THE SOURCE AND AIM OF 
 HUMAN PROGRESS 
 
 BORIS SIDIS 
 
 THE WORKS OF BORIS SIDIS 
 
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 The source and aim of human progress 
 
 3 1924 013 769 314 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013769314 
 
WORKS BY BORIS SIDIS 
 
 The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal 
 Psychology. 
 
 Symptomatology, Psychognosis, and Diag- 
 nosis of Psychopathic Diseases. 
 
 The Causation and Treatment of Psycho- 
 pathic Diseases. 
 
 Human Progress. 
 
 The Psychology of Suggestion. 
 
 Multiple Personality. 
 
 Psychopathological Researches. 
 
 An Experimental Study of Sleep. 
 
 Philistine and Genius. 
 
 The Psychology of Laughter. 
 
 A Study of Galvanometric Deflections. 
 
 The Nature and Causation of the Galvanic 
 Phenomenon. 
 
THE SOURCE AND AIM 
 OF HUMAN PROGRESS 
 
 BY 
 BORIS SIDIS, A.M.,Ph.D.,M.D. 
 
 ^wnctMewPB^I 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
Copyright, 1919, by Richard G. Badger 
 
 All Rights Received 
 
 MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 The Gokham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
To 
 
 My Dear Friends 
 
 Dr. Morton Prince and Dr. John Madison Taylor 
 
 Who have kindly encouraged me in the publication of this essay. 
 
Revered Master, William James, 
 
 You who have urged me during the dark hours of 
 
 the Spanish-American War to write on Social Psychology, 
 
 foreseeing the great dangers that threatened humanity, 
 
 now that your worst fears of the misery of mankind have 
 
 come to pass, to you I offer my belated tribute. 
 
THE SOURCE AND AIM OF HUMAN PROGRESS 
 
THE SOURCE AND AIM OF HUMAN PROGRESS 
 (a study in social psychology and social pathology) 
 
 ABOUT twenty-five years ago I published in my Psychology 
 of Suggestion a series of experiments on Normal and Ab- 
 normal Suggestibility, carried on at various laboratories in- 
 cluding my own laboratory. I developed the psycho-physi- 
 ological theory of the subconscious, traced the causation and nature of 
 subconscious activities, and worked out the laws of normal and abnor- 
 mal suggestibility. The following pertains to our present subject: 
 
 The nervous centers of man's nervous system, if classified as to 
 function, may be divided into inferior and superior. The inferior 
 centers are characterized by reflex and automatic activities. A stim- 
 ulus excites the peripheral nerve-endings of some sense-organ. At 
 once a nerve-current is set up in the afferent nerves. The current 
 in its turn stimulates a plexus of central ganglia, the nerve energy of 
 which is set free, and is propagated along the efferent nerves towards 
 muscles and glands, — secretions, muscular contractions and relaxa- 
 tions are the result; biologically regarded, various reactions and ad- 
 justments follow. 
 
 Ingoing and outgoing nerve currents with their various end- 
 reactions may be modified by the nerve centers. Nerve currents may 
 be intensified, decreased in energy, or even entirely inhibited by central 
 ganglia or by their mutual interaction and interferences. Sherrington 
 and other physiologists have by a number of experiments formulated 
 some of the important principles of such physiological activities. 
 The law of inhibition or interference early formulated by Ziehen may 
 suffice: "If an excitation of a definite intensity (m) take place in one 
 cortical element (b), and another excitation of a different intensity 
 (») take place at the same time in another cortical element (c) which 
 is connected by a path of conduction with element (b) , the two intensi- 
 ties of excitation may modify each other." 
 
 Although such modifications frequently occur, it nevertheless 
 remains true that the inferior nerve-centers are of a reflex nature. 
 
 ir 
 
12 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 No sooner is the nerve-energy of a lower center set free than at once 
 it tends to discharge itself into action. Thus every sensation, percep- 
 tion, feeling, emotion, thought, or belief, if left uncontrolled, tends to 
 be translated into some appropriate movement, action, or reaction. 
 The physiological process of setting free the nerve energy in a cen- 
 tral ganglion, or in a system of central ganglia, is accompanied by 
 activity in the simpler, but more organized, more integrated nerve 
 centers, and by the lower psychic functions of simple sentience, sen- 
 sibility; and in the more complex, but less integrated, less 
 organized centers, by the higher psychic functions of consciousness, 
 such as sensations, precepts, images, ideas, and emotions. 
 
 Turning now to the superior or the highest nerve-centers, we find 
 that they are characterized by the highest mental functions, thought 
 and reasoning, choice and will. A number of impressions, sensations 
 and precepts reach those thought and will-centers; then a critical, a 
 sifting, a selecting, a controlling or inhibitory process begins. Some of 
 the mental states are modified and are permitted to develop within cer- 
 tain limits, others are given full play, while still others, and possibly the 
 majority of them, are rejected and inhibited, not taking effect in reac- 
 tions and adjustments to the environment. 
 
 The inhibited states belong to the great number of possible 
 states with their reactions out of which selection is made by the crit- 
 ical thought and will-centers. These mental states, images, ideas, and , 
 feelings with their end-reactions, out of which selection is made, Gal- 
 ton aptly terms "the antechamber of consciousness." They are on the 
 margin of consciousness, and are partly of a conscious and partly of a 
 subconscious character. To quote from Galton: "Although the 
 brain is able to do fair work fluently in an automatic way, and though 
 it will of its own accord, strike out sudden and happy ideas, it is ques- 
 tionable if it is capable of working thoroughly and profoundly without 
 past or present effort. The character of this effort seems to' me 
 chiefly to lie in bringing the contents of the antechamber more nearly 
 within the ken of consciousness, which then takes comprehensive note 
 of all its contents, and compels the logical faculty to test them 
 seriatim before selecting the fittest for a summons to the presence 
 of the chamber. The thronging of the antechamber is, I am con- 
 vinced, beyond my control." 
 
 Mental activity in its rational or integrative aspects whether log- 
 ical, moral, or aesthetic, is essentially selective in character. The 
 logical process draws definite conclusions from given premises; the 
 
Boris Sidis 13 
 
 moral man or the ethical thinker regards definite relations in behavior 
 in response to definite relations in the environment as right or wrong; 
 while the artist or the one who enjoys artistic work appreciates defi- 
 nite relations and combinations as the artistic and the beautiful. Even 
 in ordinary life where the process of selection is not so rigid as in the 
 arts, sciences, and philosophy, still the process of attention for the 
 maintenance of rationality is a severe judge in the rejection of unfit 
 streams of thoughts and ideas that may present themselves in the 
 antechamber of consciousness, as Galton terms the state of the mind. 
 In a train of ideas, few ideas of the total mass that offer themselves 
 are accepted, or utilized by the guiding, controlling consciousness to 
 be acted upon in the life adjustments of the organism. This holds 
 true not only of the material needs, but more especially of the spiritual 
 interests of man. The higher the level of mental activity, the more 
 definite, the more precise, the more rigid the selective process becomes. 
 The stream of consciousness, as it rushes along, selects, synthetizes or, 
 physiologically speaking, integrates those trains of ideas which help 
 most effectually to reach the destination, or, in other words, are espec- 
 ially fit for the purpose in hand. 
 
 This selective will-activity of the highest nerve-systems, given in 
 the will-effort of selection, forms the very nucleus of man's rational 
 life. 
 
 These superior selective "choice and will centers," localized by 
 Ferrier, Wundt, Bianchi and others, in the frontal lobes, and by others 
 in the upper layers of the cortex, on account of their selective and 
 inhibitory functions, may be characterized as selective and inhibitory 
 centers par excellence. 
 
 Man's nerve organization may thus be classified into two main 
 systems : I. the inferior, including the reflex, the instinctive, the auto- 
 matic centres ; and II. the superior, the controlling, selective, and in- 
 hibitory brain-centres of the cortex. Parallel to the double systems of 
 nerve-centres, we also have a double mental activity, or double-con- 
 sciousness as it is sometimes called, the inferior, the organic, the instinc- 
 tive, the automatic, the reflex consciousness, or briefly termed the sub- 
 consciousness; and the superior, the choosing, the willing, the critical, 
 the will-consciousness. This controlling will-consciousness may also be 
 characterized as the guardian-consciousness of the species and of the 
 individual. 
 
 From an evolutionary, or teleological standpoint, we can well 
 realize the biological function or importance of this guardian-con- 
 sciousness. The external world bombards the living organism with 
 
14 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 innumerable stimuli. From all sides thousands of impressions come 
 crowding upon the senses of the individual. Each impression with its 
 appropriate receptors has its corresponding system of reactions which, 
 if not modified or counteracted, may end in some harmful or fatal 
 result. It is not of advantage to the organism of a highly complex 
 organization to respond with reactions to all impressions coming 
 from the external environment. Hence, that organism will succeed 
 best in the struggle for existence that possesses some selective, critical, 
 inhibitory "choice and will" centres. The more organized and the 
 more sensitive and delicate those centres are, the better will the 
 organism succeed in its life existence. The guardian-consciousness 
 wards off, as far as it is possible, the harmful blows given by the 
 stimuli of the external environment. In man, this same guardian 
 consciousness keeps on constructing, by a series of elimination and 
 selection, a new environment, individual and social, which leads to an 
 ever higher and more perfect development and realization of the inner 
 powers of individuality and personality. 
 
 Under normal conditions man's superior and inferior centres with 
 their corresponding upper, critical, controlling consciousness together 
 with the inferior automatic, reflex centres and their concomitant sub- 
 conscious consciousness keep on functioning in full harmony. The 
 upper and lower consciousness form one organic unity, — one con- 
 scious, active personality. Under certain abnormal conditions, how- 
 ever, the two systems of nerve-centres with their corresponding mental 
 activities may become dissociated. The superior nerve-centers with 
 their critical, controlling consciousness may become inhibited, split off 
 from the rest of the nervous system. The reflex, automatic, instinc- 
 tive, subconscious centres with their mental functions are laid bare, 
 thus becoming directly accessible to the stimuli of the outside 
 world; they fall a prey to the influences of external surroundings, 
 influences termed suggestions. The critical, controlling, guardian- 
 consciousness, being cut off and absent, the reduced individuality lacks 
 the rational guidance and orientation, given by the upper choice 
 and will-centres, becomes the helpless plaything of all sorts of sug- 
 gestions, sinking into the trance states of the subconscious. It is this 
 subconscious that forms the highway of suggestions, suggestibility 
 being its essential characteristic. The subconscious rises to the sur- 
 face of consciousness, so to say, whenever there is a weakening, par- 
 alysis, or inhibition of the upper, controlling will and choice-centres, 
 or in other words, whenever there is a disaggregation of the superior 
 
Boris Sidis 15 
 
 from the inferior nerve-centers, followed by an increase of ideo-sen- 
 sory, ideo-motor, sensori-secretory, reflex excitability; and ideation- 
 ally, or rationally by an abnormal intensity and extensity of suggesti- 
 bility. In order to bring to the fore subconscious activities with their 
 reflex, automatic psycho-motor reactions by removal of the upper con- 
 sciousness I have found requisite, in my investigations, the following 
 conditions : 
 
 Normal Suggestibility, — Suggestibility in the Normal, Waking 
 State : 
 
 ( 1 ) Fixation of the Attention. 
 
 ( 2 ) Distraction of the Attention. 
 
 (3) Monotony. 
 
 (4) Limitation of Voluntary Activity. 
 
 ( 5 ) Limitation of the Field of Consciousness. 
 
 (6) Inhibition. 
 
 (7) Immediate Execution of the Suggestion. 
 
 Abnormal Suggestibility, — Suggestibility in Hypnotic and Trance 
 States : 
 
 ( 1 ) Fixation of the Attention. 
 
 ( 2 ) Monotony. 
 
 (3) Limitation of Voluntary Activity. 
 
 (4) Limitation of the Field of Consciousness. 
 
 (5) Inhibition. 
 
 The nature of abnormal suggestibility, the result of my investi- 
 gations given in the same volume, is a disaggregation of consciousness, 
 a cleavage of the mind, a cleft that may become ever deeper and wider, 
 ending in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling guar- 
 dian-consciousness from the automatic, reflex, subconscious conscious- 
 ness. . . . Normal suggestibility is of like nature, — it is a cleft 
 in the mind; only here the cleft is not so deep, not so lasting as in 
 hypnosis or in the other subconscious trance states ; the split is here but 
 momentary; the mental cleavage, or the psycho-physiological disag- 
 gregation of the superior from the inferior centres with their concomi- 
 tant psychic activities is evanescent, fleeting, often disappearing at the 
 moment of its appearance. 
 
 In the same work the following laws of suggestibility were form- 
 ulated by me : 
 
 (I) Normal suggestibility varies as indirect suggestion and 
 inversely as direct suggestion. 
 
1 6 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 (II) Abnormal suggestibility varies as direct suggestion and 
 inversely as indirect suggestion. 
 
 A comparison of the conditions of normal and abnormal suggesti- 
 bility is valuable, since it reveals the nature of suggestibility, and dis- 
 closes its fundamental law. An examination of the two sets of condi- 
 tions shows that in abnormal suggestibility two conditions, distraction 
 of attention and immediate execution are absent, otherwise the condi- 
 tions are the same. This sameness of conditions clearly indicates the 
 fact that both normal and abnormal suggestibility flow from some 
 one common source, that they are of like nature, and due to similar 
 causes. Now a previous study led us to the conclusion that the nature 
 of abnormal suggestibility is a disaggregation of consciousness, a slit 
 produced in the mind, a crack that may become wider and 
 deeper, ending in a total disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling 
 consciousness from the reflex consciousness. Normal suggestibility 
 is of like nature, it is a cleft in the mind ; only here the cleft is not so 
 deep, not so lasting as it is in hypnosis, or in the state of abnormal 
 suggestibility. The split is here but momentary, disappearing almost 
 at the very moment of its appearance. 
 
 This fleeting, evanescent character of the split explains why 
 suggestion in the normal state, why normal suggestibility requires 
 immediate execution as one of its indispensable conditions. We 
 must take the opportunity of the momentary ebb of the controlling 
 consciousness and hastily plant our suggestion in the soil of reflex 
 consciousness. We must watch for this favorable moment, not let it 
 slip by, otherwise the suggestion is a failure. Furthermore, we must 
 be careful to keep in abeyance, for the moment, the ever-active 
 waves of the controlling consciousness. We must find for them 
 work in some other direction ; we must divert, we must distract them. 
 That is why normal suggestibility requires the additional conditions 
 of distraction and of immediate execution. For in the waking state 
 the waking, controlling consciousness is always on its guard, and, when 
 enticed away, leaves its ground only for a moment. In normal suggest- 
 ibility the psychic split is but faint; the lesion, effected in the body 
 consciousness, is superficial, transitory, fleeting. In abnormal suggest- 
 ibility, on the contrary, the slit is deep and lasting, — it is a severe 
 gash. In both cases, however, we have a removal, a dissociation of the 
 waking from the subwaking, reflex consciousness, suggestion becoming 
 effected only through the latter. For suggestibility is the attribute of 
 the subwaking, reflex consciousness. 
 
Boris Sidis 17 
 
 A comparison of the two laws discloses the same relation. The 
 two laws are the reverse of each other, thus clearly indicating the 
 presence of a controlling inhibiting conscious element in one case, and 
 its absence in the other. In the normal state we must guard against 
 the inhibitory, waking consciousness, and we have to make our sug- 
 gestion as indirect as possible. In the abnormal state, on the con- 
 trary, no circumspection is needed; the controlling, inhibitory waking 
 consciousness is more or less absent, the subwaking, reflex conscious- 
 ness is exposed to external stimuli, and our suggestions are therefore 
 the more effective, the more direct we make them. Suggestibility is 
 a function of disaggregation of consciousness, a disaggregation in 
 which the subwaking, reflex consciousness enters into direct communi- 
 cation with the external world. The general law of suggestibility is : 
 
 Suggestibility varies as the amount of disaggregation, and in- 
 versely as the unification of consciousness. 
 
 "The problem that interested me most was to come into close 
 contact with the subwaking self. What is its fundamental nature? 
 What are the main traits of its character? Since in hypnosis the sub- 
 waking self is freed from its chains, is untrammeled by the shackles of 
 the upper, controlling self, since in hypnosis the underground self 
 is more or less exposed to our view, it is plain that experimentation 
 on the hypnotic self will introduce us into the secret life of the subwak- 
 ing self; for as we'pointed out the two are identical. I have made all 
 kinds of experiments, bringing subjects into catalepsy, somnambulism, 
 giving illusions, hallucinations, post-hypnotic suggestions, etc. As a 
 result of my work one central truth stands out clear, and that is the 
 extraordinary plasticity of the subwaking self. 
 
 "If you can only in some way or other succeed in separating the 
 primary controlling consciousness from the lower one, the waking 
 from the subwaking self, so that they should no longer keep company, 
 you can do anything you please with the subwaking self. You can 
 make its legs, its hands, any limb you like, perfectly rigid; you can 
 make it eat pepper for sugar ; you can make it drink water for wine ; 
 feel cold or warm ; hear delightful stories in the absence of all sound ; 
 feel pain or pleasure; see oranges where there is nothing; you can 
 make it eat them and enjoy their taste. In short, you can do with 
 the subwaking self anything you like. The subwaking consciousness 
 is in your power, like clay in the hands of the potter. The nature 
 of its plasticity is revealed by its extreme suggestibility. 
 
1 8 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 "I wanted to get an insight into the very nature of the subwak- 
 ing self; I wished to make a personal acquaintance with it. 'What is 
 its personal character?' I asked. How surprised I was when, after 
 a close interrogation, the answer came to me that there can possibly 
 be no personal acquaintance with it, — for the subwaking self lacks 
 personality." 
 
 Under certain conditions a cleavage may occur between the two 
 selves, and then the subwaking self may rapidly grow, develop, and 
 attain (apparently) the plane of self-consciousness, get crystallized 
 into a person, and give itself a name, imaginary, or borrowed from 
 history. (This accounts for the spiritualistic phenomena of person- 
 ality, guides, controls, and communications by dead personalities, or 
 spirits coming from another world, such as have been observed in the 
 case of Mrs. Piper and other mediums of like type ; it accounts for all 
 the phenomena of multiple personality, simulating the dead or the 
 living, or formed anew out of the matrix of the subconsciousness. All 
 such personality metamorphoses can be easily developed, under fav- 
 orable conditions, in any psycho-pathological laboratory). The 
 newly crystallized personality is, as a rule, extremely unstable, ephe- 
 meral, shadowy in its outlines (spirit-like, ghost-like) , tends to become 
 amorphous, being formed again and again under the influence of 
 favorable conditions and suggestions, rising to the surface of con- 
 sciousness, then sinking into the subconsciousness, and disappearing, 
 •only to give rise to new personality metamorphoses, bursting like so 
 .many bubbles on the surface of the upper stream of consciousness. 
 
 A few quotations from my work on the subject of the subcon- 
 scious may help to elucidate the main traits of the lower secondary self 
 with its extreme suggestibility and authomatic, reflex consciousness: 
 
 "The subwaking self is extremely credulous; it lacks all sense of 
 the true and the rational. 'Two and two make five.' 'Yes.' Any- 
 thing is accepted, if sufficiently emphasized by the hypnotizer. The 
 suggestibility and imitativeness of the subwaking self were discussed 
 by me at great length. What I should like to point out here is the ex- 
 treme servility and cowardliness of that self. Show hesitation, and it 
 will show fight ; command authoritatively, and it will obey slavishly. 
 
 "The subwaking self is devoid of all morality. It will steal 
 without the least scruple ; it will poison; it will stab ; it will assassinate 
 its best friends without the least scruple. When completely cut off 
 from the waking person, it is precluded from conscience." 
 
 This explains the many atrocities committed by the Assyrian, 
 
Boris Sidis 19 
 
 Macedonian, Roman or German soldier who by a long course of mili- 
 tary training had fallen into the degraded and wretched state of the 
 irresponsible, slavish, sub-conscious self. 
 
 "The subwaking self dresses to fashion, gossips in company, runs 
 riot in busniess-panics, revels in the crowd, storms in the mob, pa- 
 rades on the streets, drills in the camp, and prays in revival meetings. 
 Its senses are acute, but its sense is nil. Association by contiguity, the 
 automatic, reflex mental mechanism of the brute, is the only one it pos- 
 sesses. 
 
 "The subwaking self lacks all personality and individuality; 
 it is absolutely servile. It has no moral law, no law at all. To be 
 a law unto one-self, the chief and essential characteristic of personality, 
 is the very trait the subwaking self so glaringly lacks. 
 
 "The subwaking self has no will; it is blown hither and thither 
 by all sorts of incoming suggestions. It is essentially a brutal self. 
 
 "The primary self alone possesses true personality, will, and self- 
 control. The primary self alone is a law unto itself, — a personality 
 having the power of investigating its own nature, of discovering 
 faults, creating ideals, striving after them, struggling for them, and by 
 continuous efforts of will attaining to higher and higher stages of 
 personality." 
 
 Suggestibility is a fundamental attribute of man's nature. We 
 should, therefore, expect that man in his social capacity would manifest 
 this general property; and such do we actually find to be the case. 
 What is required is the bringing about of a disaggregation in the 
 social consciousness. Such a disaggregation may either be fleeting, 
 unstable, the type is that of normal suggestibility; or the disaggregation 
 may become stable, the type is then that of abnormal suggestibility. 
 The one is the suggestibility of the crowd, the latter that of the 
 mob. In the mob direct suggestion is effective, in the crowd indirect 
 suggestion. The clever stump orator, the politician, the preacher 
 fixes the attention of the crowd on himself, while interesting the 
 hearers in his "subject." The orator, the preacher, or the dema- 
 gogue, the politician, distracts the attention of the crowd by his stories, 
 frequently giving his suggestion in some indirect and striking way, 
 winding up the long yarn by a climax, requiring immediate execution 
 of the suggestion. 
 
 The condition of limitation of voluntary movements is of para- 
 mount importance in suggestibility in general, since it brings about a 
 narrowing down of the field of consciousness which of all other condi- 
 
20 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 tions is most favorable to dissociation. The condition of limitation 
 of voluntary movements is one of the prime conditions that helps to 
 bring about a deep, a more or less lasting dissociation in the conscious- 
 ness of the crowd, — the crowd passes into the mob-state. A large 
 gathering, on account of the cramping of voluntary movements, easily 
 falls into a state of abnormal suggestibility. Large assemblies carry 
 within themselves the germs of the possible mob. The crowd contains 
 within itself all the elements and conditions favourable to a disaggre- 
 gation of consciousness. What is required is that an interesting 
 object, or that some sudden, violent impression should strongly fix 
 the attention of the crowd, and plunge it into that state in which the 
 waking personality is shorn of its dignity and power, and the naked, 
 subwaking self remains alone to face the external environment. 
 
 Besides limitation of the voluntary movements and contraction of 
 the field of consciousness, there are also present in the crowd, the mat- 
 rix of the mob, the conditions of monotony and inhibition. When the 
 preacher, the politician, the stump orator, the ringleader, the hero, 
 gains the ear of the crowd, an ominous silence sets in, a silence fre- 
 quently characterized as "awful." The crowd is in a state of over- 
 strained expectation; with suspended breath it watches the hero or 
 the interesting, all absorbing object. Disturbing impressions are ex- 
 cluded, put down, or driven away by force. All interfering influences 
 and ideas are inhibited. The crowd is entranced, and rapidly merges 
 into the mob-state. 
 
 The suggestion given to the entranced crowd by the "master" or 
 hero spreads like wild fire. The suggestion reverberates from individ- 
 ual to individual, gathers strength, becomes overwhelming, driving the 
 crowd into a fury of activity, into a frenzy of excitement. As the sug- 
 gestions are taken up by the mob and executed, the wave of excitement 
 rises higher and higher. Each fulfilled suggestion increases the emotion 
 of the mob in volume and intensity. Each new attack is followed by 
 a more violent paroxysm of furious, demoniac frenzy. The mob is 
 like an avalanche, the more it rolls, the more menacing and dangerous 
 it grows. The suggestion given by the hero, by the ringleader, by the 
 master of the moment, who simply gives expression to the subconscious 
 passions of the mob, is taken up by the crowd, and is reflected and 
 reverberated from man to man, until every soul is dizzied, and every 
 person is stunned. In the entranced crowd, in the mob, every one 
 influences and is influenced in his turn ; every one suggests and is sug- 
 gested to; until the surging billow of excitement and mob-energy 
 swells and rises, reaching a formidable height. 
 
Boris Sidis 21 
 
 Let the crowd, the mass or the mob, be indicated by m and its 
 energy by E, the energy of another mass m x be Ex. On account of 
 the interaction of the masses the result will be m multiplied by m t or 
 mrrix and their energies EE t ; the energies of masses m, m%, m 2 , give 
 mmxm 2 or EE^. If the masses are equal, the energies are respec- 
 tively E, E 2 , E 3 , and so on. While the masses grow by equal incre- 
 ments of m, the energies increase by the factor E. The masses are 
 respectively : m, 2m, 3m, <fm, $m, and so on, the corresponding ener- 
 gies are : E 1 , E 2 , E s , E\ E s . Mob-enerffy rises as the powers of the 
 mass. We may say then that while the masses increase in arithmetical 
 progression, the energies of the masses increase in a geometrical pro- 
 gression.* In other words, the masses grow as the logarithms of their 
 energies. In short, if M is the mass of the mob, then M = Log E. 
 
 If m is/o and E is 10, then a mass of 2m gives an energy of 
 JO 2 , a mass of 3m yields an energy of io 3 , a mass of 4m gives an 
 energy of /o*, or 10,000, a mass of 5m gives an energy of 10 s or 
 100,000. While the mass increases in an arithmetical progression of 
 10, the mass energy grows in a geometrical progression of 10. Briefly 
 stated, the mass grows as the logarithm of mass-energy. 
 
 A knowledge of the subconscious and of the laws of suggestibility 
 are of vital consequence in Social Psychology in general and in Social 
 Pathology in particular. As the great Sociologist, Tarde, points out : 
 "To understand thoroughly the essential social fact, as I perceive it, 
 knowledge of the infinitely subtle facts of mind is necessary, — the roots 
 of what seems to be even the simplest and most superficial kind of 
 Sociology strike far down into the depths of the most inward and hid- 
 den parts of Psychology and Physiology." 
 
 In surveying human life in its organized capacity, from the 
 lowest to the highest forms of social organizations in the great 
 wealth of their manifestations, economic, tribal, totemic, sex and 
 family relationship, marriage, art, morals, religion, magic, beliefs, 
 practices, rites, taboos, and other social phenomena, the student of 
 Social Psychology cannot help being impressed with the important 
 role played by the instinctive, automatic, reflex consciousness, or the 
 subconscious with its normal and abnormal suggestibility in the pro- 
 tean forms and activities taken by the metamorphic and anamorphic 
 
 ♦This law, first formulated in "The Psychology of Suggestion," is termed by Professor 
 Giddings in his "Sociology" as "The Law of Extent and Intensity of Social Action." 
 Giddings phrases the Law as follows: "The Law of Extent and Intensity of Social 
 Action is : Impusive social action tends to extend and intensify in geometrical progres- 
 sion." 
 
22 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 social spirit of aggregate humanity. If there is truth in Aris- 
 totle's dictum that man is a social or rather a gregarious animal, or 
 in that of Tarde's and others that man is an imitative animal, there is 
 a deeper truth in the more fundamental view, which really includes all 
 others, that man is by nature, or by his subconscious nature, a suggesti- 
 ble animal. 
 
 Man's subconsciousness, with its conditions and laws of 
 normal and abnormal suggestibility, works on a large scale in the 
 social evolution of the human race. In the course of human 
 development and the incessant building of new social structures 
 with their corresponding functions we find the activities of the upper, 
 controlling, regulating, ordering, critical consciousness, rationalizing 
 the formative activities of the subconscious with its characteristic 
 reflex, instinctive, automatic, suggestible consciousness. The rational 
 progress of human societies depends on the interaction and synthesis 
 of the upper and lower consciousness. When, however, the upper, 
 critical consciousness is kept in abeyance, or is dissociated from the 
 lower self, society becomes subject to all forms of social diseases, men- 
 tal epidemics, mob-actions, riots, horde-attacks; blind slaughters, mas- 
 sacres, pogroms, revolts, mass upheavals, mass movements on a great 
 scale, such as are manifested in migrations of tribes and nations, or in 
 civil, national, and world-wars. The very weakening of the control- 
 ling social consciousness causes the social mind to become predisposed 
 to overaction of the social subconsciousness with its abnormal suggest- 
 ibility and consequent social, psychic diseases and mental epidemics 
 of all sorts and description. For a clear understanding of Social 
 Psychology and Social Pathology one should keep in mind the fol- 
 lowing laws formulated in my "Psychology of Suggestion" : 
 
 (I) Social subconsciousness is the vehicle of suggestibility and 
 more specially of abnormal suggestibility. 
 
 (II) Suggestibility varies as the amount of disaggregation of 
 social consciousness and inversely as the unification or synthesis of 
 social consciousness. 
 
 (III) Social, impulsive, reflex action is in inverse relation to 
 the synthesis of the upper consciousness and the reflex subconscious. 
 
 (IV) While the social aggregate grows in an arithmetical pro- 
 gression, the emotional excitement of the aggregate grows in a geomet- 
 rical progression ; or the emotional energy rises as the powers of the 
 mass, the mass varying as the logarithm of its energy. 
 
 (V) The greater the uniformity of the constituent units of the 
 social mass, the greater the mass-energy, and the more powerful are 
 
Boris Sidis 23 
 
 the effects of social suggestibility. In other words, social suggesti- 
 bility is directly proportional to the uniformity of the social aggre- 
 gate. 
 
 (VI) Individuality is in inverse relation to the social mass. 
 
 (VII) The conditions of normal and abnormal suggestibility, 
 such as Fixation of the Attention, Limitation of Activity, Suppres- 
 sion of Variations, Monotony, Contraction of the Field of Social 
 and Individual Consciousness, and inhibition of non-conforming ideas, 
 ideals, and beliefs, leading to a weakening and paralysis of the criti- 
 cal consciousness, tend to the laying bare of the suggestible subcon- 
 scious with its consequent deleterious effects. The main principles of 
 social psychology, outlined in my "Psychology of Suggestion' were 
 adopted by Prof. Ross in his "Social Psychology" : 
 
 "In the normal state" Professor Ross writes "suggestion should 
 be as indirect as possible in order to catch the inhibitory, waking self 
 'off its guard.' In the abnormal state no circumspection is needed; 
 the controlling, inhibitory, waking consciousness is more or less dor- 
 mant, the subwaking reflex consciousness is exposed, and our sugges- 
 tions are more effective the more direct they are." Ross then quotes 
 our general law of suggestibility formulated in The Psychology of 
 Suggestion; "Suggestion (suggestibility) varies as the amount of dis- 
 aggregation and inversely as the unification of consciousness." 
 
 "The primary self is the self with personality and will. . . . 
 It alone embodies the results of reflection, and it alone holds life true 
 to a personal ideal. It is the captain of the ship. ... If now 
 this primary self is overthrown or put to sleep, the subwaking self 
 becomes the master of the ship. This (subconscious) self has little 
 reason, will, or conscience. . . . It is imitative, servile, credu- 
 lous, swung hither and thither by all sorts of incoming suggestions. 
 The life it prompts cannot be stable, self consistent, integrated. It is 
 low on the scale of personality, and a situation that commits to its 
 hands the helm of the individual life is fraught with disaster." From 
 this standpoint Ross discusses social suggestibility, the crowd, and the 
 mob mind, worked out in my work on the psychology and pathology of 
 the individual and society. 
 
 Ross further realizes the import in the domain of social psychol- 
 ogy of the factors and conditions of normal and abnormal suggest- 
 ibility as developed in my "Psychology of Suggestion." Thus he 
 writes : "Sidis goes further in declaring 'If anything gives us a strong 
 sense of our individuality, it is surely our voluntary movements. We 
 
24 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 may say that the individual self grows and expands with the increase 
 of variety and intensity of its voluntary activity; and conversely, the 
 life of the individual self sinks, shrinks with the decrease of variety 
 and intensity of voluntary movements.' Here, perhaps, is the reason 
 why individuality is so wilted in a dense throng." ... "A crowd 
 self will not arise unless there is an orientation (fixation) of attention, 
 expectancy, narrowing of the field of consciousness that excludes dis- 
 turbing impressions." 
 
 "With the growing fascination of the mass for the individual, his 
 consciousness contracts to the pin point of the immediate moment, and 
 the volume of suggestion needed to start on its conquering career be- 
 comes less and less. He becomes automatic, in a way unconscious. 
 The end is a tranced impressionable condition akin to hypnosis. . . 
 . The crowd self is ephemeral. . . . The crowd is unstable 
 . . . The crowd self is credulous . . . Rational analysis and 
 test are out of the question. The faculties we doubt with are asleep 
 . . . The crowd self is irrational . . . His (man in the 
 crowd) actions are near to reflexes . . . The crowd self shows 
 simplicity . . . Finally, the crowd self is immoral. . . ." 
 
 Similarly Professor Giddings of Columbia University refers to 
 these laws and their corollaries in his Sociology : "There are three of 
 these laws" Professor Giddings writes in his work "that may be 
 regarded as demonstrated: "Impulsive, social action is commenced 
 by those social elements that are least self-controlled." . . . 
 
 "The Law of Restraint of impulsive social action is : Impulsive 
 social action varies with the habit of attaining ends by indirect, or 
 complex means." In other words, impulsive social action varies with 
 the attainment of ends by rational means, free from impulsive, emo- 
 tional excitement, characteristic of the reflex, automatic consciousness, 
 or subconsciousness. 
 
 "The Law of extent and intensity of social action is : Impulsive 
 social action tends to extend and to intensify in geometrical progres- 
 sion." This is my Law of Logarithmic relation of social mass and its 
 energy. 
 
 I may add another important factor in Social Psychology, a fac- 
 tor revealed by my researches in the pathology of the human mind. 
 
 The disaggregation of social consciousness predisposes to the 
 arousal of one of the most fundamental of impulses and instincts,— 
 the impulse of self-preservation with its accompanying fear-instinct. 
 The subconscious is specially affected by self and fear suggestions t 
 
Boris Sidis 25 
 
 direct and indirect, which tend to awaken and stimulate the uncon- 
 trollable, slumbering impulse of self-preservation and fear which are 
 ever ready to awaken and burst the bonds in which they are kept in 
 the subconscious regions by the controlling, rational, personal con- 
 sciousness. Once self-preservation and fear are aroused they magnify 
 and intensify the pathogenic state of subconscious social activities. 
 
 "Intimidation" says Tarde "plays an immense part in society 
 under the name of 'respect.' Every one will acknowledge this, and 
 although the part is sometimes misinterpreted, it is never in the least 
 exaggerated. Respect is neither unmixed fear nor unmixed love, 
 nor is it merely the combination of the two, it is a fear which is beloved 
 by him who entertains it." All taboos, covering the vast field of 
 human life, religion, magic, family, marriage relationships, articles 
 of diet, details of modes of living, rules of behavior, involving the 
 minutiae of life of primitive societies, savage, barbarian and civilized, 
 all the codes of law, religious, ceremonial, legal, political, all customs 
 and rites and beliefs which control the human race in the course of its 
 evolution, take their origin in self and fear. According to anthro- 
 pological research all human institutions with all their taboos are based 
 on fears of perils, often of an extremely superstitious nature, perils of 
 soul and body, fears of impending evil of the supernatural beforewhich 
 gregarious man quails in terror of his life. The impulse of self-pre- 
 servation and the fear-instinct are at the basis of social organized life 
 activities. The taboos, the laws, the rules of gentes, tribes, and 
 nations, from the lowest to the highest, are upheld by a vague terror 
 and sacred awe which society impresses on man by threats of ill-luck, 
 fearful evil, and terrible punishments befalling sinners and transgres- 
 sors of the tabooed, of the holy and the forbidden, charged with a 
 mysterious, highly contagious, and virulently infective life-consuming 
 energy. As the English anthropologist, Frazer, puts it: "Men are 
 undoubtedly more influenced by what they fear than by what they 
 love." The Bible lays special stress on the fear of God as the font 
 of wisdom. The Biblical love is saturated with fear of the super- 
 natural. Lack of obedience to commandments, in modern religions 
 lack of faith, is threatened with fearful tortures and eternal damna- 
 tion in hell. Throughout the course of human evolution, through 
 the institutions of gentile savagery and barbarism to political class- 
 civilization, social organization was taboo-intimidation based on 
 self-preservation and fear. Organized society inspires its indi- 
 vidual units with abject terror of the least trespass of custom, rule, 
 
26 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 rite, and taboo. "Brute force" as the English anthropologist well puts 
 it "lurks behind custom in the form of what Bagehot has called 'perse- 
 cuting tendency.' " Society enmeshes the individual in a close and 
 strongly woven network of taboos, customs, commandments, and tra- 
 ditions, all maintained by force and fear. 
 
 Fear of the outraged sense of the community inhibits even the 
 very thought of breach of a taboo or violation of custom. The 
 taboo is based on some subconscious fear of some unknown mystic 
 force, or some vague apprehension of a spirit power avenging the 
 awful transgression. The taboo is essentially the fear of the unseen, 
 of the unknown. "A taboo is anything that one must not do lest ill- 
 luck befall. And ill-luck is catching, like an infectious disease. Hence, 
 if some one has committed an act that is not merely a crime, but a sin, 
 it is every one's concern to wipe out that sin ; which is usually done 
 by wiping out the sinner. Mobbish feeling always inclines to vio- 
 lence." This fear of communal anger, manifested at the breaking of 
 some taboo, and resting on social self-preservation and mystic fear of 
 the unknown and the unseen, is at the basis of all social institutions. 
 Self-preservation and fear are at the heart of gregarious man; the two 
 interpenetrate every fibre of his subconscious being. 
 
 Plato with his deep insight into the nature of man and society finds 
 fear of such vital importance that he makes the knowledge of what to 
 fear and what not to fear as fundamental in the education of the citi- 
 zen. Self preservation with its companion the fear instinct dwell in the 
 subconscious depths of gregarious man, and once aroused from slumber 
 and started on their mad career cannot be arrested, they both become 
 uncontrollable, giving rise to social plagues, mental crazes, epidemics, 
 and panics highly contagious and virulent in character. This was well 
 brought out in the skillfully conducted campaigns by the various gov- 
 ernments in appealing to the masses with their characteristic suggesti- 
 ble subconsciousness, stirring to the very depths the reflex consciousness 
 of gregarious man by all sorts of direct and indirect suggestions of fear 
 of attacks and patriotic reactions of self-defense against such attacks 
 until the evil genii of self-preservation and fear became loose, result- 
 ing in a sweeping conflagration of a war of nations with all the horrors 
 of diseases, mutilation, and extermination of millions of human lives ; 
 over seventeen and a half millions, according to latest accounts, hav- 
 ing perished in this world-massacre of the human race. 
 
 Of all the mental epidemics that befall aggregate humanity and 
 its subconscious activities the worst are the mob feelings of the mili- 
 
Boris Sidis 27 
 
 taristic type. The subconscious activities are not rationalized and 
 humanized, they are in fact more brutalized than ever, inasmuch as 
 under the aegis of military law and under the tacit understanding that 
 necessity knows no law, there is no pity and no mercy in war. The 
 worst of crimes are committed for the benefit of the army and the mil- 
 itant nation. The individual in the army becomes used to holding 
 human life in contempt, in fact, the greater the slaughter, the greater 
 is his merit; and the more medals, ribbons, and honors of hero-wor- 
 ship are showered on him, the more he becomes, after a time, indiffer- 
 ent to all sorts of human suffering and loss of human life. We find this 
 indifference in the warlike Assyrians who enjoyed the impaling and 
 flaying alive of their prisoners, and in the case of the military Spartans 
 in the treatment of their unfortunate Helots, more specially in the 
 imperial warlike world-conquerors, the Romans, in their love of the 
 brutalities of gladiatorial combats and the popular delight in the shed- 
 ding of blood on the arena. Thus Lecky in describing Roman society, 
 says: "The gladiatorial games form indeed one feature which to a 
 modern mind is almost inconceivable in its atrocity. That not only men, 
 but women, in an advanced period of civilization, — men and women 
 who not only professed, but very frequently acted upon a high code of 
 morals, — should have the carnage of men as their habitual amusement, 
 that all this should have continued for centuries with scarcely a pro- 
 test, is one of the most startling facts in moral history. It is, how- 
 ever, perfectly normal, while it opens fields of ethical inquiry of a very 
 deep, though painful character." The great Roman phrase-monger 
 and moralizer, Cicero, glorifies gladiatorial games. "When guilty 
 men" proclaims Cicero "are compelled to fight, no better discipline 
 against suffering and death can be presented to the eye." It is instruc- 
 tive for us to learn as well as to ponder on the fact that "the very 
 men who looked down with delight, when the sand of the arena 
 reddened with human blood, made the theatre ring with applause when 
 Terence in his famous line 'Homo sum, Nihil humani mihi alienum 
 puto' proclaimed the brotherhood of man." If any protests against 
 those edifying gladiatorial games and ancient forms of movie shows 
 of the arena appeared at all, they came not from the intellectual and 
 ideological classes, but from the despised Jews and from those par- 
 iahs of the ancient world, the unwarlike, peace-loving, humble, early 
 Christians who lived by the apparently absurd rule of Christianity: 
 'Love your enemies, and return good for evil.' There is, however, 
 one feeble protest on record, but it is not from imperial Rome, — it is 
 
a 8 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 from the mother of human progress and humanistic civilization, from 
 ancient Athens. "When an attempt was made to introduce the games 
 into Athens, the philosopher Demonax appealed successfully to the 
 better feelings of the people by exclaiming: 'You must first over- 
 throw the altar of pity I' " 
 
 Of the many mental epidemics that occurred in the middle 
 ages, the Crusades, on account of their duration, intensity, and extent, 
 are of interest to the student of Social Psychology and Social Path- 
 ology. 
 
 The crusades agitated Europe for a couple of centuries with 
 a loss of more than seven million men. Peter the Hermit and Pope 
 Urban II were the heroes who first broke the ice, and directed the 
 popular current to the conquest of the Holy Land. The fiery appeals 
 of the emaciated, dwarfish hermit carried everything before them. 
 The frenzy which had unsettled the mind of the hermit was by him 
 communicated to his hearers who, sinking into a trance, fell easy vic- 
 tims to the fearful visions of a disordered mind. 
 
 Meantime Pope Urban II convoked two councils, one after an- 
 other. At the second council that of Clermont, the pope addressed 
 a multitude of thousands of people. His speech was at first listened 
 to in solemn silence. Gradually, however, as the multitude became 
 more and more subject to the action of the suggestion, and began 
 to sink into the subconscious state of social trance as it is usual 
 under such conditions, sobs broke out. "Listen to nothing" he 
 exclaimed "but the groans of Jerusalem 1 . . . And remember 
 that the Lord has said 'He that will not take up his cross and follow 
 me is unworthy of me.' You are the soldiers of the cross ; wear then 
 on your breast or on your shoulders the blood-red sign of Him who 
 died for the salvation of your soul!" The suggestion took effect, it 
 was irresistible. Leaving the fields and towns, agricultural serfs and 
 petty traders displayed intense eagerness to reach the Holy City. 
 Marching in parades and processions with high floating banners, 
 flags, and sacred images at the sound of drums and praying monks 
 hysterical multitudes called for preparedness in the cause of the holiest 
 of wars, — the war of Christ against the infidel. Nations sank in a 
 state of social somnambulism, obsessed by hatred in the name of love, 
 and by war in the name of peace. 
 
 The silly, crazed, maniacal subconscious, in spite of its impulsive 
 and reflex character, often simulates the reflective self by using mean- 
 ingless, pompous phrases of an idealistic nature. The chattering, irra- 
 
Boris Sidis 29 
 
 tional brute of the subconscious clothes itself in the tattered garments 
 of rationality and idealism. Few are clear-sighted enough to discern 
 the cloven hoof from under the mantle of the active subconscious, 
 freed from all control of the rational self. Those few who by some 
 luck happen to escape the madness of social hypnotization are afraid 
 to give expression to their thbughts, because they are terrorized by 
 the inquisitorial intolerance of crazed mobs and frenzied nations. 
 Everyone spies and is spied upon in turn ; everyone denounces and is 
 denounced in turn for disloyalty to the cause of "humanity" and 
 treason to the sacred flag. The few are forced into silence and sub- 
 mission by threats of violence and torture. If anyone dares to say 
 anything rational, or if he has the courage to set himself in opposi- 
 tion to the maddened current of popular opinion, he is mobbed by 
 pious crowds and is persecuted by inquisitorial courts of justice. Such 
 was the terrible state of the mediaeval crusade-mania. Such in fact 
 is the state of every crusade-mania which seizes on the minds of nations 
 in the long history of national mental epidemics. If any rational per- 
 son during the crusade epidemic dared to speak a word of warning, 
 the only answer of the hypnotized, entranced crusaders was the sug- 
 gestion given by the pope : "He who will not follow Me is unworthy 
 of Me." Such conscientious objectors, "sinners undeserving of Me," 
 were usually wiped out by sword and fire. 
 
 If we ridicule the mediaeval crusade mania, let us compare it with 
 what took place in our own times, in the first quarter of the twentieth 
 century. At the outbreak of the war for the alleged defense of the 
 Fatherland the excitement of militaristic mania in the central empires 
 of Europe reached a formidable height. There were parades, proces- 
 sions, the carrying high of banners and flags, the preaching of hatred 
 and singing of "Hass" and the patriotic national hymn — "Deutchland 
 ueber Alles" ; there were Leagues of Defense and Leagues of Securi- 
 ty, and all sorts of societies for fighting the war to a finish and for win- 
 ning the war. The plague did not spare scientists, philosophers, and 
 theologians; such men as Wundt, Haeckel, and Harnack were af- 
 fected alike with the lowliest chimney-sweeps and craziest asylum 
 inmates, — all cursed and threatened perfidious England and the treach- 
 erous allies, all were obsessed by the fervor of national defense of 
 the imperilled Fatherland. The patriotic crusade of the Fatherland- 
 defense did not spare anyone ; the young and the old, the learned and 
 the ignorant, the conservatives and the radicals, the capitalists, the 
 workmen, and the international socialists were all alike affected by 
 
30 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 this terrible mental epidemic. If anyone happened by chance to escape 
 the plague and give a word of warning he was promptly accused of 
 disloyalty, interned, imprisoned, immured in a cell for years of torture. 
 It seemed as if the insane asylums had opened wide their gates and 
 let loose their populations to hold frenzied meetings, and parade the 
 streets in processions of wild excitement with banner, flag, and drum 
 for the salvation of the country. Thus a German medical eye-witness 
 of all those militaristic orgies expressed himself in private: "The 
 streets are now full of the unbalanced and the insane; this is their 
 hour. . . . The war will afford a free arena for every instinct 
 and every form of insanity." 
 
 Many of those parades and processions were at first staged and 
 controlled by the ever present hands of the central government and 
 the ruling classes. Then the highly virulent mental germs skillfully 
 inoculated took a hold in the subconscious mind of European human- 
 ity; the disease developed rapidly, spread like wild fire, and raged 
 unabated throughout the width and length of the central empires. 
 This virulent epidemic soon spread to neighboring nations, and like its 
 deadly associate, the influenza, reached the farthest corner of the 
 habitable globe. In some nations there was a lull of 'neutrality,' the 
 incubating period, followed by an ever rising temperature of popular 
 excitement, breaking out in series of 'preparedness parades' occur- 
 ring all over the country from imperial New York, the stock- 
 yards of Chicago, the mines and vineyards of California to towns, 
 villages, and hamlets. At first social hypnotization was staged by 
 organizers, leaders, and hypnotizers in the form of parades and pro- 
 cessions with banners and flags, to the sound of drums and orations, 
 reverberated and magnified by the boom and thunder of the press. 
 The hypnotization took effect, and the demon of the demons began to 
 stir in the depths of the subconscious social self. 
 
 Repetition and impressive, persistent suggestion finally brought 
 about a lodgement of the virus in almost every individual of the social 
 aggregate. Neither the learned nor the ignorant could escape the 
 pressure of social suggestion. The way they tumbled one after an- 
 other or rather one over another as victims to the fatal influence should 
 have been a study of the utmost interest to the student of Social 
 Psychology. Lay, literary and scientific periodicals were full of war 
 literature. Versifiers sang of "the blood-red glory cross of war" 
 while soldiers and sailors made love not only in halls and on the streets, 
 but also in all the best sellers and novelettes. All the posters, all the 
 
Boris Sidis 31 
 
 pictures of every journal in the land were full of war, magazines teem- 
 ing with photographs of soldiers and sailors and the valorous deeds of 
 the heroes at the front. Who could resist the pressure of insistent war- 
 suggestion repeated day after day and month after month? There 
 was no let up on Sundays and holidays. The pulpit thundered war, 
 congregations sang battle-hymns. 
 
 Then came the great "saving" mania. Everything and everybody 
 had to be saved. Circulars were distributed about saving and the 
 war. One went to sleep with war pictures and illustrated circulars of 
 a militaristic character, and woke up with visions of war illustra- 
 tions. Everything had to be saved. Save Belgium, save the country, 
 save Democracy, save your food, from potato peelings to the gar- 
 bage can. The suggestion was irresistible, and the weak human spirit 
 yielded and fell into a deep social trance from which the awakening 
 could not but be one of disillusion. Meanwhile, the war literature, 
 experiences of all kinds of colonels and generals and correspondents 
 grew to enormous proportions. The dust raised by all that waste 
 product which the country could have easily 'saved' blinded the eye 
 and choked the breath. Everybody, young and old, fell to greedily 
 reading the latest book on the war. Everybody was full of war, 
 from the leader in society to the waiter in the club, from the leader in 
 the paper to the wrapper round the grocery man's soap-box. Why 
 wonder that when the air was full of the germs that the war malady 
 spread like wild fire? 
 
 The populace became obsessed with a fury of war insanity, with 
 a craze of Victory-mania. Security leagues, unions, associations, clubs 
 to promote and advance something or other of a patriotic character to 
 help winning the war were formed all over the country. The enthus- 
 iasm of national excitement went far beyond the bounds desired by the 
 government, such as the activities of The National Security League 
 which denounced members of Congress for not being red-blooded 
 Americans, or for not showing one hundred per cent, of Americanism, 
 so that Congress in self-defense had to investigate and possibly sup- 
 press the activities of over zealous leagues. Leagues of all kinds of 
 description grew up rapidly and luxuriantly like mushrooms after a 
 rain. Everyone attempted to outshine his neighbor, every one had 
 to outdo his friend in doing his bit to help win the war. Posts, poles, 
 trees, walls, and windows were plastered and placarded with leaflets, 
 bills, and signs for the defense of the nation and the glory of the coun- 
 try. Whoever happened to be sceptical, or not enthusiastic enough, 
 
32 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 was accused of being 'pro-German' and a spy, with consequences nat- 
 ural to such accusations. Every one tried to out-bawl his neighbor 
 with declarations of loyalty, often of a spurious character. 
 
 The trance became deepened, the subconscious emotions of fear, 
 anger, and aggression became more and more intensified, fanned as 
 they were by the hot breath of propaganda and the bellows of the 
 press, until the mass of the nation fairly quivered with the fever heat 
 of enthusiasm and maniacal excitement, an overwhelming mass excite- 
 ment which no individual could withstand. "Make the world safe 
 for Democracy," "He who does not stand behind Me is disloyal and 
 unworthy of Me" were slogans impressed on the subconscious mind 
 of the public with all the suggestive force of law, press, bema, ros- 
 trum, pulpit, and movie, all waving on high old glory, calling crusaders 
 to the battlefield of Democracy in honor of "Courage, Cooties, and 
 Heroes," and for the glory of "the blood-red cross of War." Sec- 
 retary Lansing has well summed up the general mental state in his 
 appeal : "Let us, as loyal citizens of the Republic, serve in this mighty 
 crusade against Prussianism." For such a mental state can only be 
 paralleled by the crusade mania of the Middle Ages, the crusade 
 mania which cost Europe millions of men, killed and crippled, devasta- 
 tions of populations and countries, followed by the no less terrible 
 epidemic of the Black Plague which ravaged Europe and Asia from 
 end to end, with the destruction of half the human race. 
 
 The bestialization produced by war and militant patriotism came 
 openly to the front with all the horrors of savagery, rapine, deporta- 
 tion, atrocities, and the inhuman slaughter of millions of human beings 
 for the glory of the Fatherland and Kultur and for "the making of the 
 world fit for Democracy." Groups of scientists vied with each other 
 in their supply of infernal machines and chemical poisons for the 
 wholesale slaughter of mankind. Poisons and poison-gases, more 
 deadly than ever employed by savage man, poisons which even savages 
 and barbarians scorned to use, were utilized triumphantly and jubili- 
 antly by Kultur and culture in their mad strife for supremacy. Man 
 could not have fallen to a lower level of vice and depravity. The 
 Aristotelian dictum was well justified in this strife of nations, in this 
 ignoble world war: "A vicious man can do ten thousand times as 
 much harm as a beast." The chivalrous motto of Alexander of Mace- 
 don "oi kAcWoi tV vUriv," was scorned by the generals of civilized 
 nations. Atrocities of the most vicious kind were justified by the 
 watchwords: "This is war!" "Might is Right." "Necessity knows 
 
Boris Sidis 3$ 
 
 no law." In this world-war nations fell to the lowest level of sav-- 
 agery. The frenzied, suggestible, gregarious, subconscious self, freed 
 from all rational restraints, celebrated its delirious orgies, its coryban-- 
 tic bacchanalia, held its mad salto mortale over the grave of cruci- 
 fied humanity. 
 
 Our social status is a reversion to savagery of the most degen- 
 erate type, an atavistic lapse towards the paleolithic and eolithic man, 
 only more brutal, because of the greater power for evil possessed by 
 modern man. What Hun or Vandal ever dreamt of such collosal 
 destruction ! Over three hundred billions wasted by war and depre- 
 dation, about seventeen to twenty million men lost by slaughter and 
 disease! The fame of God's scourges, Attila, Jenghiz Khan, Batu, 
 and Tamerlane pales and fades before the glories of modern warfare. 
 In a few years Kultur and culture have caused more ruin to humanity 
 than all the invasions of the yellow peril in the history of mankind. 
 
 Some future historian in describing and estimating our times will 
 place us below the moral level of the Bushmen, the Hottentots, the 
 Todas, and the Australian savages. He may say : "Towards the end 
 of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century there 
 took place a vast accumulation of wealth, due to a rapid development 
 of applied science and practical arts. Instead, however, of improving 
 their condition, European nations deteriorated intellectually and mor- 
 ally. 
 
 "Liberal education gave way to technical training. Science served 
 on greed. Education became mechanical and military in character. 
 The thinker gave way to the reporter, the scientist to the mechanic, 
 the artist to the artisan, the genius to the Philistine. Industrial and 
 commercial interests inspired by patriotism and chauvinism be- 
 came the standard of nations. An insane frenzy of militarism obses- 
 sed the minds of men. 
 
 "The state enslaved the individual. Blind obedience became a 
 virtue. Drill and discipline trained people into automatism of the 
 subconscious with its abnormal suggestibility and extreme sensitivity 
 to direct and indirect suggestions, intensified by brilliant parades, 
 hypnotizing oratory, and by all the artifices of a militant chauvinistic 
 press. Nations were thrown into a social trance, the subconscious 
 came to the surface, yielded to the noxious suggestions, wriggled in 
 hysterical convulsions of nationalism, became obsessed with the fury 
 of homicidal mania, and plunged into the abyss of the world war with 
 all its horrors and atrocities. Nations boasting of refinement and 
 
34 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 culture, of great achievements in philosophy and science and of general 
 world 'Kultur' and culture broke treaties, attacked, destroyed, de* 
 ported, and enslaved whole populations. Women and babes were 
 drowned like rats in the middle of the ocean by sneaking submarines. 
 Zeppelins and aeroplanes showered explosive missiles on defenceless 
 people, on civilian populations. Nations gloried in such brutal acts. 
 Every fiendish deed was greeted with an ever rising wave of patriotic 
 enthusiasm. For such cowardly, inhuman, and diabolical acts, the crav- 
 en miscreants were decorated and honored as heroes by their alleged 
 superiors. Man could not have fallen to any lower level of vice and 
 depravity. 
 
 "The very elements of nature were let loose for the ruin of 
 nations. Man gloried in his fiendish, military, inventive power of 
 depredation and destruction. Science* supplied virus, venom, toxins, 
 poison, gas, rifles, cannons, tanks, and long range guns. Hell was 
 let loose on earth. Professors of philosophy and science carrying high 
 the patriotic banner of Kultur and culture gloried in the system of com- 
 pulsory, universal, military service, first made in Germany; they ex- 
 ulted in the degrading, vicious process of training by which the indi- 
 vidual is hypnotized into submission to a brutal organization of mili- 
 tary junkers, hallowed by the name of state and Fatherland. It was 
 the darkest period in the history of mankind. Man was crazed with 
 the lust of blood, frenzied with rapine and murder." 
 
 Such are the terrible consequences when in fear of attack or 
 "invasion the subconscious becomes awakened to its irrational self- 
 -defence by the impulse of self-preservation and the fear instinct. The 
 prestige of the gregarious aggregate, the overwhelming awe and ter- 
 ror of the herd, mob, community, the loss of individuality in the mob 
 and the crowd, along with the conditions favorable to a dissociation 
 of the upper, reflective self from the suggestible, automatic, reflex 
 subconsciousness go to form the main sources of all mental epidemics, 
 scourges, plagues, panics, frenzies, and manias, political, religious, and 
 military. With the increase in mass of the human aggregate the 
 mob-energy grows like the momentum of an avalanche in its downward 
 course. Witness the overwhelming migratory obsession of swarming 
 multitudes of hordes of barbarians, an obsession akin to the uncon- 
 trollable, migratory instinct of birds, or of buffaloes, an obsession 
 which has seized periodically on barbaric tribes, such as the migra- 
 tions of Semites, Aryans in the early dawn of history, the Lust-Wan- 
 derung of Celts, Goths, Normans, and Germans, Huns, Mongols, 
 
Boris Sidis 35 
 
 Tartars in the early ages of our era; the flood of Arabs, obsessed 
 with a fervor of military, religious mania ; the Crusades of mediaeval 
 European humanity, rolling waves after waves of crusaders in a fury 
 of religious, delusional excitement, forcing their way towards the 
 entrancing object, the grave of the Savior in Jerusalem; the bloody 
 religious wars of the Reformation; the political revolutions in Eng- 
 land and France with the terrible excesses of mob-rule ; the mob spirit 
 running riot in economical crisis, financial bubbles, industrial panics, 
 religious revivals ; Napoleonic wars ; the recent exaltant, social mania 
 of empire-building and world-dominion, infected by the most virulent 
 pestilential germs of triumphant militaristic nationalism which first 
 seized on the imperial aggregates of Central Germanic tribes, and 
 spread like a virulent miasma to other nations, wafting its poison- 
 ous emanations across land arid oceans, culminating in the worst 
 world-epidemic, — the so called world-war. 
 
 The central and centralized, imperial governments, guided by the 
 big interests of the country, induced in their unfortunate subjects this 
 last pestilential epidemic of military mania by means of a persistent 
 course of direct and indirect suggestion in which the conditions of 
 normal and abnormal suggestibility were specially emphasized, laying 
 bare the social subconscious, stimulating in it the fear of invasion and 
 attack by neighboring nations, stirring up the impulse of self-preserva- 
 tion, rousing the entranced, hypnotized mind of the populace to a 
 frenzy of self-defense, while the junkers, the officers, the soldiers, the 
 professors, the journalists of the middle-classes were entranced with 
 beatific visions of world-dominion. Nothing stirs so much to the very 
 depths of its soul the poor, naked, irrational subconscious as self and 
 fear. Nothing is so suggestive, so appealing to the social subconscious 
 as fear and self which alone have the power to set society into intense 
 excitement of maniacal fury. 
 
 With the growth of social institutions there is an ever increasing 
 tendency towards formation of rigid rules and regulations for almost 
 every step, for every act in all walks of life. Man's behavior is pre- 
 scribed for every occasion of life. He is commanded by direct 
 and indirect suggestion what to say and how to say it, what to do and 
 how to do it, what to wear and how to dress, what to eat and drink 
 and what manners to have at the table and in company, he is prescribed 
 what to believe and what to think in fear of social condemnation and 
 eternal damnation. Man is brow-beaten, leashed, muzzled, masked, 
 and lashed by boards and councils, by leagues and societies, by church 
 
36 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 and state. Man is driven by orders and commands, rules and laws, 
 customs and fashions. Man is crushed under the burden of statutes 
 and terrorized by fear of taboos. 
 
 Aristotle takes it for granted that it is absurd and ludicrous to 
 force a person to cure himself. He had no suspicion that many cen- 
 turies later man will be forced into treatment by benevolent organiza- 
 tions, charity boards, philanthropic societies, hygienic and eugenic 
 societies, boards of health, and municipal councils. In fear of disease 
 and in the interest of his health man will be muzzled and masked like 
 a vicious dog, and that without any murmur of complaint. Breathing 
 freely will become a social offense, punished by fine and by jail in the 
 communities of the free West. With a scanty supply of laws in Hel- 
 lenic commonwealths or city states what an immense vista for an 
 Aristotle, of that grand, complex, efficient machinery of law, turning 
 out yearly thousands of laws and taboos for the paternalistic control 
 and alleged welfare of the citizen ! What a joy to watch our bureau- 
 cratic governments piling law on law fit for the waste basket and the 
 scrap heap! Edicts, ordinances, regulations are issued by the thous- 
 ands by states, cities, towns, boroughs, organizations, societies, asso- 
 ciations, and leagues for all imaginary human ills. Society staggers 
 under the burden of laws and taboos. Individuality is stifled by the 
 endless, massive excretions of its lawgivers. Our lawgivers take 
 special pride in the ever active manufacture of new bills and laws. 
 Recently even the legislators begin to object to the labor involved in the 
 work on the ever growing mass of bills, introduced into the legislature 
 of one state alone. Thus a senator of a western state complained 
 that in one year alone over seventeen hundred bills had to pass through 
 the mill of his legislature. Multiply that figure by the number of 
 states, add the municipal edicts, and the numerous laws turned out by 
 the federal government, and one can form some faint idea of the vast 
 burden laid on the shoulders of the individual citizen. It were well 
 if the legislators were specially instructed by their constituencies that 
 instead of piling bills upon bills and laws upon laws, like Pelion on 
 Ossa, they should repeal as many as they can. At the present stage 
 of "law-mania" the rational legislator would be far more useful if he 
 made up his mind to devote his time and energy to the clearing of the 
 Augean stables of law products. The overproduction of laws is one 
 of the great evils of modern civilization. 
 
 In one of the ancient Greek republics he who wished to intro- 
 duce a new law had to appear before the popular assembly with a 
 
Boris Sidis 37 
 
 rope around his neck, probably as an emblem of the hangman and the 
 criminal. We have hardly made an improvement by shifting the rope 
 to the neck of the helpless citizen. We may possibly be forced to come 
 round to the ancient Greek practice by putting once more the rope 
 round the neck of the legislator, — and tighten it too. Traditions, 
 laws, taboos, statutes, commandments, rules, regulations, ordin- 
 ances, manners, and fashions, all enacted by an inordinate philan- 
 thropic zeal for the good and improvement of society and race, press 
 heavily on individuality and originality, forcing them down into the 
 general mire of mediocrity. The home, the school, the church, the 
 club, business, profession, trade, and union, all insist on strict, correct 
 conformity to standard ; all demand authoritatively implicit obedience 
 and submission to rule and regulation. 
 
 The individual is so effectively trained by the pressure of taboo, 
 based on self and fear, that he comes to love the yoke that weighs 
 him down to earth. Chained to his bench, like a criminal galley slave, 
 he comes to love his gyves and manacles. The iron collar put around 
 his neck becomes a mark of respectability, an ornament of civilization. 
 Tarde finds that society is based on respect, (respectability I 
 should say), a sort of an alloy of fear and love, fear that is loved. 
 A respectable citizen is he who is fond of his bonds, stocks, and shekels, 
 and comes to love his bonds, stocks and shackles of fears and taboos. 
 In fact, he attacks and fights those who wish to free him from his 
 social, religious, and political fetters. Some criticize justly the mil- 
 itaristic regime with its heavy weight of obedience and strict disci- 
 pline, pressing on the individual. What is the burden of militarism 
 compared with the endless screw of the socio-static press ceaselessly 
 and pitilessly forcing individuality into the narrow, crooked moulds of 
 social mediocrity and respectable commonplace? 
 
 In "The Psychology of Suggestion" I pointed out an important 
 law in Social Psychology, namely, that greatness of individuality is in- 
 versely proportional to the mass of the social aggregate. Great genius 
 appeared not in the empire of Assyria, Babylonia, or Persia, but in the 
 small city-states of Greece and Judea. It is not immense modern 
 China that gives great men, but the small states of Chinese feudalism. 
 This Law of Mass versus Individuality falls in line with my work 
 on the subconscious and its conditions of dissociation: Limi- 
 tation of Voluntary Activity, Monotony, and other conditions, requi- 
 site for the weakening and final disaggregation of the primary, upper 
 self from the lower, subconscious self leave the latter bereft of control 
 and critical sense. 
 
38 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 This law may be modified under conditions in which the in- 
 dividual is given freedom and more scope than in societies 
 hitherto known to us. In this respect we may agree with the great 
 French psychologist, Ribot, who in reviewing my work thinks that the 
 law admits of exceptions. Professor Ross, however, seems to adopt 
 the law without any qualification: "It is perhaps the dwarfing pres- 
 sure of numbers" he writes "that explains why vast populous societies 
 seem to produce small individualities, whereas little societies permit 
 great men to arise. Compare great homogeneous aggregations, such 
 as Egypt, China, Persia, Babylonia, India, with the diminutive com- 
 munities of Judea, the Greek city-states, the Italian cities of the Mid- 
 dle Ages, the free towns of mediaeval Germany, the Netherlands, Scot- 
 land, and Switzerland." 
 
 However the case may be with societies under widely different 
 conditions of development the law of mass and individuality holds 
 true of the social facts known to us. The law is of far greater import- 
 ance than the psychologist and sociologist are inclined to admit. It is 
 certainly important to remember this law when dealing with social 
 progress. The individual is getting dwarfed and stunted in propor- 
 tion as the social aggregate is getting larger and more organized. The 
 larger the empire the more dwindles the mind of the citizen. This is 
 especially true of empires formed by conquest in which the individual is 
 reduced by military discipline to the role of an automaton, where the 
 automatic subconscious is alone cultivated and is in direct relation with 
 the external world, with the commands, orders, suggestions given to 
 him by his superiors. Such empires soon crumble, sometimes in the 
 life time of a single generation. The empire of Alexander Macedon, 
 the empire of Charlemagne, the empires of Djenghis Khan and Tam- 
 erlane ; in modern times the empire of Napoleon, the Russian and Ger- 
 man empires are good illustrations. 
 
 The insecurity, the instability of militaristic empires is brought 
 out strongly in aggregates held by force for a few generations: the 
 catastrophe of the empire. The empire falls at one blow, and is gone 
 forever. The Assyrian, the Persian, the Carthaginian in ancient 
 times, the Austrian, the German, the Russian empire in our own times 
 are cases in point. The empires go to pieces, they crumble into dust. 
 From a superficial standpoint it may be said that an empire upheld by 
 the sword perishes by the sword. This, however, is not the full truth. 
 A deeper insight discloses the fact that the spirit of the empire-build- 
 ing citizen has been dead long before the final collapse. In fact it is 
 
Boris Sidis 39 
 
 this death of individuality that is the real cause of the fall of the 
 empire. 
 
 The fall of the empire is sometimes so sudden and so complete, 
 and the spirit of individuality before its departure is so small and 
 dwarfed, that no spirit is left to transmit the history of the imperial 
 achievements. When a couple of centuries after the fall of the mighty 
 Assyrian empire Xenophon passed the ruins of the once Nineveh the 
 great, the capital of Assyria, the terror of nations, he was unable even 
 to find out its name. Assyria was wiped out from the memory of man 
 as if it had never existed. If it were not for Greek accounts, what 
 would have been left of the great Persian empire, but a few ruins and 
 inscriptions on the rock of Behistan? If it were not for modern exca- 
 vations the very name of Assyria would have been like a dream of the 
 past, long gone and forgotten. What would have been left of the 
 Carthaginian empire, if not for the Greek and Roman historians? 
 Those empires passed away at one single blow, and with the sudden 
 collapse vanished all the glory of imperial power. But long before 
 that fall the real glory had departed, — the glory of the individual. 
 Empires may often look grand and magnificent, but they are built 
 with poor material, — with small men and petty minds. Military 
 - aggregates or societies, held together by the sword, are doomed to dis- 
 solution at the moment of their birth. The destruction is not due so 
 much to luxury and effeminacy, as is usually assumed, but to the 
 dwarfing and suppression of the spirit of the free, living individuality 
 which alone constitutes the active nucleus of social life. 
 
 With the growth of the social aggregate, social structure and 
 functions become varied, differentiated, and rigid; social pressure in- 
 creases, while individuality and originality are ever on the decrease, 
 sinking to a uniform level of dead mediocrity and commonplace. 
 There is limitation of the field of consciousness, limitation of voluntary 
 activity, monotony, routine, and inhibitions, all growing with the in- 
 crease of mass, structure, and social pressure on individual units. 
 With the progressive intensification of these conditions the personal, 
 critical consciousness gets more and more dissociated from the imper- 
 sonal, automatic, reflex subconscious, and becomes subject to all sorts 
 of absurd suggestions. If now some brilliant object fixes the involun- 
 tary attention of the subconscious mind of the social aggregate, the 
 mental energy of the constituent units, becoming polarized, turning 
 in one direction, develops a momentum, uncontrollable and over- 
 whelming in its disastrous effects, — the subconscious self becomes the 
 
40 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 luckless hysterical actor in all the vulgar farces and horrible tragedies 
 of historical life. 
 
 Great empires, becoming gradually bureaucratized, institution- 
 alized, differentiated, and ossified, carry within them the germs of 
 decay and death. The growth of nations has, until the present time, 
 been associated with a predominance of rigid structure over living 
 function. When such lines and forms of organic development pre- 
 vail, the individual, as the cell of the body, becomes soon senescent, 
 drifting inevitably into age, decay, and death. The great biologist 
 and embryologist, Professor Minot, describes this downward course 
 of organic evolution, as the Law of Genetic Restriction : "The devel- 
 opment runs in one direction, and ends in the production of structure, 
 which, if it is pursued to its legitimate terminus, results in degenera- 
 tion and death." Societies, developing on lines of organic growth, fol- 
 low the Law of Genetic Restriction. The individual unit is more and 
 more restricted to the narrow lines of growth of differentiation and 
 specialization in which the individual is sacrificed to society and the 
 state, and generally to the progressive development of the social organ- 
 ism, as the phrase runs. Such societies, from the very nature of the 
 course taken by their evolution, tend towards decay, death, and final 
 dissolution. Just as the process of cytmorophosis, or cell develop- 
 ment, in the evolution of the organism leads to an increase of cytoplasm 
 with formation of rigid connective tissue and fibre, with a correspond- 
 ing decrease of nucleoplasm, the ever living font of life and youth, the 
 process ending in dissolution of both the cell and the organism, so 
 the process undergone by the individual in social organic evolution by 
 a gradual reduction of the living personality and predominance of the 
 subconscious with its rigid Byzantine institutionalism and formalism 
 results in destruction of individuality, corruption, and dissolution of 
 society. 
 
 With the increase of social pressure on the individual, with 
 the ever rising power of restriction of freedom of thought and expres- 
 sion, and loss of liberty of manifestation of originality and initiative 
 due to an ever greater amount of legislation and regulation of the 
 minutiae of individual life, true social progress diminishes, comes to a 
 standstill, ending in decline, decay, and ruin. Society is doomed to an 
 ignominous death as soon as the connective tissue of institutions and 
 the ossified material of officialdom with its rank growth of unyielding 
 red tape and formalism begin to spread, choking, and strangling the 
 free, personal life of the individual. The ancient Assyrian, Babylon- 
 
Boris Sidis 41 
 
 ian, Egyptian, Roman, Byzantine, Arabian, Chinese empires, and in 
 modern times the sudden collapse of the French, Russian, German, 
 and Austrian empires warn us, by example, of what happens to 
 nations, in spite of all their external splendor and apparent manifesta- 
 tions of greatness, when the private individual becomes restricted in 
 thought and act by narrow, mean specialization, mean formalism, mon- 
 otony of lines of action due to a legalized mesh of fibrinous tissue in a 
 hypertrophied, cartilagenous, ossified structure of organized, and class- 
 ified, governmental officialdom. History is strewn with the ruins of 
 empires and with the remains of once living social organisms, because 
 in the eagerness to build massive, rigid, and stable structures, the 
 individual units became so bound and cemented by official tissue that 
 paralysis of personal activities ensued. The whole social structure be- 
 came decayed, and was finally destroyed by less organized, but more 
 youthful societies in which the individual units were still vital, still 
 having free scope for the manifestation of their energies. Brilliant 
 as were those empires, magnificent as those social structures were to 
 the external observer, they were rotten with corruption and decay, and 
 were doomed to perish at the hands of the less advanced, more back- 
 ward, but more vigorus tribes who were still alive with the living, 
 nuclear energies of the individual. 
 
 In his description of the degenerate Byzantine Greeks Ribot 
 tells us that their geniuses were mediocrities and their great men com- 
 monplace personalities. It was the cultivation of indpendent thought 
 and the freedom of individuality that awakened the Greek mind to 
 its achievements in art, science, and philosophy ; it was the deadening 
 Byzantine bureaucracy with its cut and dried theological discipline 
 that dried up the sources of Greek genius. Society is on its downward 
 course when it is building up a Byzantine empire with large institutions, 
 immense organizations, and big corporations, but with small minds and 
 dwarfed individualities. It is a sure symptom of social degeneration 
 when administration is valued above individuality and official ceremon- 
 ialism above originality. When the free soul of the individual is gone, 
 the social organism gives up the ghost, and at best remains as an 
 embalmed corpse, a warning to men in their craving for imperialism 
 and their efforts at empire-building at the expense of the living, think- 
 ing individual. Imperial pomp is bought with the life-blood of man. 
 Vain is imperial glory ; for it is the symptom of disease and death of the 
 social organism, grown fat with the lives of men. Society never 
 appears so brilliant as when the end is nigh. It is like the dead lull 
 
42 / The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 before the coming storm. When the storm comes the imperial edifice 
 collapses in a chaos of ruins. 
 
 The best and most precious treasure of humanity is the free, 
 independent personal life of the individual. More than twenty-three 
 centuries ago Aristotle, one of the greatest thinkers of humanity, made 
 some important generalizations on the nature of man and society, 
 generalizations the full significance of which have not been fully appre- 
 . ciated. His work was based on extensive studies of the great variety 
 of Hellenic societies and their diversity of constitutions. It may be 
 appropriate to quote here some of his statements : 
 
 "That form of social constitution is best in which every man is 
 best, whoever he may be, and can act for the best, and live happily. 
 Happiness is virtuous activity. The active life of thought (as we put 
 it, the active life of the upper, critical consciousness) is the best for 
 man and the citizen. Happiness is activity, and the actions of the wise 
 and the just (not the present business ideal of specialization, vocation- 
 al, technical, professional or business efficiency of the greatest amount 
 of marketable articles and luxuries) are the realization of what is good 
 and noble. Not that a life of action must necessarily have a relation 
 to other men (extolled at present, such as charitable, philanthropic, 
 political, commercial, industrial, military, social) ' as some persons 
 think, but much more the thoughts and contemplation which are free, 
 independent, and complete in themselves. To man the life according 
 to intellect is pleasant and best, — intellect constituting the essential 
 nature of man." In other words, under a good constitution the upper, 
 critical, rational, controlling consciousness should be cultivated both 
 for the happiness of the individual and the general welfare of the com- 
 munity. "Happiness" Aristotle tells us "is self-rule, self-government." 
 Man should not be ruled, but self-ruled: ^ euSai^ovia r&» amapxpv 
 corn. "Man should not be brought up for business or for work as an 
 end in itself, but for leisure. . . . For it is specially disgraceful 
 to have such a poor education as to manifest excellent qualities in 
 times of work and stress, but in the enjoyment of leisure to be no bet- 
 ter than a slave. For it is not in the nature of a free man (a cultured 
 man as we would put at present) to be always seeking after the use- 
 ful. Education should be with a view to the enjoyment of leisure. 
 I must repeat once and again the first principle of all action is leisure. 
 Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation. Society should 
 take care of the education of the individual on right principles. In 
 
Boris Sidis 43 
 
 most societies, however, good education on right principles is neg- 
 lected, the people do as the Cyclops : 
 
 Each rules his race, his neighbor not his care 
 Heedless of others, to his own severe. 
 
 Society is not a community of living beings only (for the sake of mak- 
 ing a living as we would say, for the sake of work and trade) , society 
 is a community of equals, aiming at the best life possible for each 
 individual citizen. . . . Now in man reason is the end after 
 which nature strives, so that the education of the citizen (in a good 
 community under a good constitution) should be with a view to that 
 end, namely, the cultivation of the mind, more especially of reason." 
 
 Thus Psychology, Sociology, and History go to confirm the prin- 
 ciple that in a well ordered and progressive community the end, the 
 telos, is the culture of the individual, a culture based on the cultivation 
 of the rational mind, or the cultivation of the upper, controlling, 
 critical, personal consciousness of the individual citizen; the welfare 
 of the community being not imperial grandeur of war and trade, 
 empire-building of the military Macedonian type, but entirely and 
 solely the development of man and the happiness of each individual cit- 
 izen. The true aim of progress is not a beautifully organized bureauc- 
 racy with well organized departments for all walks of life in some 
 great capital, adorned by pomp and display, or by ostentation of wealth 
 and luxuries, but the simple, happy life of a highly cultured citizen. 
 Protagoras' dictum : iravrav /Urpov avOpvnros Aristotle modifies into : 
 ■ammav /Urpov avOpumo* aya66s. It is not man, as Protagoras claims, but 
 the good man who is the measure of everything. It is not the citizen 
 as a taxpayer, or voter, or office-holder, but the cultivated, free indi- 
 vidual who is the true aim of all social progress. 
 
 This type of society, described by Aristotle as the result of his 
 profound studies of various forms of social life, this type of society 
 after which humanity strives in all its social metamorphoses, discarding 
 one form after another as crude and inadequate for the purpose of a 
 good social life, this type has for its sole object not the structure of 
 society, the welfare of great institutions and the building of vast 
 empires, but solely the highest development of the free, cultivated 
 individual. Such a type of society the sole object of which is the hap- 
 piness and cultivation of Man may be characterized as functional, or 
 humanistic, based on the principle that in the universe there is noth- 
 
44 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 ing greater than Man, and in Man there is nothing greater than Mind, 
 or Reason. Societies whose object is the organization of a strong, 
 centralized structure, the State, with its empire-building tendencies at 
 the expense of life and liberty of the individual components may, from 
 their nature, be characterized as organic, or structural. 
 
 In societies of the structural organic type centralization and or- 
 ganization with hypertrophy of structure are above rationalization and 
 individualization with an ever greater tendency to cleavage of the con- 
 scious self from the subconscious self. Roughly classified, civilized, 
 structural, organic societies may be theocratic, aristocratic, timocratic, 
 and democratic. In theocratic societies, the priests representing the 
 conscious activity, usurp the government, such as in Egypt and India. 
 In aristocratic societies the nobility of birth and wealth, representing 
 the intelligence of the people, assume the role of social control, while 
 the rest of the population are kept in bondage and ignorance. Such 
 conditions are found in many Greek states, in the Roman state, and in 
 the societies of the Middle Ages, as well as in the states of modern 
 Europe before the revolutions, in England, Germany, France, Russia, 
 and Austria-Hungary. In timocratic societies the rich, or propertied 
 classes represent the conscious control, relegating the other classes to 
 the regions of the passive subconscious. In democratic societies of 
 modern times the power is in the hands of the people, really domi- 
 nated by the middle classes, business men, professionals, labor aris- 
 tocracy and their leaders who possess control of the masses which 
 form the subconscious strata of social life activities. Thus through- 
 out the forms and history of structural, organic societies there is 
 present a cleavage of the conscious from the subconscious,— the con- 
 scious control of classes as against the subconscious activities of the 
 masses. 
 
 Classes versus Masses may be characterized as the main cleav- 
 age of organic societies. That is why the whole history of hu- 
 manity which, until our present times presents the evolution of 
 societies, associations, and generally of social aggregates, based on 
 structural organic lines, is full of conflicts of classes and masses. His- 
 tory is full of struggles of the powers of the conscious classes with the 
 subconscious forces of the masses. This massive subconsciousness, 
 predominating in the type of organic societies, gives to the society 
 as a whole the psychological tone of the subconsciousness, the char- 
 acter of which is suggestibility, normal and abnormal, subject to the 
 nature, conditions, and laws of subconscious trance states. In other 
 
Boris Sidis 45 
 
 words the plane of cleavage in structural organic societies is along 
 the lines of the conscious and the subconscious with consequent disso- 
 ciation of the two. Hence, the ever present danger of predominance 
 of abnormal suggestibility, and precipitation in a general state of social 
 hypnosis. Social suggestibility and social somnambulism form the 
 main traits of structural, organic societies. 
 
 From this standpoint we may well understand why Tarde and 
 many other sociologists lay so much stress on social imitation and 
 even somnambulism as the very nature of society ; for imitation is but 
 another term for what may be more fundamentally described as sug- 
 gestibility. 
 
 As a matter of fact when the great sociologist, Tarde, comes to 
 examine more closely the basis of social imitation, he falls back on 
 social hypnotization as the nature of social life. This social hypnoti- 
 zation, as we have found, depends on the stage Of the social dissocia- 
 tion of the upper, controlling self from the lower, suggestible, sub- 
 conscious self, or mass-subconsciousness. "The social, like the hypnotic 
 state" writes Tarde "is only a form of dream (Tarde should rather 
 say trance-state) , a dream of command and a dream of action. Both 
 the somnambulist and the social man are possessed by the illusion that 
 their ideas, all of which have been suggested to them, are spontan- 
 eous. . . . Because this magnetization (or hypnotization) has 
 become more general or mutual we err in flattering ourselves that 
 we have become less credulous and docile, less imitative than our 
 ancestors. This is a fallacy, and we shall have to rid ourselves of it." 
 Tarde comes to the conclusion that "Society is imitation, and imita- 
 tion is a kind of somnambulism." There is a good deal of truth in 
 Tarde's view of social life. What Tarde does not realize is the 
 fact that his generalization holds true only of organically constituted 
 societies, but not of all societies, and it is certainly not true of human- 
 istic communities. Tarde's sociological generalization is but part of 
 the truth. The definition of society in terms of hypnotization or som- 
 nambulism holds true of societies in which social dissociation is pres- 
 ent. In other words, in structural, organic societies there is a weaken- 
 ing, or lack of development, or inhibition of the upper, critical self 
 from the lower suggestible self with the consequent manifestation of 
 subconscious elements and predominance of subconscious activities. 
 This condition, as we have pointed out, and which cannot be empha- 
 sized too much on account of its importance, holds good in most, if 
 not all societies, known to us from history, societies in which the organ- 
 
46 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 ic, institutional structure of centralization predominated over the free- 
 dom of individual activity and the critical independence of personality. 
 
 Where social life runs in moulds, hardened by civilization of 
 specialization, crystallized in caste, class, group, league, and various 
 other organizations of a highly complex structure, there the social ag- 
 gregate tends to develop more and more connective tissue fibre of the 
 inactive, supporting type. This gradually crowds out the living ele- 
 ments, smothers the individual units, paralyzes the activities of the up- 
 per self with its controlling, rational consciousness, leaving exposed the 
 lower, automatic consciousness with its characteristic abnormal sug- 
 gestibility and docility to the stimuli and suggestions, coming from the 
 external environment, and results in a permanent state of trance hyp- 
 nosis, subject to all forms of gregarious plagues and mental epidemics. 
 For all organic societies are based on subconscious activities which are 
 but feebly held in check by a weak-minded upper self. Such human 
 aggregates run wu< d in fads, crazes, manias, epidemics, plagues, mobs, 
 riots, wars, without in the least making any real progress or in the 
 least improving their wretched social state. It is not the humanistic 
 type of society, but the organic, subconscious type of society which 
 is the suggestible victim and miserable subject of hypnotization. 
 
 The fate of organic aggregates is sealed from the very start of 
 their career. Organic societies, if left to themselves, may become 
 stationary, or static, as it is sometimes termed, stagnating for cen- 
 turies, like Egypt, India, China, and Byzantium, until destroyed by 
 the onset of a young, vigorous society in which the structural elements 
 have not yet gone far in their development, the living individual ele- 
 ments having still retained their social vitality and independent upper, 
 personal consciousness, so that the social self has not yet sunk into the 
 decadent, massive, subconscious with its characteristic abnormal sug- 
 gestibility, and its hypnotic trance state. This young aggressive aggre- 
 gate, once it has taken the course of organic, social development is, 
 in its turn doomed to a similar fate. The ancient Babylonian and Hit- 
 tite empires were destroyed by the Assyrian, the Assyrian and Egyp- 
 tian empires by the Persian, the vast Persian empire by the Mace- 
 donian. After undergoing a process of segmentation the Macedonian 
 empire succumbed to the iron grip of the Roman imperial rule. The 
 Roman empire in its turn underwent a process of segmentation, into 
 the western and eastern portion. The western portion fell a prey to 
 the Germanic barbarians, while the eastern, the Byzantine empire, 
 remained for centuries in a state of ossification, until destroyed by 
 the onslaught of the Turks. 
 
Boris Sidis 47 
 
 In modern times we witnessed the fall of the Chinese empire at 
 the hands of the Japanese, the great crash of the mighty Russian and 
 structurally well organized German empire, along with Austro-Hun- 
 garian and Turkish empires, all falling together into heaps of ruins 
 in the great hurricane of the world war. 
 
 As long as societies choose the course of organic growth, of dif- 
 ferentiation and specialization, becoming more and more inflexible, 
 unyielding, and rigid, developing an hypertrophy of social connective 
 tissue-laws, regulations, ordinances, commands, commandments, rites, 
 ceremonies, formalities, and all sorts of prohibitions and taboos, and 
 becoming crystallized into leagues, associations, and organizations 
 with their respective constitutions, rules, and by-rules, all tending to 
 stifle and smother the individual consciousness, so long will society 
 be doomed to a state of subconscious activity with a predisposition to 
 social somnambulism, getting, in consequence, afflicted with various 
 forms of social diseases, often malignant in character, subject to riots, 
 mobs, mental epidemics, crazes, and war-manias, and if not reformed 
 by some radical revolution into a humanistic social type, ending in 
 decay and death. Complexity of social organization is accompanied by 
 a corresponding diminution of vitality and ultimate loss of life of the 
 social aggregate. As Professor Minot tersely puts it: "With com- 
 plication of organization the cells lose something of their vitality, 
 something of their possibilities of perpetuation; and as the organiza- 
 tion of cells becomes higher and higher (that is more differentiated), 
 this necessity for change (differentiation and organization) becomes 
 more and more imperative. But it involves the end. Differentiation 
 leads up to its inevitable conclusion, — to death." A social aggregate 
 which has chosen the fatal path of organic evolution must succumb 
 to the same law of organic development to which all organisms are 
 subject, namely greater and greater organization, increase of struc- 
 ture, greater differentiation, .decrease of critical, personal, conscious- 
 ness, loss of individual liberty, increased activity of the subconscious 
 forces, falling into a state of somnambulism which can only be 
 redeemed by revolution or by death. 
 
 A chronological table will show the uninterrupted chain of Euro- 
 pean mental epidemics : 
 
 Pilgrimage epidemic 1000 to 1095 
 
 Crusade epidemic, Eastern and Western 
 
 Crusades 1095 to 1270 
 
48 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 Children's Crusade 1095 to 1270 
 
 Flagellant epidemic 1260 to 1348 
 
 Black Death and Antisemitic mania 1348 
 
 Dancing mania — 
 
 St. John's dance 1374 
 
 St. Vitus' dance 1418 
 
 Tarantism *47° 
 
 To the end of the fifteenth century. 
 
 Demonophobia, or witchcraft mania 1488 
 
 To the end of the seventeenth century. 
 
 War mania — 
 
 The Hundred years' war 1338 to 1453 
 
 The Wars of the Roses 1455 to 1485 
 
 The Hundred Years of Religious Wars. . 
 
 The Huguenot Wars 1562 to 1629 
 
 The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day 1573 
 
 The Thirty Years' War . . . . 1618 to 1648 
 
 The War of Austrian Succession 1740 to 1748 
 
 The Seven Years' War 1756 to 1763 
 
 The French Revolution and T 7^9 to J 8i5 
 
 The Napoleonic Wars 
 
 The Imperialistic wars of modern times 
 throughout the nineteenth century and 
 ending with the catastrophe of the 
 
 world war J9H to 1919 
 
 Bringing about the fall of the Russian, 
 Turkish, Austrian, and German em- 
 pires. 
 
 Speculative manias — 
 
 Tulipomania x 634 
 
 The Missippi Scheme I 1 I 1 
 
 The South Sea Bubble 1720 
 
 And business bubbles to our own time. The 
 speculative mania running a career 
 from the highest excitement of busi- 
 ness-revival, ending in a crisis of busi- 
 ness depression in a cycle of ten years. 
 
 If society is to progress on a truly humanistic basis, without being 
 subject to mental epidemics and virulent social diseases to which the 
 subconscious falls an easy victim, the personal consciousness of every 
 individual should be cultivated to the highest degree possible. Every 
 phase of individuality and originality, no matter how eccentric, should 
 
Boris Sidis 49 
 
 not only be tolerated, but jealously guarded and protected from alt 
 assaults and oppressions. All manifestations of individuality and 
 personality, no matter how opposed to our notions and foreign to all 
 our tastes, ideas, beliefs and feelings, should be carefully left to grow 
 and develop without any inhibitions, prohibitions, and punishments, 
 nor branded by social custom and law as "dangerous, seditious, and 
 subversive of the welfare of the state," should not be oppressed and 
 persecuted by organized society and scourged by the scorpions of law 
 and order. We must revert to the Hellenic ideal of a good citizen in a 
 good society as expressed by Thucydides in the person of the greatest 
 of statesmen, Pericles, and clearly stated by the greatest of thinkers, 
 Aristotle : "The full development of a free individuality in a commun- 
 ity of equals, aiming at the best life of each individual citizen." 
 
 By its famous proclamation that "All men are equals, and are 
 endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness" the American Declaration of 
 Independence has made a long step in the direction of the true prog- 
 ress of humanity. The framers of the American Constitution have 
 without any qualifications, whether peace or war, declared the most 
 fundamental elements, requisite for the development of a well-ordered, 
 civilized society by proclaiming in the very first article of the amend- 
 ments to the Constitution that: "Congress shall make no law respect- 
 ing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there- 
 of; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right 
 of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government 
 for a redress of grievances." This is a fundamental limitation of con- 
 gressional powers. 
 
 We must say to the credit of the American Congress that never 
 in its history has it attempted to transgress this important right claimed 
 by the Constitution, namely the freedom of speech, liberty of press, and 
 freedom of popular assembly for the redress of grievances. It is cer- 
 tainly to the credit of Congress that no matter under what cir- 
 cumstances, peace or war, it guards jealously over this important right 
 of the individual, freedom of expression in word, in speech, in press, 
 and in assembly. The heroes of the American Revolution fought and 
 died in their struggle with English rule that Liberty should live in the 
 American colonies, in the states of the Union. The price of liberty is 
 eternal vigilance. Congress, in defending the fundamental rights 
 of the people, is ever vigilant that this right of freedom of word, 
 press, and assembly should not for a moment pass from the people 
 
50 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 which they represent. Congress sees to it that the humblest per- 
 son in the land should enjoy this right under all circumstances, war or 
 peace. No post-master, no censor, no attorney-general is permitted 
 for a moment even to meddle with the inalienable right of expressing 
 one's opinion, whether by spoken or by written word, as to the course 
 of public affairs. Congress watches closely over all agencies that 
 no law should be passed and enforced which should in any way inter- 
 fere with the freedom of the individual and the liberty of speech, 
 press, and assembly which are at the basis of the free American 
 institutions. Not a single paper, not a single pamphlet was ever 
 excluded from the mails, not a single person was ever brought before 
 the courts, nor was any person ever sentenced to jail, nor even fined for 
 freely expressing his opinion, in press or in word, no matter how 
 damning they may be or antagonistic to the laws of that centralized, 
 legislating body. Well may Congress be congratulated for realizing 
 its mission, not passing any oriental, monarchial espionage laws 
 that might in the least rob the individual of his inalienable right to 
 liberty of expression in speech, in print, or assembly. Congress 
 is the guardian spirit of American liberty, seeing to it that not a 
 nsingle law is enacted that may possibly prevent any one giving his 
 opinion freely in public. Congress is the guardian spirit of the 
 country. Every person, however humble, and no matter what his 
 •opinion may be, is given full freedom of expression as demanded by 
 tfhe Constitution. For Congress, as the bearer of the spirit of the 
 Constitution, fully realizes that no civilized society may for a moment 
 relinquish this great right of freedom of individuality and liberty of 
 thought and expression by word, by press, and by assembly without 
 sinking into a state of barbarism. Whether we stand at Armaged- 
 don and battle for 'the Lord,' whether we fight for the ideal, or sit in 
 the council of the great to make a world of empires fit for democracy, 
 this liberty is like a sacred fire, jealously guarded, like a beacon shin- 
 ing on a hill for the humblest person in the land. For Congress in 
 its anxiety to preserve the word and spirit of the Constitution fully 
 realizes that freedom of individuality and liberty of expression in 
 speech, press, assembly, being the basis of human progress, should 
 be guarded and even specially cultivated before all else, by all well- 
 ordered, progressive commonwealths. 
 
 No man is so low as to deserve oppression, no opinion is so mean 
 as to merit suppression. As we look back to the history of the human 
 race we almost invariably find that all fundamental changes of human 
 
Boris Sidis 51 
 
 life may be traced in their origin to some one individual or group of 
 men, often obscure and humble, whose opinions were regarded as anti- 
 social and dangerous, on account of their extreme radicalism and devi- 
 ation from the conventional traditions, customs, and beliefs. The 
 Hebrew prophets who set justice above the Hebrew nation, and put 
 righteousness above patriotism which was preached by the false proph- 
 ets of that time, claiming loyalty to nationalism, were just the few 
 men who dared to give expression to the small, still voice of human 
 consciousness and conscience, and as such were the true bearers of 
 human progress. These great harbingers of human justice were hunt- 
 ed and persecuted unto death by the false patriotic prophets who put 
 loyalty to Israel and Judah above loyalty to humanity. The true coun- 
 try of the prophets was not soil, but soul. Their countrymen were the 
 just and the righteous of the earth. 
 
 What man would have dared even in our modern times 
 of free speech and free press, what man would have dared to 
 proclaim the prophesy of Hosea: "Ye have plowed wickedness, ye 
 have reaped iniquity ; ye have eaten the fruit of lies : because thou 
 didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men. There- 
 fore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall 
 be spoiled. ... As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like 
 a bird. . . . Though they bring up their children, yet will I 
 bereave them, that there shall not be a man left . . . Ephraim 
 is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. . . . 
 My God will cast them away. . . . They shall be wanderers 
 among nations." Such words are not only unpatriotic, but they are 
 also "seditious." When the Assyrian threatened the national integ- 
 rity of Judah, Isaiah carried to his nation the following message: 
 "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write 
 grievances which they have prescribed ; to turn aside the needy from 
 judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, 
 that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless ! 
 . . . O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand 
 is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, 
 and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take 
 the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of 
 the street." . . . Is not it a clear case of "sedition?" Is it not 
 "giving aid and comfort to the enemy?" 
 
 When again the shadow of the later Babylonian empire fell on 
 the small kingdoms of Asia minor, and the Jewish state was in immi- 
 
52 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 nent danger of destruction, Jeremiah had the courage of proclaiming 
 the patriotic prophets fake. The true message to his nation 
 was total national collapse which he claimed they fully de- 
 served: "Lo, I will bring a nation against you from afar, 
 O house of Israel, it is a mighty nation. . . . And they shall 
 eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons, and thy daugh- 
 ters should eat; they shall eat up thy flocks; they shall eat up thy 
 vines and thy fig trees ; they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein 
 thou trustedst, with the sword. . . . And the carcasses of the 
 people shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the 
 earth." Even when the Chaldeans besieged the Jewish capital, Jere- 
 miah declared to the king: "Thus saith the Lord; Behold I will 
 turn back the weapons in your hands wherewith you fight against the 
 Chaldeans which besiege you, and I will assemble them into the midst 
 of this city. And I myself will fight against you. . . . And I will 
 smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die 
 of a great pestilence." These are not patriotic speeches. From our 
 standpoint tHsey are not only full of sedition, but of the worst form 
 of treason. Still it was Jeremiah who proved in the right, and the 
 false prophets of nationalism and patriotism in the wrong. This is 
 the soul of the prophet's burden: Justice is above my nation, and 
 righteousness above my people. 
 
 The prophets were but few individuals among nations and tribes, 
 vibrant with nationalism of the narrowest type, but it was just these 
 few chosen spirits and not the multitude of false patriots who gave 
 voice to the tendencies of true human progress. The prophets were 
 seized by the authorities, sentenced, mobbed, tormented, and killed, but 
 their spirit lived, while kingdoms succumbed, empires vanished, and 
 nations perished. The acts and decrees of the great Assyrian, Egyp- 
 tian, Babylonian, and Persian monarchs lie buried in the ruins and 
 dust of their once magnificent palaces, but the living words of the 
 few humble men, the prophets, ring loud and true across the gulf of 
 ages. Insignificant as those men might have been in the courts of a 
 Sargon, Tiglath-Pileser, Esarhaddon, Cyrus, and Darius, it was none- 
 the-less those lowly men who stood for human progress, and trans- 
 mitted to humanity the precious treasures of human ideals. 
 
 The Gospel of Christ and his apostles ran counter to all Jewish 
 tradition as represented by the Pharisees and Sadducees. Christianity 
 conflicted with the imperial patriotism of the Romans. Cruel perse- 
 cutions followed. The great historian, Tacitus, regarded the Chris- 
 
Boris Sidis 53 
 
 tians with horror as we do anarchists and Bolsheviki, and he brand- 
 ed them as "the enemies of the human race." The mild Pliny in his 
 report to emperor Trajan considers the Christians as deserving of 
 punishments from a purely civic principle of subduing the obstinate 
 and the obdurate. A quotation from Pliny's correspondence is both 
 interesting and instructive as a warning to our own times: "The 
 method I have observed," Pliny, as Governor of the province of 
 Bythinia, reports to emperor Trajan "towards those who have been 
 brought before me as Christians is this : I asked them whether they 
 were Christians ; if they admitted it, I repeated the question twice, 
 and threatened them with punishment. If they persisted, I ordered 
 them at once to be punished. For I was persuaded, whatever the 
 nature of their opinions might be, a contumacious and inflexible obstin- 
 acy certainly deserved correction. . . . According to your com- 
 mands, I forbade the meetings of any (Christian) assemblies. . . . 
 I judged it necessary to endeavor to obtain the real truth, by putting 
 two female slaves to torture, who were said to officiate in their religious 
 rites, but all I could discover was evidence of an absurd and extrava- 
 gant superstition. I deemed it expedient to adjourn all further pro- 
 ceedings in order to consult you. For it appears to me a matter highly 
 deserving your consideration, more especially as great numbers must 
 be involved in the danger of these persecutions. ... In fact, this 
 contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spread 
 its infection among neighboring villages and country. Nevertheless, 
 it still seems possible to restrain its progress." Pliny's opinion was 
 the mildest statement made by a Roman official on the character of the 
 despised Christians. 
 
 As the Christians grew in numbers they were no longer regarded 
 in the light of superstitious, misguided people, but as people who were 
 dangerous to the foundations and pillars of society. The Christians 
 were accused of being cannibalistic, ghoulish in their religious services ; 
 it was charged that at their secret meetings they drank the blood 
 of children as a sacrament, that they consumed the flesh of human 
 victims as a sacrosanct piaculum, that they were drunk with human 
 blood, and generally rejoiced in offering theanthropic victims to 
 Christ, a crucified, criminal Jew. The Christians were abandoned 
 criminals and degenerates who hated mankind, who delighted in ex- 
 cess, in ruin and destruction of civilization. The Christians were ac- 
 cused of crimes more heinous and nefarious than those brought at 
 present against anarchists, Bolsheviki, and I. W. W. Incendiary 
 
54 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 crimes in large cities throughout the empire, conflagrations in Rome, 
 robberies, incest, foul murders of men, women, and children for sacri- 
 ficial purposes were charged against those inhuman Christians who 
 consorted with slaves and with criminals of the most abject and de- 
 praved kind, belonging to the Spartacus group, full of sedition and 
 treason, conspiring for the overthrow of the Roman government, and 
 undermining the most sacred foundations of human life. 
 
 The writers of the day could not find words abusive enough to ex- 
 press the villainy and depravity of those Christian vipers who breathed 
 poison and hatred for the human race, those Christian deniers of Gods 
 and of all things divine, those cannibal atheists who delighted in the se- 
 duction of poor, ignorant, misguided slaves, those Christians who en- 
 tertained the absurd superstitions of that degraded and debased, and 
 abject race, the Jews, the Gypsies of the Roman world, those Chris- 
 tians who delighted in the desecration of all that is true, good, and 
 beautiful, who enjoyed the profanation of all that is pure and holy to 
 man. Christianity was a plague which threatened with infection the 
 body-politic and with pollution the very sources of society, a fatal 
 scourge that surelytended towards dissolution of all ties, sacred to fam- 
 ily, society, and humanity. Christians were moral lepers. No punish- 
 ment, no torture was adequate for such fiends in human shape. Such 
 were the terrible charges brought against the Christians, accusations 
 circulated among the populace by writers, by reliable witnesses, gov- 
 ernment agents, informers, professional spies and detectives, and by re- 
 spectable citizens. The Christians were "the enemies of the human 
 race," the sworn foes of all law and order, and as such, they were hunt- 
 ed by police, by the populace, they were mobbed, jailed, deported, im- 
 paled, crucified, thrown to wild beasts on the arena, or hanged as flam- 
 ing torches in the public parks or in Caesar's gardens for the amuse- 
 ment of the people. Even the imperial, ethical philosopher, Marcus 
 Aurelius, joined in the hunting down of "the superstitious" and dan- 
 gerous Christians. 
 
 Pliny's assurance that the spread of Christianity could be stayed 
 was not realized. Christianity could not be stayed by the force of edicts 
 and persecution. Christ and his small band of disciples triumphed ; low- 
 ly and ignorant as they appeared to the haughty Roman patricians, 
 mean as the Christians appeared to the aristocratic Sadducees and the 
 learned doctors of the law, because Christianity originated among the 
 poor and the lowly, the slaves and day-laborers, carpenters and fisher- 
 men, still it was just these few individuals who really constituted the ad- 
 
Boris Sidis 55 
 
 vance guard of true human progress. What Tacitus, Pliny, Marcus 
 Aurelius with all their culture deemed "an absurd and extravagant 
 superstition, a contagion and infection" turned out to be the beacon 
 light of humanity. Those whom the great Romans regarded as "the 
 enemies of the human race" we, who have the advantage of historical 
 perspective, now glorify as saintly martyrs who have given their lives 
 for the highest principles of humanity. The stone which the builders 
 neglected hath become the corner stone. 
 
 No opinion should be disdained and scorned. No individuality 
 should be suppressed and crushed. The manifestation of individuality 
 and originally should in every well-ordered and progressive community 
 Inot only be persecuted, but on the contrary it should be cherished, pro- 
 tected, and cultivated as the fons et origo of civilization and human 
 progress. 
 
 If we wish social life not to become stationary and stag- 
 nant, we should give free scope to all individuality and originality, no 
 matter how eccentric they may seem to us. We should allow free 
 play to all opinions, doctrines, and expressions of human thought, 
 no matter how absurd and contagious the superstitions may appear to 
 us. New ideas, ideals, and beliefs should not be persecuted but should 
 rather be left for discussion and criticism, because we should not 
 assume that we are in possession of the whole truth, and that no fur- 
 ther advance is possible. We may learn from other people who look 
 at the world from a different angle, and thus may be able to see 
 things in a different light which may either add to the truth which we 
 already possess, or may even transform it by some new additional 
 element or principle which at first may appear to us as bizarre and 
 paradoxical. 
 
 Even such simple sciences as Geometry, Physics, and As- 
 tronomy were revolutionized by principles which appeared quite 
 absurd and paradoxical to the learned profession. What was more 
 absurd to an Egyptian Ahmes than the assumptions of surfaces with- 
 out thickness, of lines without breadth, and of points without any di- 
 mensions whatever? The principle of inertia appeared in opposition to 
 the commonsense of antiquity. Heavenly bodies must have the support 
 of crystal spheres, the assumption that they revolve in space without 
 any support seemed absurd. The assumption by Newton that the force 
 of attraction is transmitted through space instantaneously and without 
 any known medium appeared paradoxical even to such a mind as 
 Leibnitz. It was not long ago when a well known professor in 
 
$6 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 Physics in one of the greatest universities thought that there was not 
 any more original work to be accomplished in the domain of physical 
 science. Then came the Roentgen X-ray and the radio-active forces 
 which have revolutionized science. A physicist of high standing con- 
 fessed to me that when rumors of the X-ray properties and of radio- 
 active forces began to circulate in the papers as miracles of science, 
 he sat down to write a series of scientific papers on the "extravagant 
 superstitions" of the X-ray and radium. The existence of antipodes 
 was a standing joke and an example of absurdity among the scientists 
 of antiquity. When Mayers discovered the law of conservation of 
 energy every scientific journal refused to publish his work, and the 
 great discoverer died of a broken heart in a sanitarium. Ohm lost 
 his position when he discovered his great law of electricity. Dr. 
 Jenner lost his practice when he gave to the world his method of vac- 
 cination. These instances can be multiplied indefinitely. Men hate 
 new ideas of a radical character and are terrified by radical innova- 
 tions in practice, especially when the innovations are of a political, and 
 more so when of a social, religious, or economic nature. It is told 
 that a workman came to one of the Roman emperors, Trajan or Had- 
 rian, with a newly discovered metal that looked just like silver. The 
 emperor had the inventor arrested and had him beheaded, fearing that 
 the new metal might undermine the silver currency of the empire. 
 While we rarely deal out such rewards to inventors and discoverers, 
 any new ideas of a radical or revolutionary character are still met 
 with social ostracism and governmental persecution. This rooted ten- 
 dency of disapprobation of new ideas and innovations as generally 
 bad and harmful is well illustrated by the remark of a Chinese sage 
 in Confucius' Analects : "Nang-kung Kwoh, who was consulting Con- 
 fucius, observed respecting /, the skillful archer, and Ngau who could 
 propel a boat on dry land, that neither of them died a natural death; 
 while Yu and Tsih, who with their own hands had labored at husban- 
 dry, came to wield imperial sway." This Chinese remark clearly 
 reveals the fear not only of innovations, but also the fear of all origi- 
 nality, talent, and genius. The unusual individual comes to an untime- 
 ly end. And the time was when the unusual was shunned as a plague, 
 and the unusual individual was actually put to death. 
 
 The value of freedom of opinion is by no means lessened even if 
 the given opinion on examination turns out to be wholly false. For the 
 true value of an opinion is not so much in its truth as in its freedom. 
 In our search for truth we should be anxious for every ray of light that 
 
Boris Sidis 57 
 
 might possibly elucidate the subject from a different angle. The fail- 
 ure of the opinion in actually finding such an angle does not 
 matter, more important is the open-mindedness which the free think- 
 ing man should constantly maintain. We must have as many opinions 
 as possible to select from, true or false, or only partly so, and use our 
 critical selective sense. The keeping alive of this critical selective sense 
 is of the highest moment in man's rational life activity. In the rational 
 equipment of the human mind it is of the utmost consequence to keep 
 the edge of the critical sense bright and keen. In the course of exam- 
 ination of some new opinion which may afterwards be rejected some 
 new sidelights may appear which may give a deeper insight into the 
 nature of the subject, whether it be of a theoretical or practical char- 
 acter; some new views and modes of thought, new methods may 
 be suggested which in their turn may result in the evolvement of new 
 principles and important laws. 
 
 In the general history of science and in the history of each 
 individual investigation we find this freedom of thought and critical 
 sense ceaselessly at work. Rarely, if ever, dp we strike in science the 
 truth at a flash. We usually pass through a series of hypotheses, 
 theories, speculations, and experimentations, often false or de- 
 fective. Ever new lines of thought are struck out and new 
 ways of experimentation are undertaken only to be rejected again 
 and again. They who have undertaken a series of experiments on 
 any subject realize the amount of work requisite before even the 
 preliminaries may be started well under way. There must go on a 
 ceaseless selection, an active criticism which is merciless to itself, ever 
 hostile to routine, ever awake to new points of view and better methods 
 of work, ever welcoming a different, but truer and better way of 
 handling and treating the facts, observations, and experiments, ever 
 ready to modify and change the course of the work, now in one place, 
 now in another, ever retracing the steps of the research now one way, 
 now in another, until some satisfactory and unitary point of view is 
 gained. And still with all that labor one must always be ready to 
 abandon the whole line as false and start on a new track, ever revising 
 his work, ever criticizing each step in advance, ever doubtful, looking 
 at the work as if it might be on the false track, allowing for error, 
 alive to new facts which may contradict the methods of observation 
 and experimentation or the apparently established facts, rejecting 
 hypothesis and theories which are attractive, or which have become 
 endeared to the heart of the investigator, either because they are his 
 
58 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 pet view, or because they fall in line with his previous works, or be- 
 cause in sheer desperation of finding a sure, true, definite path in the 
 jungle of facts he decides to adhere to one course and follow up one 
 trail which may be entirely misleading and end in a blind alley from 
 which he must once more retrace his steps, and start all over again. 
 Of all that the true investigator must be acutely conscious, if he wishes 
 to track the truth. The truly indefatigable and earnest investigator 
 must be keenly conscious of failures, shortcomings, both of method and 
 result. He must look at his truth as if about to be false, and at 
 falsehood as if about to be true. Everything is relative, and nothing 
 is final. It is only by such an attitude of mind and such a mode of pro- 
 cedure that truth can be attained. 
 
 If ceaseless vigilance is the price of liberty, more so is it true that 
 ceaseless criticism of ever new opinions and ever new views, however 
 distasteful, bizarre, and paradoxical, is the price of truth. For we 
 must keep in mind the fact that truth does not come as deus ex machina, 
 or like Athena out of the head of Zeus, but must be found after per- 
 sistent, laborious, painstaking searching of heart, mind, and fact. 
 Truth is in the deep, as a Greek sage puts it. One must dive again and 
 again often bringing up nothing but brilliant falsehoods before the 
 homely truths are found. 
 
 It is by a devious course of long search and patient testing of ap- 
 parent truths and falsehoods that the investigator may be assured that 
 he has got a hold of the truth, and even then he must be constantly on 
 the look-out never to relinquish a re-examination of it so as to gain an 
 understanding of its actual relationships, of its limitations and relativity 
 that the truth may not slip away after all by a dogmatic position and by 
 the neglect of circumstances and unforseen conditions which he may 
 have omitted to take into consideration, or by not bringing it into line 
 with work and discoveries in other directions. By over-generalizing he 
 may lose much that is vital in the truth and thus lay more stress on the 
 false than on the true. Recent ruthless criticism of all that is dogmatic 
 in Mathematics, Logic, Physics, Biology, and other sciences have 
 resulted in new points of view and in the opening of new horizons for 
 investigations which have revolutionized the sciences themselves. This 
 sense of ceaseless active criticism must be kept alive and keen, if sci- 
 ence and truth are to keep on advancing. It is due to this critical 
 sense turned on the fundamental principles and postulates of science 
 that such phenomenal progress has been made recently in the domain 
 of science and human thought. This critical sense must be kept fresh 
 
Boris Sidis 59 
 
 and alive, if human thought and love of truth are not to fall into a 
 state of hebetude and desuetude. 
 
 The manifestation of the apparently false opinion keeps thought 
 awake; it constantly challenges us, making us review again 
 and again our established truths, and contributes to an ever 
 deeper realization of what has been gained by severe thought and hard 
 labor. The freedom of the seemingly false opinion and our tolerance 
 of it and our willingness to meet with it in the open help test the val- 
 idity of truth while keeping alive the critical sense which is the main 
 spring of all advancement of human thought and is the vital point, 
 the very soul, of all human progress. In a certain sense it may be 
 said that it is the function of the false to keep the truth alive. The 
 suppression of the freedom of thought or the liberty of individual 
 expression, whether in speech or in press, is the crushing of all true 
 human progress. Thus science, Sociology, Social Psychology, all go 
 to confirm the same central attitude towards the free manifestation 
 of individuality in the life existence of a well-ordered, progressive 
 commonwealth. 
 
 The great philosopher, logician, and economist, John Stuart Mill, 
 known for his candor and moderation, entered a strong plea for the 
 liberty of the individual. Mill's work 'On Liberty' is so well known 
 that I almost hesitate to quote from it, and still the work is of such 
 importance that I cannot resist the temptation of making a few quo- 
 tations from it, even if they be somewhat lengthy: "People" Mill 
 writes "think genius a fine thing, if it enables a man to write an exciting 
 poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense, that of originality in 
 thought and action, though no one says that it is not a thing to be 
 admired, nearly all, at heart, think they can do very well without 
 it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at. Originality is 
 the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. They 
 cannot see what it is to do for them. How should they? If they 
 could see what it would do for them, it would not be originality. The 
 first service which originality has to render them is that of opening 
 their eyes: which being once fully done, they would have a chance 
 of being themselves original. Meanwhile, recollecting that nothing 
 was ever yet done which someone was not the first to do, and that all 
 things which exist are the fruits of originality let them be modest 
 enough to believe that there is something still left for it to accom- 
 plish, and assure themselves that they are the more in need of origin- 
 ality, the less they are conscious of the want. 
 
60 The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 "In sober truth whatever homage may be professed, or even 
 paid, to real or supposed mental superiority, the general tendency 
 of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendent 
 power among mankind. ... At present individuals are lost in 
 the crowd. . . . The thinking (of the masses) is done for them by 
 men much like themselves, addressing them or speaking in their 
 name, on the spur of the moment, through the newspapers. I am not 
 complaining of all this. I do not assert that anything better is compati- 
 ble, as a general rule, with the present low state of the human mind. But 
 it does not hinder the government of mediocrity to be a mediocre gov- 
 ernment. ... In this age of mass-action the mere example of 
 non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself 
 a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make 
 eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that 
 tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always 
 abounded where and when strength of character has abounded; and 
 the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional 
 to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it 
 contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief dan- 
 ger of the time. . . . There is only too great a tendency in the 
 best beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical ; and unless 
 there were a succession of persons whose ever recurring originality 
 prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming 
 merely traditional, such dead matter w°uld not resist the smallest 
 shock from anything really alive, and there would be no reason why 
 civilization should not die out, as in the Byzantine empire. 
 
 "It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual, 
 but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by 
 the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble 
 and beautiful object of contemplation ; and as the works partake the 
 character of those who do them, by the same process human life also 
 becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more abundant 
 aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and strengthening 
 the tie which binds every individual to the race infinitely better worth 
 belonging to. Irrproportion to the development of this individuality, 
 each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore more 
 capable of being valuable to others. There is a greater fulness of life 
 about his own existence, and when there is more life in the units there 
 is more in the mass which is composed of them. 
 
Boris Sidis 61 
 
 "There is one characteristic of the present direction of public 
 opinion, peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of any marked dem- 
 onstration of individuality. The general average of mankind are not 
 only moderate in intellect, but also in inclinations; they have no tastes 
 or wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and 
 they consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such 
 as wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down 
 upon. . . . There is a moral and prudential spirit abroad for 
 the exercise of which there is no more inviting field than the moral and 
 the prudential improvement of our fellow-creatures. These tenden- 
 cies of the times cause the public to be more disposed than in former 
 times periods to prescribe general rules of conduct, and endeavor to 
 make every one conform to the approved standard. Its ideal of char- 
 acter is to be without any marked character; to maim by compression, 
 like a Chinese lady's foot, every part of human nature which stands 
 out prominently, and tends to make the person markedly dissimilar 
 in outline to commonplace humanity. Instead of great energies guid- 
 ed by vigorous reason, and strong feelings, strongly controlled by a 
 conscientious will, its result is weak feelings and weak energies which 
 therefore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any 
 strength either of will or of reason." 
 
 Thus we are brought once more to the same view from which 
 we started that the essential factor in human progress is the cultivation 
 of the upper controlling, critical, personal consciousness. "The only 
 unfailing and permanent source of improvement" says Mill "is liberty, 
 since by it there are as many possible, independent centres of improve- 
 ment as there are individuals." . . . 
 
 In these times of human agony, when the individual is crucified 
 for social glory and national power, when men are sacrificed by the 
 millions and their labor by the billions for the grandeur of the nation, 
 when the world is made safe for all sorts of 'cracies' by fire and sword, 
 it may be well to give heed to the following reflections by Tocqueville 
 and Tarde : 
 
 "In democratic societies" as Tocqueville remarks "majorities as 
 well as 'capitals' have prestige. As citizens become more equal and 
 more alike (as far as their subconscious is concerned, regarded from 
 the standpoint of Social Psychology) the tendency of each to believe 
 blindly in a given man or class, diminishes. The disposition to believe 
 the masses increases, and public opinion guides the masses more and 
 more. Since the majority becomes the real political power, the uni- 
 
S% The Source and Aim of Human Progress 
 
 versally recognized superior, its prestige is submitted to for the same 
 reason as that of a monarch or nobility was formerly bowed down to. 
 Moreover, in times of equality (of the mediocre subconscious consid- 
 ered from the point of view of Social Psychology) men have no faith in 
 one another, because of their mutual (subconscious, mediocre) like- 
 ness. This very resemblance, however, inspires them almost with 
 an unlimited confidence in the judgment of the public. For it seems 
 improbable to them that when all have the same amount of light, the 
 truth should not be found on the side of the greatest number." "This 
 appears logical" comments Tarde "and mathematical. If men are like 
 units, then it is the greatest sum of these units which must be in the 
 right. In reality this is an illusion, based on constant oversight of the 
 role played by imitation. When an idea rises in triumph from the bal- 
 lot-box, we should be less inclined to bow down before it, if we realized 
 that nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of the votes that it 
 polled were but echoes. Unanimities should be greatly distrusted. 
 Nothing is a better indication of the impulse of imitation." In other 
 words, with the increase of mental disaggregation in a crowd of ( sub- 
 conscious) mediocrities individuality and the critical self are at a min- 
 imum, the subconscious self is left unprotected, a target to the arrows 
 of suggestion. Social suggestibility is at its maximum, and the body- 
 politic is thrown into hysterical convulsions of mob-frenzies, into man- 
 iacal, nationalistic excitement with fixed paranoidal delusions of nation- 
 al grandeur, demoniacal obsessions of world-dominion, resulting in 
 homicidal and suicidal world-wars. 
 
 What then is the remedy for all those human sufferings, virulent 
 mental epidemics, and other severe social maladies that plague man- 
 kind in its aggregate capacity ? Only one answer is given by science, by 
 Biology, Sociology, and Social Psychology: Fortify the resistance of 
 the individual by freedom of individuality and by the full development 
 of personality. Immunize the individual against social, mental plagues 
 by the full development of his rational reflective self, controlling the 
 suggestible, automatic subconscious with its reflex consciousness. Put 
 no barriers to man's self expression, lay no chains on man, put no 
 taboos on the human spirit. Do not, like the savage, run man's mind 
 and skull into ugly shapes and distorted moulds of social traditions. 
 Liberate man's spirit from the dark, narrow, and oppressive, social 
 dungeon. Full freedom of individuality and cultivation of the critical 
 rational self constitute the essential conditions of a healthy social con- 
 sciousness. The full development of a synthetic unity of the conscious 
 
Boris Sidis 63 
 
 in control of the subconscious in a pure atmosphere of liberty is sure 
 immunity against all mental plagues, and is at the same time the source 
 and aim of all true human progress. 
 
 Here we may pause for the present. As far as our present pur- 
 pose is concerned Social Psychology needs not take us any further. Per- 
 haps, the words of Professor Minot's may be appropriated here where 
 we have laid so much stress on the Logos, on Thought, on Reason, as 
 being the savior of humanity: "The time, I hope, will come" says 
 Professor Minot "when it will be generally understood that the inves- 
 tigators and thinkers of the world are those upon whom the world 
 depends. I should like, indeed, to live to a time when it will be uni- 
 versally recognized that the military man and the government-maker 
 are types which have survived from a previous condition of civiliza- 
 tion, not ours ; and when they will no longer be looked upon as heroes 
 of mankind. In that future those persons who have really created our 
 civilization will receive the recognition which is their due. Let these 
 thoughts dwell long in your meditation, because it is a serious problem 
 in all our civilization to-day how to secure due recognition of the value 
 of thought, and how to encourage it. I believe every word spoken in 
 support of that recognition which is due to the power of thought is 
 a good word, and will help forward toward good results." 
 
 When the great American biologist made this earnest appeal to 
 his countrymen had he had a foreboding of the approaching storm of 
 the world-war with all the horrors of frenzied militarism which has 
 obsessed deluded humanity? 
 
 One thing stands out clear and distinct, and this is, — the source 
 and aim of true human progress are the cultivation and development of 
 man's self-ruling, rational, free individuality. This is also Man's 
 happiness. For as the great Stagirite puts it : y d>8ai/Wa r&v aArdpx<»v