LEARNING HOW TO THINK

“A being who could not think without training,” says John Dewey, “could never be trained to think; one may have to learn to think well, but not to think.” The lower animals cannot be taught to think at all, because they do not possess the power to generalize. It seems that the same thing might be said, with some qualifications, of the less complex or “lower” races of mankind. Among us, too, we find a great many people of more or less vegetative character. Their thinking is of the simplest, and it occurs comparatively rarely.

The elements necessary to thought are, according to Dewey in How We Think, classifiable under three heads. First of all there must be an accumulation of experiences and facts from which suggestions arise. As I have tried to show in How to Think Logically, all our knowledge comes eventually from our sense impressions. The material used in thought does not arise mysteriously, out of nothing, in the mind. But with the store of experiences and facts are inferences and ideas built up out of the data afforded by the sense. Every individual selects and combines for himself.

The second element necessary for thought consists of the “promptness, flexibility, and fertility of suggestions.” That is, the experiences must be available. They must not be too deeply forgotten, but must be within easy reach when they are needed.

The third element is the “orderliness, consecutiveness, appropriateness, in what is suggested.” The images and ideas may come up in large number and yet may not assist efficient thinking. They must first of all be relevant. Also they must be available in an orderly chain. The principle of order in thinking is of the utmost importance. Furthermore, it can be acquired much more easily than the ability to gather a great many experiences and to keep them within easy reach. Merely to hear and see much is of little avail. We know the people who travel all around the world and come home to prove themselves as stupid and as ignorant as before. It is the principle of order, indeed, which gives the ability to accumulate experiences and facts and to make use of them at will.

What causes us to look about us, to listen, to taste, to smell and to touch? Instincts and habits of various sorts. Some psychologists speak of a special instinct of curiosity, which is at the basis of all science. But I suppose the accumulation of knowledge is in general strictly utilitarian. Primitive man studied the habits of various animals not because he was trying to establish the science of zoölogy, not because he had any abstract curiosity, but because he wanted to eat certain creatures and to escape being eaten by others, and then because he had accidentally stumbled upon the fact that some animals might be partially tamed and so rendered of use to the human race.

We learn first of all by doing. Of all the proofs that the earth is approximately spherical in shape, the best one to the man without special training is the fact that it has been circumnavigated. Incidentally, this proof is not of much value until the earth has been circumnavigated from north to south and from south to north through the poles.

Physics and chemistry did not originate in a disinterested will to learn, but in the attempt to solve certain problems of practical importance. Even, now, the students of the pure sciences justify themselves with the apologetic statement that any scientific discovery may prove of important usefulness.

The “Why?” of the child or of the philosopher is at bottom an attempt to learn that which may be put to use. At present, indeed, there is some tendency to make a parlor game of philosophy, to divorce it from real life. But wisdom is not desired as an ornament alone, and the true love of wisdom cannot exist in a vacuum. No valid distinction is to be made between the wisdom of life and wisdom in the abstract. The abstract is, in general, merely a representation in shorthand of the concrete. Such words as fear and valor and justice have very definite reference to behavior. They are not mere counters to be played with by learned professors.

Abstractions are to thought what levers and pulleys and inclined planes are in the handling of unwieldy masses. They assist greatly in the ease, the range, and the depth of suggestions which come up for the solution of a problem.

Thinking is problem solving. But if this word makes us think of arithmetic and algebra, we should note at once that we must not depend too much upon the answers found in official keys. Teachers and preachers and writers are wont to state with all the flourishes of authority what nobody knows or what, at any rate, they are not intelligent enough to discover.

To turn from thought to unreasoning faith is obviously to confess failure. Sometimes this confession covers only a small field, sometimes it extends over the whole field of knowledge. The Fundamentalist wants to find all his science in the Bible, the Modernist perhaps only part of his psychology and philosophy.

Loewenfeld tells of an ignorant old woman who lived with a tubercular man. The health authorities warned her against using the same glass from which he drank and exposing herself in various other ways. “That’s foolishness,” she said. “If God doesn’t want me to get sick, I’ll stay well; and if he wants me to get consumption, it won’t do me any good to use a separate glass.”

Of course many religious people proceed on the more sensible assumption that “God helps those who help themselves.” Even the piety which is sure that miracles occurred in olden days does not depend upon their recurrence in our time. Yet there is a Christian sect, most of whose members belong to the “upper classes” and consider themselves educated, which teaches that only faith can cure disease.

There is not room here to discuss the utility of religion or the possible existence of a deity. The Little Blue Book reader can find ample material dealing with these subjects in a number of the booklets, notably the series by Joseph McCabe. But here we may notice what a large variety of miscellaneous follies have been upheld in the name of religion. For instance, it was formerly declared that the building of railroads was inspired by Satan. At times during the Middle Ages, all men who were indiscreet enough to show themselves more learned than the multitude were denounced as followers of the same fallen angel. Mohammed declared that faithful Mussulmans might have more than one wife apiece, but that they should drink no wine. Or rather he asserted that tasting the first drop is the dangerous thing. Some of his followers employed great ingenuity in not tasting the first drop but in getting the full advantage of all the rest. When Protestant American Christianity borrowed this prohibitory tenet from Islam, some of its leaders made mental reservations to find similar evasions for themselves. Perhaps some of them have also believed that the enactment of Prohibition carried with it the legalization of polygamy. But, of course, the scandals which have circulated about certain ministers are not enough in themselves to damn religion. They simply prove that human nature is human, even within temples, tabernacles, and manses.

Much has been said and written about the stupidity of asceticism. If, however, poverty and chastity are really pleasing in the sight of God, and if they lead certainly to ineffable eternal bliss, then they are amply justified. Many a burglar has gone cheerfully to a term of ten years in the penitentiary, his heart gladdened by the thought of the little fortune which he has safely hidden away to enjoy after his release. Should not all good Catholics hie them to nunneries if a little temporary self-denial can assure them of so much hereafter? But the priestly leaders see that the consistent application of this doctrine would drive a great many into apostasy and would leave no Catholics of legitimate birth for the next generation.

In theory, the Catholics have the Bible interpreted for them by the Church, but the Protestants read it and decipher its mysteries for themselves. As we know, however, each sect has its own creed. Only in a few of the Unitarian congregations are the individual members free to decide if Jehovah is a man or a sun-myth or a force found in nature. Even here I suppose nobody goes to church where he cannot agree with most of the minister’s teachings.

It is a common tendency to hear and read only those arguments which confirm one’s own beliefs. The organs of orthodox religion circulate among the orthodox, the liberal religious papers go to the liberals, the anticlerical magazines go chiefly to atheists and agnostics and deists. Very few Republicans read the Socialist papers and books, unless it be to find ammunition for anti-Socialistic arguments.

In the United States, the party system is such that no particular thought is required on the part of the voter. It is much easier to follow in one’s father’s footsteps than to attempt to differentiate the principles of one party from those of another or to find out which candidate for Keeper of the Dog Pound is best qualified for the office. In a municipal election, the Republicans always stand for economy and needed improvements, the Democrats for needed improvements and economy. Whichever party has its principles approved, taxes go up and the improvements are postponed. Perhaps I am needlessly cynical: I have only lived in two or three of the cities and read about some of the others.

The citizen who is not a politician by profession can only give part of his time and thoughts to government. On the other hand, the political leaders make it their business to have the control of things—especially of the treasury—in their own hands. This is understandable enough. But the civics teachers in the schools teach their pupils that the government of the United States is perfect, or at least that it would be perfect if all the qualified voters went to the polls. Despite the evidence afforded by their senses, some good people continue to cherish this naïve belief.

But it appears that comparatively few minds are capable of probing to the root of a matter. Most are contented with shallow suggestions, with some easy appeal to authority. It is so easy to answer a complex problem with a name; to say, for instance, that a lecturer for world peace is a Bolshevist, and with that word to shut off further debate.

This fault is not confined to drug store philosophers and American Legion leaders. Professor Graham Wallas—in a book on The Art of Thought, too—turns upon McDougall and the other psychologists who deny the mysterious energies hypothesized by the vitalists with the assertion that they are furnishing a system which the Bolsheviks turn to account for their propaganda.

Bolshevism is dangerous, many Italians and Spaniards have argued; therefore a dictator is necessary. But there is no true question of either ... or. The fear of Lenin’s ideas has contributed much to the decline—temporary, let us hope—of the love of liberty in America. The French Revolution had the same effect in England in the time of Burke and Godwin. Hazlitt wrote that “waking from the trance of theory we hear the words Truth, Reason, Virtue, Liberty, with the same indifference or contempt that a cynic who has married a jilt or a termagant listens to the rhapsodies of lovers.”

The reason is that these capitalized abstractions had been nothing more than words. If liberty is once associated with a reign of terror, immediately it seems corrupted to the thoughtless. The abuse, for them, reflects upon the proper use. Temporary associations must never be confounded with necessary accompaniments.

The rough and ready thinking of the multitude jumps from the frying-pan into the fire, from Lenin to Mussolini, from tyranny in the name of liberty to tyranny in the names of security and glory. If the licensed saloon-keepers were friendly with the police authorities, so are the unlicensed bootleggers. Regular medicine is imperfect, but chiropractic and Christian Science are absurd.

When business is poor or wheat sells for a low price, then it is time to send out the Republicans and to elect Democrats, many people seem to think. Meanwhile the attempt to find real correctives is neglected. This is as bad as sending for the priest instead of the doctor when a child is dying of diphtheria.

Such conduct is surely indicative of disordered thinking, of a sightless groping for associations. People accustom themselves to living on the instinctive and habitual level, and in times of emergency their apparatus for thought is as if rusted by disuse.

Thinking is not simply a discharge. It must be directed against some obstacle. Must we then wait for some great difficulty to present itself before we employ our intelligence? No, for in that case we should invariably find ourselves unprepared. Thinking requires practice at least as much as piano-playing does.

But to talk of practice is perhaps to lead astray. For our instinctive and habitual and emotional responses are not sufficient in civilized life. We must regulate them with thought. Intelligence is always useful, provided only that it is worthy of its name. Sometimes it is imperatively demanded, but we can use it every day, almost every waking moment. This is not to imply that the mind must be in a constant state of strain or that we should strive to rid ourselves of our instincts and our habits without regard for their demonstrated value.

“Let me take the liberty further to observe,” writes Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe to her hot-tempered brother, “that the principal end of a young man’s education is to teach him to reason justly and to subdue the violence of his passions.” Is there indeed some connection between just reasoning and the control of one’s passions? Or, in any case, was either very well taught at Oxford and Cambridge in the eighteenth century? Or, for that matter, are the ability to reason and the power to control one’s temper communicated to the students in the American colleges of the present day?

Self-control is hardly inculcated in our schools above the primary grades. Indeed it is largely a matter for parents to attend to while their children are young. Moreover, many good reasoners have exceedingly violent tempers. In the moment of passion they do what they may afterward greatly regret.

Of course it is stupid to act with unnecessary haste and violence. But a bad temper is seldom to be mended in adult life. Few persons possess sufficient strength of will to correct a tendency which should have been checked during their formative years. The hot-tempered are forced to patch up with what diplomacy they may possess the consequences of their thoughtless actions. Sometimes, indeed, a perverted sense of honor causes them to defend in cold blood the wrongs they have done while excited. Thus they add stupidity of a gross kind to their former folly. To confess that one has been in the wrong is no disgrace.

The egotism which fails to understand this is a common cause of foolish actions. Obviously it is difficult to judge oneself in the same way that one judges another. We all know that human beings in general are fallible. Even the most intelligent of our friends and neighbors make mistakes. Why not we? If we truly grant the principle, we may find instances in plenty. Then we have an opportunity to correct many of our errors. But if we refuse to admit their existence, our hands are bound from the very start.

A good sense of humor is a distinct aid here. He who laughs healthily laughs sometimes at himself. Thus, consciously or unconsciously, he admits his lack of perfection. This confession does not automatically open the door to improvement, of course. It seems there are some good-natured people who carefully preserve their minor foibles in order that they may joke about them. But, if they are at all ingenious, surely they may be merry without holding fast to their faults.

The objective conception of self is absolutely prerequisite to the attainment of an exact or scientific system of thinking. In the mind which overvalues self, immortality is an uncontradictable postulate. The sun goes around the earth, and the solar system is the center and most important part of the universe. God is like man—like the egocentric “thinker,” that is. The white race—or, if it is a Chinese speaking, the yellow race—is superior to the rest. The United States is the greatest country in the world, Indiana is the fairest state in it, and Kokomo should be “boosted” everywhere for the fine city of home-loving citizens it is. When civic pride lends to improvement, it is thoroughly justified. But when it is a mere expression of vainglory, it is no better than any individual’s blatant self-glorification.

The first and most important intellectual task of man is the control of his own body. The work of self-control starts early in infancy. The child must learn to put its food and drink into the proper place, to walk, to speak, and so on. This is not thinking, but it is work for the nervous system as well as for the muscles. Perhaps the beginning of generalized thought came when the child starts to mark out the boundaries between itself and the outside world. This leg can be made to move at will, that leg (which belongs to Mother Dear) will move at Baby’s command only by special favor. Previously, when Baby’s limbs had been under a less exact control and when Mother had run to obey the child’s slightest desire, if this could but be understood, the distinction between the I and the She had not been so clear.

Definitely to understand the self and its limitations is at once to rule out all magic. I cannot destroy an enemy by means of the evil eye because there is no ray of malicious animal magnetism proceeding from me. There are all sorts of forces in the universe, and my special powers conform to the usual order. If I should lean far out of the window without in some way being held back, there is no doubt that I should fall. Like an apple or a bar of iron or a cat, I am acted upon by gravitational forces. Like all living organisms, I feed and excrete for a brief period, and presently my body will decompose. If I think and the milkweed does not, this does not mean that I, as a man, am subject to any special laws of nature. It simply indicates that my ancestors have been acted upon in definite ways—not all thoroughly understood at the present moment, we must concede.

I have certain senses, and objects exist for me as I see and hear and smell and taste them, or as they feel hot or cold or painful to the touch. In this way I am revealed to myself, too. If I had been deaf from birth but had nevertheless been taught to speak, my voice would be little more to me than the sensations in my throat.

Perceptions are important as they are apperceived, that is, interpreted in terms of what is already known. Proper observation involves orderly arrangement, as has already been said. In training the powers of observation, the essential thing to watch for is proper selection.

As a matter of fact, we learn this pretty well without any formal teaching. The educational critics who said that people do not observe well, because they are unable to tell offhand if the numerals on their watch dials are Roman or Arabic, was misadvised. Dewey rightfully observes that we pull out our timepieces to find the time, not to see if the fourth number is represented by IV or 4. Most of us can make the latter investigation without any difficulty when it is necessary to do so.

Every act of observation leads to a general intellectual conclusion. This thesis, like some others which are stated here, is developed in my booklet entitled How to Think Logically. At this point we may consider it sufficient argument against the educators who would develop the art of observation as a thing in itself. Actually no one of the mental “faculties” is independent or is capable of its own intellectual development. Even the stupid teachers who conceive of education as mere memorizing assist to some extent in their pupils’ learning how to think and do.

All taught subjects must bear a relation to personal problems. This thought is important enough to bear repetition. Without such a unifying conception, all attempts at education are certain to be fruitless.

One learns in terms of what one already knows. The child who has seen a brook can readily imagine the greater brook which is a river. The boy in the city slums who has seen no greater body of running water than that contained in the gutter after a rain must begin his study of hydrography here.

This sort of learning prevents the formation of two different worlds, one of what is contained in books and lectures, the other of the experiences of life. No man is a pedant who assimilates his learning to actual problems.

Yet Cowper’s words in The Task are frequently justified:

The possession of considerable intelligence does not protect one from occasional lapses into folly. Certainly those who possess a great deal of formal education are not on this account free from stupid thoughts and actions. Their great danger is that of failing to see their specialties, those subjects in which they are most interested and best informed, in their proper relation to the rest of reality. Sometimes they imagine that all the world is interested in certain theories which they or their teachers have developed.

Men sometimes become interested in a certain reform movement to such an extent that nothing else matters. The universe is but a place from which alcohol or tobacco is to be driven. Or some form of recreation occupies all their thoughts. Life is worthwhile to them because it affords a certain amount of time for bowling or playing pinochle or cheering on the local baseball team.

Of course the development of the human being must be true to itself. We are not justified in quarreling with a man or calling him stupid because his interests differ from our own. But the hobby-horse must not ride unchecked when it comes into society. The ship-builder, for example, need not bore us to death about ships: he may do it quite as well talking about his score at golf. But if he would have people call him clever, he had better either remain silent and listen to others’ discussions of their vocations and avocations or else diversify his own remarks.

In conversation and in letter-writing, much is merely conventional. We could save a good deal of time, no doubt, by never saying “Hello” or writing “Dear Sir.” In fact a great many of the things we do are, from a certain point of view, rather stupid. But actually we find it more troublesome and annoying to revolt against the minor conventions of life than to follow them. Taken all in all, etiquette does help much to avoid social friction of an unpleasant sort. Yet it is foolish to be too slavishly bound by the formal rules of polite society.

A famous heroine in French fiction preferred to be drowned rather than to remove her skirts so she could swim. Many people have this same attitude toward the conventions. But of course the power of thought is of little avail except if it can be applied to a practical criticism of fixed habits and rules. Nothing is too sacred for the thinker. Everything is to be tested not by the standards of sterile authority but by its value in the thinker’s own world.

It is true, though, that we are leaning more than ever upon intellectual authority. Who has knowledge enough to consider and weigh for himself the evidence against and for the theory of organic evolution, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the theory that the works attributed to Homer were written by various men and molded into something like their present form by ancient minstrels? Surely no one man can judge all three theories with reference to the full evidence. If we are to have opinions, we must base them upon the conclusions of the experts.

Very well, but what are we to do when the experts disagree? Or when we are unable to tell who is qualified to pass an opinion? Very often the difficulty may be evaded. If we know little of mathematics and physics and astronomy, it is by no means necessary that we should hold any definite opinion about relativity. The attitude of suspended judgment serves well enough.

Let us suppose, though, that we cannot escape in this manner. We are serving on a jury. The defendant has killed the woman he loves. The state calls a number of experienced alienists who declare the man perfectly sane. The defense calls upon a number of equally eminent experts who explain his psychosis, dwelling upon his inability to distinguish right from wrong. We scratch our heads to indicate that we should like to begin thinking but do not know just how to start. Probably we should never have been summoned to solve such a problem. The long hypothetical questions are too intricate for us to understand. How do we actually come to a conclusion? Perhaps we watch the defendant to see if he looks like the maniacs we have seen on the screen in short comedies. Or we say to one another in the jury room, “There’s too much of this murdering. If we let this guy off because he’s nuts, there’ll be plenty more doing the same thing.” Actually we should give the benefit of any doubt to the defendant. There are infinitely more lunatics executed than sane men who escape on the plea of insanity. But the ordinary man cannot recognize a malingerer. Sometimes the experts require weeks of observation. Yet, after a hurried and necessarily perfunctory examination, they are ready to give their solemn opinions in court.

Often we are confronted with insufficient evidence and yet are required to make up our minds in one way or another. For the manufacturer the question may appear in this form: Shall I dismiss my workingmen, whom I may not be able to get back when the busy season comes, or shall I have them make up stock, which I may be unable to dispose of? Such a problem is usually solved with reference to past experiences. But the year to come may be unlike those just preceding. There are all sorts of guesses about the future. Certain experts draw intricate graphs purporting to indicate the trend of business. They speak wisely about cycles and counteracting tendencies. Sometimes they are right—no doubt more often than the mere guesser. And so the modern manufacturer leans a little, not too heavily, upon their wisdom.

Any forecaster able to predict the approximate course of the real estate boom in Florida might quickly have earned enough to retire from the forecasting profession forever. Here, apparently, was a case unexplainable by the thinker: very small causes led to very great results. A few legal measures of interest to the wealthy class seemed to make gold mines of swamps and deserts. The chief causes of the boom were of course psychological. Those speculators who understood this took their quick profits and went away. Sometimes they were in too great a hurry, and the fools to whom they sold their properties made more than they.

But we must not conclude that the stupid people have all the luck. Intelligence makes opportunities and employs them to good purpose. Folly stumbles and is very conspicuous when it stumbles upon gold. At the same time, we must remember that wisdom is not the only factor making for success. A beautiful woman or even a handsome man with no brains may have the thorns removed from the roses of life just because of her or his physical attractiveness.

A matter of luck, obviously. But so is it a matter of luck that one should be more intelligent than one’s neighbors. Wisdom can be improved upon—but so can beauty. Both are controllable only to a limited extent. Perhaps the advantages of clear thinking are not so obvious as those of a clear complexion, however. There seems to be a greater demand for the latter.

If thinking is somewhat painful, so, I believe, is receiving a permanent wave or an application of beauty clay. But it is only necessary to have the fee to be seized upon by the beautifiers. While the educational institutions in America are usually hospitable enough, while they even attempt to seize upon the students who are sufficiently unresisting and permanently to “wave” their minds, the results are often unsatisfactory. In education the passive attitude is hopeless.

The problem of learning how to think is, then, first of all one for the learner himself to solve. Perhaps this little book may be read by some high school and college pupils who are dissatisfied with the narrowness of their teachers, disappointed that they cannot come into contact with more stimulating minds. Ah, but narrow-mindedness and stupidity have lessons to teach, too. Sometimes it is better not to be influenced unduly by the wise: there is a certain tendency to swallow their conclusions whole. Many people accept Emerson’s theory of compensations at face value because it is Emerson’s, who would grin cynically at the same idea propounded by Dr. Frank Crane.

All our heroes should be honored distinctly this side of idolatry, if we are to think for ourselves. Of course we adapt them to ourselves in any case. “Every philosopher has his own Kant,” Henri Bergson is said to have remarked once, when Kant’s authority was invoked against some teaching of his own. We know how Jesus is made to argue for both sides of every question. He turned water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana, we are told. Yet Sheldon’s clerical hero walking “In His Steps” thought it incumbent upon him to destroy the saloons.

It is not the truth which makes one free, but the self-discovered truth. Yes, it might be replied, but the important things have already been found out. We know how the strainers after novel truths are reduced to paradoxes which they display with pride in their mere contrariness.

Here there are two replies to be made. In the first place, the truth which one laboriously digs out for himself may be either old or new. Or it may be both: the ancient idea, as it is discovered by one who lives in the modern world, fits properly into his own environment. It is no longer Plato’s thought or Aristotle’s, but the new thinker’s. If it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, it is also true that there is nothing old. I am not what I was yesterday. Neither is the street which runs beside my house. Certainly there can be no exact replica of Plato or of any Platonic idea in the United States and in the twentieth century.

I would not seem to say that the truth is any more true because it contradicts old ideas. We are justified in pouncing upon every paradox to discover how many fallacies the glitter may hide. The paradoxical writers are chiefly valuable because they do make us examine their thoughts carefully. It does us little good to have the conventional ideas repeated, even when they happen to be true. We are not easily tempted to analyze them unless we are naturally of a skeptical disposition. But when the ancient idols are rudely brushed aside, we are aroused by the noise of the crash. We rush up, perhaps to punish the delinquents, perhaps to examine the gods on our own account.

Some, of course, feel that falling upon the iconoclasts is answer enough. There have always been people able to answer ideas only with blows. But the men and women who have it in them to think are likely to pick up the shattered pieces of the idol, to determine for themselves if it is worth the trouble of cementing together. If it has once been truly broken, of course it can never be the same again. Perhaps the bits of metal must be melted down to be cast into a new form.

Just at present there is a great deal of argument, mostly excited, about the question: Is war a necessary evil? This is not an “academic” matter. Upon our answer depends our attitude to the League of Nations, disarmament conferences, military training in the colleges, and various other matters. As usual, most people feel qualified to say “Yes” or “No” and to defend their opinions hotly. To answer the question intelligently, a great deal of specialized knowledge is necessary. Is there any fighting instinct in men? Do racial jealousies depend merely upon misunderstanding and ignorance—or is there some deeper basis? Does war assist in the advancement of culture and civilization? Do wars promote manliness or do they weaken the race by killing off the brave and the healthy, leaving the cowards and the defective individuals to beget the next generation?

Graham Wallas says we fight better than our ancestors knew how, for we have better weapons. Yet we are not wiser than they, since we can only let accident and inertia prevent a war from breaking out. We have no positive means of controlling it, of being sure that international peace will be kept.

But we know that many wars have by no means been accidental. For example, Bismarck carefully planned the Franco-Prussian War, making the French appear to be the aggressors. Certainly most of the diplomats of Europe expected the Great War to break out, and comparatively few of them made any attempt to avert it. As for the masses of the people, they cherished blind hatreds. They did not, of course, understand international politics.

Why did the United States join the Allies? Here is a question which our historians have not been able to answer satisfactorily. As a matter of fact, the question as stated is ambiguous. It calls either for causes or for reasons. Perhaps one of the important causes was the clever propaganda spread by the Allies, based to a great extent upon deliberate falsehoods. One reason frequently given during the war was that Germany was led by the godless philosophy of Nietzsche. This is utter nonsense, although it is still repeated occasionally by clergymen and Y. M. C. A. secretaries.

In 1812, when the young republic was faced with the same problem of aggression at the hands of both combatants, the United States declared war against Great Britain, not against France. But there was no definite alliance with the side which had also acted guiltily. Why did things turn out differently in the Great War?

The questions which I leave unanswered my readers may, if they will, take for exercises. After all, we citizens of the United States are supposed to be able to answer difficult political questions. Often we must decide between two candidates for Congress, both of whom we know to be unfit to hold such an office, on the ground of their attitude for or against the World Court or tariff reduction or some other complicated matter.

The elementary textbooks of economics show that the “full dinner pail” argument in favor of high import taxes is absolutely fallacious. Yet this is relied upon by practically all Republican campaign speakers. Again I am not trying to prove anything—except that stupidity is widespread. Certainly it would be presumptuous and foolish for me to try to settle the tariff question in a single paragraph.

Sometimes, indeed, it seems that Hume was right when he said that “reason has no original influence,” that it “is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” Of course there is room for discussion about the “ought only to be,” in any case. The passions make people do ridiculous things: if the condition is hopeless, as Hume suggests, we need not approve it. (Not that our approval or disapproval would matter, if it were so.)

But the attitude of this little book is not so pessimistic. I prefer to consider reason something more than the art of inventing poor excuses for worse conduct. At least in some few individuals and at some rare times, intelligence is supreme. The implications of such a statement are many. I do not think that it contradicts determinism, the doctrine necessary to the scientific study of psychology that the condition of the mind is fixed by anterior and exterior circumstances. But if we admit that the rule of intelligence is ever possible, we are justified in trying to learn how to think—not merely how to argue.

Wallas says that thought “may start ... without an immediate stimulus of an ‘instinctive’ impulse from the lower brain.” To discuss the matter adequately, we should need first of all to consider the various definitions of instinct. Yet it seems that there is always some sort of stimulus from without. Thought does not arise spontaneously. First there is a more or less unpleasant feeling of incompleteness. In other words, there is a difficulty, a lack of adjustment to one’s environment.

Thus, while we are wearing our gloves and see them on our hands, we do not wonder where they are. But if they are lacking and we remember having started out from home with them, we think at once: Where are my gloves? If we have entered the Order of Jesus and successfully subdued our reason according to the regular system of discipline, we never think: Is there a God? But one who has entered a monastery without fully subduing his ability to think for himself is likely enough to wonder when his sexual impulses trouble him: Is the immortality we are promised sure? Is there indeed a God?

But what shall we say of a monk who is fully convinced that he will enjoy everlasting bliss if he keeps his oath of chastity and is at the same time unable to refrain from fornication? Surely he is ruled by his instincts, not by his reason. Even where religion triumphs, the victory seems to be won by the emotions, not by the intelligence. Often we find a mystical union with God—or with Jesus or Mary, to make the picture of heterosexual relations more definite—standing definitely in the place of the ordinary manifestations of sex.

At best, we cannot rate reason very highly in any description of things as they are. Wallas, defending the originality and the power of thought, yet says that some of the most important steps in the process are unconscious or half-conscious. This means that they are largely uncontrolled, so far as the will is concerned. The Freudian doctrine tells us that complex formations actually develop as a result of emotional suppressions. This much we know, that the ideas lying below the level of consciousness are not arranged in any logical system which the conscious mind can accept. Our dreams and reveries offer proof enough of this.

Flashes of insight, brilliant guesses which we attribute to intuition, demand careful verification. It sometimes happens that a man leaps out of bed in the middle of the night with the feeling that he has made a wonderful discovery. In the morning, he may not remember what it was all about. In this case he is certain that he has missed something extraordinary by reason of his failure to have a pad and pencil at hand. If he has taken notes, however, he is very likely to be disappointed in them. Either they are valuable but yet require much laborious amplification or they are palpably worthless.

Robert Graves explains poetic inspiration thus: “When conflicting issues disturb his mind, which in its conscious state is unable to reconcile them logically, the poet acquires the art of self-hypnotism, as practiced by the witch-doctors, his ancestors in poetry.... On being interrupted, the poet experiences the disagreeable sensations of a sleepwalker disturbed and later finds it impossible to remember how the early versions of a poem ran.”

The important thing for us to consider here is that the poet, even if he considers his work inspired, nevertheless makes corrections in it. Sometimes the defects are small, sometimes they are so great that the whole work is worthless. Any interested reader may see what Robert Graves did with the later drafts—those he could remember, that is—of “Cynics and Romantics.” These he gives in his book On English Poetry in the chapter called “Surface Faults, an Illustration.”

The four stages in thinking, according to Graham Wallas, are preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. The two stages referred to by Graves are illumination (or “self-hypnotism”) and verification or correction.

Perhaps education would be a fair synonym for preparation. For one thing, “the ‘educated’ man can ‘put his mind on’ a certain subject and ‘turn his mind off’ in a way which is impossible to an uneducated man,” as Wallas tells us. In other words, he possesses volitional control. But if education, between inverted commas, means attendance at a university or at least a good school of secondary grade, the statement is only half true. Some self-educated men do lack the ability to concentrate upon an intellectual problem. Others do not. The main difficulty is to know when to stop thinking about a difficulty. When is it truly solved?

When we have found an algebraic X, we can test it, usually without any trouble. But sometimes the solutions which flash upon us are not so easily tried. For example, I may discover some important new principles of government. Yet, not being a professional politician, I have no way of introducing even a slight innovation. Shall I test my discovery by its conformity to the laws of political science? But there is no such science, in any strict use of the word. Well, I may write a book explaining my discovery. Thus I should be following the course of Plato, when he came to the conclusion that the philosophers should rule the state.

Putting one’s ideas into a writing which is published often brings about its verification by others. Einstein worked out his theory of relativity and tested it as well as he could. Yet his own tests are not considered nearly so important as those made by certain astronomers and physicists soon after his theory was made public.

Illumination is the only one of Wallas’s four stages which cannot easily be controlled. Yet many poets and thinkers have been able to use alcoholic beverages and even narcotic drugs to good advantage. If the ideas won’t come, sometimes there is nothing to do but wait.

But illumination may fail because the incubation is defective. “We can often get more result in the same time,” says Wallas, “by beginning several problems in succession, and voluntarily leaving them unfinished while we turn to others, than by finishing our work on each problem at one sitting.” The associations come up, as it seems, of themselves, although voluntary effort fails. If waiting is necessary, perhaps another difficulty may meanwhile be attacked.

Or some exercise, like walking, which involves no exceedingly complex mental demands of its own, may arouse the fugitive ideas. Idleness as well has its uses in the incubation of thought. There is such a state as that of being too busy to think. But performing some simple task all day, for instance, operating a sewing machine, need not prevent constructive thinking. The ordinary workingman of today, doing over and over again the same piece of work, is in this respect better off than the medieval laborer who made the whole pair of shoes or the whole cart by himself. If it is in him to think, his thoughts can incubate during his working hours. Moreover, he has a great deal of leisure in which to verify his conclusions or to gather material for thought.

He can read books and magazines and newspapers after he is through with his work. Yet the man who reads much does not necessarily think efficiently. He must leave time for his thoughts to develop and he must acquire the art of reading critically: else his reading probably does him more harm than good.