, The New Democ- racy, especially, chapter xiv, and the recent work of Nicholas Murray Butler, Is America Worth Saving? INTRODUCTION 21 crime, and the falling birth-rate. Among the pro- posed "cures" were the further extension of Democracy, Socialism, Syndicalism, Votes for Women, National Prohibition, Cooperation, and Industrial Democracy. Then came the war, and at once our attention was focused upon this as the worst evil of all. That such an awful calamity could suddenly befall the world increased still further; our dis- trust of our whole social system, and we began at once to search for some cure for this further evil, and hoped to find it in a League of Nations, international agreements, and the self-determi- nation of peoples. It is characteristic of our age to be peculiarly sensitive to its evils. This sickening feeling that the world is in a very bad way and needs redemp- tion is illustrated in the book written by Alfred Russel Wallace shortly before his death, in which he bewailed the degeneracy of the times, dwell- ing upon the prevalence of poverty and crime, and frightful social diseases, and social injustice, in a note almost of despair.^ Certainly it is a hopeful sign that we have become so sensitive to injustice, so conscious of social evils, so intolerant of wrong-doing, so ' Social Emironment and Moral Progress, chaps, viii-xii. 22 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION repelled by the horrors of war, that our own era, which is really clean and wholesome and peace- ful and righteous as compared with past periods in human history, seems to us so imperfect. Thus there is, at any rate, this element of hope in the situation that there must be some spark of divin- ity in the human mind, since we compare the present, not with the real past, but always with an ideal future. The special characteristic of our time is, there- fore, not the presence of evils, of which, to be sure, there are quite enough, but the peculiar con- sciousness of them and the resolute will to cure them — a will so persistent and so determined that it is certain that the twentieth century will see profound changes in oUr social order. But it does not follow necessarily that these changes will be beneficial. They will be experimental, and the prophet of social catastrophe may well ques- tion whether the radical experiments which it is proposed to make in social reform may not prove to be destructive of the civilization which we have. This is the first time in history that man has consciously and with determined pur- pose entered upon the task of directing his own fortunes. Hitherto he has been a puppet in the hands of cosmic forces — evolution, climate, the INTRODUCTION 23 struggle for existence; the industrial revolution wrought by mechanical inventions and by the discovery of coal, iron, and petroleum; and, finally, the retroactive influences of the Ameri- can and Pacific frontiers. Now the period of conscious control has come. But is this conscious control to be intelligent control, or is it to be the kind which the newly rich suddenly acquire over their material sur- roundings? So far as we can see at present, the era of intelligent control lies far in the future, and the control which is to mark the twentieth century will spring from an impulsive idealism characterized by a keen sensitiveness to our present social evils, rather than by a compre- hensive grasp of the whole situation. We are to enter upon the deliberate attempt at social re- construction, but with a kind of adolescent im- petuousness, and a fatuous, almost fanatical, faith in the magic of certain symbols to cure social evils. This is, no doubt, a necessary stage in the progress of social control, but it is not without its dangers. We have gained the power to remodel our social order; have we gained the necessary poise, the scientific, historical, and psychological knowledge that will make our meddling safe? 24 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION There is, In all the discussion of evils and the cures for them, a singular disregard of the psy- chological and historical factors of the situation, and a strange forgetfulness of the fact that how- ever important social and political readjustments may be, the world cannot be made over as long as the human material — the minds and bodies of men — remains the same. The relatively greater importance of education, of physical and mental health, of racial integrity, of universal intelli- gence and self-control is overlooked. Our efforts at reconstruction will, therefore, probably be impulsive and childlike. They will be directed to the obvious and superficial evils of our age rather than to the deeper and more serious ones. They will be directed against in- dustrial rather than moral and racial evils. When we think of the graver aspects of the social situation, when we look beneath the Ideal- ism, the faith, the charity, the hopefulness of the age, to its deeper troubles — such, for in- stance, as the declining birth-rate, the excessive and demoralizing wealth, the lessening sense of individual responsibility — we are still oppressed with a certain fear and dread for the future. But all these evils may be averted. We have still to reckon with the creative power of the INTRODUCTION 25 human mind. We have still to reckon with the possibility of the organization of intelligence. Despite the dangers of decadence, this is by no means a decadent age; it is quite the opposite. It is an age of unbounded energy and intellectual vigor. If we can find some way of redirecting this tide of energy into channels which lead directly to human welfare ; if we can discover some means of giving full expression to deep human instincts and interests, and sublimate and redirect those which are harmful; if we can discover a social order based on human needs and human nature and not merely on commer- cial, industrial, and economic motives, a social order in which there shall be higher values than work and wages, comforts and luxuries, and frantic demands for more and more rights and liberties, — why, then progress rather than decay may lie ahead of us in this twentieth cen- tury. The human mind is indomitable when it essays to navigate the air, to raise monster armies, to communicate by wireless, to connect two oceans, to master contagious diseases. Why should it falter at the problem of human welfare.'' Philosophers have been defined as those who can think in terms of the whole. This is just what we need now, social philosophers who can think 26 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION in terms of the whole of society; not merely in terms of political ascendancy and commercial and industrial expansion — but in terms of life. Projects for saving society from the dangers which now threaten it there are many. In the following chapters I wish to refer to some of these, not in the usual attitude of the advocate or critic, who has in mind the solution only of certain economic problems of the day, but rather in the attitude of the student of ultimate values. I am particularly anxious to know whether the reconstructive movements of the day have been planned to make men better, or whether their aim is the more humble one of Francis Bacon to make imperfect men comfortable; and if the latter should prove to be their aim, I am inter- ested to know whether they will work. In other words, I am concerned not so much with the ultimate outcome of a philosophy of peace and plenty, as with its psychological foundations. CHAPTER II PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS IN SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION NO one is much interested in social recon- struction in the abstract, but we are all greatly interested in the concrete forms which it is now taking, such as Socialism, of which there are CQuntless varieties both evolutionary and revolutionary. Syndicalism, Communism, Bol- shevism, Anarchism, the I.W.W., the Non- partisan League, Social Democracy, Collectiv- ism, Cooperation, Industrial Democracy, Votes for Women, Feminism, Prohibition, the Single Tax, the League of Nations, etc. To the casual student of social problems these plans for reform seem Jike many different and, to some extent, rival movements — some of them Utopian, some of them full of promise for social welfare, and nearly all of them characterized by deep sincerity and zeal for human improvement. To such a student it has not, perhaps, occurred that these movements are all very much alike; that a common philosophy of life lies at the basis of all of them; that they are all directed 28 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION against certain well-known evils in our pr'esent so- cial order; and that the social Ideals toward which they all are striving are very much the same. It is no part of my purpose in these pages to study any of these movements individually. There are tons of books that do this. Neither is it my primary purpose here to inquire into the philosophy of life which binds these movements together, a philosophy quite clear, definite, and attractive. Incidentally I shall refer to this phi- losophy of life, this "economic rationalism," as it has been called, this essentially Baconian con- ception of the world, this endless release of hu- man desires with its never-ceasing efi"ort to sat- isfy them, and compare it with totally other and different conceptions of life and society. But for the present it Is not the philosophy of these movements that I am interested in, but their psychology. I am interested in inquiring to what extent the new social order which is typified In these movements has a rational basis in human nature; whether it Is a social order In which human beings, mentally constituted as they are, will be able to live and work. I am in- terested in studying social reconstruction, not from the economic point of view, but from the psychological and psychogenetic standpoint. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 29 In practice our current social-reconstruction mover^ents start with the presence of certain evils in society which it is desirable to cure. Very commonly it is assumed that the presence of these evils is due, not to any moral, mental, or physical defects in the individuals which make up society; nor to any defects in our racial stocks; nor to any defects in our system of edu- cation, our schools or our teachers; nor to any defects in our public press or our philosophy of life; but wholly, or at least in large part, to our political and economic institutions. It is pro- posed, therefore, to change these institutions or to modify them in such a way that the aforesaid evils shall be absent, or, more simply still, to make laws abolishing these evils. ^ The evils are principally the following: the unequal distribution of wealth, the unequal dis- tribution of opportunity, clashes between labor and capital, the unjust exclusion of women from economic and political privileges, wars between states (very little is said of civil war or internal * "Nothing is more foolish than to imagine that all the defects in people flow from defects in society and will vanish if only we organize society on right lines. Some of the tfaits developed in man a hundred centuries ago make trouble now and will have to be allowed for seons hence." (E. A. Ross, Principles of Sociology, chap. IV, on "Original Social Forces.") 30 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION disorder), the alcohol evil, and . the presence everywhere of social and economic injustice in our midst. Autocracy, special privilege, poverty, etc., are corollaries of the above evila. The programme, therefore, of practically every reconstruction movement includes: The abolition of war between stc^tes, the more complete democratization and socialization 0/ governments, the socialization and democratization of industries, the harmonization 0/ capital and labor (or the abo- lition of capitalism), the greater equalization of wealth and opportunity, the complete emancipa- tion of women both political and industrial, the suppression of alcohol, and the securing of social and economic justice. Certainly if this ambitious plan could be realized, we should seem to have all the condi- tions for the social 'millennium. It has probably occurred to, few to doubt that if these things could be realized, our troubles would be over. To still fewer, perhaps, has it occurred to ask what would happen to a people whose troubles were over. A discussion of this question would involve us in the problem of the conditions of social progress and the causes of social stagna- tion. Omitting here any reference to this subtile point, we may observe that the value of this PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 31 programme would depend upon the interpre- tation of the phrase "social justice." If social justice is included in our plans for reconstruc- tion, and if social justice is understood in its widest sense, for instance in the Platonic sense, ^ surely the programme would be a perfect one. In practice, however, our reconstruction movements have a much narrower aim, espe- cial emphasis being laid upon the more equal distribution of wealth and opportunity, the abo- lition of poverty, the securing of an adequate scale of living for all classes, the political and eco- nomic emancipation of women, and the aboli- tion of alcohol. The new world as we usually pic- ture it will be perfect in proportion as it realizes these ends. We have thus a kind of Apostles' Creed of social reconstruction, often held as persistently and dogmatically as was ever re- ' Justice in the Platonic sense is a situation in which every part of man's personality is developed to its normal function, but at the expenpe of no other part of his personality. Social justice is a situa- tion in which every person has and does that which belongs to him to have and to do, and does not have or do that which belongs to another to Have or to do. Specifically this involves a situation in which each generation shall not have or do anything which be- longs to the next following generations to have or to do. We should certainly have here the highest test of reconstruction movements. There might prove to be a startling discrepancy between this no- tion of social justice and the prevailing use of that term to mean a more equal distribution of wealth and opportunity. 32 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION ' llgious creed. The faith in it is naive to the point of childlike confidence. One would sup- pose that the doubt has simply never arisen in our minds that all of our fundamental social problems will be solved as soon as we get wars between nations stopped, property more equi- tably distributed, capital and labor harmonized, opportunity equalized, women enfranchised, and alcohol abolished. And this is not merely the paper programme of idealists, nor a dreamy, philosophical picture of an ideal social state like Plato's "Republic" or Saint Augustine's "City of God" or More's "Utopia," but the actual working plans of a great number of social reforms of intense vitality and unlimited enthusiasm. And even this does not indicate the strength of this movement. It is in the air; it is in the spirit of the age; it is in the unquestioned drift of events. So un- bounded is our faith in the supreme value of this programme that to attain it we believe that the price even of the late awful war was not too great to pay. Even in the untoward event of the victory of the Central Powers, all these social aims would, as many believe, eventually have been realized, because of the powerful social forces moving in this direction throughout the world. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 33 Neither Is thi-s programme to be criticized be- cause It Is Utopian. Too many Utopias are being realized in this marvelous age to borrow any- trouble on that account. Nor is it my purpose here to criticize it on the ground that the ends set forth are not the supreme ends which society should try to realize or that they are not the things in which we are most deficient. It might, to be sure, be maintained that the things here set forth as social ideals, while they are of great value, are not the things of supreme value nor the things which the world at the present time most lacks, nor the things which should become of prime importance in our social reconstruc- tion. Conceivably, it might be argued that there never was a time in the world's history when there was so little real suffering from want of the necessities of life, nor so many enjoyments and comforts by every class in the community, nor so much freedom and opportunity, nor so little intemperance, nor so many privileges, oppor- tunities, and rights for women. It might per- haps be reasoned further that while we are still deficient In these things, we are vastly more de- ficient In other, no less vital, or still more vital things, such for instance as art, niorals, man- ners, culture, brotherhood and cooperation, re- 34 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION ligion, temperance in the sense of moderation, thrift, health, racial integrity, organized intelli- gence, a rational system of education, an inte- grated communityilife, social stability, conserva- tion of food, soils and forests, and conservation of racial values. I can well imagine that the whole programme of social reconstruction at the present time might be open to such criti- cism, were one disposed to view it from this angle; but all this is not the drift of my present criticism of our current plans for social reform. What I am asking now is whether the kind of social order which the above proposals offer is a social order that men want at all. We are trying desperately hard to get it. Will it be something that we want when we get it? In other words, has this programme of social reform a psycho- logical basis? Will it meet our human needs? Does it conform to human nature? The trouble is that all of these social reorgani- zation plans have been worked out too largely from the political and economic standpoint rather than from the psychological standpoint. Any workable plan for social reconstruction must be based on an accurate knowledge of the human units which are to constitute the new so- ciety. No social system has any chance of success PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 35 which is not planned with immediate reference to the material of which society is composed. A bridge-builder has to give quite as much atten- tion to the strength of material as he has to the use and beauty of his structure. Human beings are the material of our social order; but our theo- retical social-reorganization schemes are often planned simply to accomplish certain ends or banish certain evils, with very little considera- tion of the strength or the weakness of the ma- terial with which they have to build. ' The gist of the matter is simply this : We are living in an economic and political age and our minds are obsessed by economic and political ideas. When we turn to the subject of social re- construction, we are apt to take into account only economic and political relations, and, in spite of many warnings to the contrary, we are apt to neglect the human motive, the character of the units of which society is composed. In other words, we disregard the vital and all- important psychological factor. Our theoretical social structures may, therefore, be just air- castles, in which actual human beings could not live. Our social-reconstruction schemes may be of little value until they have been revised in the light of the teachings of psychology, history, and 36 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION anthropology. This is so obvious that it is hard to understand ho^vy the psychological and his- torical factors could be so neglected in these studies.* It may be that our current reconstruction plans are designed for ideal rather than fo.r prac- tical human beings. It inay be that they depend too often upon the obsolescent hedonistic and utilitarian philosophy of Bentham and the hap- piness-economy of Lester F. Ward. It may be that they assume too readily that mankind is naturally peace-loving and labor-loving, needing only justice and opportunity, and that the road to happiness is through science, invention, and the increase of wealth to the end that all men may come into their rightful inheritance, this rightful inheritance being an adequate and com- fortable scale of living. Consequently it may be that they are too ready to see in increased pro- • This applies to the great current of thought on the subject of social reconstruction as it is reflected in the movements of the day. Notable exceptions there are, of course, many among books of the more thoughtful class such as Graham Wallas's Ths Great Society, and Human Nature in Politics; Walter Lippman's A Preface to Politics; Wesley C. Mitchell's "Human Behavior and Economics," Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 29, pp. I-47; Helen Marot's The Creative Impulse in Industry; F. W. Taussig's Inventors and Money-Makers; W. Trotter's Instincts of the Herd in Peace and tf^ar; W. E. Hocking's Human Nature and its Remaking; and other books mentioned below. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 37 duction of wealth and its equitable distribution a solution of the social problem. It is significant, too, that this increased production is always quantitatively, not qualitatively, considered. Our social-reform movements seem to have a somewhat romantic character. They represent restless endeavors to realize certain ideas which stand as symbols of our age for ultimate desired ends — such as wealth, liberty, opportunity, equality, and peace. The agitations for these things have a dramatic character which per- fectly typifies the action of the human mind ; but it remains an open question whether that form of social organization by which it ^s pro- posed to realize these ideas would appeal strongly to human nature. Just as the economic interpretation of history is giving way to the synthetic and psychological interpretation, so we are coming to see that social i;pconstruction must be conceived in its larger psychological aspects. If there is to be a new social order, it must be more than an order in which certain evils, such as war and poverty and inequality, are absent. It must be an order in which funda- mental human instincts and interests shall be satisfied. It must be an order in which human beings can live. The attention of our social re- 38 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION formers will have to be centered less upon wealth and more upon life. The World War and still more the actual be- havior of men since the war have opened our eyes to the almost infinite complexity of the so- cial problem, because of the infinite complexity of human motives, human passions, instincts, and interests. Just recently a mass of facts in so- cial, dynamic, and behaviorist psychology has become available and made our current schemes of reconstruction very visionary. Even without a knowledge of the writings of Carleton H. Par- ker, Thorndike, Ross, McDougall, Thorstein Veblen, Watson, Freud, Cannon, and Ordway Tead, the spectacle of human behavior, as it was exhibited on the political and diplomatic battle-field of Europe after the armistice was signed, would show that any plans for the recon- struction of society on purely economic lines will not work in practice. If by eugenic selection or by education a race of men could be produced which would live contentedly in such a society, it is questionable whether it would be worth while. Our current reconstruction plans proceed on the general assumption that eight hours of well- paid work (or possibly six, or even four), eight hours of leisure for recreation and self-improve- PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 39 ment, and eight hours for sleep are what men want; and that when these are provided for all, and when all shall be given an equal opportu- nity, and when all shall do their share of the work, and when all shall have an equal voice in public affairs, then all will be happy, peaceful, docile, and contented, and social unrest will be a thing of the past. And if the disquieting question does still arise in anybody's mind whether man will behave in this docile fashion when work and leisure and sleep and adequate wages are pro- vided, one class of romancers say that he will do so provided all access to alcoholic liquors is forbidden him; another that he will do so pro- vided his wife and sisters have the right to vote; another that he will do so provided the reins of government are completely in his own hands; another that he will do so provided there is communal ownership .of land and capital — that is. Democracy, Votes for Women, Prohi- bition, Socialism are the magic wands which are to banish unrest from the world. Every student of race psychology knows how life is determined by a great mass of inherited instincts, interests, and passions.^ Few question • I refer to biological inheritance; but if any one wishes to make the claim that the inheritance of these interests is social or cultural 40 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION the fact that the political and economic inequali- ties of the present must be corrected, but they can only be corrected in a social order which shall meet the minimum demands of the mass of human instincts and interests that determine life, and a social order which shall have a degree of permanence and stability that shall not sacri- fice the political and economic justice of the next generation to that of this one. The following quotation from an article by Carleton H. Parker will illustrate the close de- pendence which must exist between social re- construction and psychological analysis: We economists speculate little on human motives. We are not curious about the great basis of fact which dynamic and behavioristic psychology has gathered to illustrate the instinct stimulus to human activity. Most of us are not interested to think of what a psychologically full or satisfying life is. We are not curious to know that a great school of behav- ior analysis called the Freudian has been built around the human instincts. Our economic literature shows that we are but rarely curious to know whether in- dustrialism is suited to man's inherited nature, or what man in turn will do to our rules of economic conduct in case theise rules are repressive. The mo- — this has very little bearing on the argument to follow. Such social inheritance is very persistent and can be changed slowly by education. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 41 tives to economic activity which have done the major service in orthodox economic texts and teachings have been either the vague middle-class virtues of thrift, justice, and solvency; or the equally vague moral sentiments of " striving for the welfare of oth- ers," "desire for the larger self," "desire to equip one's self well"; or, lastly, that labor-saving deduc- tion that man is stimulated in all things economic by his desire to satisfy his wants with the smallest possi- ble effort. All this gentle parody in motive theorizing continued contemporaneously with the output of the rich literature of social and behavioristic psychol- ogy which was almost entirely addressed to this very problem of human motives in modern economic soci- ety. Noteworthy exceptions are the remarkable series of Veblen books, the articles and criticisms by Mitch- ell, Fisher, and Patten, and the significant small book by Taussig entitled " Inventors and Money-Makers." It is to this complementary field of psychology that the economists must turn for a vitalization of their basic hypotheses. There awaits them a bewildering array of studies of the motives, emotions, and folk ways of our pecuniary civilization. Generalizations and exiperiment statistics abound ready-made for any structure of economic criticism. The human motives are isolated, described, compared. Business confi- dence, the release of work energy, advertising ap- peal, market vagaries, the basis of value computa- tions, decay of workmanship, the labor unrest, decline in the thrift habit, are the subjects treated. . . . The stabilizing of the science of psychology and the vogue among economists of the scientific method will not allow these psychological findings to be shouldered out by the careless a-priori deductions touching human nature which still dominate our 42 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION orthodox texts. The confusion and metaphysical pro- pensities of our economic theory, our neglect of the consequences of child labor, our lax interest in na- tional vitality and health, the unusableness of our theories of labor unrest and of labor efEciency, our careless reception of problems of population, eugenics, sex, and birth control; our ignorance of the rela- tion of industry to crime, industry to feeble-minded- ness, industry to functional insanity, industry to edu- cation; and our astounding indifference to the field of economic consumption — all this delinquency can be traced back to our refusal to see that economics is social ecoilomics, and that a full knowledge of man, his instincts, his power of habit acquisition, his psy- chological demands were an absolute prerequisite to clear and purposeful thinking on our industrial civili- zation. McDougall, the Oxford social psychologist, said in direct point: "Political economy suffered hardly less from the crude nature of the psychological assumption from which it professed to deduce the ex- planations of its facts, and its prescriptions for eco- nomic legislation. It would be a libel not altogether devoid of truth to say that the classical political economy was a tissue of false conclusions drawn from false psychological assumptions." * So far as the science of economics is con- cerned, Professor Parker was no doubt speaking of a generation already past. Our present-day economists are fully alive to the vital connection between their sciejice and the science of human * Carleton H. Parker, "Motives in Economic Life," Proceed- ings, American Economic Association, 30th Meeting, December, 1917, pp. 214, 21S. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 43 conduct, but it is quite otherwise as regards the economic theories which are presupposed in the popular reconstruction plans of the time. It is a very distinct philosophy of life upon which they rest; but it is a purely speculative, a-priori philosophy, which, although highly optimistic and captivating, lacks basis in concrete reality. It sounds very well to reason, somewhat after the manner of Mr. Lester F. Ward, as follows: The end to be sought in human society is the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. The pain-economy under which the lower animals live is no longer necessary for man, who, under the guidance of science and the me- chanic arts and by means of the economic sur- plus, may now enter upon a pleasure-economy. Every one, including the hitherto exploited classes, exploited not because of lack of intelli- gent capacity, but for lack of opportunity, is en- titled to and can attain to an adequate and com- fortable scale of living, providing not only the necessities of life, but a reasonable number of comforts and luxuries. There is not, however, at the present time, wealth enough in the world, even if it were equally distributed, to provide such a scale of living for all. It is therefore neces- sary, to increase still further the wealth of the 44 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION* world. To this end let all extant knowledge be freely imparted to all people. This will result in a vastly increased number of effective men of spe- cial ability, for abihty depends upon opportu- nity more than upon birth. This again will bring about an advance in science and invention, which will effect a great increase in wealth and opportunity, and these being equally distributed will promote universal comfort and happiness. In this society of the future, productive kbor will be universal, for when the stigma be re- moved from labor, labor itself will bring the greatest happiness to mankind, since pleasure is found in the exercise of normal function.^ This sounds very familiar to us. To many, in- deed, it seems, no doubt, to be the very gospel which it was the mission of the nineteenth cen- tury to proclaim and of the twentieth century to realize in our new social order. If this gospel fail, hope is lost. But as a matter of fact almost every article in this creed is open to question. It was the World War itself which first shook our faith in this modern gospel of a pleasure-economy. It has been the behavior of the world since the war that has brought further discredit upon it. • Compare Lester F. Ward, Applied Sociology, part i, chap, iiiff. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 45 Neither biology nor psychology has been able to establish a foundation for the hedonistic philoso- phy upon which this creed of the pleasure-econo- mists could stand. We have discovered that there are higher values than the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. We have discovered that there are higher concep- tions of education than the diffusion of knowl- edge. We have discovered that in social re- construction what we have to deal with is not certain abstract concepts such as pleasure, hap- piness, leisure, wealth, labor, and opportunity, but an immense number of intensely human men and women actuated by powerful instincts and passions. We have discovered that what men really want is life and self-reaHzation, and that self-realization involves a network of vital social relations and the functioning of a great mass of powerful human instincts and interests. When the older writers talked about the es- cape of mankind from the old pain-economy to a pleasure-economy, it was probable that what they had in mind was the vindication of man in his struggle for self-realization against the old theological notion of ascetic repression of natu- ral impulses. Thus far they represented a great step forward. But every statement of this 46 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION emancipation in terms of a pain and pleasure economy lacked a sound psychological and socio- logical foundation. It should never be forgot- ten that the value of life is not lessened by the presence of tragic elements. In the following pages I shall make some attempt to discover in what self-realization actually consists, whether in work or play, whether in pleasure or the ful- fillment of normal function; and if in the latter, whether normal function consists in work, as Mr. Ward thought, or in the life of instinctive ac- tivities. Here I am only trying to point out the failure of our current reconstruction plans to take account of psychological motives. I am not here attempting to write constructively on so- cial reorganization, but only to show that who- ever will do so must from now on take careful and detailed account of human instincts, im- pulses, and interests. The trouble is that the terms "social welfare" and "the public good" are not usually carefully defined. Some general phrase, such as "the full, free, and abundant life," or "the satisfaction of our organic cravings," usually suffices. But it is just this need of finding out what life really is that makes a psychologicaUviewpoint necessary. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 47 Here, I think, we shall find it hard to improve upon Aristotle's conception of the highest good as the activity of our powers. Aristotle, from his Greek intellectualistic viewpoint, considered thought as the highest and best form of activity. Surely he was nearly right here, but among our energetic northern races and with our emphasis upon Will and Vital Impulse, we interpret it to mean something like initiative, enterprise, achievement, adventure, organization, inven- tion, scientific discovery. Our bent is in these directions, so that our problem becomes one of finding a social order in which the greatest num- ber of individuals in the present and in future generations may have a fair field for their ac- tivities — a fair field for thought, action, con- trol, and achievement. But such a fair field for activity for all members of the group, and for successive generations, involves an integrated and stable social life, and that involves a high degree of self-control and social discipline. The problem of social reconstruction, if such a thing be attempted, becomes, therefore, an extremely complicated one, requiring a profound insight into the instincts and motives of the human units of which society is composed, and at the same time an accurate historical knowledge of social 48 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION institutions and the conditions upon which social integration depends. In our popular social-reconstruction move- ments we pay too little attention to any of these fundamental things. We are concerned, rather, ,in a vaguely sympathetic way, in releasing hu- man desires and then in devising means of satis- fying them. We are supremely interested in pro- viding for everybody an adequate scale of living, and then in intensifying our already feverish industrial system to the end of satisfying these desires. We have little interest in studying into the actual instinctive needs of men, into what is required to enable them to fulfill their normal function, while our attitude toward discipline is almost wholly negative, forgetting the condi- tions which make an integrated and abiding sck cial life possible, but reveling rather in a kind of sentimental adoration of liberty and equality. We seem to forget that there are coming genera- tions whose desires are to be satisfied and for whom a field for achievement is to be left. We are engaged in the relatively superficial task of devising some political or social machin- ery which shall distribute more evenly certain material goods, or in finding some new form of social or industrial organization which has PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTdlJlS 49 scarcely any further aim than the increased pro- duction of such goods and their just distribu- tion. We see that people desire certain things and, moved by an unbounded sympathy, we pro- pose some plan of social reconstruction which shall satisfy these desires.^ In this we carryover the theory of economic value into the field of so- cial and ethical values. It is not, indeed, mere wealth that we prize so highly — although in practice this is the dominant idea — but wealth and opportunity. By opportunity, however, we mean nothing more than opportunity for indi- vidual material and spiritual expansion, oppor- tunity for leisure, for culture, for recreation, for entertainment, for art. We are wholly engrossed, therefore, in finding some kind of machinery which shall insure to everybody (usually everybody in this generation) these satisfactions. Our mouths are full of phrases which are names for the several parts of "this so- ' For an extreme statement of this view that social organization should tend toward the maximum production of all that may be useful or agreeable to man with the minimum of effort, see the pamphlet by G. Barnich entitled Principes de Politique Positive apres Solvay. It is beyond understanding how psychological and evolutionary facts are left out of consideration in works of this kind. On the fundamental place of effort in the mental life of man, compare the article by John J. B. Morgan, entitled "An Analysis of Effort," The Psychological Renew, vol. 27, no. 2, March, 1920. so SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION cial and industrial machinery, such as industrial democracy, collective bargaining, cooperation, profit-sharing, social insurance, a minimum wage, an eight-hour day, better housing, indus- trial education, terminal markets, trades unions, shop councils, and so on through the familiar list. All these proposals are excellent; that is, they are excellent within the narrow circle of our in- dustrialized and commercialized thinking. But when we begin to talk about social reconstruc- tion these categories are no longer sufficient. I anticipate that this method of social reconstruc- tion will, in the near future, give place to a more psychological, historical, and psychogenetic method. We shall turn our thought to evolution and human nature, and we shall realize that re- construction, if it is to result in a stable social structure that shall insure happiness, not to cer- tain classes for a few years, but to all of us and to our children and to their children, will require long and patient scientific study of history, psy- chology, and human institutions. The science of psychology has in recent years been most helpfully enriched by the study of the original elements in the nature of man. The at- PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 51 tention of psychologists is no longer centered on pain and pleasure, on sensation, or on thought, but rather on instinct, on the conative impulse, on the wish pulse, the pulse of energy. ' It is the vital impulse, the conative tendencies, the will to live, the will to power — it is life itself which now holds the center of interest in the s udy of mental being. These are the ultimate facts of mental life not to be referred to any simpler elements.^ » Compare S. N. Patten, " The Divided Self," Moniit, Aprils 1919, p. 223. ' "The instinctive impulses determine the ends of all activities and supply the driving power by which all mental activities are sustained; and all the complex intellectual apparatus of the most highly developed mind is but a means toward these ends, is but the instrument by which these impulses seek their satisfactions, while pleasure and pain do but serve to guide them in their choice of the means. "... These impulses are the mental forces that maintain and shape all the life of individuals and societies, and in them we are confronted with the central mystery of life and mind and will. "... We may perhaps describe all living things as expressions or embodiments of what we may vaguely name, with Schopenhauer, will, or, with Bergson, the vital impulsion (Pelan vital), or, more simply, life; and each specifically directed conative tendency we may regard as a differentiation of this fundamental will-to-live, conditioned by a conative disposition. At the standpoint of em- pirical science, we must accept these conative dispositions as ul- timate facts, not capable of being analyzed or of being explained by being shown to be instances of any wider, more fundamental notion." (William McDougall, An Introduction to Socid Psychol- ogy, pp. 44 and 361.) 52 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION The soul of man is found in the capacity to do, in " the form of a natural body endowed with the capacity for life," in the Aristotelian phrase.^ Longing, striving, aspiration are the deep and significant things in human nature.^ The essen- tial and basal fact in human life and human society is the will to live, the will to power, the inner disposition. Man is a striving animal. He always strives for something; but social psychol- ogy must fix its attention less upon the things striven for and more upon the striving itself. Happiness is not found in the satisfaction of our desires, but in the activity of our powers; not in the means of gratifying our tastes, but in the gratification of them; not in the experienc- ing of pleasure, but in the harmonious exercise of human faculties. Hence it follows that an ideal social order is not one which will best fur- nish its people with the means of satisfying their desires, but one that will best provide a field for their activities. Particularly in our modern times has it come to be true that mental life takes more and more the form of striving. It seems as if a new pulse of cosmic energy has flowed into the souls of men. ' Compare E. B. Holt, The Freudian Wish, chap. i. * Compare C. G. Jung, The Theory of Psychoanalysis, p. 40 ff. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 53 The modern man is tremendously virile and forceful. Outwardly there are no signs of human decadence.^ Professor George Plimpton Adams in his i^e- cent book, " IdeaHsm and the Modern Age," ^ has brought into remarkably clear relief the charac- teristics of the times in which we live. The ancients, he says, looked without toward an ob- jective ideal order which they wished to appro- ' This by no means indicates a situation of biological stability or biological fitness on the part of our western races. It means only that the human mechanism now displays an immense amount of kinetic energy. It is a masculine age in which we live, an expansive, centrifugal age, an age of great energy and endeavor. Even our churches have become no longer bodies of worship and prayer, but societies of Christian endeavor. It is not an age of calm and rest and conservation of forces. Statistics show that the annual per capita consumption of sugar in the United States has increased from thirty-five pounds in 1866 to ninety-two pounds in 1919, the total consumption being 4,500,- 000 tons. Sugar is a food that is quickly converted into available energy. One cannot but wonder whether this craving for sugar does not indicate that we are living or beginning to live a kind of hand' to-mouth existence, expending an abnormal amount of energy and demanding quick and expensive means of supply. The remarkablt increase in the consumption of coffee, tea, and tobacco, and the craving for alcohol strengthen this suggestion. The abandon with which our western children play, as compared with children of the Orient, the impetuousness of our devotion to baseball, football, and other athletics, the extravagance of our dancing — all this suggests that these phenomena may not after all be an index of life and vitality, but of mere nervousness — may indeed indicate a lack of real life and real mtality. « Page 79 ff. 54 SOCIAL RECONSTRudrriON priate or possess. They did not seek to make their ideal world. They sought to participate in objective, significant structures which were given to men to Jcnow, to contemplate, and to worship. But now in our modern democratic world all this is changed. The modern man wishes to cre- ate his own world. Activity, control, achieve- ment have superseded contemplation and wor- ship. The significance of things now lies not in any absolute value which they have, but in the response and success which they have ofi^ered to man's endeavors. "The life and thought of men grow, indeed, out of attitudes and experiences in which not contemplation but activity, not in- telligence but will and feeling, not aesthetic and philosophic theoria but ethical striving and emotional aspiration express man's dominant interests." ^ ' Compare the following quotation from Wesley C. Mitchell: '"There can be no question,' wrote a distinguished psychologist in 1909, ' that the lack of practical recognition of psychology by the workers in the social sciences has been in the main due to its deficiencies. . . . The department of psychology that is of primary importance for the social sciences is that which deals with the springs of human action, the impulses and motives that sustain mental and bodily activity and regulate conduct; and this, of all the departments of psychology, is the one that has remained in the most backward state, in which the greatest obscurity, vagueness, and confusion still reign.' "Happily, the preceding reviews justify the belief that this situ- PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 55 The overthrow of psychological hedonism gives an entirely new cast to our plans for social reconstruction. Practically all of these plans rest upon the tacit assumption that that society will be best which shall best furnish a means of satisfying human desires, and these desires are economically interpreted as desires for wealth, for material benefits, for an adequate scale of living. Hence the necessity for increasing the production of wealth; hence the need of a more equal distribution of material goods. With the passing of the old hedonistic philosophy and the ation is changing for the better. For Parmelee and Thorndike, Wallas, Veblen, and Lippmann, even in a measure Sombart aind Walling, are endeavoring to explain how men act. Studies of trop- isms, reflexes, instincts, and intelligence; of the relations between an individual's original and acquired capacities; of the cultural roles played by racial endowments and social institutions are vastly more significant for economics than classiiications of con- scious states, investigations of the special senses, and disquisitions on the relations between soul and body. " It was because hedonism oflfered a theory of how men act that it exercised so potent an influence upon economics. It is because they are developing a sounder type of functional psychology that we may hope both to profit by and to share in the work of contem- porary psychologists. But in embracing this opportunity econom- ics will assume a new character. It will cease to be a system of pecuniary logic, a mechanical study of static equi^ibria under non- existent conditions, and become a science of human behavior." (Wesley C. Mitchell, "Human Behavior and Economics," Quar- terly Journal of Economics, vol. 29, pp. 46, 47. Quotation is from McDougall, An Introduction to Social Psychology, pp. 2, 3.) S6 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION coming of the new dynamic conception of life this notion of society and of social welfare must be changed. "^ Every vigorous man needs some kind of contest, some sense of resistance overcome, in 'order to feel that he is exercising his faculties. Under the influence of economics, a theory has grown up that what men desire is wealth; this theory has tended to verify itself, because people's actions are more often de- termined by what they think they desire than by what they really desire. The less active members of a community often do in fact desire wealth, since it en- ables them to gratify a taste for passive enjoyment, and to secure respect without exertion. But the ener- getic men who make great fortunes seldom desire the actual money: they desire the sense of power through a contest, and the joy of successful activity.* Society must be so organized as to provide .directly for the exercise of man's inherent and instinctive faculties. That there must be an ade- quate scale of living and a more equitable dis- tribution of goods is of course taken for granted ; but these are too often considered as ends in themselves, as if society should be reorganized ' The problem of the motivation of human conduct appears not to have been well thought through either by our economists or by our social reformers. B. M. Anderson's book on Social Values, es- pecially chapter x, should be read by all ; also Professor W. G. Everett's book on Moral Values. ^ Bertrand Russell, fVhy Men Fight, p. loo. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 57 with this particular end in view. Indeed it ap- pears that our social-reform movements are often planned solely with reference to this end: namely, to provide peace and plenty and an adequate scale of material comforts. What men desire, it is reasoned, is peace and plenty and leisure and work and opportunity. It may be replied that many of the social-re- construction movements of our time, While they do lay great stress upon peace and plenty and work and adequate comforts, expressly stipulate that there shall be opportunity for self-improve- ment and spiritual development, thus appar- ently emphasizing the very kind of activity which modern psychology declares for. But the trouble is that in these platforms opportunity is a mere phrase. It seems to be assumed that, given peace and plenty and leisure, something vaguely called spiritual development will follow. Biolo- gists will tell us that what will probably follow will be degeneration, or, at the best, social stag- nation.^ ' It is interesting to read McDougall's account of the peaceful and warlike tribes of Borneo whom he has personally studied. " It might be supposed," he says, " that the peaceful coastwise people would be found to be superior in moral qualities to their more war- like neighbors; but the contrary is the case. In almost all respects the advantage lies with the warlike tribes. Their houses are better 58 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION This does not mean that we are to abate our efforts to establish a society free from that form of social suicide such as the modern war has be- come. It means only that the scientific reorgani- zation of society is an affair of infinitely greater difficulty than we at present realize. It will not do to say that the 'instinct of pugnacity is evil and that we will organize our society so that this evil will be absent, by means, for instance, of ar- bitration treaties, peace societies, and a League of Nations.^ If by these means we could perhaps abolish war between states or lessen its fre- quency, there are other forms of war known to history. Indeed, history records the fact that built, larger, and cleaner; their domestic morality is superior; they are physically stronger, are braver, and physically and mentally more active, and in general are more trustworthy. But, above all, their social organization is firmer and more efficient, because their respect for and obedience to their chiefs, and their loyalty to their community, are much greater; each man identifies himself with the whole conimunity and accepts and loyally performs the social duties laid upon him. And tlie moderately warlike tribes occupy- ing the intermediate regions stand midway between them and the people of the coast as regards these moral qualities." (McDougall, An Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 289.) 1 References to the League of Nations in several places in this book should not be interpreted to indicate any Ijpstility to the plan. I am heartily ashamed of the selfish and unenviable position taken by our Senate on this matter. As everybody that I have talked to on the subject seems to hold the same views, one cannot help wondering how much public opinion our boisterous Senators who opposed the League had behind them. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 59 civil wars have been quite as great a menace to human progress as wars between nations, and even apart from civil war, internal dissensions and disorders as a result of innate pugnacity are always threatening social stability. McDougall calls attention to the fact that when a pugna- cious people is brought under a strict system of legality, litigiousness greatly increases.' We ' have lately learned something of the impotence of peace societies and arbitration treaties in the face of raging human passions, all of which goes to show not the uselessness of such efforts nor the hopelessness of a League of Nations, but the absolute need of supplementing these endeavors by the application of psychological principles to social reconstruction. The instinct of pugnacity cannot be suppressed. It must be sublimated, as Professor James well knew when he proposed a substitute for war. Nor would it do to say that if men are well fed they will not fight, for history refutes this at every turn. That a virile, well-fed nation will wage a war of offense recent history shows. In fact, we have right before our eyes at the present time a great international movement illustrating the persistence of the deep, instinc- ' McDougall, An Iniroduetion to Social Ps^chologyt p. 479. 6o SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION tive love of some kind of physical conflict; for in spite of the democratic theory of government which is supposed to be extended to wider and wider circles of the earth, the use of violence by one class against another is openly advocated by certain of our social reformers. CHAPTER III PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS IN SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION (continued) IT is not my purpose here to take up the spe- cific human instincts and impulses and at- tempt to catalogue them, nor to show in detail how these specific instincts and impulses fail to be provided for in our current reconstruction plans. The first has been done by many recent writers,^ and the second is beyond the scope of the present work. Neither is it worth while to wrangle over the nomenclature.^ Those who dis- trust the word "instinct," or bewail its lack of exact connotation, or those who deny the exist- ence of any instincts at all, may, so far as the ' Compare Edward L. Thorndike, "The Original Nature of Man," Educational Psychology, vol. i; William Jamas, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii, chap, xxiv; William McDougall, An Introduc- tion to Social Psychology, chaps, m, iv, v; Carleton H. Parker, "Motives in Economic Life," Proceedings, American Economic Association, 30th Meeting, December, 1917, pp. 212-31; Ordway Tead, Instincts in Industry. ' Compare Graham Wallas, The Great Society, chaps. 11, lii; F. W. Taussig, Inventors and Money-Makers, pp. J, 6; Thorstein VeWen, The Instinct of Workmanship, Introduction; Symposium on Instinct, British Journal of Psychology, November, iglg; W. Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, p. 94 ff.; W. E. Hocking, Human Nature and Its Remaking, part 11. 62 SOaAL RECONSTRUCTION present discussion is concerned, substitute the name most acceptable to them, such, for in- stance, as propensities, dispositions, rooted dis- positions, predispositions, prochvities, persistent interests, Urveranlagungen, automatic impulses, original nature of man, persistent reflexes, or ex- ceedingly stubborn forms of behavior. For brev-' ity I shall use the word instinct.^ It will be sufficient for my purpose to take any list of human instincts or predispositions, such as that given by Carleton H. Parker,^ or a part of them, and we shall at once see to what extent these primal tendencies of human nature are neglected or ignored in popular social-recon- struction movements. Dominant among our in- stinctive proclivities not thus provided for are ' Professor John B. Watson, in his recent booli entitled Psy- chology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, limits the number of human instincts rather narrowly. Nevertheless the following quo- tation from his book illustrates very well the persistence and the dominance of certain human dispositions, and this is all that I need to emphasize, so far as my present argument is concerned: "Many individuals' will not give twenty-five cents for a charitable purpose, but at any charity gathering they will eagerly take one of a dozen twenty-five-cent chances on almost any object the total value of which need not be greater than the cost of a single chance. So uniform is the response to lottery schemes that they have often- times become national mediums for raising government funds." (Pages 3 and 4. The italics are mine.) " In the work cited. Compare also the lists given by McDougall, James, and Ordway Tead. PYSCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 63 the instinct of constructive workmanship, curios- ity and manipulation; the instinct of ownership, individual possession, acquisition, and collecting; the instinct of pugnacity; the instinct of gre- gariousness; the instinct of emulation and ri- valry; the instinct of loyalty and devotion; the instinct of parental bent and motherly behavior; the instinct of thought, invention, and organiza- tion; the housing or settling instinct; the homing and migratory instinct; the hunting instinct, love of adventure and change; the instinct of leadership and mastery, and the love of domin- ion; the instinct of subordination and submis- sion; and the instinct of display, vanity, and ostentation. These and other instincts belong to the equip- ment of the individual with which he enters the arena of life. The individuals thus equipped are the material of which society is made. It is useless to say that this equipment is rusty, out of date, an inheritance of savagery, which the social re- former does not need to take into account. It represents the actual material which is to be used in social organization, and the strength and stability of the structure will depend upon the strength or weakness of the material. The undue repression of any of these instinctive tendencies 64 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION will result in irritability, "balked disposition,'' ^ and that very unrest which we are trying to diminish. No doubt human nature is plastic and indefinitely modifiable, but we must remember that in the modification of human nature we have to do with ages, not with decades or even centuries. Anthropologists tell us that there has been little change in human instincts for thou- sands of years.^ It becomes evident, then, that in the comparatively short period of the next twenty-five, fifty, or one hundred years, social reconstructionists will have as their material human beings whose mental constitutions will be much the same as during the long record of ' Compare Graham Wallas, The Great Society, pp. 64, 6;. • "Changes in the institutional structure are continually taking place in response to the altered discipline of life under changing cultural conditions, but human nature remains specifically the same.V "Such limitations imposed on cultural grovnh by native proclivities ill suited to civilized life are sufficiently visible in sev- eral directions and in all the nations of Christendom." (Thorstein Veblen, The Instinct of J^orkmanship, p. 18.) For an extreme statement of the plasticity of human nature, a theme dear to the heart of the present-day writer on social topics, see Professor Todd's Theories of Social Progress, pp. i, 2. But it is evident that Professor Todd is not writing here of man's original nature, his native equipment of feeling, desire, impulse, but of his " totality of mind," his social self, his finished and perfected ego, the result, to a large extent, of course, of his education, and his family and social life. I am speaking of "the deeper functional de- mands that belong to one's racial history." PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 65 the past. If, however, human nature is to be modified to the end of eliminating undesirable traits and with the view of adaptation to a civilization whose watchwords are commercial and industrial efficiency, cooperation, liberty, and peace, why, then, evidently it is education which must be the central thought in all our Ef- forts rather than new political and social institu- tions and new laws. But relatively little is said about education in the social-reconstruction movements of the day. Although our teachers are overworked and underpaid,^ it is the under- ' "A careful and complete survey made this year, covering the year 1917, in a Massachusetts city paying very nearly the maxi- mum salaries for the country, discloses these facts : The cost of liv- ing in that city increased 65 per cent during the past five years, while teachers' salaries increased II per cent. The result is that nearly all of the 318 teachers employed report a relative deficit in their pay ranging from $25 to $280. . . . Out of So grade teachers in this city, 73 are obliged to do outside work to make both ends meet; 39 do both sewing and laundry work, S sewing, 3 laundry work, 12 tutoring, 6 playground work; 20 board themselves or live at home. Not only do stenographers and bookkeepers receive higher salaries than many teachers, but even women day laborers are better paid. Domestic servants, even in the smaller cities, re- ceive from $7 to ^IJ per week and their board. The untrained woman who does scrubbing and work by the day in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, receives $2.12 a day and one meal, which is nearly twice the average pay of teachers in the United States, and about equal the average salary in the enlightened State of Massachusetts. In 1917 the average freight brakeman received around ^100 a month. In the same year the average salary of 19,017 teachers in the city schools, including 388 high-school 66 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION payment of the industrial worker that focuses our attention. Our social reformers should go to the psychol- ogist and ask the following question : We are at- tempting great and radical changes in our social and political life to cure certain crying evils. How rapidly may we expect the human mind to change to adapt itself to the new order? For it will offer a very different environment from that which has- existed hitherto, involving as it may, perhaps, the substitution of an industrial for a political society; the substitution of internation- alism for nationalism; possibly the abolition of the whole capitalistic system; a complete and radical change in the position of women; the teachers, was less than $700 a year. The elevator girls in one of the smaller New York hotels receive ^60 a month and one meal; the telephone operator is paid $70 with one meal. I know a graduate of one of the best New England colleges, with two years' experience, who is paid for teaching in a high school less salary than these women receive. This is simply an impossible economic situation. No class of workers can continue long on less than a living wage. These figures ought to bring a sense of shame to every American and cause the resolve that this injustice shall be righted speedily." (The Outlook, September 24, 1919, pp. 134-3SO Since the above was written the situation has become worse. An investigation in a great and wealthy Mid-West State revealed the fact that carpenters, plumbers, and brick-layers received twice as much pay per year as high-school teachers and hod-carriers about twelve per cent more. For further alarming facts about our schouU, see below, p. 226. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 67 ■ universal abstinence by legislative enactment from all indulgence in alcohol; and the wider and wider extension of industrial labor in place of the original craftsmanship of primitive people. The psychologist's reply will perhaps be some- what as follows: Everything changes; human nature changes; human instincts change; but they change very slowly. The present age is one of very slow changes in man's physical and men- tal constitution. Evolution now is taking other directions. There has been little change in the human body or in the human mind since the his- tory period began. Man has no more mental ability now than he had in the days of Aristides or Theniistocles,^ and his passions, instincts, and impulses are much the same. Possibly the same could be said if we go back not two thousand years, but twenty-five thousand. The picture of the man of the Old Stone Age as drawn by Pro- fessor Osborn ^ reveals a tall, straight, and fine- looking being with a brow like that of a mod- ern Englishman and a cranial capacity slightly greater than that of the average European of to-day. From century to century man's social ' Compare Francis Gallon, Hereditary Genius, p. 330. ' H. F. Osborn, Men of the Old Stone Age. Compare also Madi- son Grant, The Passing 0/ the Great Race. 68 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION inheritance has been enormously enriched, his natural inheritance very little.^ Here, continues the psychologist, arises a pe- culiar situation which should be of especial in- terest to the sociologist. While the human unit has changed so slowly, society has changed with startling rapidity. We are living in an age of be- wildering changes in our social, economic, and industrial life. Thus, while organic evolution tarries, social evolution proceeds with a dizzy- like rapidity; hence disharmonies result which it should be the purpose of our conscious control of human society to lessen.' The instinct of gregariousness,* for instance, has been in the early history of man of vital necessity to his survival. In our modern life ex- cessive urbanization of society, proceeding from the same instinct, has become a social danger. ' "Changes are going forward constantly and continually in the institutional apparatus, the habitual scheme of rules and princi- ples that regulate the community's life, and not less in the tech- nological ways and means by which the life of the race and its state of culture are maintained; but changes come rarely — in effect not at all — in the endowments of instincts whereby man is enabled to em- ploy these means and to live under the institutions which its habits oj life have cumulatively created" (Thorstein Veblen, The Instinct of Workmanship, p. 35. The italics are mine.) ' " Experience has shown that the instinctive desire of the sol- dier with an hour of free time is to go to town, if only a crossroads." (From War Department Report on Training-Camp Activities.) PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 69 Another instinct upon which survival has been conditioned is that of pugnacity. Even until lately in human unwritten history war has acted to preserve the strong and eliminate the weak and unfit. Now, under modern conditions, war has become an unspeakable calamity, bringing irreparable damage to progress and civilization; but the warlike instinct persists, a subconscious fire ready to be fanned into flame when the occa- sion arises. Again, under primitive conditions group loy- alty was an indispensable human sentiment. Now it issues in periods of excessive nationalism to which any demagogue may appeal to check- mate movements toward international amity demanded by modern financial and industrial conditions.^ Hence, continues the psychologist, the goal in social reconstruction now is not the production of more wealth and its equal distribution, nor the gaining of more liberty, equality, and opportu- ' Compare the action of Italy in the months following the armi- stice of the World War when industrial reorganization was impera- tive for a completely disorganized society, but when the whole thought and passion of the nation was directed to>the matter of national aggrandizement; or compare the action of our own Sen- ators in delaying for long, weary months action on the I^eague of Nations by an appeal to a narrow and selfish nationalism. 70 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION nity, of which we have a degree which would have surpassed the fondest hopes of those living but a short time ago; but the adaptation of our social order to the men who are to live In it; for when disharmonies occur, unrest is increased. Man's original nature cannot be changed very- much in the years to come as we measure time, but his Instincts, so far as they seem to us bad, may be redirected and sublimated, and so far as they are good we may use all our efforts to con- serve or create a social order that is In harmony with them. The method of repression Is fraught with danger. Modern science and the industrial age have already effected such changes In man's social and material environment that serious disharmonies are resulting, since he is compelled to live under new conditions for which evolution has not pre- pared him. The surface of the earth happened to be underlaid with irOn, coal, and petroleum, and man happened to discover them and devise ways of using them, and they have suddenly made for him a totally new environment. For instance, the use of gasoline, steam, and elec- tricity has solved the problem of transportation without the healthful exercise of walking and carrying burdens. Electricity has enabled man PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 71 to work and play at night, when formerly he had been sleeping. The construction of air-tight, steam-heated dwellings has lulled him into com- fort, while inducing new diseases. The discovery of alcohol has provided an artificial but dam- aging quietus for the disharmonies caused by his new manner of life and his new efforts at thought. Finally, certain discoveries in hygiene have lengthened life and decreased infant mortality so considerably that, despite the de- creasing birth-rate and despite the extensive emi- gration to the newly discovered Ameritas, the population of the principal countries of Europe has increased from 110,000,000 in 1780 to 325,- 000,000 in 1911,^ a situation which from the standpoint of sustenance is beginning to create grave difficulties. The result of all these circumstances is that man in modern society finds himself In a position somewhat like that of the proverbial bull in the china shop. For a few minutes he seems to con- template these objects of art with quite an aes- thetic interest — until he begins to move, when the destruction begins. The economic and social world in which man lived before the war, with its accumulated wealth, its culture, its refine- * See Fairchild, Outlines of Applied Sociology, p. 215. 72 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION ment, and its dangerous ease, was a china shop in which for a time he lived quite placidly, his real nature concealed under a veneer of civiliza- tion, till suddenly a very slight movement took place, the murder of an archduke somewhere, when instantly confusion reigned and the awful destruction began. It was man's original nature asserting itself, his primitive instincts finding expression; and since we may becertain that they will continue to find expression for hundreds of years, it will be well to build our house of civiliza- tion to fit the man who is to live in it.' Illustrations could be multiplied. The unbe- lievable flood of profanity and vulgarity that burst out in our American army, both among the officers and men, almost from the day of in- duction, was not a universal tradition of war; for we are told that it was much less in evidence in the armies of other nations. It seems to have been, in part at least, a reaction from the re- pressions of an over-refined veneer of civiliza- tion in our American homes where it is a crime 1 I am not at all forgetful of the part played by secret diplo- macy and the machinations of so-called statesmen and munition interests as causes of the war; but, on the other hand, wise lead- ers throughout history have constantly restrained the people from war land this has indeed happened frequently in Europe since the armistice. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 73 to leave your spoon in your coflFee-cup or omit the baby's daily bath. In the midst of this same "refined" society, in a large city of the Middle West, at a time of great national prosperity, when work was abundant and well paid and the saloons closed, a large body of citizens both men and women formed themselves into a mob, lynched a negro, burned his body, filched shreds of his clothes from the fire for souvenirs, and attempted to hang the mayor of the city who tried to enforce the law.^ Where are we to seek the cause of this stain upon the dignity and good name of our country? Clearly not in bad economic conditions, nor in capitalism, nor in poverty, nor in alcohol, nor in inequality, but in unbalanced brains, in a resur- gence of savage nature, in a kind of volcanic out- burst of primeval impulses which our schools and social institutions have not known how to lead off in harmless directions. ' The Chicago Tribune of September 30, 1919, gives the follow- ing figures taken from a statement of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People: "Between January ist and Sep- tember 14th, 1919, 43 negroes and 4 white men were lynched in the United States and 8 negroes burned to death. The total lynchings from 1899 to 1918 in the United States were 2522 negroes and 70a whites. Less than 24 per cent of the negroes were charged with at- tacks on white women." The total number of lynchings in 1919 was Sa, of which 75 were negroes. In the year 1892 there were aoS. 74 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION In our modern social-reconstruction schemes the way to cure evils is to abolish them by the method of the "legislative mill." But this method has its limitations. Human nature re- pressed suddenly asserts itself. The evils of alco- hol were so great and the American saloon so offensive that we have been forced again into the method of repression to cure this evil. It will be well, however, if we must depend upon this method rather than the method of substitution, sublimation, and education, to see that these laws are never relaxed, not even in the distant future ; for if they are, we may expect an orgy of dissipation such as the world has never known, since no inner power of resistance against the appetite has been built up either by education or by natural selection, but only opportunity for indulgence denied. The notion that a sober na- tion may, by the lapse of time, be "weaned" from the desire of alcohol is not well borne out by observations upon the ravages of alcohol among primitive stocks. The "don't" method has been pretty generally discredited in the edu- cation of children, but it is still popular in social reconstruction. In Hke manner we may "cure" contagious diseases, not by constructing in the human body PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 75 an inner barrier of constitutional resistance to them, but by erecting an outer barrier of protec- tion against the germs of disease. But we must make sure that these outer barriers never brealc down, for if they do the enemy will find easy victims. Another evil that it is attempted to cure by "abolishing" it is the evil of capitalism. Exceed- ingly serious abuses have grown up around this institution. We have become very conscious of these evils, but our proposed methods of cure have often exhibited an inexcusable ignorance of the human motives upon which capitalism is based. Sometimes they take the crude form of a proposal to abolish capital, since it is an " evil," either by majority vote or by forceful occupa- tion on the part of the non-capitalistic classes. But here we have to do with one of the most powerful of human instincts, and this method of repression may not work well in practice. It is the instinct of acquisition, of ownership, the collecting instinct, the instinct to save. As Mr. McDougall says, "The importance of the in- stinct of acquisition, from our present point of view, is due to the fact that it must have greatly favored, if it was not the essential condi- 76 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION tion of, that accumulation of material wealth which was necessary for the progress of civiliza- tion beyond its earliest stages." ^ It is one of the anomalies of our reconstruction methods that we exalt the importance of wealth, wish to in-' crease production, quarrel over the unfair dis- tribution of it, and then propose to stifle by collectivistic schemes the very instinct that has led to the production of wealth. This is because the abuses of capital have be- come so apparent that we desperately grasp at the most obvious, if least scientific, method of curing them. But here again it will be well to consult the psychologist and proceed by other methods than the method of repression. Sub- stitution and sublimation will again be safer and will require long years of careful study of the human mind and its relation to industrial life. We may by an act of legislation abolish private property, but the instinct of ownership can be abolished by no human power, and if there is no outlet for it we may again have the condition called "balked disposition," and then something socially unpleasant is likely to hap- pen. A man, for instance, wants to own his land, not to till some acres of state-owned land; * All Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 32a. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 77 and he will work any number of hours a day to gain the ownership of his bit of land. As Profes- sor Parker says: Man lusts for land, goes eagerly to the United States, to South America, to Africa for it. It is the real basis of colonial policy and gives much of the in- terest to peace parleys. A landless proletariat is an uneasy, thwarted, militant proletariat. . . . The so- cial menace in the American labor world is the home- less migratory laborer. Russian peasants revolted for land, and this is the single consistent note in the an- archy chaos in Mexico. Man, much of the time, ac- quires for the mere sake of acquiring. A business man is never rich enough. If, however, making more money uses his acquisitive capacities too little, ha may throw this cultivated habit activity into acquir- ing Van Dykes or bronzes or Greek antiques, or, on a smaller and less aesthetic scale, postage stamps, sig- natures, or shaving-mugs. Asylums are full of pitiful, economic persons who, lost to the laws of social life, continue as automatons to follow an unmodified 'In- stinct in picking up and hoarding pins, leaves, scraps of food, paper. The savings baiiks in large part de- pend on this inborn tendency for their right to exist. * This does not mean that there is something called "human nature" which demands that particular form of society known as "modern capitalism." It only means that these current * Carleton H. Parker, "Motives in Economic Life," Proceed- ings, Americem Economic Association, 30th Meeting, December, 1917, p. ZZ2. 78 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION social-reconstruction plans which have been de- signed to supplant capitalism have been worked out with sjich complete disregard of human psy- chology that it is highly improbable that they could provide any stable or satisfying society. With a virile people unrest might be multiplied a hundred-fold. Then there is another group of instincts for which no adequate provision is made in the so- ciety of the future, as we are planning it to-day. I refer to such instincts as those of leadership and mastery, the love of dominion, the love of adventure and change, and the lust for gambling. It is true that man longs for wealth and com- forts and luxuries: he even longs for peace and quiet and regular work; and in his quest for these things he will undergo any hardship or depriva- tion. Hence, it is naively assumed that a society which shall provide him with these things will be an ideal society, forgetting that a good society will be one in which men can live, and that life consists, not in the enjoyment of peace and wealth and comforts and luxuries, but in the long- ing for them and the struggle, pursuit, and cap- ture of them. " The good things of the world must be won afresh every day." PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 79 But even this conception of life is narrow and academic. The real man, revealed to us by the study of psychology and of history, is wholly different from the man for whom the social reforms are planned, who is to live presuma- bly in the enjoyment of regular work, plentiful food and clothing, a comfortable home, aiid so- cial stability and peace. The real man acts im- pulsively rather than rationally and his primal impulse is to dominate. It is gain and glory that he wants inore than bread and clothing. It is a career that he desires more than peace and safety. It is adventure that he craves more than work. It is instructive to look back upon the history of the development of man in society. He is not by nature a worker, but an exploiter. Suste- nance he must have, but it has always been eas- ier to gain it by plunder than by work; and so, as far back as we may go in history, as at the pres- ent day, social group has fought against social group, one bent on robbery, the other on self- defense; and within the group, when unre- strained by the stern hand of the law, individual has preyed upon individual, master upon slave, and class upon class. When the life and safety of the group as a whole have been threatened by 8o SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION some rival group, then so much of law and order has prevailed within the group as was necessary for social integration, because only by social solidarity within could the group itself be saved. It is not quite accurate to say that men love to fight. In time of war they long passionately for peace. But they love to dominate, and fighting is incidental. The military impulses lie very near the surface and their roots extend deep. If hu- man progress is to be illustrated by a figure, it is not the figure of a man climbing a ladder, but of one elbowing his way up in a crowd. Men aspire always to something different and better. They love to gamble, to take a chance, to risk some- thing and gain or lose. It is contrary to deep- seated human racial habits to work steadily and monotonously. The alarming presence of gambling in its silli- est and most childish forms in the great mili- tary camps of our country during the war was a shock to our people. The men themselves could see plainly enough that after every pay-day a few quick-witted men gathered in the precious dollars; but the gambhng went on. The ordinary everyday life of the average man in time of peace offers some expression of the gambling in- PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 8i stinct in its better forms : he can at least invest a part of his earnings in some scheme that he thinks may pay; but the flat monotony of the army life was unnatural and unendurable. Nowhere is the dreamlike character of our so- cial schemes seen so plainly as here. There is no provision of any kind for an expression of the gambling instinct. It is not to be sublimated or redirected; it is apparently not even to be re- pressed by the stern force of the policeman's club. In childlike naivete we ask, Why! who would wish to gamble when all are well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed, and have abun- dant leisure for culture and self-improvement? The conquest of a great and new country like America will keep a people busy and contented for a century. When it is conquered, we assume that they will rest and enjoy it; but really that is when unrest begins. In the last years the world has become rich and prosperous, but unrest has grown, being increasingly manifest even before the war. In the recent years in America work has been plentiful, the times prosperous, while comforts and luxuries have abounded in a de- gree never hitherto dreamed of; but murders and bank robberies show no signs of abating and strikes have become almost an obsession. The 82 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION American frontier, so long as it existed, was the best peacemaker for our nation. It has now been reached and conquered; and unrest will increase. How different the reality may be from the vision of the social idealists ! In rich and fertile America we have looked forward to a land teem- ing with happy and contented citizens, free from war, free from foreign op^jression, free from au- tocracy within, free from grinding poverty, free from class oppression, free from decimating dis- ease, free from vice and intemperance. The near- est approach to this elysium which history has seen was in Germany before the war. Here was a land of beautiful cities, well-governed and orderly; a great people, well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed, well-educated, well-behaved, with a fruitful agriculture, busy shops, successful in- dustries, and a vast and profitable commerce — yet this same Germany broke bounds and went out to conquer. It is not peace and plenty that man wants, but dominion. And yet in our com- placent theories of society, we take no account of this instinctive and inherent lust for power, and we innocently assume that a people will be happy and contented if poverty is abolished, the labor problem solved, opportunity secured, and PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 83 science and inventive genius given a free hand to increase wealth and material comforts.^ "Two things," says Nietzsche, "are wanted by the true man — danger and play." There is just enough truth in this to set us thinking. The standardized world that is planned for the fu- ture offers us safety and work. In all the ages of man's slow development he has never known safety. He has lived under the insecurity of war, of robbers, of plunderers, of tyrants, of flood and * "In any serious attempt at political reconstruction, it is necessary to realize what are the vital needs of ordinary men and women. It is customary, in political thought, to assume that the only, needs with which politics is concerned are economic needs. This view is quite inadequate to account for such an event as the present war, since any economic motives that may be assigned for it are to a great extent mythical, and its true causes must be sought for outside the economic sphere. Needs which are normally satisfied without conscious effort remain unrecognized, and this results in a working theory of human needs which is far too simple. Owing chiefly to industrialism, many needs which were formerly satisfied without effort now remain unsatisfied in most men and women. But the old unduly simple theory of human needs sur- vives, making men overlook the source of the new lack of satisfac- tion, and invent quite false theories as to why they are dissatisfied. Socialism as a panacea seems to me to be mistaken in this way, since it is too ready to suppose that better economic conditions will of themselves make men happy. It is not only more material goods that men need, but more freedom, more self-direction, more outlet for creativeness, more opportunity for the joy of life, more voluntary cooperation, and less involuntary subservience to pur- poses not their own. All these things the institutions of the future must help to produce, if our increase of knowledge and power over jNature is to bear its full fruit in bringing about a good life." (Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight, pp. 40, 41.) 84 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION storm and famine. A safe world appears to him very attractive, but it woujd be a foreign world. "One longs for the day," sighs a recent writer, "when the house of civilization shall be com- pleted, so that we can dwell in it in peace." Well, when it is completed, angels not men will be its denizens. Men grow and struggle and de- velop ; and this is life. The other is death. Life is found in adventure and change, in the struggle for supremacy and position, in the joy of leader- ship, in loyalty to our leaders. It is realized in the battle and the victory, not in the fruits of victory. It is realized, not in the steady enjoy- nient of good wages, but in the successful strug- gle for higher wages. It is not wealth that people want, but only more wealth or more than their neighbor has. The joy of wealth would largely van- ish if our neighbor had a fixed and equal amount. We are told that unrest is due to inequality, inequality of wealth and opportunity. We can in imagination picture a world where there is no in- equality, but it would not be life.^ Heaven was formerly pictured as a place of eternal rest, and ' "The mortal defect of Utopias is that they are too static. The kingdom of heaven on earth is always a permanent, unchanging, perfect, and unalterably stupid place, than which our present soci- ety, with all of its imperfections, is vastly superior. Utopias break down because they represent attainment, fulfillment. But society PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 85 for a hard-working man or woman that would be bhss — for the first few days. After that the walls would have to be patrolled with guards with rifles to keep us in. The writer was recently talking with a young girl of character and sobri- ety who had been an art student in a metropoli- tan city. "Isn't it wonderful," I said, "that in this safe country of ours an attractive girl can go alone to a great city and nothing happen to her?" "Yes," she said, "that's just the trouble. Nothing ever happens!" Our modern reconstruction schemes are built too much on the Chautauqua plan. Their philos- ophy of life is of the early-to-bed-and-early-to- rise-make-a-man-healthy-wealthy-and-wise or- der. The modern boy who says that this is just hot air, and that such a person misses lots of fun, is in the wrong, no doubt, from every sane and sober and logical point of view; but he is right as an exponent of human nature. The actual man, as known to the psychologist and to the histo- rian, and as revealed to us in real life in peace and war, will not live and work contentedly in does not strive toward fulfillment, but only toward striving. It seeks not a goal, but a higher starting-point from which to seek a goal." (Walter E. Weyl, The New Democracy, p. 3S4-) 86 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION a standardized economic world under scientific management and the rule of efficiency. By the inheritance of a half-million years he is adapted to a different life, and while in the end his in- stincts may be change^, this cannot be done in half a century. Our instinctive life will not find adequate expressioa in the reign of universal peace, universal labor, universal equality, and economic prosperity that our social-reconstruc- tion plans contemplate. What man wants is not peace, but a battle. He must pit his force against some one or some thingr Every language is rich in synonyms for battle, war, contest, conflict, quarrel, combat, fight. Our sports take the form of contests in football, baseball, and hundreds of others. Prize-fights, dog-fights, cock-fights have pleased in all ages. When Rome for a season was not en- gaged in real war, the Emperor Claudius staged a sea-fight for the delectation of an immense concourse, in which nineteen thousand gladiators were compelled to take a tragic part, so that the ships were broken to pieces and the waters of the lake were red with blood. You may perhaps recall Professor James's astonishing picture of his visit to a Chautauqua. Here he found modern culture at its best: no PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 87 poverty, no drunkenness, no zymotic diseases, no crime, no police — only polite and refined and harmless people. Here was a middle-class paradise, kindergarten and model schools, lec- tures and classes and music, bicycling and swim- ming, and culture and kindness and Elysian peace. But at the end of a week, he came out into the real world, and he said : Ouf ! what a relief! Now for something primordial and savage ... to set the balance straight again. This order is too tame, this culture too second-rate, this goodness too uninspiring. This human drama, without a villain or a pang; this community so re- fined that ice-cream soda-water is the utmost offering it can make to the brute animal in man; this city sim- mering in the tepid lakeside sun; this atrocious harm- lessnesS of all things — I cannot abide with them. What men want, he says, is something more precipitous, something with more zest in it, with more adventure. Social reformers paint the life of the future as a kind of giant Chautauqua, in which every man and woman is at work ; all are well-fed, satisfied, and cultivated. But as man is now constituted, he would find such a life un- endurable. It would be intolerable ennui and boredom. If forced upon him, either unrest would increase or social stagnation follow. Man is not originally a working animal. Civi- 88 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION lization has Imposed work upon man, and if you work him too hard, he will quit work and go to war. Thus our social-reform schemes are wrongly conceived. They are all based on a theory of pleasure-economy. But history and evolution show that man has come up from the lower ani- mals through a pain-economy. He has struggled up — fought his way up through never-ceasing pain and effort and struggle and battle. * In the society of the future man has ceased to struggle. He works his eight hours a day — everybody works — and he sleeps and enjoys himself and cultivates his mind the other hours. But the citizens for such an ideal social order are lacking. Human beings will not serve. ^ Our present society tends more and more in its outward form, in time of peace, toward the Chautauqua plan, but meanwhile striving and passion burn in the brain of the human units, till the time comes when they find this insipid life unendurable. They resort to amusement crazes, to narcotic drugs, to political strife, to epidem- ics of crime, and finally to war.^ ' "Man is at his best when rowing hard against the stream." (J. Arthur Thomson.) ' Compare Sorel's Social Myth Theory. ' Some paragraphs are here used from my book, The Psychology of Relaxation, pp. 249, 250, 251. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 89 We have here an instructive illustration of the failure in our plans for social reorganization to take account of psychological as well as eco- nomic forces. The society which we are planning for the future lacks the element of zest. Some shadow of romance it must have, if it is to abide; and this element of romance or zest cannot be gained by providing eight, or indeed ten, hours a day for recreation and culture. It is life that the people want, not recreation and culture. What do the reformers of our social order usually have in mind for these eight or ten hours of the day not spent in labor or in sleep? Libraries, no doubt, and art galleries and theaters and Chau- tauqua classes and moving pictures and gym- nasiums and athletic games. But even a little knowledge of psychology should show us that these things do not satisfy human needs. All men and all women long for some kind of dominion, long to display their personal power, their per- sonal charms, "their personal genius. What they want is a career, a sphere of influence, a sphere of action; and in striving for these things they are restrained by no fear, not even the fear of over- turning the social order. CHAPTER IV PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS IN SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION (continued) THAT our social-reform movements are based on sentiment and on certain high- sounding phrases, such as equality and liberty, rather than on an accurate knowledge of the human mind and the human body and human history, may be illustrated again if we consider another group of instincts, including the instinct of sex and the parental bent. The destructive inroads which modern industrial methods have made upon the institution of the family, the spread of the vice of prostitution and of dis- gusting social diseases, the increase of divorce and the alarming decline of the birth-rate among the better classes of people, as well as the appar- ent threatening increase in feeble-mindedness and neurotic tendencies, should long ago have focused the attention of our social reformers upon the problem of racial integrity. Instead of this it has been focused upon "votes for women." Our sense of justice has been affronted by the discrimination against our women in forbidding PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 91 them the right of suffrage, while we have over- looked the far more serious injustice done them by the presence in society of such evils as those above mentioned. Of course there are plenty of societies for the prevention of these evils, but the attention of the world is not focused upon them. It is focused upon such things as rights, equality, freedom, a laving wage, etc. The relation between the sexes and the posi- tion of women in society are the profoundest of human problems. They go down deep to the very roots of our social life. They involve the fate of the most sacred of human institutions, the family. They have to do with the most pow- erful of human instincts. They involve customs and language and habits that go back into the remotest historic regions. Upon these relations depends the physical integrity of society. Upon them depend the health, the sanity, and the wel- fare of the race. To the solution of these great problems should be called all the aid of all the sciences — of history, anthropology, physiology, psychology, sociology. But what in fact is the method of our social reconstructionists here? Virtually it amounts to this: We call together the men of the nation and say, "All those in favor of the equal- 92 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION ity of the sexes say 'aye.' Those opposed the same sign. The motion is carried. Inequality be- tween the sexes is abolished." Our trust in mere political institutions is pathetic. We have not solved the problem of inequality between the sexes. We have not even begun to study it. Nor have we solved the problem of injustice. The glaring injustice of conferring the franchise upon many ignorant and vicious men and de- nying it to many intelligent and worthy women, we have indeed partly corrected. The still greater injustice to our cTiildren and to the women of coming generations resulting from our neglect of racial hygiene has scarcely entered our minds. The spectacle of a woman — that is, any kind of woman — being debarred from the polls arouses us to a kind of frenzy; but, to take a single example, the increasing cigarette habit in women merely excites In us a sort of levity.^ We seem to be deeply impressed by the fact that women have the obvious right to vote and to an equal wage for equal work and to enter freely into industrial and economic relations; ' The habitual narcotizing of the higher brain centers by means of tobacco may possibly have no serious degenerating mfluences on racial health, so long as it is confined to one sex; but the inter- marriage of individuals with narcotized brains presents a problem that we have not even begun to study. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 93 but we seem to be blind to certain deeper rights of women to certain immunities from industrial and political functions in the higher interests of motherhood and the sacred institution of the family. Our doctrine of rights to which we are so sen- sitive rarely gets beyond the momentary aspect. The right of our children and of our children's children to be well-born has never troubled us much. Custom and convention, with which we are so impatient, and human instinct, havebet- ter protected the purity of women and been a safer guardian of the physical and mental integ- rity of the social group. From now on we have got to think of social welfare in terms of the present and the future. We have, indeed, outgrown at last our narrow individualism, and we talk now of the commu- nity and of society and of the collective good; but we still too often think of these as being the community of the present, moment. We are thinking only of the present generation. But we must begin to think of social stability. We need a movement in social reconstruction which shall center around the conservation idea. It will con- cern itself less with economic justice and more with social justice in the sense just mentioned 94 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION — in the sense of conserving for the benefit of the abiding community our soils, our forests, our fuel, and far more our heritage of health" and morals. But even apart from the question of racial health and sanity and the racial stability which is dependent upon them, have we any reason to believe that the society of the future as we are planning it will give the necessary expression to the reproductive and parental instincts? I do not mean here necessary in the sense of main- taining the physical continuance of society. This question has been fully discussed by many writ- ers. I mean to ask whether the masculine society which we are planning will have a psychological basis, so that it will work. The modern age is al- ready an intensely masculine age and the tend- ency of the feminist movement would seem to be to make it more so. What we see everywhere now is energy and activity, the desire to create, control, exploit, achieve, master. It is a time of great endeavor, of expenditure of effort, of change — a tense and nervous age. All these are masculine motives. Never before, therefore, has there been so great need to balance all these with those traits that belong to woman — poise, reserve of power, relaxation, calm, conservation, PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 95 and conservatism. Ancient and mediaeval civili- zations tended more to emphasize these other phases of human life — restraint, limitation, self-control,^ the possession and appropriation of things of objective worth, the contemplation and enjoyment of things of beauty and objective value.^ Clearly what this age needs Is another kind of feminism than the one In vogue. Women do not need to become like men. The whole age needs more of the motive which belongs to woman, the centripetal motive. If now women had become more masculine, why, then we should perhaps be justified In fitting our social Institutions to their new character. But they have not. They are in their real nature just as womanly as ever, and no change of social institutions or wave of in- dustrialism and commercialism will make them different in future years as we measure time; and for this we may be thankful. They can, of course, adopt the masculine habits of the age. They can enter politics and the industrial and commercial life. They can accept men's jobs and adopt men's dress, but the total social results tend to friction and discord because happiness Is ' Compare Ferrero, Ancient Rome and Modern America. ' Compare George P. Adams, Idealism and the Modern Age, 96 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION found in the fulfillment of function, and social welfare is found when social institutions conform to human instincts. It is in this way that we can explain certain social phenomena that have perplexed our social reformers. When we thought that a new "dig- nity" had been laid upon women, with new re- sponsibilities and new political and industrial opportunities, when society seemed to be rising to a high level of morals and manners, then sud- denly a wave of peculiar sex consciousness and sex exaggeration has burst upon the world even during and after the war, manifested in extreme forms of dress, in crazes of erotic dances and erotic moving pictures, and revealed in a new wave of sex fiction in literature and upon the stage. Evidently the method of repression does not work. Our plans for social reconstruction must proceed here as everywhere along lines laid down by nature. Then there is another group of human in- stincts which must be considered in social re- construction, the instincts of loyalty, devotion, and sacrifice. The society of the future, planned so largely from the economic point of view, makes little provision for two of the most power- PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 97 ful of human motives, loyalty and devotion. Scientific management and efficiency are to take their place. Our minds are so constituted by our long racial history that we want and need to be loyal to some one or some thing and devoted to some one or some thing, and only in this way is the best that is in us drawn out. As has so often been said, a man is never so much himself as when he gives himself to some cause outside himself.^ In times past the sentiment of devotion has found fitting and satisfying objects in the State and in the Church and in the Family. For his flag, his religion, his wife or children, a man pours out his devotion or sacrifices his life, and indeed the instinct itself traces its origin to the survival value of these institutions. In this great complicated modern life of ours our interest in the Church lags, the State becomes so large and safe, and indeed almost lost in the industrial and commercial world, that only at times — for in- stance in time of war — does it enable us to give expression to this ancient instinct, while the "emancipation" of woman and her descent into the arena of politics and industry lessen our former chivalric devotion to her. ' Compare James Jackson Putnam, Human Motives, p. 59. 98 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION What in the new society is to take the place of these sacred objects of our allegiance, loyalty, and devotion? When a State becomes large and safe so that the defense of the flag no longer calls for devotion and heroism, we find this devotion drawn off to a large extent to all kinds of parties and organizations within the State. As party loyalty takes the place of loyalty to the State, we remain loyal to our political parties even when they no longer stand for any particular cause. Then appear all kinds of organizations, societies, clubs, unions, brotherhoods, federa- tions, parties, sects, fraternal orders, lodges, syndicates, leagues, councils, and committees, which command our loyalty and obedience, al- lowing us to give expression to these instincts. During the age-long history of man on the earth he has lived in small communities, and dur- ing much of this time his survival has depended upon this group solidarity and upon his faithful devotion and loyalty to the group and its lead- ers. This profound instinct must have its ap- propriate expression. During the Middle Ages, when the spirit of nationalism was at its lowest point, devotion to the Church took its place, calling out in the service of God and the Church all that was best in man, the demand for the PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 99 supreme sacrifice never failing o'f faithful re- sponse. Sometimes, when again the Church be- came large and powerful and safe from attacks of enemies, allegiance was transferred to the smaller monastic orders. Still later Chivalry and the Feudal System gave expression to the same instinct of loyalty and sacrifice. At the present time the craze for organiza- tions of every conceivable kind is in part ex- plained by this need of the human mind to ex- press its loyalty and devotion in concrete form. We begin to hear it said that the world is over- organized. We have societies for the accom- plishment and prevention of everything under the sun. Before the war, little dreaming of the unspeakable horrors that awaited us just ahead in the trenches and under the sea, we had soci- eties for the prevention of cruelty tb animals, and anti^vaccination and anti-vivisection socie- ties, and societies for converting the heathen, and so on without end. Organizations multiplied on every side, each with its president, vice- president, secretary, and treasurer. Even the in- fants in our churches have organized under the name of junior endeavor societies, each with its infant president and its infant secretary, not to speak of the Cradle Roll. We seem to live in a IC50 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION world of organizations. From the lips of our peo- ple throughout this great land we listen in vain now for the good old words, "Our Father which art in heaven," and instead we hear the familiar call, "All those in favor of the motion say 'aye.' Those opposed the same sign. The motion is carried." It is the ancient instinct of group solidarity, upon which survival once depended, which is manifesting itself in this way. The primary po- litical group to which we belong has become in a way too remote to provide the needed expres- sion for this instinct. So innumerable smaller groups within the group are formed, and when there is no common enemy to fight they contend with one another, or, more fatally, against the group as a whole. The various reconstruction movements them- selves are examples of this instinct. Movements such as Socialism, Syndicalism, Bolshevism, and the I.W.W. become cults to which their follow- ers offer a loyalty and devotion that is symbolic of the whole life of man in history. If these cults meet with opposition, if there is a little mystery about them, if they inspire a little fear, if there is a kind of underground communication be- tween the members, if there are certain secret PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS loi symbols, if there is even a chance for something like martyrdom, if there exists a strong feeling of brotherhood within the organization, the spirit of loyalty and devotion burns brightly. But the peculiar fact here is that we who are ad- herents of any of these movements never suspect that in our devotion, our enthusiasm, our loy- alty, our sacrifice, and even our fanaticism, we are simply living, that we are experiencing life's great realities themselves, that we have here the fulfillment of function. We do not understand that this expression of our instinctive life is life itself. We think that we are engaged in a move- ment which shall prepare men for life. We think that when that particular kind of social order which we are striving for is realized, then- we shall live. To us there is a slight element of tragedy ih the matter. We think that we are en- during that others may enjoy. Thus these movements are all good. They give expression to our fundamental needs. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that just at the present time the actual aims and ideals of these move- ments are not of the highest type — resting as they do very largely upon an industrial concep- tion of life, picturing social welfare in terms of an equitable distribution of physical goods and 102 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION an equitable distribution of opportunity for winning these goods. It is perfectly conceivable that the same degree of enthusiasm might be directed to wholly different ends; for instance, to education, to the development of the fine arts, or to the application of science ^to the physical, mental, and moral improvement of man. Another unfortunate fact about some of these movements in their extreme form is that in their excessive zeal to cure the evils of the day they would go to the extent of trying to overthrow the ;whole order of government and society under which we live. It is probably true that America in the last two hundred years has offered, and does to-day offer, a more perfect field for the exercise of human faculty in its characteristic and instinctive forms than any other age or country. There have been, and still are, oppor- tunities unparalleled in the history of the world for the expression of every instinct, the migra- tion and homing instinct, the housing and set- tling instinct, the instinct of ownership, the col- lecting and acquiring instinct, the instinct of workmanship, manipulation and curiosity, the instinct of leadership and mastery, the instinct of display and ostentation, and the instinctive love of freedom and impatience with restraint; PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 103 and as for riches, comforts, and luxuries, the least favored of to-day are like the most fa- vored of former times. ^ I was speaking recently with a woman en- gaged in constructive social work in one of our cities. I asked her if there was much poverty in her city. She replied that she thought there was a good deal. She mentioned one family, where the father was getting only twenty-one dollars a week, where she felt sure that the family was not properly nourished. I asked her finally whether, if there were fifty people in the city who did not have enough to eat, she would say that there was a good deal of poverty there. Yes, she said, even if there were only one. I then inquired how many people there were in the city, and she said about sixty thousand. It is our fine idealism and our optimism that bid us always forget the fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and fifty that are well-fed, well-housed, and well-clothed, and fix our attention upon the fifty that are not. But as long as we have done practically nothing to improve our natural inheritance in respect to physical stamina, to make healthy brains in ' * On the rapid advance of every class in America toward social prosperity see Walter Weyl's The New Democracy, especially chap- ters XII, XIII. 104 ' SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION healthy bodies, one wonders what conditions of environment and of social and political institu- tions could have produced a social welfare on the whole so marvelous. It is partly the power- ful development of sympathy in our modern Christian age which has brought us into the frame of mind where we see only the misery of our times and are blind to its wonderful pros- perity.^ The real menace to our social well-being now is not poverty, of which there is relatively little in America, but the superfluous wealth of the very wealthy, of which there is an enormous amount. As life is pictured in these pages, real- ized as it is in the fulfillment of function, in the exercise of our powers, in activity and striving, in the living out of our instinctive nature, the rich are not the ones who live. We who work and organize and strive are the ones who live. ' No doubt there were far more than fifty people in this city of sixty thousand who were not properly fed and clothed according to our present notions of food and clothing, as measured in calories and hygienic standards. Among the causes economic conditions do not figure prominently, as the records of any bureau of associ- ated pharites would show. Ignorance, vanity, improvidence, and disease are the prominent causes. Some of the improper feeding is due to improper clothing, the money for the former going to the latter. Both improper food and improper clothes are found among the rich. "Scanty" clothing is not confined to the poor. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS 105 To rebuild society so that we may all be rich, have every desire satisfied, would be of all mis- takes the most fatal. True enough, we all need to have opportunity, but opportunity for what? Not opportunity to "go to school," to get on, to worji up, but opportunity to live, and life is found in the activity of our powers, involving among many other things this instinct of loy- alty. Man is so constituted that he See L. p. Jacks, "The International Mind," Atlantic Monthly, March, 1920. SOCIAL DISCIPLINE 225 But patriotism, powerful as it is, will not under modern conditions be sufficient. For the rest we must depend upon education. At the present time knowledge is causing us to lose faith in our religion, in our established institu- tions, in our ancient laws of conduct, in our social conventions, but it is because it is only partial knowledge. It is still true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Having started in now on the programme of universally dis- seminated knowledge, we must carry it through. At the present time the world has just enough knowledge to endanger it, not enough to save it.*. Education must be universal, thorough, ade- quate. So long as our automobile mechanics command larger salaries than our teachers, we are on the wrong road to social welfare. So long as we expend twice as much for tobacco as for schools, we waste time trying to save our coun- try by means of religion or politics or by means of SociaHsm or any other system of social recon- struction. What we must have is knowledge, knowledge of the real sources of welfare, happi- ness, and self-realization. Knowledge alone will enable us to solve the problems of social recon- struction; knowledge will restore both religion and morality, and knowledge will save society. 226 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION We shall have to wake up to the fact that in this country of amazing wealth it will no longer suffice to set aside a mere insignificant pittance for our schools, but really large sums will have to be spent, and we shall have to revise our con- cepts of what education is. Reading, writing, algebra, arithmetic, geography have been em- phasized in our schools because morals, citizen- ship, health, industry, thrift, and obedience to law were supposed to be taught at home. We can no longer rely upon the home for these things.^ ' The serious situation in regard to the schook in the United States may be partly understood by reading Professor William C. Bagley's article entitled "Education, the National Problem," in the New Republic for December 17, 1919. Our teachers, he says, are rapidly diminishing in numbers and deteriorating in quality. One fourth of them are scarcely more than boys and girls. No longer are the best of our high-school and college students drawn into the public-school service, but those of lower grade. "Sixty thousand of our teachers are reported as unable to meet the very meager standards of the lowest grade of teachers' certificates." Professor Bagley shows further, and this is very significant, that nearly sixty per cent of the next generati6n of American citizens will have all of their schooling in rural schools taught by mere boys and girls, mostly girls, who have themselves received scarcely a rudimentary education. Of our three hundred thousand rural and village teachers, an overwhelming majority have not passed the age of twenty-one and at least one third of them are sixteen, seven- teen, or eighteen years of age. In one typical Middle-Western State one half of the rural-school teachers are twenty years old or younger. Furthermore, nearly a million of children are out of school because teachers cannot be found for them. Many of these figures are based upon pre-war statistics and the situation at the present time is even worse than here shown. SOCIAL DISCIPLINE 227 And another thing which we shall have to learn is that public schools and public education are two very different affairs. The teachers of the American people to-day are not the young women who for five or six hours a day during a part of the year hear recitations in grammar, arithmetic, geography, and spelling; the teach- ers of to-day are the metropolitan newspapers which find their swift way into every corner of the country, and the bulky Sunday papers sent out by the carload, and th^ agricultural papers which the rural mail brings to every farmhouse, and the great weeklies whose wealth of advertise- ments makes it possible to scatter them by the millions broadcast for a nickel or a dime a copy, and the weekly and monthly magazines found in every home, and the books of current fiction so easy of access and so absorbingly interesting, and the moving pictures attended by ten or fif- teen millions, mostly young people, daily — all these are our teachers of to-day and they are moulding the thoughts and habits of our young and old. To appraise the value of the education re- ceived in this gigantic " school " would be a task which few would be bold enough to undertake. That it contains an immense amount of good 228 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION no one will question ; that it likewise contains an imiriense amount of evil few will deny. But the thing which is most evident is that a colossal burden of social responsibility rests upon the shoulders of our journalists, news reporters, writers of fiction, and moving-picture makers of to-day. It is very possible that there are many editors and reporters who have never even thought of or reflected upon the fact that they are the teachers and the leaders of the people and that they hold a position of grave responsibility for the moral health of the com- munity. Possibly some regard their work as a business enterprise. Journalism can no longer be left to mere acci- dent. We shall have to recognize that those who conduct our newspapers and magazines are public teachers, having an infinite responsibil- ity for public morals and manners. It is evident, therefore, that, when we speak of education as the cure for our social ills, we shall have to enlarge our notion of what edu- cation is. We have ho longer to do simply with schools in the ordinary sense. We must begin to think of some vast new plan of education which shall vitalize and moralize and mobilize for the common good every source of educational in- SOCIAL DISCIPLINE 229 fluence, our religion, our press, our fiction, our art, our drama, our music, our moving pictures. The deluge of bad music that is pouring over our country is due\o ignorance. Some of this music is demoralizing, very little of it is moral- izing, most of it is merely poor. Our people would enjoy and appreciate good music if it were offered them, if they had a chance to know it.^ It is doubtful whether there is any real demand for the so-called comic pages in the Sunday papers; the children would be equally pleased with something better and adults would be spared these weekly nauseas. It is probably true also that the demand for sensational news in our daily papers is much exaggerated by the press. Readers would appreciate and would be willing to pay for a higher kind of first page than that bold-print display of every kind of wrong- doing which is now justified on the ground of publicity and demand. But the real lesson we have to learn is that it is not a question of de- mand and supply at all, but a question of moral obligation to the community. We must learn ' This has been shown, for instance, in the case of the good music furnished by the Strand Orchestra at the Strand theaters in New York and Brooklyn in connection with the moving pictures. It is enjoyed and appreciated by the thousands of patrons who hear it daily. 230 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION who the educators of our people are and what their responsibility is. It has been naively proposed to use the mov- ing pictures as a means of education. They are that already with a vengeance, and they reach the young people and hold their attention, not five days of the week and thirty weeks in the year, but daily and Sunday throughout the year; and what they offer is that which will draw, and that which draws is the thrilling. These pictures present, therefore, a series of thrills, and the thrilling is the unusual, the new, the startling, the very latest, the very biggest, the very fastest, the very best, the very worst, and the most interesting. Love is interesting, heroism is interesting, sex is interesting, crime is interesting; all these abou.nd. Sometimes great moral lessons are taught, but life is here so schematized that the lessons are hardly ap- plicable to our actual life; the suggestions, how- ever, remain and bear fruit. There is no remedy for this evil but education. What the makers and promoters of the pictures lack is moral taste ; what the people lack is dramatic taste. One would suppose that, since the stage in America has been degraded to the level of the moving pictures, some dramatic representations SOCIAL DISCIPLINE 231 of a high order would be offered in every town and city for the benefit of those who care for better art. In rare cases this is true, but generally throughout the land the moving pictures alter- nate with a degraded vaudeville, with its " ama;z- ing display of shoddy saUies at marriage, and women, and Congress, and prohibition, and bed- room farces." Shall we correct these things by law.? But in a democracy the people make and enforce the laws. Evidently education is our only hope. Socrates was right when he said that virtue is knowledge. After all, when we have said that universal education must be the secret of social discipHne, we have not said the last word on the subject, for the question, of course, arises, who is to edu- cate the educators? Social discipline, like social progress, must depend in the last analysis upon gifted and far-seeing leaders. The springs of progress do not come up from the people, they come down from Heaven. The ultimate problem seems, therefore, to be how to give our seers, our wise men, and our prophets the authority necessary for social control. This implies a re- spect and confidence which in the past has been gained through religious, social, or political status. In our social democracies of the future 232 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION this means may not avail. There seems to be, therefore, nothi:pg for it but to gain this author- ity through the respect and reverence that we have for science as such. It would seem, there- fore, that our seers and leaders of the future must be scientific experts after the manner of the rulers in Plato's Republic, but supported by all the people merely because they are men who know. But the constitution of our modern society is such that education alone will not suffice for social discipline. With our ever-increasing num- bers of subnormal individuals, including the feeble-minded, insane, epileptics, and hereditary criminals, to say nothing here of the increasing proportion of the physically unfit, modern so- ciety carries a mass of impedimenta which is going to make social integration exceedingly difficult. Let me make this concrete by a single illus- tration: A normal-school teacher, writing of types of boys with whom he has had experience in reform schools, mentions this typical case. On Boy No. 5 I have never felt it quite safe to turn my back. I can call him nothing else than a "cold- blooded" criminal. A complete coward himself, as SOCIAL DISCIPLINE 233 afraid as death of any physical suffering for himself, he will inflict pain on animals or on other persona without the slightest qualms of either flesh or con- science. I have seen him hold mangled but living birds against a hot stove, "just to see them squirm." I have overheard him retail with great glee his fre- quent use of the "blackjack" upon the victims of his ''hold-ups." "Pom!" he would tell it. " 'Ugh!' says the guy, and down he goes all in a heap, and right away I have some more mon' to spend. No, I never plunk a feller who can't stand it. No, you bet I'll never kill a guy. I know where to hit 'em." My own conviction is that Boy No. 5 ought to go on the surgeon's chair and have something done to the inside of his skull, for I feel absolutely certain that there is something fundamentally wrong there that accounts for his cold-blooded heartlessness to- ward the sufferings of anything or any one else than himself. My attitude toward him has been the one a person takes toward a venomous snake — a sort of watchful loathing or repulsion. Lacking the opera- tion suggested above, society would be safe from his dangerous preyings only through bis confinement within strong walls — and even then the guard would have to be ever on the watch against his "Pom! and down he goes all in a heap!" If we remember that a case like this is merely a type of thousands, and if we think of the count- less numbers of feeble-minded men and women permitted by our social customs to scatter broadcast their defective heredity, arid if we think still further of the increasing numbers of 234 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION our other defective and delinquent classes, we begin to understand the tremendous problem of social discipline in modern society. Some day — let us hope it will not be too late — we shall wake up to the necessity of social self-protection against these enemies of morale. It is true that our experiments in eugenics both in its positive and negative forms have not been very success- ful. Neither were our first experiments in flying. When we get ready to apply to this problem a fraction of the thought and care which we are now applying to the perfection of the automobile, then something will be done.^ In Professor C. A. Ellwood's book. The Social Prohlevt, one finds a sane treatment of these problems and a clear and comprehensive state- ment of the conditions of our social salvation. In place of our narrow individualism and our fond materialism must be substituted the service of humanity, rather than the service of the indi- ' A definite and concrete plan for the salvation of society from physical degeneracy has been presented by Mr. Seth K. Humphrey in the last chapter of his recent book, The Racial Prospect. It is only necessary that the collective group should have the resolution to carry it out. His plan for the final elimination of the defectives and ineffectives would seem to be practicable. In place of his further rather bizarre proposal for conserving the'heritage of the now childless select individuals, some other more natural means could be devised. SOCIAL DISCIPLINE 235 ( vidual, class, nation, or race. To this end there must be a revaluation of religion, morality, and education, as well as of government, law, and family life. Religion must be socialized and re- vitalized. Education must be moralized. There must be a rational, eugenic programme, a just economic order, and a healthy social atmos- phere. This is excellent fatherly advice, but will the children heed it? This is a typical expression of the best social philosophy of the present by one of its able exponents, but at the same time it re- veals the fatal defects of this same social phi- losophy — its lack of a psychological foundation. What is wanting is the motive power to put this ambitious programme into effect. The flame, the glowing end, is absent. Given wise leaders and a submissive and obedient people and it could be done. It assumes a relatively small community of rational beings ready to reason and listen to reason. In the Age of Pericles or Socrates it might work. In our surging masses of northern people something more concrete is needed. "The Northerner," says Professor Marvin, "is not hardheaded, is not a lover of order and form, is not 'classic' Rather he is sentimental, romantic, venturesome, restless, undisciplined and dis- 236 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION orderly." ^ Professor EUwood comes nearer to a "solution" of the social problem when he says that it depends upon the finding and training of social leaders. It may, however, be doubted whether leaders are either found or trained. They just appear, — that is, the kind of leaders that can lead. Perhaps with our headstrong and wayward northern races, and our increasing populations, and our large social groups, there is no solution of the problem of social discipline apart from that defensive or offensive gregariousness which can no longer be invoked because it leads to war and ruin. Possibly modern civilization has come to an impasse. Probably what we need is some new interpretation of religion which shall sweep the world and snatch us out of our devotion to self and our narrow class interests. That failing, education and the organization of intelligence will be our only hope. In the following chapter we shall consider some ways in which organized intelligence may be applied to this and to certain other problems of social reconstruction. ' Walter T. Marvin, The History of European Philosophy, p. 247. CHAPTER VIII THE NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE IT was long ago that Plato taught that sci- ence should not be applied to the mechanical and industrial arts, but to education, social cul- ture, and social health. And a century and a half has passed since Rousseau's celebrated essay, in which he tried to show that the arts and sciences had done nothing to advance human happiness. From our modern point of view these were the pathetic mistakes of great men, so richly, as we think, has science vindicated itself in its practi- cal applications. Consequently, when the term "applied sci- ence" came into use not many years ago, it was heralded with great joy, for we were weary of Plato's theoretical ideas about justice and truth, and skeptical about his plan for racial culture, and we longed for something practical and im- mediate. We welcomed, therefore, the direct ap- plication of science to our everyday needs, and when, in response to this demand, science began to shower its practical applications upon us, it 238 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION seemed to many that a kind of golden age had come at last. It revealed to us the only god worthy of our worship — the god of social wel- fare, social welfare being generally interpreted to mean the comfort, happiness, and convenience of the present generation. While we may not question the almost un- limited possibilities in the application of science to social welfare, nevertheless, we may raise the question whether science has thus far been ap- plied to the right things. The war has shaken the foundations of so many of our accepted opinions that even our faith in applied science may receive a rude jolt. Since we are now enter- ing upon a period of reconstruction, which many believe will involve not only our social and politi- cal ideals, but also our ethical and religious be- liefs, it is legitimate enough to ask whether ap- plied science has vindicated itself by its results and what place it is to occupy in the coming order. Our first thought is that applied science has iseen not only a stupendous success, but perhaps the crowning achievement of the human mind. The story of its triumphs is known by heart to every school-girl. Applied science has made the world over, making it a decent and healthful NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 239 place to live in. We press a button and our houses are filled with light. Scientific heating, ventilation, drainage, and sanitation have made our homes places of cheer, comfort, and health. The motor-car, smooth, noiseless, and swift, saves our time and our nerves. Time-savers, too, are the typewriter, the dictograph, the mul- tigraph, and the adding machine. Communica- tion is facilitated by the wireless telegraph, the telephone, and the aerial mail. It is needless to go through the familiar list. Lest, however, it should be thought that applied science has given us only comforts, conveniences, and time-saving devices, we are reminded of its triumphs in the conquest of disease, in public sanitation, in surgery, dentistry, and preventive medicine, and in the application of chemistry to agriculture. And most manifest of all are the countless applications of science to the industrial and mechanical arts, increasing the efficiency of labor, thereby shortening the hours of the la- borer, as well as ministering to his comfort and health. Certainly applied science has made the world a tidy place to live in and contributed an untold sum to human happiness and welfare. Surely, had Rousseau lived in the twentieth cen- tury he would never have written, even for the 240 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION sake of a brilliant paradox, an essay questioning the value of the arts and sciences to civilization. We may not, indeed, question the potential value of applied science, nor even its actual value in countless directions. What we may question is whether there has been a mistaken conception of the general end to which science should be applied, in respect to real social wel- fare. To what extent has science, as it has ac- tually been applied, contributed to human good f First, applied science has surrounded us with comforts, conveniences, and luxuries of every kind. But just what will be the effect upon a race of men, disciplined through a hundred thousand years of hardship, of this sudden introduction to comfort .f* This question puts the whole sub^ ject of applied science in a new light. Perhaps we have been applying science to the wrong ends. Possibly science should never have been applied to making man comfortable, but to making him perfect. It may be that there is great danger in comfort. The biologist holds It in grave sus- picion; degeneracy is its sequel. It was through struggle and warfare and the overcoming of ob- stacles that man fought his way up to manhood. With infinite effort he gained an upright position V NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 241 the better to strike down his enemies. Strong legs and stout arms were the correlates of his growing brain, the latter itself finding its neces- sary support in a powerful heart and vigorous digestive system. There is an especially intimate connection and interdependence between the brain and t|ie muscular system, making the latter indispensable to the proper functioning of the former. Now, applied science has shown us how machinery may take the place of the stout arms and the motor-car may be a substitute for the strong legs, while science itself and the applica- tions themselves draw more and more heavily upon the powers of the brain. The harder the brain has vp work in the pursuit of science and the mechanic arts, the more it stands in need of the physiological support of the muscular, di- gestive, and circulatory systems. But, for main- taining the health and integrity of these, our present manner of living is not well adapted. "Oh, well," it is replied, "there are no signs of physical degeneration yet. Look at our armies in the World War. Finer physical specimens never marched out to meet an enemy." Yes, but they were picked men, the very flower of 'a vast na- tion. They were from the upper tenth physically. They were the young males. They were the 242 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION sixty-five per cent of the young males not re- jected by the examining boards. The germ- plasm of the best of our race could not suffer deterioration in the short time of the "comfort" regime. But upon biological grounds we must believe that the disastrous consequences of such a regime upon society as a whole may be serious in the highest degree. Another of the most brilliant triumphs of ap- plied science is seen in our countless and won- derful labor-saving devices. The effect of these is either to decrease the amount of labor or by increasing its efficiency to increase the products of labor. But we simply assume that increased wealth and decreased labor are human blessings, although both may be quite the opposite. It has been seriously questioned whether civilized man has gained enough moral and physical poise to be trusted with the immense wealth which ap- plied science, working upon our suddenly ac- quired store of coal and iron, has supplied. The war did not count the poverty of the nations among its causes, and if greed is the root of most modern evils, it has not been shown that increasing wealth and increasing comforts have lessened it. And then there are the time-saving devices. It is no doubt because of the temper of the day NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 243 that so few of us have ever questioned their in- trinsic value. But with all these time-saving de- vices It Is not quite apparent that we have any- more time than formerly. Sometimes it seems as if we have less. Leibniz lived before the time of typewriters and dictographs, yet he is said to have had a thousand correspondents, and in ad- dition to his duties as court librarian, diplo- matist, and historian, he found time to discover and perfect the differential calculus and to write great works on philosophy. In any case the value of time-saving devices will depend upon the use of the time that is saved. As it is, It ap- pears to be used very largely for carrying on more business, to make more money, to buy or invent more time-saving devices. Even if there results a certain amount of leisure, much de- pends upon the manner in which the leisure is spent. If it Is spent in sitting quiescent in a dark- ened moving-picture room, gazing spellbound at a tawdry drama, the gain Is not great. To all such arguments as the above it will be replied that modern science has nevertheless made the world a decent and comfortable place to live in and that there has never been so much happiness In the world as at present. But, since 1914, Europe has not been a decent nor a com- 244 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION fortable place to live in nor has there been gen- eral happiness, although Germany excelled In its development of science and in the application of science to the mechanic arts. A good civiliza- tion must insure some degree of stability. In this connection we are reminded that there is one field in which science has distinguished it- self beyond all others, and that is in the art of war. To the exquisite perfecting of this art every science has been called upon to contribute its very best and latest results — mathematics, engineering, physics, chemistry, metallurgy, me- chanics, optics, radio-activity, electro-dynamics, aeronautics, economics, zoology, psychology, and many others. An immeasurable weight of the best and keenest thought of the world has been expended in the application of sci-' ence to the paraphernalia of war, resulting in an amazing progress in the development of this art to the highest conceivable degree of per- fection. In former times wars acted to purify racial stocks by eliminating weak races. Modern wars have precisely the opposite effect, owing to the fact that a modern war kills or disables the best young men of all the warring nations, and so, by destroying the most valuable germ-plasm of NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 245 he race, causes irreparable damage to society. \.pplied science has devised every conceivable neans to make the destruction complete. Would t not be well, therefore, in the years to come for cience to apply itself directly to the problem of )reventing wars ? It is idle to say that they can- lot be prevented or that science has nothing to lo with this problem. It lies distinctly within the ield of such sciences as biology, psychology, so- :iology, and education. For applied psychology t offers a most alluring field. It may be an im- nense problem, but the possibilities of science ire immense. At present we are deeply impressed by the vaste and folly of wars between nations and are itill hoping for an effective League of Nations ;o lessen their frequency; but the menace of civil var will be ever present. A great nation may be ;orn asunder by a dispute about slave labor or a }uarrel over religious creeds; me^e rivalries be- ;ween families, clans, and classes may cause the ;treets of great and beautiful cities to run with jlood, or a whole nation may simply lapse into :ivil war as a result of the disintegration of out- vorn political institutions. Any of these causes leems less promising for war than the conflict )f labor and capital which is facing us. 246 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION We have thus in the preventing of war a real problem for appHed science, especially for ap- plied psychology. Let us, by all means, make over our laws and our international relations to the end of preserving order, but let us direct our main endeavors to making over our men and citizens so that they will have sense enough to settle all their disputes and controversies in some more rational way than by blowing out each other's brains with high explosives or by drop- ping bombs from aeroplanes to destroy buildings that they have erected with infinite labor. Edu- cation will be efficient here, but it is an especially attractive field for applied psychology. The source of war is in the human brain, where the instincts of combat lie deeply embedded, sanc- tioned through the warfare of thousands of years of human history. To eradicate these instincts may be difficult. To substitute some other form of expression for them may be possible. At any rate it would be worth while to turn in these directions a fraction of the brain power which has been expended in the invention and circum- vention of the submarine boat or in the trans- mission of messages by means of the ether. But it may be said, if applied science has not contributed as much to human welfare, as first NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 247 appears, in the field of mechanic arts, neverthe- less there are other fields in which its contribu- tions are unquestioned, notably in hygiene, san- itation, and agriculture. The deep obligation which the world owes to applied science for its work in social and do- mestic hygiene, in applied bacteriology, in sur- gery, dentistry, and preventive medicine, is ap- preciated by everybody. But the question arises whether even here science has been applied in just the right direction. Let us'take dentistry as a convenient illustra- tion. This highly perfected modern art has given us beauty and symmetry of the teeth, replac- ing the deformities which formerly were so un- sightly, particularly among older people. But obviously we have here not a remedial art, but a patching-up process. Crowns and bridges and artificial substitutes, themselves often the source of infection disturbing the health of the whole body, have replaced the sound white teeth which Nature should supply. At one time in our racial history sound teeth were necessary for the sur- vival of an individual. They are scarcely so at present, for with artificial teeth and soft pre- pared foods one may get ^long very well and one's children may inherit the inner defects. 248 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION This process cannot go on forever. Under the old regime, before the rise of modern dentistry, there was at least a force, powerful if not always effective, working to the end of sound natural teeth. The dentist's art has to a large extent displaced this force. Is it too much to conceive of a new dentistry which shall have for its object not to make people look better, but to make them really better? If it is replied that this is precisely what the most recent dental art aims at in its teaching of oral hygiene, it is still true that this work relates largely, if not wholly, to the individual, for such acquired characters are not inherited, so that dental degeneration may be going on unchecked, as has been shown to be the case in England. The problem may be a dif- ficult one, but not necessarily beyond the power of applied science. Then there is the conspicuous instance of the apparent triumphs of applied science in the con- quest of modern diseases, particularly those of bacterial origin. Science has discovered, for in- stance, the cause and cure of tuberculosis. What greater boon to humanity could there be than this discovery, with its keen diagnostic tech- nique, its therapeutic methods, and its fresh-air cult.'' It would appear, however, from no less an NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 249 authority than Professor iCarl Pearson that the death-rate from tuberculosis has been decreas- ing as far back as our records go, and that since the introduction of the new methods of treating this disease, which date from about 1890, the decrease in the death-rate has been less rapid than before.^ Neither is this startling situation due to an increase in urban or factory life, as is shown by the recent rapid ravages of this dis- ease in rural districts. Even though the accuracy of Professor Pearson's statement may be ques- tioned, and even though it be true that many diseases are now diagnosed as tuberculosis which were formerly classed under other names, never- theless it is becoming clear that this branch of applied science has not been so sweepingly successful as was at first hoped, and that it may be well to supplement Nature in her efforts to produce a degree of immunity to this disease by strengthening constitutional resistance. Methods * Karl Pearson, Tuberculosis, Heredity, and Environment, p. 28. Dr. V. C. Vaughan of the University of Michigan Medical School said in an address before the Tuberculosis Oangress at St. Louis in April, 1920, that "while before the war the mortality from tuberculosis decreased, the morbidity from this disease, as determined by post-mortem examinations and by the application of the tuberculin test, increased." On the increase of tuberculosis since the war, compare the article by Homer Folks entitled "War, the Best Friend of Disease ' in Harper's Magazine for March, 1920. 2SO SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION of accomplishing this end are well understood now, since the Mendelian laws of heredity be- came known. It is only necessary to apply this branch of science. In respect to general social hygiene, the bene- fits conferred by applied science seem certainly at first sight to be unimpeachable. One thinks immediately of our clean houses and our clean cities, of our comparative freedom from the scourges of smallpox, cholera, typhus, and malaria, which in former times decimated the people. One thinks, too, of the marvelous tri- umphs of sanitation in the Panama Canal Zone and in our colossal national army, army camps and cantonments during the war. One thinks of our efiicient and sanitary hospital service, of our wonderful restorative surgery, our orthopedic art, and our discovery and application of anaes- thetics to the relief of pain. The benefits, at least to the present genera- tion, of this social hygiene are so patent that few of us have stopped to question whether it is, strictly speaking, social hygiene at all, or, if it should be so called, whether it is the highest kind of social hygiene. Social hygiene must have as its end a really healthy people, not a weak- ened race which at every turn must be corrected NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 251 and protected by artificial means. Our method of combating epidemic diseases has had for its two main objects the protection of the individ- ual from infective agencies and the discovery of neutralizing antitoxins. Little attention, one might say almost no attention, has been given to making the individual constitutionally re- sistant to these agencies. It is perhaps a losing game to try to protect the human race from toxic and infective agencies. Brilliant temporary results may be gained, but a new swarm of micro- scopic enemies will ever be on the scene to take advantage of their weakened victims. So while we gain control over smallpox and typhus by constantly repeated devices, epidemics of infan- tile paralysis, influenza, and pneumonia cause us to renew our Sisyphean labors. In the meantime, while we are making head- way against typhus and malaria and perhaps against tuberculosis, we hear of the increase of cancer, venereal diseases, diseases of degenera- tion, diseases affecting the heart and arteries, diseases of the digestive and eliminative organs and of mental diseases and diseases of the nerv- ous systein. We are perplexed to hear that the percentage of mothers who are willing or able to nurse their own babies becomes yearly smaller. 252 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION While applied science has shown us how to quad- ruple our wealth and increase indefinitely the fertility of our soil, it has shown us how to de- crease the fertility of our women; and since the new art is becoming fashionable among our best people but not among our worst, we have the unhappy prospect of actual racial deterioration, already evinced by an increase of feeble-minded- ness, insanity, and crime. When bank robberies flourish during a time of unlimited prosperity, at a time when almost any person can get work at almost any wages, it would appear that the trouble is not in our social institutions, but in the convolutions of our brains. Nature seems to have discovered many ages ago that the way to make any race of animals or men strong and hardy was not to shield them from their enemies, but to give them power of resistance against their enemies. As Professor Todd says: "A pasteurized, sanitized society is not necessarily progressive or dynamic." ^ Is it too much to hope that in the period of reconstruction to which we are looking forward, science may be applied less to shielding us from all manner of dangers and evils, and more to making us strong to overcome evils; less to the ' Theories 0} Social Progress, p. 122. NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 253 production of comforts and conveniences, and more to the encouragement of hardihood and vigor; less to the increase of efficiency and the piling-up of wealth, and more to the production of racial health and stabihty? Science has always been applied, and success- fully, to our immediate needs as they were un- derstood. The immediate needs of our present time are not more wealth and more luxury and more efficiency, but more racial and constitu- tional power of resistance to physical disease and more individual power of resistance to every alluring immediate joy which threatens the permanent welfare of society. We need steadi- ness and self-control and the limitation of our desires. The centrifugal motive which has ruled the world for the last fifty years has gone far enough. The world is small and there are limits to the expansive opportunities both of the na- tion and the individual. This, of course, will be applied science in a broad sense, applied psychology, applied ethics, applied sociology, applied biology, applied phi- losophy — and the growing interest in these sci- ences is one of the fine things of the present time. There is finally another field where there is an 254 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION immediate and imperative demand for the ap- plication of science, and that is in our industrial labor disputes. One wonders to what extent the conflicts between labor and capital may be due to sheer ignorance. At any rate, it was evident enough in the coal strike in the fall of 1919 that there was shameful ignorance throughout the whole country, and in the highest places, of the actual facts about the coal industry. On every side there was a superabundance oi feeling, sym- pathy, anger, indignation, mistrust, greed, fear, but a serious lack of knowledge. We abounded in the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity, but our stock of knowledge, which in the So- cratic philosophy is the beginning and endi of virtue, was perilously low. In the merely me- chanical part of coal-mining, as in other indus- tries, applied science is everywhere in evidence; in the sociological and psychological aspects of these industries, it is conspicuously absent. In this age of organized labor and organized cap- ital, it is a #onder that we have not bethought ourselves of the experiment of organized intelli- gence.^ There is plenty to think about in the following quotations from a recent article by Felix Frankfurter in the Yale Review: ' Compare Will Durant, Philosophy and the Social Problem, part II, chap. III. NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 255 The recent coal strike reveals shortcbmings that not even the largest headlines of "law and order" can conceal. The strike was called off but its causes per- sist. This is not the time for a scrutinizing study. Whatever negotiation may accomplish, whatever ameliorations will be sought for the distempers which have been aroused by the shallow recklessness of in- voking the injunction under plea of the war power, the fundamental lesson of the strike will be lost un- less out of it conies the common, consciousness of the sin of ignorance and the failure to fashion instruments of knowledge for action. Inevitably, every one had an opinion about the strike. But who had justification for such opinion founded on knowledge of the coal industry, and, especially, knowledge of the condi- tions of life that confront those 400,000 workers .? The indictment of our civilization is that some of the facts vitally affecting the coal problem are not to be had. To a large extent any decision as to hours and wages is "a game of blindman's buff " — blindman's buff tempered by force and necessity. Here is, in- deed, not only one of our greatest industries, but (as it is insisted upon as though it were the solution in- stead of the statement of the problem) "a basic in- dustry" — the very flame of life. Yet have we sought to know it, to master it, in a sensible and fore- thoughtful way to avoid being trapped by (|ur de- pendepce upon it.? . . . We should get what help we can from the workings of the Whitlqy Councils in England, similar councils in this country in the cloth- ing and printing industries, the very hopeful results already achieved by the Government through its new methods in the Rock Island Arsenal, where men pro- duce primarily because they want to. Every success- ful experiment must be explored with the scientist's 2S6 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION faith that a promising exception can be made the rule. In a word, we must see these industrial difficulties as a challenge to social engineering, to he_ grappled with as the medical and the physical sciences meet their prob- lems. Epidemics were once deemed to be visitations of God, but now Dr. Simon Flexner summons his profession consciously to master epidemics. The Rockefeller Institute, by a steady and systematic process, first seeks to state the problems of disease and then persists until it finds answers. A transconti- nental telephone was not the product of a sudden flash of genius nor the gift of happy accident. On the contrary, it was a task definitely set to mathemati- cians and physicists. Human will and intelligence and persisting faith achieved the miracle. So it must be in industry. The present obstacles to production — the lack of right human relations, the evocation of the creative impulses in workers — are problems to be solved; for upon their solution depends the quality of our civilization.* Specific directions in which science may be applied to human welfare are found in conserva- tion and education, and in eugenic control. Sci- ence has already been applied to the conserva- tion of our soils and forests. It must be more widely applied to the conservation of all our physical and mental resources and particularly to the conservation of racial values. It may be feared, however, that both these forms of con- ' Felix Frankfurter, "Law and Order," YaU Review, January, 1920, pp. 227, 234. (The italics are mine.) NEXT STEP IN APPLIED SCIENCE 257 servation imply a degree of self-control and self-sacrifice which is foreign to the spirit of this individualistic age. In the reconstruction era which we are ap- proaching, the danger is that in the spirit of the times we shall attempt to solve the profound social problems which confront us mainly in two ways: first, by the further development of the mechanical and industrial arts, and, second, by the manipulation of political institutions. We shall try, by means of new labor-saving and time-saving devices and new mechanical appli- ances, to multiply still further the wealth of the world. We shall try, by means of some form of Socialism or SyndicaHsm, to provide that this wealth be more equitably distributed than it is at present. We shall try by the further extension of democracy and by equal votes for women to provide that justicei prevail more widely than now. We shall try by sumptuary laws to see that drunkenness is prohibited. Certainly many of these proposals are of the highest value; it is only that we shall rely too much upon this ma- chinery for the salvation of society, and shall insist too little upon such other factors as educa- tion, conservation, self-control, and the limita- tion of desires. 2S8 SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION It would appear, therefore, that in the recon- struction programme of the future, we must proceed along other lines than those of our pres- ent popular movements. We must cease our efforts at trying to make men comfortable and begin to make them better. Civilization does not depend upon the increase of wealth, or its equal distribution. It depends upon the proportion of dominant and effective men and women; upon the production of leaders possessing initiative, daring, creative and constructive power; and it depends upon discipline, poise, loyalty, devotion, and mental and moral health. Most of all, per- haps, it depends upon the conservation of moral values. Perhaps one of the most distressing signs of the times is the increase of inefficiency — at the very moment when we have laid so much stress upon efficiency. We have indeed acquired a kind of efficiency in business, which has no value except to further enhance our wealth. But it would appear that vital efficiency and physical efficiency are lessening. It is a bad sign when people dread the hard work of the farm and seek the easier jobs and the shorter hours of the city, or refuse to work at all if they have a little money in their pockets. With our increase of 26o SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION our country will right itself. We shall go forward on our way — and then we shall be face to face with the real evils that threaten an industrial age, an age actuated by industufal and material- istic motives, namely, stagnation and the loss of the higher values of life. THE END INDEX INDEX Achievement, S4. 94! a funda- mental human need, 147-48, 199. Acquisition, instinct of, 75, 77, 102. Activity, source of happiness, 47. 52, 56, 150, 17s, 187- Adams, Brooks, The Law of Civ- ilization and Decay, 259 n. Adams, G. P., Idealism and the Modern Age, 53, 95 n. Adventure, love of, 78, 79, 85, 200. Agrarian Socialism, 143. Alcohol, I, 3, 71, 74, 109, 137; dry laws, 41. Altruism, 192. America, as a field for opportu- nity, 102, 105, 112, 138, 168- 73, 200-01. Amusement crazes, 3, 88. Anarchism, 27, 143. Anarchy, 9, 213. Anderson, B. M., Social Value, 56 n. Arbitration, 153- Aristotle, 47, 52, 130, 197. Art, 107, 108, no, 161, 179, 191, 193, 205, 229. Athenian race, intelligence of, 179. Athens, ancient, 205. Authority, respect for, 188. Autocracy, 178. Augustine, St., City of God, 32. Babbitt, Irving, 177, 192; Rous- seau and Romanticism, 174 n. Bacon, Francis, vii, 26. Bagley, W. C, 14 n., 226 n. Balked disposition, 64, 76. Barnich, G., Principes de poli- tique positive d'apres Solvay, 49 n. Bell, Clive, 130. Bentham, J., 36. Bergson, 51 n., 182. Birth control, 42. Birth-rate, decline of, 12, 24, 71. Bloomfield, Meyer, Manage- ment and Mm, 152 n. Bolshevism, 9-10, 27, 100. Booker, J. M., 165. Brain, modern demands upon, 241. Brain patterns, defective, ao8. Brotherhood, 207. Browning, 1 82. Building instinct, 166, 199. Butler, N. M., Is America Worth Saving? 20 n. Byron, Letters and Journals, 197. Cabot, R. C, 159; What Men Live By, 119, 12a. Cannon, W. B., 38. Capital and Labor, 19, 29, 32, 120, 152, 216, 24s, 254. Capitalism, psychological as- pects of, 75-78. 264 INDEX Carlyle, Past and Present, 122. Centrifugal forces in society, chap. VI, 181, 183, 188, 193, 203-04, 253. Centripetal forces in society, 181, 188, 199-236. Changing social order, 18, 197. Chaperons for university stu- dents, 217. Charity, 192-93. Chastity, 179. Chautauqua plan, 85-89. Child labor, 19, 4a. Christian civilization, 17. Christian Endeavor, 53 n. Christian virtues, 182, 191, 254. Christianity, 182. Church, 204, 213, 216. Cigarette habit, 9a. Civilization, at the cross-roads, vii; Christian, 17, 104; dan- gers threatening, 9, 259; downfall of, 6, 212; has it come to an impasse.? 236; is it worth saving? 13, 15, 115; modern, 2, 3, s. 7, H, 23; tests of a good civilization, 244. Coffee, S3 n., 137. Collecting, instinct of, 63, 102. Collective bargaining, 19, 5°. 152. Collective management, 144, ISO, 167. Collective ownership, 143-44, ISO, IS3, 167. Collectivism, 27, 143, 209. Comfort regime, 242. Comforts and luxuries, 109, lis, 116, 117, 132, 147, 191, 224, 232-40; danger of, 240. Communism, 9, 27, 148. Communities, small, 224. Community spirit, 205. Conative impulse, 51. Conflict, love of, 86. Conscience, social, 17. Conservation, 34, 94, 149, 191, 2S6-S7; of racial health, 93- 94. 2S9- Control, social, 215-16, 220, 231. Cooperation, 27, 143, 150, 207, 212. Craftsman, man as, 127, 132, 139- Creative impulse, 94, 127, 13 1, ISS, 200. Creative work, 115, 13S, 139. Crime, 193; waves of, 9, 107. Criminals, instinctive, 332-33. Cross, symbol of, 213. Culture, pecuniary, 140, 145. Dancing, 3, 96, 137, 217, 217 n. Dancing craze, i, 12 n., 107. Danger, love of, 83. Decadence, 25, 183; moral, 12; physical, mental and moral, 11-12. Defectives, 12, 13, 173, 201, 211, 232-34- Degeneracy, 11-13, 118; dis- eases of, 251; physical, 241; racial, 252. Delinquent classes, 21 1. Democracy, 21, 202, 218-19, 223, 257; industrial, 50, 150- S3, 167; social, 143. INDEX 26s Democratization of industries, . 150-53 • Dentistry, modern, 239, 247- 48. Desires, human, 48, 49, 55, 150; limitation of, 187-88, 193-94, 253. m- Devotion, 96-100, 258. Discipline, 210, 213, 258; social, 47. 137. 174. 190. 199-236- Disease, 188; conquest of, 239, 248-53; diseases of degenera- tion, 251. Disintegrating forces in society, 203-04. Dominion, love of, 78, 82. Drama, 178, 193; modern, 183, 204. Drudgery, ilj, 130-31, 140-42, 154- Durant, Will, Philosop/iy and the Social Problem, 254 n. Duty, 186, 211. Economic age, 35. Economic conditions of poverty, 104. Economic forces, 109. Economic injustice, 208. Economic motives and the war, 83 n. Economic value, 49, 176. Economics and social reconstruc- tion, 35, 38. Economics, influence of, 56. Economics, new character of, 55 n. _ Economists, 40-43. Education, 115, 1.62, 215, 223, 225-32, 236-37, 245, 256; de- ficiencies shown in draft sta- tistics, 14; industrial, 165-66; moralized, 235; outside of schools, 227. Efficiency, 120, 139, 180, 187, 258. Eliot, Charles W., 152, 162 n. Ellwood, C. A., The Social Problem, 234. , Emulation, instinct of, 141, 142, 154. Endeavor, Christian, 53 n. Energy, vital, 199; spirit of in western races, 200. English peasants, 16. Equalitarianism, IIQ, Equality, 180, 191. Eugenics, 38, 42, 234-35, 256- Everett, W. G., Moral Values, 56 n. Exercise, of normal function, 125, 199; of powers, vii, 56, 189. Expansion, 194; as a modern tendency, 109, 177, 183, 185; expansive age, 191, 193; ex- pansive virtues, 182. Exploited classes, 43. Extravagance, 9. Fairchild, H. P., Outline of Ap- plied Sociology, 71 n. Family, 91, 204. Farmers, prosperity of, 15-16, 170. Feeble-minded, 232-34. Feeble-mindedness, increase of, 252. 266 INDEX Feminism, 27, 94-96. Ferrero, G., Ancient Rome and Modern America, 95 n., 174 n. Fiction, modern, 204, 227. Fielding, W, J., 136. Fine Arts, 107-08, no, 161, 179, 191, 193, 229. Flexner, Simon, 256. Folks, Homer, 249 n. Football, example of discipline, 210. Fourteen Points, 17. Frankfurter, Felix, 254. Fraternities, college, 221. Fraternity, 180. Freedom, over-emphasis of, 177, 183, 219, 224. Freud, 38. Freudian ethics, 189-90. Freudian psychology, i, 5, 6, 40, 189. Function, normal function of man, 12 j. Galton, Francis, Hereditary Gen' ius, 67 n., 179. Gambling, 78, 80-81, iir. Germany, 194, 212, 244; beiore the war, 82. Giddings, F. H., 147 n. God, los, 107, 123; the God idea, 106; Greek gods, 123; not a laborer, 123. Goethe, 182. Gothic cathedrals, 193. Government, widening of func- tions, 218. Grant, Madison, Passing of the Great Race, 67 n. Great Britain, 7. Grecian civilization, 179. Greed, 16, 17, 194. Greek gods, 123. Greeks, ancient, 181, 191, 200. Gregariousness, 63, 68, 172; ag- gressive, 213-14, 215 n., 224, 236; socialized, 215; defen- sive, 215 n., 224, 236. Group solidarity, 100, 205, 213. Group spirit, 205. Guild, industrial, 224. Guild socialism, 134, 142, 155. Guild State, 159 n. Happiness, found in activity, 52; highest, 187. Harley, J. H., Syndicalism, 158 n. Health, racial, 14, 34, 91, 193, 253; mental and moral, 358; national, 42, 104; physical de- fects, 14. Hedonism, psychological, 55. Heroism, 192. History, 50, 212; economic in- terpretation of, 37, 124, 216. Hobhouse, L. T., I09. Hocking, W. E., Human Nature and its Remaking, 36 n., 61 n., 115, 158 n., 190 n. Holt, E. B., The Freudian Wish, 52 n. Huddleston, Sisley, 9 n. Human nature, 10; plasticity of, 64-68. Humanity, service of, 234. Humphrey, Seth K., The Racial Prospect, 13, 2S9 n., 234. INDEX 267 Hygiene, 71; application of sci- ence to, 247-53; social, 250. Idealism, modern, 16, 17, 103. Illiteracy, 211. Impulse, see Instinct. Impulses, egoistic, 189-90, 210; inhibition of, 190-91; inven- tive, 127; repression of, 70, 74. 76, 189- Increased production, 36-37, 132-33- Individualism, 148, 216, 234; in- dividual age, 257; individual responsibility, 217-18. Industrial age, 139-40. Industrial arts, 237-44. Industrial democracy, 21, 27, 164, 167. i Industrial education, 165-66. Industrial labor, 115, I2i, 124- 25, 138; as drudgery, 143. Industrial organization of soci- ety, 125. Industrial partnership, 167. Industrial revolution, 23, 193. Industrial system, 168. Industrialism, 83 n.; its psy- chological foundation, 124. Industries, democratization of, 150-53; socialized, 142. Inequality, 84, 117, 187-88. Inhibition, of impulses, 190; weakening of our traditional inhibitions, 191. Initiative, 169, 171, 200. Inner check, 184, 189, 193. Instinct, 46, 51, 61-70; building instinct, 166, 199; capitalized. 120; its relation to work, 126; of exploration and invention, 127; of workmanship, 121, 126, 129, 142, 156, 168, 171; opportunity for expression of in America, 102; sublimation of, 189. Integrating forces, 188. Integration, social, 174, 181, 202-36. Intelligence, organization of, 25, 236, 254. Intemperance, 187. Internationalism, 205-06, 223. Inventive impulse, 127, 169, 171. I.W.W., 27, 100. Jacks, L. P., 224 n. James, William, 59, 86; Princi' pies of Psychology, 61 n. Jean Christophe, 182. Jesus, sayings of, 108, 190. Journalism, 228-29. Jung, C. G., The Theory of Psy- choanalysis, 52 n. Justice, 184-85, 197, 202-03, 205-06; Platonic, 31, 202. Kant, his rule of actioh, 198. Katharsis, 6. Keynes, J. M., Economic Conse- quences of the Peace, 17 n. Knowledge, lack of in industrial disputes, 254, 256; source of social welfare, 225. Labor, 87-88, 119; creative la- bor, 115, 135; crisis, 118; 268 INDEX drudgery, lis, 130-31, 14°- 42, 147; hours per day, 112; humanized, 164; industrial, 121, 254; labor-saving de- 'vices, 242; place of in man's life, 120-73; productive, 44; unions, 206, 224. Law and order, 204, 212; re- spect for, 188. Laws, of thought, 197; obedi- ence to, 219; sumptuary, 257. Leaders, social, 235-36, 258. Leadership, instinctive need of, 76. League of Nations, 21, 27, 58- 59, 69 n., 188, 206, 214, 245. Leibniz, 243. Leisure, 57, 109, 117, 126, 150, 158-64, 191, 243; leisure classes, 162. Leitch, John, Man to Man; the Story of Industrial Democracy, 151 n. Liberty, 180, 185, 191, 218-19. Life, 26, 45, 78, 89, 107-08, 119; dynamic conception of, 56; enhancement of, 183; what real life is, 101, 105, 119, 128, 158, .164, 169, 199; its real prizes, 116-17; the full, free, and abundant life, 175-76, 181, 184, 186, 192. Limitation, 179, 185, 191; of de- sires, 187, 193-94, 253. ^S7. Lippmann, Walter, 55 n.; /^ Preface to Politics, 36 n. Liquors, beer, wine, etc., 2, 3. Literature, 193. Love, 119, 182, 192. Loyalty, 96-100, 105, 107, 187, *I90, 206-07, 220-22, 258; group, 69; to state, 223. Luxuries, 109, 115-16, 133, 147, 240. Lynching, 73. Macaulay, vii, 222. Man, the real man of the pres- ent, 111-12; a being who strives, 112; as creative gen- ius, 129. Marot, Helen, Creative Impulse in Industry, 36 n. Marvin, W. T., The History of European Philosophy, 235-36. Masculine age, 53 n., 94. Masterman, C. F. G., 7. Materialism, 234. McDougall, W., 38, 42, 57 n.; yin Introduction to Social Psy- chology, 51 n., 55 n., 58 n., 59, 61 n., 75. Mechanical arts, 237-44. Mechanic and industrial arts, 2S7-_ Medicine, preventive, 239. Military impulses, 80. Minimum wage, 19, 50. Mitchell, W. C, 36 n., 41, 54 n., 55 n. Mobilizing a nation, 207, 209, 213. Moderation, 191. Monks, virtues of, 179. Morale, social, 207, 210, 214, 220. Morality, 110, 197; revaluation of, 235. INDEX 269 More, Paul Elmer, Platonism, 174, 184. More, Sir Thomas, Utopia, 32. Morgan, J. J. B., 49 n. Morris, William, Hopes and Fears for Art, 145; News from Nowhere, 156. Moving pictures, 4, 96, 109, 137, 178, 227, 239-31; craze, 107; remedy for poor pictures, 230. Munsterberg, Hugo, Pyschology and Industrial Efficiency, 120 n. Murray, Gilbert, Four Stages of Greek Religion, 123 n. Music, wave of bad music, 12 n., 229; jazz, 12 n. Mystic, the modem, 182. Napoleon, 221. Narcotic drugs, 88, 137. Nationalism, frenzied, 17; source of social integration, 205-06, 222-24. News, demand for sensational, 229. Nietzsche, 83, 176, 182. Non-Paijifean League, 27. Northerner, traits of, 235-36. Obedience, 188, 210; to laws, 204, 213, 226. Old Stone Age, men of, 67. Opportunity, 14, 33. 37. 43-44. 49, S7, 191, 192; America as a field for, 102, los, 112, 138, 144, 168-73 , 180, 186, 200, 208. Organization, craze for, 99. Osborn, H. F., Men of the Old Stone Age, 67. Our Country, loyalty to, 223. Ownership, instinct of, 75-76, 102; collective, 143, 150, 153- 54, 167. V Pain-economy, 43, 45, 88. Parental bent, 90. Parker, Carleton H., 38, 40, 42, 61 n., 62, J7, 129 n., 190 n. Partnership, industrial, 167. Patriotism, no, 225. Patten, S. N., 41, 51 n. Peace and plenty, 57, lOg. Peace societies, 2. Pearson, Charles H., National Life and Character, no. Pearson, Karl, Tuberculosis, He- ' redity and Environment, 249, Peasants, English, 16. Pecuniary culture, 140, 145, Perry, R. B., 197 n. Philanthropy, modern, 12. Philosophers, 25. Philosophy of life, 28, 176. Philosophy of reconstruction movements, 28. Plato, 184-85, 237; Republic, 32, 232. Platonic justice, 3 1, 202. Play, 53 n., 83, 128-29, 164, 212. Pleasure-economy, 43-45, 88. Political impulses, 157. Political institutions, manipula- tion of, 257. Population, increase of, 71, 194. Posterity, provision for, 47, 50, 202, 210. 270 INDEX Poverty, 37, 103, 117, 172, 179, 187, 200, 242; causes of, 104. Powell, E. A., 4. Predatory practices, 217. Price boosting, 208. Production, increased, 36-37, 116, 132-33. Profanity in American army, 72. Profiteering, 4, 207-08, 217. Profit-sharing, 150, 167. Progress, 6, 216; springs of, 231; modern, 15-23. Prohibition, 21, 27, 39. Proletariat, 124. Prostitution, 90. Psychogenetic method, JO; psy- chogenetic standpoint, 28. Psychology, of social reforms, a8; behavioristic, 40-41; re- cent, 50-52; primary impor- tance for social sciences, 54 n.; of collective ownership, 153; possibilities of applied, 245, 253- Public good, 46. Public opinion, as source of con- trol, 215-16. Pugnacity, 58-59, 69, 187. Purity of the family, 197. Putnam, James Jackson, Hu- man Motives, 97 n. Racial slackers, 13. Racial values, 34. Recreation, 89. Relaxation, psychology of, 88 n., 164. Religion, no, 205, 225; as source of control, 215; Chris- tian, 221; new interpretation of, 236; revaluation of, 235. Repression, method of, 96; of native impulses, 70, 74, 76, 189. Resistance, needed power of, aS3v Responsibility, of journalists, fiction writers and moving picture makers, 228; individ- ual, 217-18. Restraint, 183, 188, 193-94, 204. Revolt, heralds of, 216. Revolution, 213. Rome, how mobilized, 213. Ross, E. A., 38; Social Control, 124, 215; What is Amtrica? 20 n.; Principles of Sociology, 29 n.; Sin and Society, 219. Rousseau, 237, 239. Russell, Bertrand, Why Men Fight, 56 n., 83 n. Sacrifice, 108. Sanitation, 239; application of science to, 247-53. Scale of living, adequate, 116. Schiller, Das Lied von der Glocke, zoo a. , Schmucker, S. C, The Meaning of Evolution, 18 n. Schools, 226; deficiency of our school system, 14 n., 226; va- cations, 163. Schopenhauer, 51 n. Science, applied, 237-60; and mechanic arts, 7, 36; as basis of social control, 232; ques- INDEX tion of Its practical benefits, chap. vm. Scott, W. D., Increasing Human Efficiency in Business, 120 n. Sculpture, 179-80. Self-control, 24, 47,9s, 185, 188, 193, 204, 253, 257. Self-expression, 171, 175-78, 180-85. Self-realization, 45-46, 176-77, 180-82, 185-86, 210. Self, social, 211. Sex consciousness, new wave of, 96; instinct of, 90-91. Sexes, equality of, 91-92. Shop councils, 50. Sin, Magda's theory of, 183; see also Sinners. Single tax, 27. Sinners, silk hat and syndicate, 219. Social control, 23, 215-16, 231. Social democracy, 27, 143. Social discipline, 47, 137, 174, 190, 199-236. Social diseases, 90. Social evils, 20, 21, 29; our pe- culiar consciousness of, 122. Social integration, 174, 181, 202-36. Socialism, 21, 27, 39, 100, 128, 148, 149, 186, 216, 218, 225, 257; agrarian, 143; guild, 134, 142, 155. Socialized industries, 142, 158. Social justice, 19, 31. Social order, changing, 18-20, 68; profound changes in 20th century, 22. I 271 Social problem, solution of, 236. Social reconstruction, and eco- nomics, 35, 38; a new kind of, 223; Apostles' Creed of, 31; complexity of, 58; programme of, 30-34; romantic tenden- cies, 37. Social solidarity, 212; condi- tions of, 220. Social stability, 116, 202-03. Social system, defects of our present, 15. Social unrest, 14, 111-12, 146, 190. Social welfare, 46, 1 16, 148, 176^ 238. Sociology, 215. Socrates, 235. Sombart, 55 n. Sorel, G., 88 n. Spencer, Herbert, Autobiogrc^- phy, 125 n. Spiritual and economic values, 108. Stagnation, social, 118, 148. St. Augustine, City of God, 32. State, 204-06, 213-15, 219, 222; proposals to abolish, 156-58; state-owned railroads, 141; socialistic, 128, 186; the per- fect, 187. Stirling-Taylor, G. R., The Guild State, 159 n. Strand orchestra, 229. Strikes, 81, 118, 132, 137, 155; recent coal strike, 225-56. Striving, 52, 1 1 2, 199. Students, university, 217; fra- ternity, 221. 272 INDEX Sublimation of instinct, 70, 74, 76, 189. Subnormals, 12, 232. Sudermann, Magda, 183. Sugar, increased consumption, S3n.,i37-'' Suggestion, as source of control, 215. Sympathy, 192. Syndicalism, 21, 27, lOO, 142, ISS, 158, IS9 n-. 257. Taussig, F. W., Inventors and Money-Makers, 36 n., 41, 61 n. Teachers, inadequate salaries of, 65-66 n., 226 n. Tead, Ordway, 38; Instincts in Industry, 61 n. Team-work, 207, 210, 212, 220. Temperance, as a Greek virtue, 179. 191- Thomson, J. A., 88 n. Thorndike, E. L., 38, 55 n.; Educational Psychology; the Original Nature 0/ Man, 61 n. Time-saving devices, 242-43. Tobacco, S3 n., 92 n., 137, 225. Todd, A. J., Theories of Social Progress, 64 n., 252. Treaty of Versailles, 16. Trotter, W., Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, 36 n., 61 n., 213, 215. Trusts, 206. Tuberculosis, effect of modern methods of treating, 248-50. Unfitness, physical, 14. Union labor, 224. United States, danger to our civilization, 222. Unrest, 14, ill, 118, 136, 150; social, 111-12, 146, 190. Utopias, 32-33, 84 n., 105, 117, 156, 201. Values, real, 116. Vaudeville, 23 1. Vaughan, V. C, 249 n. Veblen, Thorstein, 38, 41, 55 n.; Instinct of Workmanshi-p,6i n., 64 n., 68 n., 123 n., 138-40; The Theory of the Leisure Class, 160. Veracity, 197. Versailles, treaty of, l6. Vice, 193. Virtues, Christian, 191. Vital impulse, 47, 51 n. Vitality, decrease of, 53 n., 259. Votes for women, 19, 32, 39, 90- 92, 188, 257, Wage slavery, 208. Wages, increase of, 164; relation of to unrest, 145. Wallace, A. R., Social Environ- ment and Moral Progress, 21. Wallas, Graham, 55 n.; Human Nature in Politics, 36 n.; So- cial Environment and Moral Progress, 21; The Great Soci- ety, 36 n. Walling, W. E., 55 n. War, 2, 21, 29, 58-59, 69, 80, 86, 106-07, 109, 187, 207, 210, 214; arbitration treaties, 2; art of, 244; civil, 106, 245; INDEX 273 effects of modern wars, 244- 4S; effect! upon victors, 11; form of social suicide, 206; means of preventing, 246; menace to civilization, 10; source of in the human brain, 246. Ward, Lester F., 36, 43-44; A^- plied Sociology, 125. Watson, John B., 38; Psychology from the Standpoint of a Be- haviorist, 62 n. Wealth, and leisure, 109-10, 117, 191; danger ofour mod- ern, 242, 259; equal distribu- tion, 44, SS, 109; 203. 258; in- creased production, 55. Weeks, A. D., The Psychology of Citizenship, 131 n. Weyl, W. E., The New Democ- racy, 20 n., 84-85 n., 103 n., 133, 162 n. Whitley Councils, 151, 255- Will to live, 51-52, 148. Will to power, 51-52, 148, 199. Wish, Freudian, 5; wish pulse, SI- Woman, adoration of, 105; en- franchisement of, 19, 32, 39, 92, 188; outgrown the doll stage, 109; physical training, 20; value to civilization of feminine traits, 94; women's federated clubs, 206. Work, 57, 87-88, 119; brain workers, 134; and wages, no; creative, 115, 126, 140; hours per day, 112. Workingmen's councils, 206. Workmanship, constructive, 63; instinct of, 121, 126, 129, 142, 156, 168, 171. World War, 4, 8-9, 38, 44, 69 n., 142, 201, 20s, 238, 241, 259; cost of, 4. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS i; . S . A