,,six ,,major ,,prophets ,,by ,,edwin ,e4 ,,slosson1 ,m4,s41 ,ph4,d4 ,,literary ,,editor ,,of ,,the ,,independent ,,associate ,,in ,,the ,,columbia ,,school ,,of ,,journalism ,,author ,,of ,,major ,,prophets ,,of ,,to-,,day1 ,,etc4 ,whoever dies without recognizing the prophet of his time dies the death of a pagan4 ,mohammedan proverb4 ,,boston ,,little1 ,,brown1 ,,and ,,company #aiag ,,to ,,my ,,son ,,preston ,,william ,,slosson ,,whose ,,thoughts ,,and ,,phrases ,i ,,have ,,more ,,freely ,,incorporated ,,than ,i ,,am ,,willing ,,to ,,acknowledge ,,elsewhere ,,than ,,on ,,this ,,page1 ,,this ,,volume ,,is ,,gratefully ,,dedicated ,illustration3 ,g4 ,b4 ,shaw ,,preface ,a few years ago it occurred to me that there were living on the same planet and at the same time as myself some interesting people whom ,i had never seen and did not know so much about as ,i should4 ,since they or ,i might die at any moment1 ,i determined not to delay longer4 ,so ,i prepared a list of twelve men who seemed to me most worth knowing1 and then ,i set out to see them2 not with the hope of becoming personally acquainted with them or even with the object of interviewing them1 but chiefly to satisfy myself that they really existed4 ,one does not go to ,switzerland to find out how high the ,alps are or how they look4 ,the traveler can get their altitude from ,baedeker and their appearance from photographs1 but if he is to talk about them with any sense of self-confidence he must have come within hailing distance of the mountains themselves4 ,it is sufficient to say that ,i got close enough to the ,alps ,i had chosen to be able to vouch for their actuality4 ,the men ,i selected for study were those who1 whether they called themselves philosophers or not1 seemed to me to have a definite philosophy of life1 those who had a message for their own times of sufficient importance and distinctiveness to merit public attention4 ,it is my purpose in these sketches to show the trend and importance of these diverse theories1 so that a reader who had not had the opportunity to range over the complete works of a dozen authors might find which of them was best adapted to serve him as guide1 philosopher1 and friend4 ,in a word1 my part is merely to act as the host at a reception who introduces his guests and then leaves them to follow up such acquaintanceships as seem profitable4 ,my aim is exposition rather than criticism4 ,although ,i have not thought it necessary absolutely to suppress my own opinions1 ,i trust this has not prevented me from giving a fair and sufficiently sympathetic presentation of each man's views in turn4 ,my list of the ,twelve ,major ,prophets of ,today consisted of the following names3 ,maurice ,maeterlinck1 ,henri ,bergson1 ,henri ,poincar1 ,elie ,metchnikoff1 ,wilhelm ,ostwald1 ,ernst ,haeckel1 ,george ,bernard ,shaw1 ,herbert ,george ,wells1 ,gilbert ,keith ,chesterton1 ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,schiller1 ,john ,dewey1 and ,rudolf ,eucken4 ,i had not taken nationality into consideration1 but ,i found that ,i had chosen four from ,england1 three from ,germany1 two from ,france1 and one each from ,belgium1 ,russia1 and the ,united ,states of ,america4 ,four of the twelve were professors of philosophy2 four were men of science1 one of these a mathematician1 one a physician1 one a zoologist1 one a chemist2 and four were men of letters1 authors of novels1 dramas1 or essays4 ,the twelve sketches appeared in ,the ,independent during the last few years1 but they have been considerably extended for book publication4 ,the first six named above were published in the volume ,major ,prophets of ,to-day4 ,the other six are given in the following pages4 ,,edwin ,e4 ,,slosson ,,contents ,preface ,i ,george ,bernard ,shaw ,,ii ,h4 ,g4 ,wells ,,iii ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton ,,iv ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,schiller ,v ,john ,dewey ,,vi ,rudolf ,eucken ,,list ,,of ,,portraits ,george ,bernard ,shaw ,h4 ,g4 ,wells ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,schiller ,john ,dewey ,rudolf ,eucken ,to write a book about a man who has written books about himself is an impertinence which only an irresistible charm of manner can carry off4 ,the unpardonable way of doing it1 and the commonest1 is to undertake to tell the public what a writer has already told them himself1 and tell it worse or tell it wrong4 ,g4 ,b4 ,,shaw4 ,,six ,,major ,,prophets ,,chapter ,i ,,george ,,bernard ,,shaw ,dramatic ,critic of ,life ,i am a journalist1 proud of it1 deliberately cutting out of my works all that is not journalism1 convinced that nothing that is not journalism will live long as literature1 or be of any use whilst it does live4 ,i deal with all periods1 but ,i never study any period but the present2 and as a dramatist ,i have no clue to any historical or other personage save that part of him which is also myself4444 ,the man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time4--,g4 ,b4 ,s41 in ,the ,sanity of ,art4 ,august #d1 #aiad1 cuts time in two like a knife4 ,the continuity of human progress in science1 arts1 letters1 commerce1 philosophy1 everything1 was broken off at that point--to be taken up again1 who knows when8 ,nothing in the world can remain quite the same as before4 ,everything is seen in a new light4 ,all our old ideas1 even the most ancient and most reverenced1 will have to be taken out and looked over to see how many of them remain intact and useful1 just as after an earthquake one overhauls the china closet4 ,the transvaluation of all values1 which ,nietzsche looked for1 has come to pass sooner than he expected1 although the results of this restimation are not likely to be what he anticipated4 ,it is not merely that the geographies will have to be revised and the histories rewritten1 but all books will be classified as antebellum or postbellum literature4 ,it will1 however1 not be necessary to mark them ,a4 ,b4 or ,p4 ,b41 for they will by their style of thought and language bear an indelible though invisible date with reference to this line of demarcation4 ,we are already beginning to look back upon the antebellum days as a closed period1 and those who were conspicuous in it are being seen in an historical perspective such as the lapse of a generation of ordinary times is needed to produce4 ,some reputations are shrinking1 others are rising1 as mountains seem from a departing train to rearrange themselves according to their true height4 ,the true prophets are becoming distinguishable from the false4 ,among those who have taken the test and stand higher than before is ,george ,bernard ,shaw4 ,whether he will write better plays than before remains to be seen4 ,perhaps he will write no more of any kind4 ,but those he has written will be regarded with more respect because we can see their essential truth1 whereas before we feared lest we might be merely fascinated by their glitter4 ,warnings which the world took for jokes because of their fantastic guise now turn out too terribly real1 and advice which the world ignored would better have been heeded4 ,few writers have as little to take back on account of the war as ,shaw1 although few have expressed such decided opinions in such extreme language on so many topics4 ,for instance1 ,kipling's ,the ,bear that ,walks ,like a ,man makes queer reading now that ,england is fighting to give ,russia what then she was ready to fight to prevent her getting4 ,but the full significance of ,shaw's fable farce of ,androcles and the ,lion is now for the first time being realized4 ,the philosophy of this1 his most frivolous and serious play1 is summed up by ,ferrovius1 a converted giant of the ,ursus type1 who finds it impossible to keep to his ,christian principle of nonresistance when brought into the arena4 ,the natural man rises in him and he slays six gladiators single-handed4 ,this delights the emperor1 who thereupon offers him a post in the ,pretorian ,guards which he had formerly refused4 ,the fallen and victorious ,ferrovius accepts1 saying3 ,in my youth ,i worshiped ,mars1 the god of war4 ,i turned from him to serve the ,christian ,god2 but to-day the ,christian ,god forsook me2 and ,mars overcame me and took back his own4 ,the ,christian ,god is not yet4 ,he will come when ,mars and ,i are dust2 but meanwhile ,i must serve the gods that are1 not the ,god that will be4 ,until then ,i accept service in the ,guard1 ,caesar4 ,the great cataclysm does not seem to have changed ,shaw's opinions one iota1 but all ,england is changed1 and so he appears in a different light4 ,more of his countrymen agree with what he used to preach to them than ever before1 yet he was never so disliked as he is to-day--which is saying a great deal4 ,the ,british press has boycotted him4 ,his letters1 once so sought after by the most dignified journals1 now no longer appear except in ,the ,new ,statesman4 ,his speeches1 be they never so witty and timely1 are not reported or even announced4 ,consequently those who wish to hear him have to resort to the advertising expedients of the era before printing4 ,a friend of mine just back from ,london tells me that he saw chalked on the side-walk a notice of a meeting to be addressed by ,shaw in some out-of-the-way hall4 ,going there1 he found it packed with an enthusiastic crowd gathered to hear ,shaw discuss the questions of the day4 ,the anti-,shavian press said that he had to keep to his house1 that he was afraid to stir abroad for fear of a mob1 that his career was over1 that he was exploded1 repudiated1 disgraced1 boycotted1 dead and done for4 ,at the very time when we were reading things like this1 he was1 as we since have learned1 addressing weekly meetings in one of the largest halls in ,london4 ,reporters who were sent to see him hounded off the platform witnessed an ovation instead4 ,the audience at his invitation asked him many questions1 but not of a hostile character4 ,shaw thrives on unpopularity or at least on public disapproval1 which is not quite the same thing4 ,it is not only that ,shaw would rather be right than ,prime ,minister2 he would rather be leader of the ,opposition than ,prime ,minister4 ,he would be in the right with two or three2 in fact1 if his followers increased much beyond the poet's minimum1 he would begin to feel uneasy and suspect that he was wrong4 ,when ,shaw sees a lonely mistreated kitten or a lonely mistreated theory1 his tender heart yearns over it4 ,for instance1 when all his set started sneering at natural rights as eighteenth-century pedantry1 he appeared as their champion1 and1 practically alone among modern radicals and art lovers1 he has dared to commend the ,puritans4 ,the iconoclastic views which he expressed as dramatic and musical critic in the nineties have been vindicated by events1 and now when a young reader opens for the first time ,the ,quintessence of ,ibsenism1 ,the ,perfect ,wagnerite1 and the collection of ,dramatic ,opinions and ,essays1 he wonders only why ,shaw should get so excited about such conventional and undisputed things4 ,it is no wonder ,shaw is the most hated man in ,england4 ,nothing is more irritating than to say ,i told you so1 and he can--and does--ay it oftener than anybody else1 unless it is ,doctor ,dillon4 ,shaw's brain secretes automatically the particular antitoxin needed to counteract whatever disease may be epidemic in the community at the time4 ,this injected with some vigor into the veins of thought may not effect a cure1 but always excites a feverish state in the organism4 ,it is his habit of seeing that there is another side to a question and calling attention to it at inconvenient times that makes him so irritating to the public4 ,his opponents tried to intern him in ,coventry as a pro-,german on account of his pamphlet1 ,commonsense about the ,war4 ,but this is almost the only thing produced in ,england during the first weeks of the war that reads well now4 ,compare it with its numerous replies and see which seems absurd4 ,doubtless it was not tactful1 it might have been called treasonable1 but it certainly was sensible4 ,shaw kept his head level when others lost theirs4 ,that was because he had thought out things in advance and so did not have to make up his mind in a hurry with the great probability of making it up wrong4 ,in that pamphlet he presented the case for the ,allies in a way much more convincing to the ,american mind than many that came to us in the early days of the war1 and his arguments have been strengthened by the course of events1 while others advanced at that time have been weakened4 ,shaw was arguing before a neutral and international jury1 and so he did not rest his case on the specious and patriotic pleas that passed muster at that time with the ,british public4 ,as for the charge of pro-,germanism1 that may best be met by quoting from a letter written by him to a friend in ,vienna early in #aiae4 ,the language is evidently not pure ,shavian4 ,it has been translated into ,austrian-,german and thence retranslated into ,british journalese4 ,as regards myself1 ,i am not what is called a pro-,german4 ,the ,germans would not respect me1 were ,i at such a time as this1 when all thoughts of culture have vanished1 not to stand by my people4 ,but also1 ,i am not an anti-,german4 ,the war brings us all on to the same plane of savagery4 ,every ,london coster can stick his bayonet deeper into the stomach of ,richard ,strauss than ,richard ,strauss would care to do to him4 ,militarism has just now compelled me to pay a thousand pounds war taxation in order that some brave little ,servian may be facilitated in cutting your throat or1 that a ,russian mujik may cleave your skull in twain1 although ,i would gladly pay twice that sum to save your life1 or to buy some beautiful picture in ,vienna for our ,national ,gallery4 ,shaw has always condemned militarism because of the type of mind it engenders in officers and men4 ,but he has never been opposed to preparedness or to the use of force4 ,in the ,london ,daily ,news of ,january #a1 #aiad1--note the date1--he said3 ,i like courage 7like most constitutionally timid civilians7 and the active use of strength for the salvation of the world4 ,it is good to have a giant's strength and it is not at all tyrannous to use it like a giant provided you are a decent sort of giant4 ,what on earth is strength for but to be used and will any reasonable man tell me that we are using our strength now to any purpose8 ,let us get the value of our money in strength and influence instead of casting every new cannon in an ecstasy of terror and then being afraid to aim it at anybody4 ,at that time1 seven months before the storm burst1 he not only anticipated the war1 but said that it might be averted1 ,by politely announcing that war between ,france and ,germany would be so inconvenient to ,england that the latter country is prepared to pledge herself to defend either country if attacked by the other4 ,if we are asked how we are to decide which nation is really the aggressor we can reply that we shall take our choice1 or when the problem is unsolvable we shall toss up1 but that we will take a hand in the war anyhow4 ,international warfare is an unmitigated nuisance4 ,have as much character-building civil war as you like1 but there must be no sowing of dragon's teeth like the ,franco-,prussian ,war4 ,england can put a stop to such a crime single-handed easily enough if she can keep her knees from knocking together in her present militarist fashion4 ,of course ,shaw may have been wrong in supposing that an open announcement of ,great ,britain's determination to enter the war would have deterred ,germany1 but as we now know from the ,white ,paper this same opinion was held by the governments of both ,france and ,russia4 ,on ,july #cj the ,president of ,france said to the ,british ,ambassador at ,paris that ,if ,his ,majesty's ,government announced that ,england would come to the aid of ,france in the event of a conflict between ,france and ,germany as a result of the present differences between ,austria and ,servia1 there would be no war1 for ,germany would at once modify her attitude4 ,and on ,july #be1 ,m4 ,sazonof1 the ,russian ,foreign ,minister1 said to the ,british ,ambassador at ,petrograd that ,he did not believe that ,germany really wanted war1 but her attitude was decided by ours4 ,if we took our stand firmly with ,france and ,russia1 there would be no war4 ,if we failed her now1 rivers of blood would flow1 and we would in the end be dragged into war4 ,shaw now gives the same advice to the ,united ,states that he gave to his own country before the war1 that is1 to increase its armament and not be afraid to use it4 ,in a recent letter to the ,american ,intercollegiate ,socialist he said3 ,i should strenuously recommend the ,united ,states to build thirty-two new dreadnoughts instead of sixteen1 and to spend two billion dollars on its armament program instead of one4 ,this would cost only a fraction of the money you are wasting every year in demoralizing luxury1 a good deal of it having been in the past scattered over the continental countries which are now using what they saved out of it to slaughter one another4 ,if the ,united ,states wishes to stop war as an institution1 that is1 to undertake the policing of the world1 it will need a very big club for the purpose4 ,if ,i were an ,american statesman ,i should tell the country flatly that it should maintain a ,pacific navy capable of resisting an attack from ,japan and an ,atlantic navy capable of resisting an attack from ,england1 with ,zeppelins on the same scale1 a proportionate land equipment of siege guns1 and so forth4 ,and until the nations see the suicidal folly of staking everything in the last instance on the ordeal of battle1 no other advice will be honest advice4 ,in ,major ,barbara ,cusins abandons the teaching of ,greek to take up the manufacture of munitions because he has the courage to make war on war4 ,it is in this play that is expounded the theory on which ,president ,wilson based his policy4 ,lady ,britomart tells ,cusins3 ,you must simply sell cannons and weapons to people whose cause is right and just1 and refuse them to foreigners and criminals4 ,but ,undershaft1 the munition-maker1 replies3 ,no2 none of that4 ,you must keep the true faith of an ,armorer1 or you don't come in here4 ,and when ,cusins asks3 ,what on earth is the true faith of an ,armorer8 he answers3 ,to give arms to all men who offer an honest price for them1 without respect of persons or principles2 to aristocrat and republican1 to ,nihilist and ,tsar1 to burglar and policeman1 to black man1 white man and yellow man1 to all sorts and conditions1 all nationalities1 all faiths1 all follies1 all causes and all crimes4444 ,i will take an order from a good man as cheerfully as from a bad one4 ,if you good people prefer preaching and shirking to buying my weapons and fighting the rascals1 don't blame me4 ,i can make cannons2 ,i cannot make courage and conviction4 ,in this same conversation ,shaw also gives a hint of his theology1 when ,cusins says to ,undershaft3 ,you have no power4 ,you do not drive this place2 it drives you4 ,and what drives this place8 ,undershaft answers1 enigmatically1 ,a will of which ,i am a part4 ,this doctrine of an immanent ,god working through nature and man to higher things was developed more definitely in an address which ,mr4 ,shaw delivered some years ago in the ,city ,temple at the invitation of the ,reverend ,r4 ,j4 ,campbell4 ,here he argued that ,god created human beings to be his helpers and servers1 not his sycophants and apologists4 ,shaw continues3 ,if my actions are ,god's nobody can fairly hold me responsible for them2 my conscience is mere lunacy4444 ,but if ,i am a part of ,god1 if my eyes are ,god's eyes1 my hands ,god's hands1 and my conscience ,god's conscience then also ,i share his responsibility for the world2 and wo is me if the world goes wrong6 ,this position enables him to explain evil on evolutionary principles as the ,method of ,trial and ,error4 ,when ,blake asks of the tiger1 ,did he who made the lamb make thee8 ,shaw conceives the ,life-,force as replying3 ,yes1 it was the best ,i could devise at the time2 but now that ,i have evolved something better1 part of the work of that something better1 ,man1 to wit1 is to kill out my earlier attempt4 ,and in due time ,i hope to evolve ,superman1 who will in his turn kill out and supersede ,man1 whose abominable cruelties1 stupidities and follies have utterly disappointed me4 ,in the unactable third act of his ,man and ,superman1#a this theology is put into the mouths of two most unpromising preachers1 ,don ,juan and the ,devil4 ,here is found one of the most eloquent arraignments of war in all literature4 ,it is1 remember1 the ,devil who is speaking3 ,i tell you that in the arts of life ,man invests nothing2 but in the arts of death he outdoes ,nature herself1 and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague1 pestilence and famine4 ,the peasant ,i tempt to-day eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago2 and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks4 ,but when he goes out to slay1 he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies1 and leaves the javelin1 the arrow1 the blowpipe of his fathers far behind4 ,in the arts of peace ,man is a bungler4 ,i have seen his cotton factories and the like1 with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food4 ,i know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles2 they are toys compared to the ,maxim gun1 the submarine torpedo boat4 ,there is nothing in ,man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth4 ,his heart is in his weapons4444 ,man measures his force by his destructiveness4444 ,in the old chronicles you read of earthquakes and pestilences1 and are told that these showed the power and majesty of ,god and the littleness of ,man4 ,nowadays the chronicles describe battles4 ,in a battle two bodies of men shoot at one another with bullets and explosive shells until one body runs away1 when the others chase the fugitives on horseback and cut them to pieces as they fly4 ,and this1 the chronicle concludes1 shows the greatness and majesty of empires1 and the littleness of the vanquished4 ,over such battles the people run about the streets yelling with delight1 and egg their ,governments on to spend hundreds of millions of money in the slaughter1 whilst the strongest ministers dare not spend an extra penny in the pound against the poverty and pestilence in which they themselves daily walk4444 ,the plague1 the famine1 the earthquake1 the tempest were too spasmodic in their action2 the tiger and the crocodile were too easily satiated and not cruel enough2 something more constantly1 more ruthlessly1 more ingeniously destructive was needed2 and that something was ,man1 the inventor of the rack1 the stake1 the gallows and the executioner2 of the sword and gun2 above all1 of justice1 duty1 patriotism1 and all the other isms by which even those clever enough to be humanely disposed are persuaded to become the most destructive of all destroyers4 ,three years before the war ,shaw wrote a little satirical skit1 ,press ,cuttings1#b which was deemed so dangerous to both ,britain and ,germany that the censors of both countries agreed in prohibiting its production on the stage4 ,since the ,british censor seemed to fear that the principal characters1 ,balsquith and ,mitchener1 might be taken by the public as referring to certain well-known statesmen1 ,shaw offered to change the names to ,bones and ,johnson4 ,but even that concession would not satisfy the censor's scruples1 so the play was never publicly put on the stage1 though1 since there was then no censorship of literature1 it was published as a book4 ,here is a bit of the dialogue3 ,balsquith--,the ,germans have laid down four more ,dreadnoughts4 ,mitchener--,then you must lay down twelve4 ,balsquith--,oh1 yes2 it's easy to say that2 but think of what they'll cost4 ,mitchener--,think of what it would cost to be invaded by ,germany and forced to pay an indemnity of five hundred millions4444 ,balsquith--,after all1 why should the ,germans invade us8 ,mitchener--,why shouldn't they8 ,what else have their army to do8 ,what else are they building a navy for8 ,balsquith--,well1 we never think of invading ,germany4 ,mitchener--,yes1 we do4 ,i have thought of nothing else for the last ten years4 ,say what you will1 ,balsquith1 the ,germans have never recognized1 and until they get a stern lesson1 they never will recognize1 the plain fact that the interests of the ,british ,empire are paramount1 and that the command of the sea belongs by nature to ,england4 ,balsquith--,but if they wont recognize it1 what can ,i do8 ,mitchener--,shoot them down4 ,balsquith--,i cant shoot them down4 ,mitchener--,yes1 you can4 ,you dont realize it2 but if you fire a rifle into a ,german he drops just as surely as a rabbit does4 ,balsquith--,but dash it all1 man1 a rabbit hasn't got a rifle and a ,german has4 ,suppose he shoots you down4 ,mitchener--,excuse me1 ,balsquith2 but that consideration is what we call cowardice in the army4 ,a soldier always assumes that he is going to shoot1 not to be shot4 ,balsquith--,oh1 come6 ,i like to hear you military people talking of cowardice4 ,why1 you spend your lives in an ecstasy of terror of imaginary invasions4 ,i don't believe you ever go to bed without looking under it for a burglar4 ,mitchener--,a very sensible precaution1 ,balsquith4 ,i always take it4 ,and in consequence ,i've never been burgled4 ,balsquith--,neither have ,i4 ,anyhow dont you taunt me with cowardice4 ,i never look under my bed for a burglar4 ,i'm not always looking under the nation's bed for an invader4 ,and if it comes to fighting1 ,im quite willing to fight without being three to one4 ,mitchener--,these are the romantic ravings of a ,jingo civilian1 ,balsquith4 ,at least you'll not deny that the absolute command of the sea is essential to our security4 ,balsquith--,the absolute command of the sea is essential to the security of the principality of ,monaco4 ,but ,monaco isn't going to get it4 ,mitchener--,and consequently ,monaco enjoys no security4 ,what a frightful thing6 ,how do the inhabitants sleep with the possibility of invasion1 of bombardment1 continually present to their minds8 ,would you have our ,english slumbers broken in this way8 ,are we also to live without security8 ,balsquith--,yes4 ,theres no such thing as security in the world2 and there never can be as long as men are mortal4 ,england will be secure when ,england is dead1 just as the streets of ,london will be safe when there is no longer a man in her streets to be run over1 or a vehicle to run over him4 ,when you military chaps ask for security you are crying for the moon4 ,mitchener--,let me tell you1 ,balsquith1 that in these days of aeroplanes and ,zeppelin airships1 the question of the moon is becoming one of the greatest importance4 ,it will be reached at no very distant date4 ,can you as an ,englishman tamely contemplate the possibility of having to live under a ,german moon8 ,the ,british flag must be planted there at all hazards4 ,the play ends with the establishment of universal military training and equal suffrage1 thus doing away with a militarism that was both timorous and tyrannical1 snobbish and inefficient1 and at the same time making the nation truly democratic4 ,it is characteristic of ,shaw that recently1 when the papers were discussing what sort of a monument should commemorate ,edith ,cavell1 he interjected the unwelcome suggestion that the country could honor her best by enfranchising her sex4 ,there is ever something in ,bernard ,shaw that suggests the eighteenth century1 the age of ,swift and ,voltaire and ,doctor ,johnson4 ,on the credit side we must reckon lucidity1 incisive wit1 cleareyed logic1 unashamed common sense1 love of discussion and openness to new ideas1 freedom from prejudice of race or class1 humanitarian aspiration --in a word the ,aufklrung4 ,on the debit side some items must unhappily be listed also3 doctrinaire intellectualism1 inability to see either the limits of one's own doctrines or the point in other people's1 inadequate appreciation of historic institutions and popular sentiments1 contempt for romance1 intolerance for science1 and incapacity for poetry4 ,shaw seems to have inherited the famous saeva indignatio of his great countryman1 ,swift4 ,for all his simple diet he is not so eupeptic as ,chesterton4 ,chesterton is most closely akin to ,dickens1 as may be seen from his sympathetic appreciations of ,dickens's works4 ,if ,i may be permitted to express the relationship of the four in a mathematical formula1 ,i should put it3 ,shaw3 ,chesterton ,swift3 ,dickens4 ,the mordant wit of the two ,irishmen is a very different thing from the genial humor of the two ,englishmen4 ,chesterton as usual makes a theological issue out of it4 ,he says of ,shaw3 ,he is not a humorist1 but a great wit1 almost as great as ,voltaire4 ,humor is akin to agnosticism1 which is only the negative side of mysticism4 ,but pure wit is akin to ,puritanism2 to the perfect and painful consciousness of the final fact in the universe4 ,very briefly1 the man who sees consistency in things is a wit--and a ,calvinist4 ,the man who sees inconsistency in things is a humorist--and a ,catholic4 ,however this may be1 ,bernard ,shaw exhibits all that is purest in the ,puritan2 the desire to see truth face to face even if it slay us1 the high impatience with irrelevant sentiment or obstructive symbol2 the constant effort to keep the soul at its highest pressure and speed4 ,his instincts upon all social customs and questions are ,puritan4 ,his favorite author is ,bunyan4 ,but along with what was inspiring and direct in ,puritanism1 ,bernard ,shaw has inherited also some of the things that were cumbersome and traditional4 ,if ever ,shaw exhibits a prejudice it is a ,puritan prejudice4 ,when ,shaw in the preface of his ,plays for ,puritans declared himself a ,puritan in art it was regarded as one of his jokes4 ,so it was1 but1 as the world has found out since1 his jokes are not nonsense4 ,the main reason why the assumption and ascription of the term ,puritan to ,shaw was thought absurd was because of the prevalent misconception of what sort of people the ,puritans were4 ,the word in its common acceptance implies orthodoxy1 conventionality1 prudishness1 asceticism4 ,now the real ,puritan was a revolutionary of the most radical type4 ,of all the socialists1 anarchists1 and extremists of various views with whom ,i am acquainted1 there is not one who lives in antagonism to his conventional contemporaries on so many points as did the ,puritan in his day4 ,milton's pamphlets in favor of republicanism1 free speech1 divorce1 and new theology were as scandalous to the seventeenth century as ,shaw's ,revolutionist's ,handbook to the nineteenth4 ,the ,puritans insisted that marriage was a purely civil contract to be made and annulled by the ,state1 and they even forbade ministers to perform the ceremony1 while ,catholics1 ,roman and ,anglican1 hold the contrary theory1 that marriage is a religious rite1 only performed by priests and indissoluble4 ,the ,pilgrim ,fathers who had a dozen children and two or three wives apiece--consecutive1 of course--are not to be classed as ascetics2 and if any one thinks them prudish1 he has not read their literature4 ,of course ,shaw's opinions are different from those of the ,puritans1 indeed quite the opposite on some points4 ,the ,puritans1 for example1 were not averse to blood1 either in their food1 their politics1 or their theology1 while ,shaw is almost ,buddhistic in his tender-heartedness4 ,androcles is his caricature of himself4 ,but still we may say that ,shaw is puritanical in his type of mind1 his attitude toward the established institutions and moral codes of his time1 and even in his faults4 ,consider for instance his intolerance4 ,no1 ,i do not mean dogmatism4 ,that he comes to emphatic conclusions is much to his credit and differentiates him from the colloidal-minded mass of modern writers who hold no convictions to have the courage of4 ,but he does not1 for instance1 content himself with the attitude3 ,for the life of me ,i can't see what you find to admire in that absurd1 romantic1 weak-minded1 sentimental1 butcherly ,scott4 ,he would be quite justified in expressing his opinion thus-wise4 ,he must add3 ,there's nothing to him and if you say there is1 you are deceiving me or--what is wickeder--yourself4 ,in either case you are an ,idealist1 which in my unique vocabulary means liar4 ,to which we might return an answer of the ,quaker sort3 ,friend1 thee has two eyes and the usual number of brains and so a right to thine opinion4 ,but it need not follow that because thee sees not a merit in a writer that it does in nowise exist4 ,every one of ,shaw's early heroes and heroines1 from the ,unsocial ,socialist and the daughter of ,mrs4 ,warren to ,undershaft and ,larry ,doyle1 admires himself or herself immensely for saying to every upholder of supposedly current morality3 ,bah6 ,humbug6 ,hypocrite6 ,to which again the gentle reply should come3 ,friend1 ,i be not an ,humbug1 nor yet an ,hypocrite1 nor even a ,bah4 ,a man may differ from thee and yet be sincere in his views1 although this fact be dreamed not in thy philosophy4 ,i may be right or ,i may be wrong1 but if thee call me an ,idealist yet again1 lo1 ,i will lift this brick and cast it at thee4 ,wells and ,shaw are quite commonly bracketed like ,scylla and ,charybdis1 ,dickens and ,thackeray1 ,tennyson and ,browning1 and the ,royal ,bloodsweating ,chesterbelloc of ,holy ,writ4 ,these couplings are often absurd but rarely arbitrary4 ,some likeness of thought or mood or some contrast of viewpoint usually accounts for if not justifies such literary msalliances4 ,wells and ,shaw are both socialists1 but this is not the tie1 for1 as the ,english aristocrat said3 ,we are all socialists now4 ,the real likeness is that each is an intellectual anarchist1 although a political ,socialist4 ,shaw is an isolated1 not to say eccentric1 figure even for a ,socialist4 ,wells has gone further yet in his self-isolation by leaving the ,fabian movement4 ,but the unlikeness between the two men lies in the motive driving them to their respective hermitages4 ,shaw may often change his point of view1 but at any given moment it is almost brutally clear and detailed1 and he insists upon the fullest conformity on the part of his would-be followers4 ,if they fall a step short of his iron boundary they are mere ,philistines and bourgeois1 if they go a step beyond they are inefficient and contemptible sentimental revolutionists4 ,shaw always has doots o' ,jamie's orthodoxy4 ,but ,wells seeks a ,socialism without boundaries4 ,marxian ,socialism1 ,fabian ,socialism1 ,state ,socialism are all too narrow and dogmatic for his taste as he has said time and time again4 ,finding no true all-inclusive1 universe-wide ,socialism he erects his own banner for the nations to rally to and as a result suffers the universal fate of those who try to found ,churches of ,humanity and ,world ,languages1 that is1 merely succeeding in founding a new sect and a new dialect4 ,shaw has two defects which militate against his popularity2 first1 he is too conventional1 and1 second1 his conventions are peculiarly his own4 ,there is1 says his ,undershaft1 only one true morality for every man1 but not every man has the same morality4 ,shaw is easily shocked1 but never by the same things that shock other people4 ,he himself ascribes his inability to see the same as others to his sight being abnormally normal4 ,the oculist who examined them said they were the only pair of absolutely correct eyes he had ever come across4 ,of course this illusion of possessing perfect mental vision is common to everybody4 ,all the opinions ,i hold at this moment are1 ,i believe1 absolutely correct2 otherwise ,i should change them instanter1 though ,i must admit1 seeing how often ,i have erred in the past1 that a priori the chances are against my being altogether right now4 ,but what ,shaw means by his normality of vision is not merely common confidence in one's own orthodoxy1 but has reference to his fanatical efforts to tear away all the illusions of life and see things as they are4 ,i do not think that he often succeeds4 ,isis has many veils1 and those who have torn away the first and the second are all the more likely to be deceived in mistaking the third for the naked truth4 ,there is no doubting ,shaw's intent to undeceive the world or his willingness to undeceive himself4 ,my way of joking is to tell the truth1 says his ,father ,keegan in ,john ,bull's ,other ,island4 ,but when he strains his eyes to see something clearly he sees only that one thing4 ,by following consistently one line of logic--instead of several as he should--he gets tangled up in illogicalities4 ,his mode of reasoning is often the reductio ad absurdum of his own theories1 and this is not a persuasive way of argumentation4 ,by temperament ,shaw is a mystic1 but his conscience compels him to assume the method of cold intellectualism4 ,he is an artist in the disguise of a scientist1 not an uncommon thing to see in this so-called age of science4 ,probably ,shaw is not more inconsistent than any man of agile mind who is capable of seeing in succession different sides of a thing1 but he is franker in expressing the point of view he holds at the time4 ,consequently he has many admirers but few followers4 ,they can't keep up4 ,the only possible ,shavian is ,shaw4 ,as somebody has remarked there are two ways of saying a thing2 there are writers who provoke thought and writers who provoke thinkers4 ,shaw does both4 ,this is intentional1 and he defends it on the ground that2 ,if you don't say a thing in an irritating way1 you may just as well not say it at all--since nobody will trouble themselves about anything that does not trouble them4 ,in short ,shaw first got the ear of the public by pulling it1 and he does not know how to let go4 ,shaw's argument is a wedge1 but it is driven in blunt end first4 ,a startling statement1 some monstrous paradox1 is presented to the reader and rouses his antagonism1 then it is gradually qualified and whittled down1 or wittily diverted1 so that it seems1 in contrast to its first form1 quite innocuous and acceptable1 and the reader is so relieved at not having to swallow the dose first presented to him that he willingly takes more than he otherwise would4 ,shaw has not the judicial mind and does not want to have4 ,the way to get at the merits of a case1 he says is not to listen to a fool who imagines himself impartial1 but to get it argued with reckless bias for and against4 ,put this on your bookmark when you read ,shaw4 ,george ,bernard ,shaw's collection of opinions is unique4 ,perhaps no single view of his is quite original1 but the combination certainly is4 ,he belongs to no type and has founded no school4 ,this makes ,shaw an exasperating person for some people to read and causes them to set him down as frivolous or inconsistent4 ,they find1 for instance1 from ,the ,revolutionist's ,handbook that ,shaw believes in eugenics and the importance of natural science4 ,good6 people say1 now we can classify him4 ,they read ,the ,doctor's ,dilemma and find him a rabid antivivisectionist and filled with a profound contempt for modern medicine in general4 ,or they find out that he is a vegetarian1 a teetotaler1 and a ,puritan1 and classify him as some nonconformist minister of a pallid and overconscientious type4 ,when they read what he actually has to say about marriage in ,misalliance1 about popular religion and salvation by money and gunpowder in ,major ,barbara1 they rush to the opposite conclusion that he is constitutionally an unconstitutional rebel with a fondness for aimless violence such as appears in ,fanny's ,first ,play4 ,reading ,the ,conversion of ,blanco ,bosnet they discover that he is a devout ,theist4 ,reading the preface to ,androcles they find him a higher critic4 ,as a ,fabian pamphleteer he is in favor of abolishing all individual property of a productive sort and has no use for laissez faire4 ,but when it comes to children 7see ,misalliance7 there cannot be too much laissez faire4 ,he appears as an ultramodernist1 a universal cynic1 a disillusioned ,ibsenite1 and a disbeliever in the very existence of progress4 7,preface to ,man and ,superman47 ,he offended half the radicals by his ,impossibilities of ,anarchism and the other half by his ,illusions of ,socialism1 and the conservatives by both4 ,but those who will take the trouble to compare these apparent antinomies will find that the contradictions are not so great as they seem from their paradoxical and partisan form1 and that ,shaw has preserved his intellectual consistency to a remarkable degree4 ,when ,shaw first burst into ,london1 a young1 red-haired ,irishman1 he announced himself as an atheist1 an anarchist1 and a vegetarian1 these heresies being arranged in crescendo fashion1 putting last what was most calculated to shock the ,british public4 ,now when we look back over his career we find that he has not been any more successful in sticking to his youthful heresy than others are in sticking to their youthful orthodoxy4 ,whether he has ever violated his vegetarian faith by eating a beefsteak on the sly ,i do not know1 but he has drifted far from orthodox anarchism1 for ,socialism is1 in theory at least1 at the opposite pole from anarchy4 ,once when ,shaw was talking ,socialism in ,hyde ,park1 he was much annoyed by the anarchists who circulated through the crowd1 selling copies of an early pamphlet of his on ,the ,illusions of ,socialism4 ,as for his atheism he seems to have left that still farther behind1 for his present theological views1 if expressed in less provocative language1 would pass muster in many a pulpit to-day4 ,in fact1 they have as it is4 ,in a recent letter to me1 ,mr4 ,shaw refers to the cordial reception he always received when ,reverend ,reginald ,campbell invited him to occupy the pulpit of ,city ,temple1#c and adds3 ,my greatest and surest successes as a public speaker have been on religious subjects to religious audiences2 but this is the common experience of all speakers4 ,people are still more concerned about religion than anything else1 and any reasonably good preacher can easily leave the best political spellbinder behind4 ,shaw as a ,socialist differs from others who bear that name4 ,he is too intense an individualist to be a good party man4 ,he puts no faith in ,marx as the prophet of the millennium1 and he has no ,utopian vision of his own4 ,but what chiefly distinguishes him as a reformer is his power of penetrating through shams to fundamental realities and his ability to do original constructive thinking4#d ,all of us can find fault with the existing order of things1 and most of us do4 ,but to point out just what's wrong with the world and to suggest a practical line of improvement is not so easy4 ,the ,fabian ,society has done more than set off fireworks and stir up mud4 ,the ,minority ,report on the reform of the ,poor ,law is a fine piece of constructive statesmanship4 ,this ,minority ,report was largely the work of the ,fabian ,society1 though how much ,shaw had to do with it personally ,i do not know4 ,we now know1 however1 that he was the author of ,fabian ,tract ,number #b of #ahhd that startled the conservative classes of ,england1 including the orthodox ,marxians4 ,here are a few of the ,opinions ,held by the ,fabians set forth in this famous tract3 ,that since competition among producers admittedly secures to the public the most satisfactory products1 the state should compete with all its might in every department of production4 ,that no branch of industry should be carried on at a profit by the central administration4 ,that men no longer need special political privileges to protect them against women1 and that the sexes should henceforth enjoy equal political rights4 ,that the established government has no more right to call itself the ,state than the smoke of ,london has to call itself the weather4 ,shaw also wrote ,fabian ,tract ,number #de on ,the ,impossibilities of ,anarchism1 in which he pointed out what was not so clear in #ahhh as it is to-day1 that society was rapidly becoming communistic through the efforts of those who were most opposed to communism as a theory3 ,most people will tell you that communism is known in this country only as a visionary project advocated by a handful of amiable cranks4 ,then they will stroll across a common bridge1 along the common embankment1 by the light of the common street lamp shining alike on the just and the unjust1 up the common street and into the common ,trafalgar ,square where on the smallest hint that communism is to be tolerated for an instant in a civilized country1 they will be handily bludgeoned by a common policeman and hauled off to the common gaol4 ,shaw's latest contribution to ,fabian literature1 the appendix to ,pease's ,history of the ,fabian ,society1 seems to me one of the most important1 for in the final paragraphs he points out clearly a defect in our democracy that is rarely recognized and altogether unremedied3 ,another subject which has hardly yet been touched1 and which also must begin with deductive treatment1 is what may be called the democratization of democracy1 and its extension from mere negative and very uncertain check on tyranny to a positive organizing force4 ,no experienced ,fabian believes that society can be reconstructed 7or rather constructed1 for the difficulty is that society is as yet only half removed from chaos7 by men of the type produced by popular election under existing circumstances likely to be achieved before the reconstruction4 ,the fact that a hawker cannot ply his trade without a license whilst a man may sit in ,parliament without any relevant qualifications is a typical and significant anomaly which will certainly not be removed by allowing everybody to be a hawker at will4 ,sooner or later1 unless democracy is to be discarded in a reaction of disgust such as killed it in ancient ,athens1 democracy will demand that only such men should be presented to its choice as have proved themselves qualified for more serious and disinterested work than stoking up election meetings to momentary and foolish excitement4 ,without qualified rulers a ,socialist ,state is impossible2 and it must not be forgotten 7though the reminder is as old as ,plato7 that the qualified men may be very reluctant men instead of very ambitious ones4 ,it is this doubt1 more or less clearly felt1 lest a genuinely democratic society will fail to secure able and qualified leaders1 that lies at the bottom of the prevalent distrust of popular government and causes many persons to cling to antiquated and irrational institutions like aristocracy and even monarchy4 ,i sent ,mr4 ,shaw a copy of an editorial entitled1 ,and ,there ,shall ,be ,no ,more ,kings1 in ,the ,independent of ,march #bb1 #aiae1 and the following1 penned on the margin of the clipping in his careful handwriting1 is his comment on what he calls a wise and timely article4 ,this war raises in an acute form the whole question of republicanism versus ,german dynasticism4 ,after the mischief done by ,franz ,josef's second childhood as displayed in his launching the forty-eight-hour ultimatum to ,serbia before the ,kaiser could return from ,stockholm1 the world has the right--indeed the duty--to demand that monarchies shall at least be subject to superannuation as well as to constitutional limitation4 ,all recent historical research has shown that the position of a king1 even in a jealously limited monarchy like the ,british1 makes him so strong that ,george ,,iii1 who was childish when he was not under restraint as an admitted lunatic1 was uncontrollable by the strongest body of statesmen the eighteenth century produced4 ,it is undoubtedly inconvenient that the head of the state should be selected at short intervals2 but it does not follow that he 7or she7 should be an unqualified person or hold office for life or be a member of a dynasty4 ,i may add that if the policy of dismembering the ,central ,empires by making separate national states of ,bohemia1 ,poland and ,hungary1 and making ,serbia include ,bosnia and ,herzegovina1 is seriously put forward1 it would involve making them republics2 for if they were kingdoms their thrones would be occupied by cousins of the ,hohenzollerns1 ,hapsburgs and ,romanoffs1 strengthening the ,german hegemony instead of restraining it4 ,perhaps the reader will think that ,i am rather too presumptuous in professing to know just what ,shaw means and believes1 when most people are puzzled by him4 ,so ,i should explain that ,i have the advantage of a personal acquaintance with ,shaw4 ,i may say without boasting--or at least without lying--that at one period of his life ,i was nearer to him than any other human being4 ,the distance between us was in fact the diameter of one of those round tables in the ,a4 ,b4 ,c4 restaurants1 and the period was confined to the time it took to consume a penny bun and a cup of tea1 both being paid for by him4 ,i resorted to thorough ,fletchering for the purpose of prolonging the interview1 and ,i wished that either he or ,i had been a smoker4 ,but although a vegetarian1 he eschews the weed1 and smoking did not seem to be in accordance with ,fabian tactics4 ,the occasion was a recess in a ,fabian ,society conference4 ,i did not suppose that anything could shut off ,socialists in the midst of debate4 ,the theme of discussion was the ,house of ,lords1 which the ,fabians unanimously agreed ought to be abolished1 though no two of them agreed on the substitute4 ,but while they were iconoclasts as to one ,british institution1 they rendered homage to another by stopping to take tea in the midst of a lovely scrap4 ,the ,fabian ,society was indirectly the fruit of one of the seeds which ,thomas ,davidson scattered in many lands4 ,you can track this peripatetic philosopher through life1 as you can ,johnny ,appleseed1 by the societies that sprung up along his pathway4 ,in the ,adirondacks he founded the ,glenmore ,school of ,philosophy4 ,in the ,jewish quarter of ,new ,york ,city another of his schools still thrives and is enthused with something of his zeal for learning4 ,the circle of earnest young men and women whom he gathered about him in ,london were the founders of the ,society for ,psychical ,research1 the ,fellowship of the ,new ,life1 and the ,fabian ,society4 ,yet ,davidson himself was neither a spiritualist nor a ,socialist4#e ,at the ,fabian ,society one sees ,shaw in his element4 ,every creature1 says ,browning1 like the moon1 ,boasts two soul-sides1 one to face the world with1 ,one to show a woman when he loves her4 ,the ,fabian ,society is ,shaw's own true love1 and to her he turns a different face than to the outside world4 ,as ,i watched him during the afternoon--preceding and following the brief period of personal contact of which ,i have been bragging--,i was struck by the tact and kindliness which he showed in the course of the discussion4 ,there was in his occasional remarks no trace of the caustic and dogmatic tone which one gets from his writings4 ,he has been not so much the shining light or presiding genius of the society1 as one of the wheel horses1 and devoted himself diligently to the detailed and inconspicuous work of the organization4 ,he had for twenty-seven years served on the ,executive ,committee of the society when in #aiaa he resigned to make way for the younger generation4 ,the question under discussion was1 as ,i have said1 that of the reconstruction of the ,house of ,lords4 ,this was shortly before the war1 when such questions were regarded as important4 ,various plans were proposed in order to secure the election of the fittest1 when ,shaw took the floor in defense of genuine democracy4 ,his argument ran like this1 as ,i remember it3 ,our idea is that any #fgj people is as good as any other for governing1 just as any twelve chosen by chance on the jury have our lives and property in their hands4 ,now if ,i and ,mr4 ,sydney ,webb here were sent to the ,house of ,commons it should be with unlimited opportunity to talk but not to vote4 ,to give us a vote would be to permit the violation of the fundamental principle of democracy that people should never be governed better than they want to be4 ,if you had a government of saints and philosophers the people would be miserable4 ,for instance1 ,i would want to stop all smoking and meat-eating and liquor drinking1 but like all superior persons now ,i have to convince other people because ,i cannot compel them4 ,no elected body can possibly be representative1 because no man is elected as a normal man1 but as an exceptional one4 ,the ,house of ,lords is more representative than the ,house of ,commons1 because a man in the ,house of ,commons is there because he has uncommon abilities1 high or low4 ,representatives ought to be1 like jurymen1 samples of the commonalty picked at random and compelled to serve4 ,their function is to explain where the shoe pinches4 ,but the shoe must be made by skilled legislators and statesmen1 and these should be eligible only when they have satisfied a very high standard of qualification1 and should sit without votes though with unlimited powers of explanation and criticism4 ,these remarks1 delivered in a musical and sympathetic voice with frequent flashes of a broad row of white teeth1 sounded very different from the way they read in cold type4 ,i do hope the phonograph will be perfected before ,shaw dies or his voice goes cracked1 so posterity can have a vocal version of his plays and prefaces4 ,otherwise his personality stands little chance of being understood4 ,shaw is tall and uses his eyeglasses for gesticulating as an orchestra leader uses a baton4 ,his hair was once a fiery red1 but is now tempered into gray4 ,his eyes are light blue4 ,between his brows there are three perpendicular wrinkles1 but not of the cross and fretful type4 ,his face is long and pointed1 but he looks not in the least ,mephistophelian as the caricaturists represent him4 ,in short1 ,shaw is not so black as he is painted by himself and others4 ,it is not necessary in this chapter1 as it was in the case of some of my ,twelve ,major ,prophets of ,to-day1 for me to give biographical details at any length1 for these are easily accessible4 ,shaw has not been reticent in talking about himself in various books and prefaces1 and he is fortunate in having in ,professor ,henderson of the ,university of ,north ,carolina a biographer of the ,boswell kind--probably the best kind there is4 ,his big volume contains as much about ,shaw's life and words up to the time it was published1 #aiaa1 as any one needs to know4 ,chesterton's book on ,shaw is an impressionistic sketch rather than a portrait1 giving the author an opportunity of saying what's wrong with the world1 including ,shaw4 ,other lives of ,shaw are mentioned in the appendix of this chapter4 ,george ,bernard ,shaw was born in ,dublin1 ,july #be1 #ahef4 ,his father was an ,irish gentleman1 ,protestant1 improvident and respectable1 a wholesale dealer in corn1 with a profound contempt for all retail tradesmen4 ,his mother was a musician1 and it was to her that ,mr4 ,shaw owed his own moderate talent and remarkable knowledge of music4 ,when he went to ,london at the age of twenty1 with artistic1 musical and literary ambitions1 his mother practically supported the family by teaching music there4 ,as ,shaw says in one of his autobiographical fragments3 ,i did not throw myself into the struggle for life4 ,i threw my mother into it4 ,i was not a staff to my father's old age4 ,i hung on to his coat tails4 ,his reward was to live just long enough to read a review of one of these silly novels written in an obscure journal by a personal friend of my own1 prefiguring me to some extent as a considerable author4 ,i think1 myself1 that this is a handsome reward1 far better worth having than a nice pension from a dutiful son struggling slavishly for his parents' bread in some sordid trade4 ,his only schooling was at ,dublin1 where he says he learned little1 and this is confirmed by the school records which place him near the bottom of his class4 ,his opinion of the sort of education he got he has expressed in several places1 especially in the preface to ,misalliance4 ,my school made only the thinnest pretence of teaching anything but ,greek and ,latin4444 ,to this day1 though ,i can still decline a ,latin noun and repeat some of the old paradigms in the old meaningless way1 because their rhythm sticks to me1 ,i have never yet seen a ,latin inscription on a tomb that ,i could translate throughout4 ,of ,greek ,i can decipher perhaps the greater part of the ,greek alphabet4 ,in short ,i am1 as to classical education1 another ,shakespeare4 ,i can read ,french as easily as ,english2 and under pressure of necessity1 ,i can turn to account some scraps of ,german and a little operatic ,italian2 but these three were never taught at school4 ,instead1 ,i was taught lying1 dishonorable submission to tyranny1 dirty stories1 a blasphemous habit of treating love and maternity as obscene jokes1 hopelessness1 evasion1 derision1 cowardice1 and all the blackguard's shifts by which the coward intimidates other cowards4 ,why is it that ,british authors give us such horrible pictures of their school days8 ,they usually look back upon them as a most unpleasant and unprofitable period of their lives1 and when they attempt to eulogize it they make it all the more shocking4 ,kipling in ,stalky and ,company reveals an even more detestable state of affairs than ,dickens does of ,dotheboys ,hall4 ,shaw takes the ,american view of it and condemns with horror the flagellomania of the ,british schoolmaster4 ,it is curious to observe that in ,great ,britain the schoolmasters have weapons1 and the policemen have none4 ,in ,america clubs have been given to the police1 and the canes taken away from the teachers4 ,the ,new ,york school-teachers are not allowed to deliver even a casual box on the ear or a friendly shaking1 yet they are making very decent citizens out of most unpromising material1 and the policemen's clubs are mostly used on the immigrants who have been trained in the flagellant schools of ,europe4 ,it is doubtless a good thing that ,shaw did not go through ,oxford1 but he should have had a course in biology under ,huxley such as ,wells had4 ,this would have given him an acquaintance with the aims and methods of modern science and freed him from such prejudice as he displayed1 for instance1 in ,the ,doctor's ,dilemma and ,the ,philanderer4 ,shaw's early efforts at authorship did not meet with encouragement4 ,if we may take his word for it1 he earned six pounds in nine years by his pen1 and five of those came from writing a patent medicine advertisement4 ,he wrote five novels in five years1 all at first rejected by the book publishers4 ,four of them1 ,the ,unsocial ,socialist1 ,the ,irrational ,knot1 ,cashel ,byron's ,profession1 and ,love ,among the ,artists have since been reprinted from the short-lived ,socialist periodicals in which they originally appeared4 ,the first novel he wrote1 ,immaturity1 has never been printed4 ,william ,archer sent these novels to ,robert ,louis ,stevenson1 then trying to recover his health at ,saranac ,lake in the ,adirondacks4 ,stevenson's letters refer to them as blooming gaseous folly1 horrid fun1 a fever dream of the most feverish1 ,i say1 ,archer1 my ,god1 what women6 ,if ,mr4 ,shaw is below five and twenty1 let him go his path2 if he is thirty1 he had best be told that he is a romantic and pursue romance with his eyes opened2 perhaps he knows it2 ,god knows6--my brain is softened4 ,a plan to relieve struggling authors and secure the earlier recognition of genius by means of an endowment fund and a system of substantial prizes was once proposed by ,upton ,sinclair1 author of ,the ,jungle1 who wrote to a number of authors1 asking their opinion of the scheme4 ,among those who responded were ,wells1 ,bennett1 ,de ,morgan1 ,philpotts1 ,galsworthy1 ,london1 and ,shaw4#f ,i quote part of what ,shaw said about it because of its biographical interest3 ,there is only one serious and effective way of helping young men of the kind in view1 and that is by providing everybody with enough leisure in the intervals of well-paid and not excessive work to enable them to write books in their spare time and pay for the printing of them4 ,nothing else seems to me to be really hopeful4 ,i myself seem an example of a man who achieved literary eminence without assistance2 but as a matter of fact certain remnants of family property made all the difference4 ,for fully nine years ,i had to sponge shamelessly on my father and mother2 but even at that we only squeezed through because my mother's grandfather had been a rich man4 ,in fact1 ,i was just the man for whom ,upton wants to establish his fund4 ,yet for the life of me ,i cannot see how any committee in the world could have given me a farthing4 ,all ,i had to show was five big novels which nobody would publish1 and as the publishers' readers by whose advice they were rejected included ,lord ,morley and ,george ,meredith1 it cannot be said that ,i was in any worse hands than those of any committee likely to be appointed4 ,of course ,sinclair may say to this that if ,morley and ,meredith1 instead of having to advise a publisher as to the prospects of a business speculation1 had only had to consider how to help a struggling talent without reference to commercial consideration1 they might have come to my rescue4 ,unfortunately1 ,i have seen both their verdicts2 and ,i can assure ,sinclair that ,i produced on both of them exactly the impression that is inevitably produced in every such case3 that is1 that ,i was a young man with more cleverness than was good for me and that what ,i needed was snubbing and not encouraging4 ,no doubt there are talents which are not aggressive and do not smell of brimstone2 but these are precisely the talents which are marketable1 except1 of course1 in the case of the highest poetry1 which1 however1 is out of the question anyhow as a means of livelihood4 ,william ,morris1 when he was at the height of his fame as a poet1 long after the publication of his popular poem1 ,the ,earthly ,paradise1 told me that his income from his poems was about a hundred a year2 and ,i happen to know that ,robert ,browning threatened to leave the country because the ,income ,tax ,commissioners assessed him with a modest but wholly imaginary income on the strength of his reputation4 ,poetry is thus frankly a matter of endowment1 but for the rest ,i think a writer's chance of being helped by the fund would be in inverse ratio to his qualifications as conceived by ,upton ,sinclair4 ,shaw's first essays in the field where he was to attain his greatest success were as discouraging as his efforts at novel writing4 ,his first play1 ,widower's ,houses1 dealing with tainted money1 shocked but did not attract the public4 ,his ,the ,philanderer was published before a theater would accept it4 ,his third play1 ,mrs4 ,warren's ,profession1 was prohibited by the censor4 ,of the seven that followed only one could be called a decided success on its first presentation in ,london4 ,but in book form1 with attractively written stage directions and argumentative prefaces1 they found a host of readers who wanted to see them in the theater4 ,candida was not presented in ,london till #aijd1 nearly ten years after it was written4 ,it was with ,candida that ,arnold ,daly introduced ,shaw to the theater-going public of ,america1 and for the last few years there have often been three ,shaw plays running at the same time in ,new ,york4 ,shaw's plays were popular in ,america when they were tabooed or pooh-poohed in ,england4 ,his ,pygmalion had its premire in the ,hofburg-theater in ,vienna instead of ,london4 ,i saw it1 or rather heard it1 since it is a phonetic instead of a spectacular play1 at the ,deutsches ,theater of ,irving ,place1 ,new ,york1 in ,march1 #aiad1 six months before ,mrs4 ,patrick ,campbell gave it here in ,english4 ,in spite of the fact that the play depends upon variations in ,english dialects1 it was given better in the ,german than in the ,english4 ,shaw is in fact an internationalist1 much more honored in ,america1 ,russia1 ,germany1 ,france1 ,scandinavia1 and ,japan than in his own country1 that is1 ,ireland4 ,it must be interesting to see ,you ,never ,can ,tell or ,man and ,superman on the ,tokyo stage4 ,the ,kobe ,herald says3 ,he appeals to the ,japanese of progressive ideas because he prefers potatoes1 cabbages and beans to porter-house steak and lamb chops4 ,the reason why ,shaw's prefaces read so well and his plays go better on the stage than would be anticipated is because they are composed by ear4 ,since reading aloud has gone out of fashion1 there has arisen a generation of young writers who do not realize that language is intended to be spoken4 ,consequently one has to read them by eye only1 switching off for the time the internal auditory apparatus so as to avoid their discords and dull rhythm4 ,a little girl who was trying to read to herself a story by one of our pyrotechnic authors suddenly threw down the magazine with the cry3 ,i can't read this any more6 ,it dazzles my ears4 ,shaw is a musician1 and he writes musical prose4 ,he uses shorthand in composing1 which is the next best thing to dictating to a phonograph4 ,naturally he resents the established spelling of ,english which preserves the form of words while allowing the words themselves to decay1 thus sacrificing speech to print4 ,he has often argued for phonetic spelling1#g and has used as much of it in his works as his publisher would permit4 ,the point he makes in the following passage is undeniably proving true3 ,all that the conventional spelling has done is to conceal the one change that a phonetic spelling might have checked2 namely1 the changes in pronunciation1 including the waves of debasement that produced the half-rural cockney of ,sam ,weller and the modern metropolitan cockney of ,drinkwater in ,captain ,brassbound's ,conversion4444 ,refuse to teach the ,board ,school legions your pronunciation1 and they will force theirs on you by mere force of numbers4 ,and serve you right4 ,shaw's treatment of the ,salvation ,army in ,major ,barbara showed that he knew more about religion than some of his churchly critics4 ,so1 too1 his defense of the ,salvation ,army music in the ,london ,standard in #aije proved that he knew more about music than those who sneered at the ,army bands4 ,the ,germans1 who are now fond of analyzing the ,english character1 have discussed at length the question of why such an unmusical people should have good music in the ,salvation ,army4#h ,the #abe-page preface to ,androcles and the ,lion is devoted to a rereading of the ,gospels and a rewriting of the life of ,christ4 ,shaw interprets the ,new ,testament like a higher critic but applies it like an early ,christian4 ,he rejects the resurrection but accepts the communism4 ,he believes in the ,life ,force and ,its ,superman as others do in ,god and ,his ,messiah4 ,shaw's ,superman obviously belongs to another genus from ,nietzsche's ,uebermensch4 ,he says in the preface to ,misalliance3 ,the precise formula for the ,superman1 ci-devant ,the ,just ,made ,perfect1 has not yet been discovered4 ,until it is1 every birth is an experiment in a ,great ,research which is being conducted by the ,life ,force to discover that formula4 ,this eugenical and well meaning1 but far from omnipotent creator1 bears a strong resemblance to ,bergson's ,elan vital1 but ,shaw was writing about the ,life ,force long before ,bergson wrote his ,creative ,evolution4 ,if there was any borrowing about it1 both borrowed from ,schopenhauer4 ,but ,shaw and ,bergson1 being kindly men and no pessimists1 have put a kind heart into ,schopenhauer's ruthless ,will4 ,if ,i were to sum up ,shaw in two words it would be that his distinguishing characteristics are courage and kind-heartedness4 ,the sight of suffering and injustice drives him mad1 and then he runs amuck1 slashing right and left1 without much regard to whom he hits and no regard at all as to who hits him4 ,he is1 like ,swift1 a cruel satirist through excess of sympathy4 ,if ,ibsen is right1 that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone1 then ,george ,bernard ,shaw is not to be ignored4 ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,shaw ,it does not matter much which of ,shaw's books you read first1 for after reading it1 whichever it is1 you will probably read all the others that you can get your hands on4 ,if ,i must be more specific in recommending a book to begin on1 ,i would suggest that ,major ,barbara1 ,man and ,superman1 and ,androcles and the ,lion will give you an idea of what ,shaw is like2 then1 if you are interested1 you can pick out others from the following chronological list in which ,i have indicated by a few words the theme1 scene1 or argument of the play and its preface4 ,all ,shaw's works are published by ,brentano's1 ,new ,york1 three plays in one volume1 or separately4 ,widowers' ,houses1 #ahib 7tainted money74 ,the ,philanderer1 #ahic 7,ibsenites and esthetes74 ,mrs4 ,warren's ,profession1 #ahic 7prostitution74 ,arms and the ,man1 #ahid 7,serbian and ,bulgarian war2 anti-militarism74 ,candida1 #ahid 7triangle74 ,you ,never ,can ,tell1 #ahie 7farce comedy2 the most popular of ,shaw's plays on the stage74 ,the ,man of ,destiny1 #ahie 7one act1 ,napoleon in an unconventional aspect74 ,the ,devil's ,disciple1 #ahif 7,american revolution74 ,caesar and ,cleopatra1 #ahih 7,egypt ,anglicized74 ,captain ,brassbound's ,conversion1 #ahii 7,morocco2 ,raisuli1 ,perdicaris1 et al47 ,the ,admirable ,bashville or ,constancy ,unrewarded1 #aijb 7,his novel3 ,cashel ,byron's ,profession put into blank verse because it is easier to write than prose74 ,man and ,superman1 #aijc 7romance topsy-turvey2 marriage by conquest on the part of the woman2 containing ,the ,revolutionist's ,handbook and interlude on heaven and hell74 ,john ,bull's ,other ,island1 #aijd 7,irish and ,english temperament contrasted1 ,home ,rule question74 ,passion1 ,poison and ,petrification1 #aije 7burlesque extravaganza74 ,major ,barbara1 #aije 7,salvation ,army and munition manufacture2 problem of poverty74 ,how ,he ,lied to her ,husband1 #aije 7parody on ,candida74 ,the ,doctor's ,dilemma1 #aijf 7satire on medical professor and attack on vivisection74 ,getting ,married1 #aijh 7absurdities of marriage laws74 ,the ,showing-up of ,blanco ,bosnet1 #aiji 7,wild ,west2 psychology of conversion2 prohibited by censor74 ,press ,cuttings1 #aiji 7anti-militarism74 ,misalliance1 #aiji 7a debate in one sitting2 preface on parents and children74 ,the ,dark ,lady of the ,sonnets1 #aiaj 7showing how ,shakespeare got his phrases74 ,fanny's ,first ,play1 #aiaa 7satire of dramatic critics and middle-class morality74 ,androcles and the ,lion1 #aiaa 7early ,christians2 lion from ,oz2 disquisition on the canon of the ,new ,testament and the possibility of living ,christianity74 ,overruled1 #aiab 7philandering again74 ,pygmalion1 #aiac 7phonetics and class prejudice1 with a postscript proving that you never can tell how a ,shaw play will come out74 ,great ,catherine1 #aiac 7boisterous farce of ,catherine ,,ii2 contrast of ,russian and ,british temperament74 ,the ,music ,cure1 #aiad 7,marconi scandal2 used as curtain raiser for ,chesterton's ,magic1 unpublished74 ,three ,plays by ,brieux1 7,brentano's1 #aiaa2 contain ,damaged ,goods and other plays in which the ,french playwright attacks social evils as vigorously and outspokenly though not so wittily as ,shaw4 ,they are translated by ,mrs4 ,bernard ,shaw1 and ,mr4 ,shaw provides a preface74 ,two farcical plays of the war1 ,the ,inca of ,perusalem and ,augustus does his ,bit1 produced by the ,london ,stage ,society and the former also in ,new ,york1 are ascribed to ,shaw though unacknowledged by him4 ,of ,shaw's critical work we have in book form ,the ,perfect ,wagnerite1 #ahie1 and ,the ,quintessence of ,ibsen1 #ahij1 which championed two unpopular causes2 ,the ,sanity of ,art1 #aijh1 attacking ,nordau's theory of the degeneracy of artists2 and two volumes of ,dramatic ,opinions and ,essays1 which1 although reviews of current plays of the nineties1 retain a permanent value4 ,shaw's four early novels ,cashel ,byron's ,profession1 ,an ,unsocial ,socialist1 ,love ,among the ,artists1 and ,the ,irrational ,knot are of less interest than his plays4 ,his socialism has found expression in ,the ,common ,sense of ,municipal ,trading and ,fabian ,essays in ,socialism1 and numerous other tracts and articles as well as most of his plays and prefaces4 ,shaw's fugitive contributions to journalism are too numerous and scattered to be cited here1 but ,i will mention a few of them that are of special interest3 ,the ,case ,against ,chesterton 7,metropolitan1 #aiaf72 ,the ,case for ,equality 7,metropolitan1 #aiac72 ,the ,german ,case ,against ,germany 7,new ,york ,times1 ,april #af1 #aiaf74 ,more has been written about ,shaw's personality than about all the rest of my ,twelve ,major ,prophets put together4 ,the chief and authorized biography is ,george ,bernard ,shaw3 ,his ,life and ,work by ,professor ,archibald ,henderson of the ,university of ,north ,carolina4 7,cincinnati3 ,stewart and ,kidd1 #aiaa47 ,it contains a full bibliography up to its date and some twenty portraits as well as much inaccessible and unpublished material4 ,besides this we have3 ,george ,bernard ,shaw3 ,a ,critical ,study by ,joseph ,mc,cabe 7,london3 ,paul1 ,french1 ,trubner1 #aiad72 ,bernard ,shaw3 ,a ,critical ,study by ,percival ,p4 ,howe 7,dodd1 ,mead1 #aiae72 ,george ,bernard ,shaw by ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton 7,john ,lane1 #aiji72 ,bernard ,shaw as ,artist-,philosopher1 an exposition of ,shavianism1 by ,rene ,m4 ,deacon 7,john ,lane1 #aiaj72 ,george ,bernard ,shaw3 ,his ,plays by ,h4 ,l4 ,mencken 7,luce1 #aiji72 ,bernard ,shaw by ,holbrook ,jackson 7,jacobs1 #aijg72 and ,the ,innocence of ,bernard ,shaw by ,d4 ,scott 7,doran1 #aiad74 ,latest of all is ,bernard ,shaw3 ,the ,man and the ,mask by ,richard ,burton1 a study of his plays in chronological order by the ex-president of the ,drama ,league of ,america 7,henry ,holt1 ,november1 #aiaf74 ,bernard ,shaw3 ,an ,epitaph by ,john ,palmer 7,london3 ,richards1 #aiae71 ,harlequin or ,patriot 7,century74 ,mr4 ,palmer comes to bury ,shaw1 not to praise him1 yet gives him more credit than many of his admirers4 ,biographical data and criticism are also to be found in ,archibald ,henderson's ,european ,dramatists 7,stewart and ,kidd7 and his ,interpreters of ,life and the ,modern ,spirit 7,kennerley72 ,ford ,madox ,hueffer's ,memories and ,impressions2 ,r4 ,a4 ,scott-,james's ,personality in ,literature which also contains sketches of ,wells and ,chesterton 7,london3 ,seeker1 #aiac72 ,e4 ,e4 ,hale's ,dramatists of ,to-day 7,holt1 #aiaa72 ,j4 ,g4 ,huneker's ,iconoclasts 7,scribner1 #aije72 ,cyril ,maude's ,the ,haymarket ,theater2 ,edward ,pease's ,history of the ,fabian ,society 7,london1 #aiaf72 ,herman ,bernstein's ,with ,master ,minds 7,universal ,series ,co41 ,new ,york1 #aiac72 and ,bernard ,shaw et son oeuvre by ,professor ,cestre of the ,university of ,bordeaux 7,mercure de ,france1 #aiab74 ,augustine ,f4 ,hamon1 who has translated many of ,shaw's plays into ,french1 has published the lectures he gave on them at the ,sorbonne in the volume ,le ,molire du ,x,xe sicle 7,paris3 ,figuire1 #aiac7 which has been translated ,the ,twentieth ,century ,molire 7,stokes1 #aiae71 and a separate chapter of it as ,the ,technique of ,bernard ,shaw's ,plays 7,london3 ,daniel1 #aiab74 ,the following articles on ,shaw are noteworthy for one reason or another3 ,shaw ,contra ,mundum by ,c4 ,b4 ,chilton in ,the ,independent1 ,march #h1 #aijf1 with a sharp retort by ,shaw2 ,personal reminiscences by ,frank ,harris in ,pearson's1 #aiaf2 ,controversies of ,shaw with ,hilaire ,belloc and ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton in ,the ,new ,witness1 #aiaf2 ,bernard ,shaw1 ,musician by ,florence ,boylston ,pelo in ,the ,bookman1 ,march1 #aiaf2 ,shaw in ,portrait and ,caricature by ,h4 ,jackson in ,the ,idler1 #aijh2 ,shavian ,religion by the ,rev4 ,p4 ,gavan ,duffy in ,the ,century1 vol4 #hg1 p4 #ijh2 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw's ,philosophy by ,a4 ,k4 ,rogers in ,hibbert ,journal1 #aiaj2 ,george ,bernard ,shaw by ,d4 ,a4 ,lord in ,catholic ,world1 ,march and ,april1 #aiaf2 ,bernard ,shaw et la guerre by ,christabel ,pankhurst in ,la ,revue1 #aiae2 ,the ,philosophy of ,shaw by ,archibald ,henderson in ,atlantic1 vol4 #ajc1 p4 #bbg2 ,die ,quintessenz des ,shawismus by ,helene ,richter 7,leipzig1 #aiac72 ,bernard ,shaw by ,julius ,bab 7,berlin3 ,fischer74 ,the ingenious ,allen ,upward has written a futuristic satire on ,shaw in the form of a play3 ,paradise ,found or the ,superman ,found ,out 7,houghton ,mifflin1 #aiae74 ,in ,act ,i ,the ,sleeper ,wakes1 la ,wells1 two hundred years hence1 finding himself in the ,shaw ,memorial ,hall in the custody of the ,most ,noble ,order of ,hereditary ,fabians1 chief of whom are the ,lady ,wells and the ,lord ,keir-,hardie4 ,the second act is set in the ,headquarters of the ,anti-,shavian ,league1 which the awakened and disillusionized ,shaw joins4 ,the third act is in the ,cabinet of ,h4 ,v4 ,m4 ,maharajah ,sri ,singh ,bahadar1 for of course ,india outvoted ,england as soon as universal suffrage was introduced into the ,british ,empire4 #a ,published by ,brentano's1 #aijd4 #b ,published by ,brentano's1 #aiji4 #c ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 in his life of ,shaw1 gives an interesting account of one of these addresses1 that on ,christian ,economics at the ,city ,temple in #aiac4 ,but ,shaw is too much of a ,christian still to suit ,mc,cabe4 #d ,see for instance ,shaw's book on ,the ,common ,sense of ,municipal ,trading1 based upon his experience as ,vestryman and ,borough ,councillor4 #e ,pease1 in his ,history of the ,fabian ,society1 gives an interesting account of these diverse movements which in their inception were closely allied4 ,see also ,knight's ,memorials of ,thomas ,davidson3 the ,wandering ,scholar and ,james' delightful sketch1 ,the ,knight-,errant of the ,intellectual ,life1 in his posthumous volume of ,memories and ,studies4 #f ,printed in ,the ,independent1 ,july #bh1 #aiaj4 #g ,for ,shaw's opinions on phonetics see ,pygmalion1 ,captain ,brassbound's ,conversion1 and ,henderson's biography1 p4 #cbf4 #h ,von unmusikalischen ,england und seiner musikalischen ,heilsarmee4 ,deutscher ,wille1 ,february1 #aiaf4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,h4 ,g4 ,,wells ,scientific ,futurist ,we are in the beginning of the greatest change that humanity has ever undergone4 ,there is no shock1 no epoch-making incident--but then there is no shock at a cloudy daybreak4 ,at no point can we say1 ,here it commences1 now2 last minute was night and this is morning4 ,but insensibly we are in the day4 ,if we care to look1 we can foresee growing knowledge1 growing order1 and presently a deliberate improvement of the blood and character of the race4 ,and what we can see and imagine gives us a measure and gives us faith for what surpasses the imagination4 ,it is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning1 and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn4 ,it is possible to believe that all that the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening4 ,we cannot see1 there is no need for us to see1 what this world will be like when the day has fully come4 ,we are creatures of the twilight4 ,but it is out of our race and lineage that minds will spring that will reach back to us in our littleness to know us better than we know ourselves1 and that will reach forward fearlessly to comprehend this future that defeats our eyes4 ,all this world is heavy with the promise of greater things1 and a day will come1 one day in the unending succession of days1 when beings1 beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins1 shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool1 and shall laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars4--,the ,discovery of the ,future 7#aijb74 ,is ,wells also among the prophets8 ,surely1 and none with better right1 even though we use the word prophet in its narrowest and most ordinary sense as one who foretells the future4 ,he has foretold many futures for us1 some utterly abhorrent1 others more or less attractive4 ,if we shudder at the thought of humanity on a freezing world fighting a losing battle with gigantic crustaceans as in ,the ,time ,machine1 or being suffocated on a blazing world as in ,the ,star1 or being crushed under the tyranny of an omnipotent trust as in ,when the ,sleeper ,wakes--if none of these please us1 then we have the option of a businesslike and efficient organization of society under the domination of the engineer as in ,anticipations1 or a socialistic state under the beneficent sway of the ,samurai as in ,a ,modern ,utopia1 or an instantaneous amelioration of human nature as ,in the ,days of the ,comet4 ,in thus presenting various solutions to the world problem ,wells is not inconsistent4 ,every complicated equation has several roots1 some of them imaginary4 ,in solving a physical problem the scientist begins by disentangling the forces involved and then1 taking them one at a time1 calculates what would be the effect if the other forces did not act4 ,so ,wells is applying the scientific method to sociology when he attempts to isolate social forces and deal with them singly4 ,if nothing intervenes to divert it1 says the hydraulic engineer1 the water of this mountain stream will develop such a momentum on reaching the valley4 ,if no limitations are placed upon the consolidation of capital1 says ,mr4 ,wells1 we may have a handful of directors ruling the world1 as depicted in ,when the ,sleeper ,wakes4 ,in its power to forecast the future science finds both its validation and justification4 ,by this alone it tests its conclusions and demonstrates its usefulness4 ,in fact1 the sole object of science is prophecy1 as ,ostwald and ,poincar make plain4 ,the mind of the scientific man is directed forward and he has no use for history except as it gives him data by which to draw a curve that he may project into the future4 ,it is1 therefore1 not a chance direction of his fancy that so many of ,wells's books1 both romances and studies1 deal with the future4 ,it is the natural result of his scientific training1 which not only led him to a rich unworked field of fictional motives1 but made him consider the problems of life from a novel and very illuminative point of view4 ,he gave definite expression to this philosophy in a remarkable address on ,the ,discovery of the ,future1 delivered at the ,royal ,institution of ,london1 ,january #bd1 #aijb4 ,here he shows that there is a growing tendency in modern times to shift the center of gravity from the past to the future and to determine the moral value of an act by its consequences rather than by its relation to some precedent4 ,the justification of a war1 for instance1 may either be by reference to the past or to the future2 that is1 it may be based either upon some supposititious claim and violated treaty1 or upon the assumed advantage to one or both parties4 ,this idea1 that in the moral evaluation of an act its results should be taken into consideration1 has been popularly ascribed to the ,jesuits1 but since they have repeatedly and indignantly denied that it ever formed part of their teaching1 it is questionable whether they could claim it now when it is becoming fashionable4 ,at any rate1 it is interesting to note that ,wells gave very clear expression to this pragmatic principle five years before the publication of ,pragmatism by ,james4 ,i hope that ,mr4 ,wells will work out in detail his theory of prevision as a motive for morality4 ,we cannot have too many such motives1 and it is quite possible that this factor has not been fully recognized in our ethical systems1 though ,i have no doubt that1 as is usually the case with discoveries1 especially in ethics1 the theory is not quite so novel as it seems to him4 ,in the meantime1 ,i would call his attention to two weak points in argument1 as he has sketched it in this lecture4 ,he gives as an example of the two ways of looking at a problem the old question of whether a bad promise is better broken or kept4 ,the legal mind would regard the promise as inviolable2 the creative mind would say that in view of future consequences it should be disregarded4 ,but ,i would suggest that1 if morality is1 as he defines it1 an overriding of immediate and personal considerations out of regard to something to be attained in the future1 the one who viewed the act most clearly in the light of the future would keep the promise even at the cost of some suffering to himself and others rather than bring the lack of confidence which results from a violated oath4 ,i would also point out that the followers of dogma are not to be classed so positively with those who look only on the past4 ,certainly those whose morality is based on the hope of heaven and the fear of hell--and this is too numerous a class to be ignored--are as truly guided by their ideas of the future as are those who are working for the prosperity of the ,beyond-,man some thousand years hence4 ,jonathan ,edwards's first resolution was typical4 ,it reads3 ,i4 ,resolved1 ,that ,i will do whatsoever ,i think to be most to ,god's glory and my own good1 profit and pleasure1 on ,,the ,,whole2 without any consideration of the time1 whether now1 or never so many myriads of ages hence2 to do whatever ,i think to be my duty1 and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general--whatever difficulties ,i meet with1 how many and how great soever4 ,the highest morality is attained1 in my opinion1 by the class which ,mr4 ,wells despises--namely1 those who disregard neither causes nor effects1 but consider every act in the light of both the past and the future4 ,for this reason we are grateful to ,mr4 ,wells for the light he is giving us on the future by his efforts in scientific prophecy4 ,wells defines two divergent types of mind by the relative importance they attach to things past or things to come4 ,the former type he calls the legal or submissive mind1 because the business1 the practice and the training of a lawyer dispose him toward it2 he of all men must most constantly refer to the law made1 the right established1 the precedent set1 and most consistently ignore or condemn the thing that is only seeking to establish itself4 ,in opposition to this is the legislative1 creative1 organizing1 masterful type1 which is perpetually attacking and altering the established order of things2 it is constructive and interprets the present and gives value to this or that entirely in relation to things designed or foreseen4 ,the use of the term legislative for this latter type is confusing1 at least to an ,american1 because unfortunately most of our legislators are lawyers and have minds of the legal or conventional type4 ,scientific would be a better term than legislative1 because most of our real revolutions in thought and industry originate in the laboratory4 ,in his ,modern ,utopia ,wells introduces a more complete classification of mankind into 7#a7 the ,poietic1 that is1 the creative and original genius1 often erratic or abnormal2 7#b7 the ,kinetic1 that is1 the efficient1 energetic1 business man type2 7#c7 the ,dull1 the people who never seem to learn thoroughly or hear distinctly or think clearly1 and 7#d7 the ,base1 those deficient in moral sense4 ,the first two categories of ,wells1 the ,poietic and ,kinetic1 correspond roughly to ,ostwald's ,romanticist and ,classicist types of scientific men4#a ,i have laid stress upon ,wells's point of view and classification of temperaments because it seems to me that it gives the clue to his literary work4 ,this is voluminous and remarkably varied1 yet through all its forms can be traced certain simple leading motives4 ,indeed ,i am unable to resist the temptation to formulate his favorite theme as3 ,the reaction of society against a disturbing force4 ,this certainly is the basic idea of much of his work and most of the best of it4 ,he hit upon it early and he has repeated it in endless variations since4 ,the disturbing force may be an individual of the creative or poietic type1 an overpowering passion1 a new idea1 a social organization or a material change in the conditions of life4 ,whatever it may be1 the natural inertia of society causes it to resist the foreign influence1 to enforce compliance upon the aberrant individual1 or to meet the new conditions by as little readjustment as possible4 ,usually the social organism is successful in overpowering the intruder or rebel1 and on the whole we must admit that this is advantageous1 even though it sometimes does involve the sacrifice of genius and the retardation of progress4 ,certainly no one is good enough or wise enough to be trusted with irresponsible power4 ,this is the lesson of ,the ,invisible ,man4 ,we all have been struck1 probably1 by a thought of the advantages which personal invisibility would confer4 ,it is one of the most valued of fairy gifts4 ,but perhaps only ,wells has thought of the disadvantages of invisibility1 how demoralizing such a condition would be to the individual1 and yet how powerless he would be against the mass of ordinary people4 ,assuming that a man had discovered a way to become invisible by altering the refractive power of his body1 as broken glass becomes invisible in water1 in what situation would he be8 ,he would be naked1 of course1 and he could not carry anything in his hands or eat in public4 ,if it were winter he would leave tracks and would catch cold and sneeze4 ,so the invisible man who starts to rob and murder at his own sweet will is soon run down by boys1 dogs1 and villagers as ignominiously as any common thief4 ,a more artistic expression to the same theme is given in ,the ,country of the ,blind4 ,a young man tumbled into an isolated valley of the ,andes where lived a community which had through some hereditary disease lost many generations ago the power of sight4 ,the stranger first thought of the proverb1 ,in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king1 but when he tried to demonstrate his superiority he found it impossible4 ,his talk about seeing the natives held to be the ravings of a madman and his clumsiness in their dark houses as proof of defective senses4 ,he was as much at a disadvantage in a community where everything is adapted to the sightless as a blind man is in ours4 ,he falls in love with a girl1 but before he is allowed to marry her he must be cured of his hallucinations2 a simple surgical operation1 the removal of the two irritable bodies protuberant from his brain1 will restore him to normality1 say the blind surgeons1 and make a sane and useful citizen of him4 ,the entreaties of his lady love are added to the coercion of public opinion to induce him to consent4 ,the exceptional man is beaten1 he must either conform to the community or leave it4 ,no matter how the story ends4 ,the true novelist and dramatist1 like the true mathematician1 finds his satisfaction in correctly stating a problem1 not in working it out4 ,the theme of these parables1 the comparative powerlessness of the individual1 however exceptionally endowed1 against the coercive force of environment1 ,wells has developed at length in his novels2 in ,the ,new ,machiavelli1 for instance1 where a statesman at the height of his public usefulness is overthrown and banished because he had succumbed to selfish passion and violated the moral code4 ,parnell is popularly supposed to be the model for this character rather more than the original ,machiavelli1 but it is1 unfortunately1 a type not rare either in history or fiction4 ,indeed this may be called the common plot of tragedy from the time when it began to be written1 the vulnerable heel of ,achilles1 the little defect of character or ability that precipitates the catastrophe4 ,in ,wells's hands this motive takes most fantastic forms4 ,there was1 for example1 ,the ,man ,who ,could ,work ,miracles2 his name was ,george ,mc,whirter ,fotheringay--not the sort of name by any means to lead to any expectation of miracles--and he was clerk at ,gomshott's2 he was a little man and had eyes of a hot brown1 very erect red hair1 a mustache with ends he twisted up1 and freckles4 ,this unpromising looking individual1 and he was a blatant skeptic1 too1 becomes suddenly possessed of the power to make anything happen that he wills1 but he finds the use of this mysterious gift by no means to his advantage4 ,it brings him and others into all sorts of trouble1 and only his renunciation of it saves the world from destruction4 ,mr4 ,fotheringay lived in ,church ,row1 and since ,mr4 ,wells lives in the same street he perhaps knew him personally4 ,in ,the ,war of ,worlds the earth is invaded by ,martians1 who are not in the least like those of ,du ,maurier or ,professor ,flournoy1 but octopus-like creatures as far above mankind in intellect and command of machinery as we are above the animals1 supermen surpassing the imagination of ,nietzsche4 ,they stride over the earth in machines of impregnable armor and devastate town and country with searchlights projecting rays more destructive than those of radium and much like ,bulwer-,lytton's vril4 ,they feed on human blood and1 if humanity is not to perish or become as sheep to these invaders1 men and women must take to sewers and such like hiding places and wage incessant warfare against overwhelming odds4 ,in a passage that is to me the most gripping of anything ,wells has written1 a few unconquerable spirits plan the life that mankind must lead under these terrible conditions1 but they are relieved from the necessity of putting it into execution by the interposition of an unexpected ally in the form of the most minute of creatures1 the microbe4 ,the men from ,mars1 not being immune to terrestrial diseases1 are annihilated by one of them4 ,the formula remains the same although conditions are reversed in ,the ,first ,men in the ,moon1 for men1 being naturally larger than the lunar people1 might be supposed to dominate them1 but1 on the contrary1 the ant-like inhabitants of the moon conquer the earthly invaders4 ,in ,the ,wonderful ,visit a curate goes out hunting for rare birds and shoots an angel on the wing4 ,but the heavenly visitant does not play the rle of the angel in ,jerome's ,the ,passing of the ,third ,floor ,back and transform the character of all he meets4 ,wells's angel does not fit into the parish life1 and everybody is relieved when he disappears4 ,the same idea1 the reaction of conventional society toward the unusual1 is illustrated by ,the ,sea-,lady1 where1 instead of an angel from the sky1 we have a mermaid from the ocean brought into the circle of a summer resort4 ,mr4 ,wells has said that by the sea-lady he meant to symbolize love as a disturbing passion1 the same theme as ,the ,new ,machiavelli4 ,it may be taken to mean that1 of course1 or half a dozen other things as well4 ,we are at liberty to disregard ,mr4 ,wells's interpretation if we like4 ,it is not an author's business to explain what his works mean4 ,in fact it seems a bit officious and impertinent for him to attempt it4 ,how little would there be left of the great literature of the world if it were reduced to what the author literally and consciously had in mind when he wrote4 ,the value of any work of art depends upon what may be got out of it1 not what was put into it4 ,the ,food of the ,gods is a case in point4 ,these children who are fed on boom-food 7presumably an extract from the pituitary body of the brain7 and grow to gianthood may be taken to represent any new transforming force4 ,if the story was conceived in ,wells's earlier days he may have meant by it the power of science4 ,if in the days of ,anticipations he more likely had in mind efficiency or scientific management4 ,if when he was a member of the ,fabian ,society it doubtless stood for ,socialism4 ,such questions may well be left to the future biographer who will take an interest in tracing out the genesis of his thought4 ,really it makes no difference to the reader1 for the essential thing is to note that the reaction of society toward any unprecedented factor is the same4 ,that in various parts of the country a new and gigantic race was growing up aroused at first a certain sensational interest1 but this soon died down4 ,people became accustomed to seeing the giant boys and girls and even set them at work4 ,later as it was realized that the giants could not be adapted to the existing social structure1 but meant its overthrow1 the government attempted to segregate and limit them1 and at length1 finding no compromise possible1 determined to exterminate them4 ,this brings about a duel to the death between the little race and the big1 and there could be no doubt as to the issue4 ,chesterton says#b3 ,the ,food of the ,gods is the tale of ,jack the ,giant-,killer told from the point of view of the giant4 ,this has not1 ,i think1 been done before in literature2 but ,i have little doubt that the psychological substance of it existed in fact4 ,i have little doubt that the giant whom ,jack killed did regard himself as the ,superman4 ,it is likely enough that he considered ,jack a narrow and parochial person who wished to frustrate a great forward movement of the life-force4 ,if 7as not infrequently was the case7 he happened to have two heads1 he would point out the elementary maxim which declares them to be better than one4 ,he would enlarge on the subtle modernity of such an equipment1 enabling a giant to look at a subject from two points of view1 or to correct himself with promptitude4 ,but ,jack was the champion of the enduring human standards1 of the principle of one man one head1 and one man one conscience1 of the single head and the single heart and the single eye4 ,jack was quite unimpressed by the question of whether the giant was a particularly gigantic giant4 ,all he wished to know was whether he was a good giant--that is1 a giant who was any good to us4 ,what were the giant's religious views2 what his views on politics and the duties of the citizen8 ,was he fond of children--or fond of them only in a dark and sinister sense8 ,to use a fine phrase for emotional sanity1 was his heart in the right place8 ,jack had sometimes to cut him up with a sword in order to find out4 ,nothing could better illustrate the difference in standpoint between ,chesterton and ,wells than this4 ,the sympathies of ,wells are undoubtedly with the giants1 with the new forces that aim to transform the world1 though he is not always confident of their ultimate triumph4 ,being a man of scientific training1 he is a determinist but not a fatalist4 ,all his prophecies are conditional4 ,if the gulf between industrial and parasitic classes keeps on widening there will eventually be two races1 and the former will be master2 this is the lesson of ,the ,time ,machine4 ,if the engineer and business manager get control we shall have the well ordered prosperity of ,anticipations4 ,if ,socialism prevails we shall have the ,great ,state4 ,his stories of the future are about equally divided between optimistic and pessimistic prophecy1 between allurements and warnings4 ,in the ,days of the ,comet#c he uses again the mechanism of the most artistic of his earlier short stories1 ,the ,star1 which is a little gem in its way without a superfluous word or a false tone4 ,but those were the days when ,mr4 ,wells was writing for pleasure2 now he writes for a purpose1 so the two stories resemble each other only in their common theme1 the swishing across the earth of a comet's tail4 ,in the former tale the event was viewed by a man in ,mars who reported to his fellow scientists that the earth was little damaged1 for the destruction of all life on it was too insignificant an event to be noticed at that distance4 ,in the present book the earth was decidedly benefited1 and the history is told by a man more foreign to us than the ,martian1 for he is a citizen of the new civilization that followed the ,great ,change4 ,a wonderful transformation had been effected in our atmosphere by its mingling with the cometary gases4 ,the inert nitrogen of the air had been changed to some life-giving1 clarifying1 and stimulating gas2 it would be unfair to the author to infer that this was nitrous oxid1 more familiarly known as laughing gas4 ,under its influence the inhabitants of the earth perceive the evils of our present rgime and realize that they are mostly avoidable if everybody had good intentions and good sense4 ,as an argument for ,socialism it is a very weak one1 for it gives away the case by conceding1 at the outset1 the main objection of the conservative1 that you will have to change human nature before ,socialism becomes possible4 ,of course1 if all men were well-meaning and wise ,socialism would be practical4 ,it would also be unnecessary1 because any social machinery1 or1 indeed1 none at all1 would work well enough under these conditions4 ,the difficulty is to devise any changes that will make it work better with people as they are4 ,that better people than we would be able to make for themselves better ways of living1 nobody denies4 ,that social1 institutions influence the character of individuals1 and that individuals influence the character of institutions1 are correlative truths1 but it is difficult for most people to keep them both in mind4 ,mr4 ,wells's collectivist conversion by a green gas is much the same thing as individualist conversion by religious influence1 but we know of instances of the latter1 while the former is purely hypothetical4 ,but1 of course1 the object of the book is not to show how ,socialism can come about1 but to assist in making it come about by acting on readers as a dose of the green gas and opening our eyes to the vulgarity1 silliness1 squalor1 and wastefulness of our daily life4 ,mr4 ,wells is an artist by nature and a scientist by training1 and ugliness and stupidity worry him more than wickedness and injustice4 ,in fact1 he would probably class all the evils of civilization under stupidity4 ,but long ago it was said that against stupidity even the gods fight in vain1 and it remains to be seen whether ,socialists will succeed better4 ,the most attractive pages of the book to me are those that describe the festival of the rubbish burnings1 though ,wells does not improve upon ,washington ,irving's treatment of the same theme4 ,there are several things owned by our neighbors1 even by relatives1 which we should like to cast upon the flames4 ,but we are afraid to light the bonfire lest the neighbors should burn up some of our treasures4 ,that war is also an example of human stupidity1 we agree1 but just how to prevent it altogether until the rest of the world comes to our opinion1 we do not understand4 ,it takes two to stop a quarrel4 ,the fleets of ,england and ,germany were engaged in bombarding each other when the renovating comet struck the earth1 but as soon as the eyes of the combatants and the statesmen who had instigated it were opened1 and their anger quenched1 it seemed incredible to them that they should have sought to kill each other for such trivial and remote causes4 ,jules ,verne has a similar scene in ,dr4 ,ox's ,experiment1 but in that case the gas acts in the opposite way to excite the sluggish inhabitants of a peaceful ,flemish village to make war against the neighboring village1 and as soon as they are out of the contaminated atmosphere they look in bewilderment at the deadly weapons in their hands4 ,eight years later ,wells's worst forebodings came to pass1 but no green gas came to clear the air of hate4 ,but the particular passion that ,wells would sweep away by the breath of his comet is one which1 in the opinion of most people1 is necessary to the maintenance of morality1 that is1 jealousy4 ,the young ,english workingman who tells the story is infuriated against the young aristocrat who had seduced his sweetheart and is pursuing them with a revolver when the ,great ,change comes4 ,then he is content to share her affections with his former rival1 and they all lived together happily ever after4 ,in his works on ,socialism ,wells gives his reasons for thinking that1 whether we wish it or not1 the family is disintegrating1 and that only under ,socialism1 which will insure a support sufficient for independence to both men and women1 can better relations be established4 ,we might have known that as soon as science discovered the new world inside the atom the story-writer would follow close behind4 ,we might also have known that ,h4 ,g4 ,wells would be the first to exploit this new territory annexed to human knowledge1 for he has always kept an eye on scientific progress even while seemingly engrossed in ,british politics and marriage problems4 ,so he wrote a romance of the atom1 ,the ,world ,set ,free1 describing the ,great ,war months before it happened4 ,our sleepy earth has been caught napping by every great change that has thus far reached humanity1 and probably ,mr4 ,wells is quite right in supposing that a sudden release of the vast stores of energy hidden in the atom would find civilization as unprepared for the social1 economic1 political1 and intellectual results of the new energies in industry as it was for the effects of the great industrial revolution which followed the introduction of steam power not much more than a century ago4 ,but ,mr4 ,wells has the alertest literary imagination of any modern writer2 the significance of the new physics has not escaped him as it has the common run of novelists intently searching for good plots and neglecting entirely the rich ore awaiting any writer who happened to have an elementary knowledge of modern science4 ,many short stories and one or two novels have introduced more or less accurate accounts of radium as a side-show to a love story or an incident in a detective tale4 ,but it required the boldness of ,mr4 ,wells to throw overboard entirely the conventional novel plot and make a hero of the cosmic energies4 ,the ,world ,set ,free resembles ,the ,war in the ,air in its vivid account of world-wide war1 nations armed with novel weapons and forces1 appalling power for destruction and attack in the hands of every nation1 together with complete incapacity for defense by any nation1 the resulting collapse of credit1 panic1 starvation1 anarchy and a general social dbcle4 ,but while the war in the air meant the end of civilization1 the war with atomic bombs in the present book results in a general treaty of peace1 the foundation of a world state under a provisional government1 and a successful reorganization of society in which the forces which had been used by nations and empires to conquer each other are directed to the task of subduing nature to human aims4 ,like the reconstructed world of ,in the ,days of the ,comet the future state is very faintly depicted1 hinted at rather than described1 in ,the ,world ,set ,free4 ,it differs from the numerous other ,utopias of ,mr4 ,wells in that1 whereas the world states of ,anticipations1 ,a ,modern ,utopia1 ,in the ,days of the ,comet1 etc41 could be brought about by nothing more than taking the author's advice on politics1 law1 economics1 and social customs1 ,the ,world ,set ,free depends upon scientific discovery4 ,a new hypothesis1 in short1 has given the inhabitants of this ,utopia an advantage over all previous ,utopias4 ,they have energy at their command almost as freely accessible as water or air1 and so the labor question is annihilated1 the whole world becomes a leisure class1 and everybody is free to devote his life to gardening1 artistic decoration1 and scientific research4 ,country life becomes a constant delight4 ,the agriculturist shrinks to less than one per cent of the population4 ,the lawyer follows the warrior into extinction4 ,contentious professions cease to be an honorable employment for men4 ,the ,parliament of the ,world1 which came into existence after the atomic explosions of #aiej1 was simple and sensible2 fifty new representatives elected every five years2 proportional representation2 every man and woman with an equal vote2 election for life subject to recall2 each voter putting on his ballot the names of those he wishes elected and those he wishes recalled2 a representative recallable by as many votes as the quota that elected him4 ,but political machinery does not count for much in this most modern of ,utopias4 ,a scrap of the conversation between the ,president of the ,united ,states and ,king ,egbert1 the young king of the most venerable kingdom in ,europe1 will illustrate the point of view3 ,science1 the ,king cried presently1 is the new king of the world4 ,our view1 said the ,president1 is that sovereignty resides with the people4 ,no1 said the ,king1 the sovereign is a being more subtle than that1 and less arithmetical2 neither my family nor your emancipated people4 ,it is something that floats about us and above us and through us4 ,it is that common impersonal will and sense of necessity of which science is the best understood and most typical aspect4 ,it is the mind of the race4 ,it is that which has brought us here1 which has bowed us all to its demands4 ,the agency which effects this transformation is the discovery of how to release the internal energy of the atom1 which we now know exists1 although we do not know how to get at it4 ,since wealth is essentially nothing but energy this means that we have within reach enough to make multi-millionaires of all of us2 a tantalizing thought4 ,the new disintegrating element1 according to ,mr4 ,wells1 is carolinum1 an element that ,professor ,baskerville also discovered on paper a few years ago4 ,this exhaustless supply of energy being utilized in machinery sets free the laborer and swells the army of the unemployed2 and since1 incidentally1 one of the by-products of its decomposition is gold1 the financial systems of the world go to smash4 ,but naturally carolinum finds speedy employment in war4 ,a bomb of it buried in the soil becomes a perpetual volcano1 half of it exploding every seventeen days4 ,a few bombs of this radioactive element dropped from aeroplanes demolish ,paris and ,berlin and throw the world into a chaos of confusion1 which ,wells's characteristic style1 with its flashlight visions1 its tumultuous phrases1 and its shifting points of view1 its alternations of generalization and detail1 is particularly adapted to depict4 ,the value of this romance1 aside from its interest1 lies in the emphatic way in which it teaches the lesson that civilization is primarily a matter of the utilization of natural energy and is measurable in horse power4 ,unfortunately we have to depend upon the sunshine1 either that of the present or of the carboniferous era2 we have no key to the treasure-house of the atom4 ,radium gives out its energy without haste or rest1 just as fast at the temperature of liquid air as at the temperature of liquid iron1 always keeping itself a little hotter than its surroundings1 however hot these may be4 ,if only we could get at this source of exhaustless energy--but let ,wells say what that would mean3 ,not only should we have a source of power so potent that a man might carry in his hand the energy to light a city for a year1 fight a fleet of battleships or drive one of our giant liners across the ,atlantic2 but we should also have a clue that would enable us at last to quicken the process of disintegration in all the other elements1 where decay is still so slow as to escape our finest measurements4 ,every scrap of solid matter in the world would become an available reservoir of concentrated force4 ,it would mean a change in human conditions that ,i can only compare to the discovery of fire1 that first discovery that lifted man above the brute4 ,we stand to-day toward radio-activity exactly as our ancestor stood toward fire before he had learnt to make it4 ,he knew it then only as a strange thing utterly beyond his control1 a flare on the crest of the volcano1 a red destruction that poured through the forest4 ,so it is that we know radio-activity to-day4 ,this--this is the dawn of a new day in human living4 ,at the climax of that civilization which had its beginning in the hammered flint and the fire-stick of the savage1 just when it is becoming apparent that our ever-increasing needs cannot be borne indefinitely by our present sources of energy1 we discover suddenly the possibility of an entirely new civilization4 ,the energy we need for our very existence1 and with which ,nature supplies us still so grudgingly1 is in reality locked up in inconceivable quantities all about us4 ,we cannot pick that lock at present1 but4444 ,then that perpetual struggle for existence1 that perpetual struggle to live on the bare surplus of ,nature's energies will cease to be the lot of ,man4 ,man will step from the pinnacle of this civilization to the beginning of the next4#d ,wells is a futurist in the true sense of the word1 appraising all things by what shall come out of them4 ,this led him to a realization of the importance of eugenics long before the fad came in4 ,in ,mankind in the ,making he formulated his test of civilization in these words3 ,any collective human enterprise1 institution1 party1 or state1 is to be judged as a whole and completely1 as it conduces more or less to wholesome and hopeful births and according to the qualitative and quantitative advance due to its influence toward a higher and ampler standard of life4 ,but when it comes to practical measures for securing these advantages1 ,wells shows a characteristic timidity4 ,he condemns certain obvious dysgenic measures1 such as the action of school boards in imposing celibacy upon women teachers1 but in several respects legislation in ,america has already gone beyond what he ten years ago considered possible4 ,so1 too1 in his ,anticipations he suggested as future possibilities inventions and practices that were then familiar to us in this country4 ,it is hard for a man nowadays to be a prophet4 ,if he doesn't look sharp he will find himself an historian instead4 ,when ,h4 ,g4 ,wells in #aijb essayed the rle of prophet and in his volume entitled ,anticipations tried to forecast the future of the world on scientific principles1 he excited the same popular interest that any guess at coming events arouses1 but there were few who took him seriously4 ,now1 however1 ,anticipations makes very interesting reading4 ,much of it has already come to pass1 and we see that ,wells's chief mistake lay in putting his forecast too far ahead2 for instance1 when he says that he is inclined to believe4444 that very probably before #aiej a successful aeroplane will have soared and come home safe and sound4 ,the chapter on war in ,anticipations shows astonishing power of prescience in what he says of the use of the submarine and armored automobile1 the development of trench warfare1 the substitution of the machine gun for the rifle1 and the abolition of the distinction between military and civilian parts of a nation4 ,his discussion of the new forms of warfare and the inadequacy of the old methods of management and training is full of warnings which it were well for his country to have heeded4 ,this is shown if we compare that feeling passage in which he describes a future ,british army setting out to meet a scientifically organized foe with an actual battle on the ,artois field as seen from the ,german side4 ,the first column is quoted from ,anticipations1 published fifteen years ago4 ,the second column is taken from ,kellermann's picture of the battle of ,loos1 ,september #bb1 #aiae1 published in the ,continental ,times of ,berlin4 ,bernard ,kellermann1 one of the most brilliant of the younger writers of ,germany1 is well known in ,america through his novel1 ,the ,tunnel1 dealing with a submarine passage to ,europe4 ,,the ,,prophecy1 #aijb ,i seem to see1 almost as if he were symbolic1 the gray old general--the general who learned his art of war away in the vanished nineteenth century1 the altogether too elderly general with his epaulettes and decorations1 his uniform that has still its historical value1 his spurs and his sword--riding along on his obsolete horse1 by the side of his doomed column4 ,above all things he is a gentleman4 ,and the column looks at him lovingly with its countless boys' faces1 and the boys' eyes are infinitely trustful1 for he has won battles in the old time4 ,they will believe in him to the end4 ,they have been brought up in their schools to believe in him and his class1 their mothers have mingled respect for the gentlefolk with the simple doctrines of their faith1 their first lesson on entering the army was the salute4 ,the smart helmets ,his ,majesty1 or some such unqualified person1 chose for them lie hotly on their young brows1 and over their shoulders slope their obsolete1 carelessly-sighted guns4 ,tramp1 tramp1 they march1 doing what they have been told to do1 incapable of doing anything they have not been told to do1 trustful and pitiful1 marching to wounds and disease1 hunger1 hardship1 and death4 ,they know nothing of what they are going to meet1 nothing of what they will have to do2 religion and the rate-payer and the rights of the parent working through the instrumentality of the best club in the world have kept their souls and minds1 if not untainted1 at least only harmlessly veneered with the thinnest sham of training or knowledge4 ,tramp1 tramp1 they go1 boys who will never be men1 rejoicing patriotically in the nation that has thus sent them forth1 badly armed1 badly clothed1 badly led1 to be killed in some avoidable quarrel by men unseen4 ,and beside them1 an absolute stranger to them1 a stranger even in habits of speech and thought1 and at any rate to be shot with them fairly and squarely1 marches the subaltern--the son of the school-burking1 share-holding class--a slightly taller sort of boy1 as ill-taught as they are in all that concerns the realities of life1 ignorant of how to get food1 how to get water1 how to keep fever down and strength up1 ignorant of his practical equality with the men beside him1 carefully trained under a clerical headmaster to use a crib1 play cricket rather nicely1 look all right whatever happens1 believe in his gentility1 and avoid talking shop4 ,so the gentlemanly old general--the polished drover to the shambles--rides1 and his doomed column march by1 in this vision that haunts my mind4 ,i cannot foresee what such a force will even attempt to do against modern weapons4 ,nothing can happen but the needless and most wasteful and pitiful killing of these poor lads1 who make up the infantry battalions1 the main mass of all the ,european armies of to-day1 whenever they come against a sanely organized army4 ,there is nowhere they can come in2 there is nothing they can do4 ,the scattered1 invisible marksmen with their supporting guns will shatter their masses1 pick them off individually1 cover their line of retreat and force them into wholesale surrenders4 ,it will be more like herding sheep than actual fighting4 ,yet the bitterest and crudest things will have to happen1 thousands and thousands of poor boys will be smashed in all sorts of dreadful ways and given over to every conceivable form of avoidable hardship and painful disease before the obvious fact that war is no longer a business for half-trained lads in uniform1 led by parson-bred sixth-form boys and men of pleasure and old men1 but an exhaustive demand upon very carefully educated adults for the most strenuous best that is in them1 will get its practical recognition4#e ,,the ,,fulfillment1 #aiae ,they made the essay with absolutely new1 absolutely antiquated tactics--tactics which are no longer recognized in this war4 ,it was something really unheard of6 ,our staff officers stood and regarded it--their mouths open in astonishment4 ,it was observed1 shortly before noon1 that the ,english were advancing toward our positions in dense masses1 eight lines deep in echelon--from ,loos4 ,a hail of shells that churned up the ground was supposed to smooth the way for the storming columns4 ,at the same time1 to the east of ,loos 7there is a bit of rising ground there scarcely noticeable as you drive over it in a wagon1 called ,hill #gj71 we saw ,english artillery come riding up--quite open--in the broad of day--under the naked heavens6 ,these batteries carried bridge materials with them for the crossing of trenches and natural obstacles4 ,the ,english general we caught describes this action as one that was especially sporting4 ,there can be no doubt about its dashing quality4 ,but there was more to come4 ,in the distance1 on the level plain1 one or two ,english cavalry regiments were visible--,dragoons of the ,guard4 ,eight lines of infantry8 ,artillery driving across the open8 ,cavalry in the background8 ,it was really unbelievable6 ,it was the plan of a veritable pitched battle from a forgotten age1 the masterly idea of a senile brain1 which had come limping along fifty years behind the times6 ,generals in our day grow obsolete as rapidly as inventions and sciences4 ,the war has taught us that the blood of nations1 the incalculably precious blood1 is to be entrusted only to the freshest1 the most elastic1 the most gifted of military spirits1 the very cream of the crop4 ,those old celebrities of theirs1 staggering under their orders1 should have been consigned to relay stations by the ,english4 ,the ,english troops carried out their attack with a splendid gesture1 with admirable bravoure4 ,they were young and they bore no orders on their uniforms4 ,they carried out the commands of their celebrated and senile authorities1 carried them out with a blind courage--in this day of mortars1 telephones and machine-guns4 ,as magnificent as was their bearing1 even so pitiful was the collapse of their onslaught4 ,before the eightfold storming columns had been able to make ten steps1 they came under our combined fire-rifles1 machine-guns1 cannon4 ,the batteries were lying in wait and they obeyed the telephone4 ,the ,english knights and baronets had not reckoned with this4 ,fresh reserves came running up and were mown down in the cross-fire of our machine-guns4 ,those riding batteries came to a miserable end4 ,they too came within the zone of the machine-guns1 and our heavy mortars1 notified by telephone1 got hold of them so swiftly and so thoroughly1 that they were not even given time to unlimber4 ,the regiments of cavalry that were waiting in the background1 ready to come dashing through1 got salvoes of the heaviest shells full in their faces1 and drew back without having drawn a blade from the scabbard4 ,that finished the pitched battle4 ,and the attack broke to pieces in front of our wire entanglements4 ,a prodigious number of their dead lay before our trenches4 ,we had made #hjj prisoners1 among them a colonel1 four majors1 and fifteen officers4 ,at a conservative estimate1 the losses of the ,english in this single section of the division1 may be fixed in dead and wounded as at least #bj1jjj4 ,it was clear that1 apart from a small local success1 it had been a disastrous job for the ,britishers4 ,never before has it been so clearly proved that war is not a sport for a dozen or two of privileged dilettantes4#f ,wells made his first hit with ,the ,time ,machine1 written under high pressure of the idea within a fortnight by keeping at his desk almost continuously from nine in the morning to eleven at night4 ,it is based upon the theory that time is a fourth dimension of space1#g and by a suitable invention one may travel back and forth along that line4 ,having once got his seat in his time-machine ,wells has never abandoned it4 ,he uses it still in his novels1 in ,tono-,bungay1 ,the ,new ,machiavelli1 and ,the ,passionate ,friends1 telling the story partly in retrospect1 partly in prospect1 flying back and forth in the most mystifying manner1 producing thereby a remarkable effect of the perpetual contemporaneity of existence1 though some readers are dizzied by it4 ,the charm of a masked ball is that it enables people to do and say what they please1 in short to reveal themselves because their faces are concealed4 ,anonymity has the same effect1 as many a name from ,currer ,bell to ,fiona ,mc,leod attests4 ,so it is not surprising that the book#h which purports to have been written by one ,george ,boon and compiled by one ,reginald ,bliss shows ,wellsian characteristics more pronounced than any of the volumes of which ,h4 ,g4 ,wells owns authorship4 ,for one thing ,wells obviously likes to start things better than to finish them4 ,he is apt to run out of breath before he comes to the end of a novel1 and if he gets his second wind it is likely to be some other kind of wind4 ,in most of his books except the short stories the reader feels that the author is saying to himself1 ,i wish ,i had this thing off my hands so ,i could get at that new idea of mine4 ,then1 too1 ,wells is fond of putting a story inside of a story1 like the ,arabian ,nights1 and it often happens that the flash-backs1 to borrow a cinema phrase1 are confusing4 ,the framework of ,the ,modern ,utopia is an instance of this4 ,it is sometimes hard to tell in this where we are or who is speaking4 ,wells is inimitable in his ability to sketch a character in a few swift strokes1 but he does not care much for the character afterward4 ,he delights in taking such snapshots1 but he hates to develop them4 ,his mind is quick to change4 ,he is liable to be disconcerted by a sudden vision of an opposing view4 ,sometimes in the middle of a sentence he will be seized with a doubt of what he is saying1 and being an honest man1 he leaves it in air rather than finish it after he has lost confidence4 ,he may double on his track like a hunted fox within the compass of a single volume4 ,finally1 ,wells is fond of satirizing his contemporaries1 including his best friends and his former selves4 ,he is given to mixing realistic description with recondite symbolism1 desultory argumentation with extraneous personalities1 and other incongruous combinations of style and thought4 ,now all these peculiarities1 call them faults or merits as you like1 are to be found intensified in ,boon ,etc4 ,first ,mr4 ,wells introduces ,mr4 ,bliss1 who then introduces ,mr4 ,boon1 a famous author deceased1 and tells how they together invented ,mr4 ,hallery1 who introduces a host of living writers1 big and little1 known and unknown1 at the ,world ,conference on the ,mind of the ,race4 ,he has given me the honor of a seat on a special committee of ,section ,s1 devoted to ,poiometry1 the scientific measurement of literary greatness4 ,the volume is illustrated by the author--whoever he may be--but the best caricatures are not the graphic but the verbal ones with their amusing parodies of style4 ,perhaps the best of these is an imaginary conversation between ,henry ,james and ,george ,moore1 in which both gentlemen pursue entirely independent trains of thought4 ,here's the sketch of ,dodd4 ,we recognize him1 although we do not know who ,dodd is3 ,dodd is a leading member of the ,rationalist ,press ,association1 a militant agnostic1 and a dear compact man1 one of those ,middle ,victorians who go about with a preoccupied1 caulking air1 as though1 having been at great cost and pains to banish ,god from the ,universe1 they were resolved not to permit ,him back on any terms whatever4 ,he has constituted himself a sort of alert customs officer of a materialistic age1 saying suspiciously3 ,here1 now1 what's this rapping under the table here8 and examining every proposition to see that the ,creator wasn't being smuggled back under some specious new generalization4 ,boon used to declare that every night ,dodd looked under his bed for the ,deity1 and slept with a large revolver under his pillow for fear of a revelation4 ,one advantage of anonymity is that ,wells can contradict himself with even more freedom than usual4 ,for instance1 he expresses great contempt for ,bergson and his ,pragmatism for ,ladies4 ,but not long ago1 in ,marriage1 he was contemptuous of ,doctor ,quiller ,schiller of ,oxford1 for ignoring ,bergson and fulminating a preposterous insular ,pragmatism4 ,much of the volume was manifestly written in the calm days before the war1 but the fragment entitled ,the ,wild ,asses of the ,devil expresses in fantastic guise his--and the world's--confusion and despair at the catastrophe which has overwhelmed the human race4 ,it is like a dying man strangling a robber in his death grip4 ,we shall beat them1 but we shall be dead beat in doing it1 says ,boon1 and he rejects all suggestions that it may be a good thing in the end3 ,no6 ,war is just the killing of things and the smashing of things4 ,and when it is all over1 then civilization will have to begin all over again4 ,they will have to begin lower down and against a heavier load and the days of our jesting are done4 ,the ,wild ,asses of the ,devil are loose and there is no restraining them4 ,what is the good of pretending that the ,wild ,asses are the instruments of ,providence kicking better than we know8 ,it is all evil4 ,evil4 ,there are many different ,wellses4 ,probably nobody likes all of them4 ,he does not like all of himselves4 ,in writing a preface or otherwise referring to an earlier work he is1 after the manner of ,maeterlinck1 almost apologetic1 and looks back upon the author with a curious wonder as to how he came to hold such opinions and express them in such a way4 ,those of us who have grown up with him1 so to speak1 and followed his mind through all its metamorphoses in their natural order can understand him better1 ,i believe1 than those of the younger generation who begin with the current serial and read his works backward4 ,mr4 ,wells is just about my age4 ,we were in the laboratory together and breathed the same atmosphere1 although five thousand miles apart4 ,when he began to write ,i was ready to read and to admire the skill with which he utilized for literary purposes the wealth of material to be found in the laboratory4 ,jules ,verne had worked the same rich vein1 clumsily but with great success4 ,poe had done marvels in the short story with such scanty science as he had at his command4 ,but ,wells1 trained under ,huxley in biology at the ,university of ,london1 had all this new knowledge to draw upon4 ,he could handle technicalities with a far defter touch than ,verne and almost rivaled ,poe in the evocation of emotions of horror and mystery4 ,besides this he possessed what both these authors lacked1 a sense of humor1 a keen appreciation of the whimsicalities of human nature4 ,so he was enabled to throw off in the early nineties a swift succession of short stories astonishingly varied in style and theme4 ,as he became more experienced in the art of writing1 or rather of marketing manuscripts1 he seems to have regretted this youthful prodigality of bright ideas4 ,many of them he later worked over on a more extensive scale as the metallurgist goes back to a mine and with an improved process extracts more gold from the tailings and dump than the miner got out of the ore originally4 ,the ,star was the first of these ,i came across1 clipping it for my scrap book from ,harper's ,weekly1 ,i believe4 ,first loves in literature make an indelible impression1 so ,i will always hold that nothing ,wells has done since can equal it4 ,certainly it was not improved by expanding it to ,in the ,days of the ,comet4 ,the germ of that creepy tale of advanced vivisection1 ,the ,island of ,dr4 ,moreau1 appeared first in the ,saturday ,review1 ,january1 #ahie1 as a brief sketch1 ,doctor ,moreau ,explains4 ,the ,dream of ,armageddon1 vivid and swift as a landscape under a flash of lightning1 served in large part for two later volumes1 ,when the ,sleeper ,wakes and ,the ,new ,machiavelli4 ,it was1 as ,i have said1 ,the ,star that first attracted me to ,wells4 ,it was ,the ,sea-,lady who introduced me to him personally4 ,it was in the back room of a little ,italian restaurant in ,new ,york1 one of those sixty-cent table d'htes where rich soup and huge haystacks of spaghetti serve to conceal the meagerness of the other five courses4 ,here foregathered for years a group of ,socialists1 near-,socialists1 and others of less definable types1 alike in holding the belief that the world could be moved and ought to be1 but disagreeing agreeably as to where the fulcrum could be placed and what power should move the lever4 ,we called ourselves the ,x ,club1 partly because the outcome of such a combination of diverse factors was highly problematical1 partly perhaps in emulation of the celebrated ,london ,x4 ,one evening some ten years ago1 as ,i came late to the dinner1 ,i noticed that the members were not all talking at once1 as usual1 but concentrated their attention upon a guest1 a quiet1 unassuming individual1 rather short1 with a sunbrowned face1 tired eyes1 and a pessimistic mustache--a ,londoner1 ,i judged from his accent4 ,then ,i was introduced to him as ,the man who knows all your works by heart1 ,mr4 ,wells4 ,this disconcerting introduction was their revenge for my too frequent quotation in debate4 ,the reason1 ,i suppose1 for the old saying1 ,beware the man of one book1 is because he is such a bore4 ,mr4 ,wells appeared to take the introduction literally and began to examine me on the subject4 ,did you ever read ',the ,sea-,lady'8 ,i happily was able to say ,i had1 and was let off from any further questions1 for he said that he had never met but two persons before who admitted having read the book4 ,i am glad he did not ask me what it meant1 for while ,i had an opinion on the subject1 it might not have agreed with his4 ,then we turned the tables on ,mr4 ,wells and for the rest of the evening asked him questions and criticized his views2 all of which he took very good-naturedly and was apparently not displeased thereby1 since in the book about his trip1 ,the ,future in ,america1 he expressed disappointment at not finding in ,washington any such mentally vigorous discussion centers as the ,new ,york ,x ,club4 ,five years later ,i had another glimpse of ,mr4 ,wells1 this time a jolly evening at his home1 where he kept his guests1 a dozen young men and women1 entertained1 first by playing on the pianola1 which he bought at the suggestion of ,mr4 ,shaw2 afterward by improvising a drama for the occasion1 the star rle being taken by his wife1 whom ,i had seen a few days before marching in the great ,london suffrage procession4 ,mr4 ,wells's home differs from most ,london houses in having a view and a park4 ,the back windows look over all the sea of houses1 the shipping in the ,thames1 and1 smoke permitting1 the ,surrey hills beyond4 ,on the other side of the house five minutes' walk uphill brings one to ,hampstead ,heath1 the largest of ,london's public places1 which serves ,mr4 ,wells for his long walks4 ,mr4 ,wells perhaps got his love of outdoor life from his father1 ,joseph ,wells1 who was a professional cricketer and the son of the head gardener of ,lord de ,lisle at ,penhurst ,castle1 in ,kent4 ,his mother was the daughter of an innkeeper at ,midhurst4 ,herbert ,george ,wells was born in ,bromley1 ,kent1 ,september #ba1 #ahff1 and his childhood impressions of his mother's kitchen and his father's garden and shop he has described in ,first and ,last ,things and in ,tono-,bungay4 ,in this novel1 the first1 perhaps1 to be devoted to that conspicuous feature of modern life1 the patent medicine1 he has utilized his brief experience as a chemist's apprentice1 or1 as we would say1 a drug clerk4 ,next an unsuccessful attempt was made to train him as a draper's assistant--a dry goods clerk1 in our language1 though we have fortunately nothing that exactly corresponds4 ,the hardships and humiliations of this experience seem to have cut deep into his soul1 for he recurs to it again and again1 always with bitterness1 as in ,mr4 ,polly1 ,kipps1 and ,the ,wheels of ,chance1 for example4 ,but to untangle the autobiographical threads from the purely fictional in ,wells's novels would be to cheat some future candidate for a ,ph4 ,d4 in ,english literature of his thesis4 ,illustration3 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells ,the interesting point to observe is that temperament and training have combined to give him on the one hand a hatred of this muddled1 blind1 and inefficient state of society in which we live1 and on the other a distrust of the orderly1 logical1 and perfected civilization usually suggested as a possible substitute4 ,he detests chaos1 but is skeptical of cosmos4 ,set between these antipathetic poles1 he vibrates continually like an electrified pith ball4 ,he has a horror of waste1 war1 dirt1 cruelty1 cowardice1 incompetency1 vagueness of mind1 dissipation of energy1 inconvenience of households1 and all friction1 mental or physical4 ,but yet his ineradicable realization of the concrete will not allow him to escape from these disagreeables by taking refuge in such artificial paradises as ,fourier's phalanx or ,morris' idyllic anarchism4 ,wells is a ,socialist1 yet he finds not merely the ,marxians1 but even the ,fabians1 too dogmatic and strait-laced for him4 ,his ,modern ,utopia is1 ,i think1 the first to mar the perfection of its picture by admitting a rebel1 a permanently irreconcilable1 antagonistic individuality1 a spirit that continually denies4 ,yet we know that if a utopia is to come on earth it must have room for such4 ,wells would never make a leader in any popular movement4 ,he has the zeal of the reformer1 but he has his doubts1 and1 what's worse1 he admits them4 ,in the midst of his most eloquent passages he stops1 shakes his head1 runs in a row of dots1 and adds a few words1 hinting at another point of view4 ,he has what ,james defined as the scientific temperament1 an intense desire to prove himself right coupled with an equally intense fear lest he may be wrong4 ,your true party man must be quite color blind4 ,he must see the world in black and white2 must ignore tints and intermediate shades4 ,wells as ,socialist could not help seeing--and saying--that there were many likable things about the ,liberals4 ,as a ,liberal he must admit that the ,tories have the advantage in several respects4 ,he professes to view religion rationalistically1 yet there are outbursts of true mysticism to be found in his books1 passages which prove that he has experienced the emotion of personal religion more clearly than many a church member4 ,he has the courage of his convictions1 but it does not extend much beyond putting them into print4 ,i doubt whether1 if he were given autocratic power1 he would inaugurate his ,modern ,utopia or any other of his visions4 ,at least he has hitherto resisted all efforts to induce him to carry them into effect4 ,for instance1 one of the most original and interesting features of his ,modern ,utopia was the ,samurai1 the ruling caste1 an order of voluntary noblemen2 submitting to a peculiar discipline2 wearing a distinctive dress2 having a bible of their own selected from the inspiring literature of all ages2 spending at least a week of every year in absolute solitude in the wilderness as a sort of spiritual retreat and restorative of self-reliance4 ,a curious conception it was1 a combination of ,puritanism and ,bushido1 of ,fourier and ,st4 ,francis1 of ,bacon's ,salomon's ,house1 ,plato's philosophers ruling the republic1 and ,cecil ,rhodes's secret order of millionaires ruling the world4 ,one day a group of ardent young men and women1 inspired by this ideal1 came to ,wells and announced that they had established the order1 they had become ,samurai1 and expected him to become their leader1 or at least to give them his blessing2 instead of which ,wells gave them a lecture on the sin of priggishness and sent them about their business4 ,i have no doubt he was right about it1 nor does his disapproval of this premature attempt to incorporate the ,samurai in ,london prove that there was not something worth while in the idea4 ,but it shows that ,wells knew what his work was in the world and proposed to stick to it1 differing therein from other ,utopians3 ,edward ,bellamy1 who because his fantastic romance1 ,looking ,backward1 happened to strike fire1 spent the rest of his life in trying to bring about the coperative commonwealth by means of clubs1 papers1 and parties2 ,dr4 ,hertzka1 who wasted his substance in efforts to found a real ,freeland on the steppes of ,kilimanjaro1 ,africa4 ,perhaps the matter with ,wells is simply that he cannot find his proper pigeon-hole4 ,perhaps ,i can find it4 ,wells has little sympathy with any political grouping or ideal regnant to-day4 ,the orthodox ,tory is in his view simply a man without imagination4 ,the orthodox ,liberal is a mere sentimentalist substituting democratic phrases for science and discipline4 ,the ,imperialist1 though touching ,wells at some points1 repels him by his mania for military expenditure and his ignorant race prejudice4 ,the ,socialist or ,labor ,party man is appallingly narrow and totally unimpressed with the need for intelligence to rule the ,state4 ,in ,the ,new ,machiavelli the hero hovers distressfully over the entire field of modern politics1 finding as little rest for his soul as ,noah's dove on the first trip from the ark found for its feet4 ,once and once only has ,wells's ideal found even partial embodiment1 and that was in the best days of the ,roman ,empire4 ,there was the ,great ,state 7in the familiar capital letters72 a world state so far as the world was known and civilized4 ,there was a universal language1 exact and lucid4 ,there was freedom and security of travel1 at least as great as in those same countries to-day4 ,true1 ,wells would have disapproved of slavery4 ,but so did the ,stoics of the ,empire disapprove of slavery1 at least in theory4 ,their ideal was a universal citizenship4 ,in the later ,empire every freeman in the ,roman ,empire was called a citizen4 ,there was tolerance1 not only of religion but of manners1 such as the narrow and parochial ,states of ,western ,europe which succeeded its fall have never known till within a hundred years4 ,statecraft was a science2 devotion to the ,state a cult4 ,there were the legions1 examples of duty and discipline and scientific warfare1 and yet a few thousands of troops sufficed to police and guard a whole civilized1 wealthy1 complex world state4 ,but most important of all was the ,roman ,law4 ,based on logical principles2 divested of superstitious accessories and irrational taboos2 universal and in the main equitable2 raised above the ,empire and the muddy immediacies of politics till it seemed the voice of nature itself2 flexible and changing1 but by growth rather than whim1 it was the intellectual fabric of the ,empire4 ,it so happened that a despotic ,emperor wielded the power of state1 but still it was the ,state and not the mere person of the ,emperor that was really reverenced4 ,it was certainly not the man or the artist that was divine in ,nero1 but the office4 ,even in its decadent and ,byzantine days traces of the old ideal remained1 and it was not ,charles ,richard ,henry ,etcetera1 by the ,grace of ,god ,king of ,anyland1 ,duke of ,somewherelse1 ,knight of the ,golden ,spur1 ,most ,reverend ,lord of the ,free ,cities of ,lower ,ruritania in the silly medieval 7and modern7 style1 but ,senatus ,populusque ,romani and ,res ,publica4 ,the medieval ,papacy was as universal in structure1 but was obscurantist in basis1 and left behind it as a legacy the memory of the crusades and the monasteries and great cathedrals as its monuments4 ,the ,roman ,empire was rationalist in basis1 and left behind it laws1 straight roads1 aqueducts1 baths1 theaters1 libraries1 and municipal organizations4 ,chesterton is a romantic and rather likes than otherwise the whimsical eccentricities of modern national institutions4 ,but ,wells1 though he loves to play with science1 takes statecraft as seriously as ,marcus ,aurelius1 and1 like him1 he is a citizen of the ,great ,state1 the ,cosmopolis4 ,the ,modern ,utopia might have grown out of the actual ,roman ,empire had the right turnings been taken from that time to this2 no other state or civilization would have formed its basis4 ,the significance of ,wells's advocacy of ,socialism lies in the fact that it is addressed to the middle classes4 ,he might be called ,the ,apostle to the ,genteels4 ,he took part for a time in the aggressive socialistic campaign led by the ,fabian ,society on lines distinct from but parallel to the ,marxian working class propaganda4 ,the orthodox ,marxian has little use for middle-class people4 ,he expects them to become extinct so shortly that it is no use trying to convert them4 ,he takes no more interest in them than missionaries do in the ,tasmanians4 ,they will be ground fine between the upper and nether millstones of the trusts and the unions4 ,such individuals who survive will be able to do so only by becoming retainers of the capitalists1 and as such will be engulfed with them in the revolutionary cataclysm which will end the present era4 ,with a firm faith in this theory1 it is no wonder that he often manifests annoyance at the slowness of the bourgeoisie in carrying out the part assigned them in the ,marxian program4 ,they do not disappear fast enough1 nor do they show any eagerness to take sides either with the proletariat or with the capitalists4 ,on the contrary1 they view both with a certain distrust and antipathy1 and maintain a curious confidence in their ability to manage both factions in the future as they have in the past4 ,in short1 they are not a negligible quantity1 but hold the balance of power1 at least for the present1 and can retard or accelerate the progress of ,socialism to a considerable though an indefinite extent4 ,obviously1 if the middle class as a whole is to be converted to ,socialism1 it must be by different arguments than those found effective with the proletariat4 ,the ,manifesto does not appeal to them1 because they have more to lose than their chains4 ,there must be something more alluring than a universal competency and a steady job to arouse them to the need of radical changes4 ,the sight of capitalists excites emulation and ambition rather than hatred and despair4 ,a man is not inclined to vote millionaires out of existence so long as he cherishes a secret hope of becoming one4 ,they do not see the proletarian papers and would be repelled by them if they did4 ,wells's outline of the form that middle-class propaganda should take presents several novel and interesting points1 but the most conspicuous is his discussion of the effect of ,socialism on family relations4 ,his frankness and honesty in bringing that question into the open is in commendable contrast with the tendency of most advocates of ,socialism to conceal or minimize the fact that any such profound rearrangement of economic relations as is involved in ,socialism must inevitably affect the family1 because the economic factor in this institution is undeniably great1 although how great is a matter of dispute4 ,wells boldly attempts to convert a prejudice into an argument by appealing to the very classes which1 it is generally supposed1 would be repelled by the bare mention of the subject1 to save the family from its impending disintegration by adopting ,socialism4 ,that ,wells is right in thinking that the problem of the family is a serious one at the present time is clearly shown by the statistics collected by ,sidney ,webb for the ,fabian ,society4 ,he proves3 ,that the decline in the birthrate which is depriving ,england and ,wales of at least one-fifth of every year's normal crop of babies is not accounted for by any alteration in the age1 sex or marital condition of the population1 by any refusal or postponement of marriage1 or by any of the effects of urbanization or physical deterioration of sections of the community4 ,the statistical evidence points1 in fact1 unmistakably to the existence of a volitional regulation of the marriage state that is now ubiquitous throughout ,england and ,wales1 among1 apparently1 a large majority of the population4 ,so much other statisticians have deduced1 but ,mr4 ,webb went farther and obtained a direct proof of his conclusion by the circulation of several hundred question blanks among middle-class families4 ,the results are startling4 ,out of a total of one hundred and twenty families reporting in one category1 there were only seven in which the number of children was not intentionally limited4 ,the average number of children in such limited families is one and a half1 which is only one third what it was twenty-five years ago4 ,in about sixty per cent of the cases the poverty of the parents in relation to their standard of comfort was a cause in the limitation of the family4 ,this shows how important a factor the increased expense of raising children has become in well-to-do families1 and unless the population of the future is to be recruited very largely by the improvident1 ignorant1 and debased1 it points toward some form of state encouragement of the production of well-born children4 ,wells suggested a differential income tax4 ,doctor ,galton advocated the endowment of gifted parents4 ,the war has brought this question out of the realm of speculative controversy into that of practical necessity4 ,some of the remedies proposed now make the measures suggested by ,wells ten years before seem timid and conservative4 ,his early training in dynamical physics and evolutionary biology furnished him with the modern scientific point of view when he entered upon the old battlegrounds of sociology and metaphysics4 ,he therefore never could believe in a static state1 socialistic or other1 and he saw clearly that much of what passes for sound philosophical reasoning is fallacious1 because the world cannot be divided up into distinct things of convenient size for handling1 each done up in a neat package and plainly labeled as formal logic requires4 ,here he is extremely radical1 going quite as far as ,bergson in his anti-intellectualism though attacking the subject in a very different way4 ,he denies the categories1 the possibility of number1 definition1 and classification4#i ,he brings three charges against our ,instrument of ,knowledge3 first1 that it can work only by disregarding individuality and treating uniques as identically similar objects in this respect or that2 and1 second1 that it can only deal freely with negative terms by treating them as though they were positive2 and1 third1 that the sort of reasoning which is valid for one level of human thought may not work at another4 ,no two things are exactly alike1 and when we try to define a class of varied objects we get a term which represents none of them exactly and may therefore lead to an erroneous conclusion when brought back again to a concrete case4 ,or1 as ,wells puts it in his laboratory language3 ,the forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it4 ,of everything we need to say this is true1 but it is not quite true4 ,what the artist long ago taught us1 that there are no lines in nature1 the scientist has come to believe1 and perhaps in time the logicians will come to see it too4 ,at present1 however1 they are1 as ,wells says1 in that stage of infantile intelligence that cannot count above two4 ,this is amusingly illustrated in a defense of logic by ,mr4 ,jourdain in which he says3#aj ,to these strictures of ,mr4 ,wells on logic we may reply1 it seems to me1 that either they are psychological--in which case they are irrelevant to logic--or they are false4 ,thus the principle that no truth is quite true1 implying as it does that itself is quite true1 implies its own falsehood1 and is therefore false4 ,this sort of thing might have passed as a good joke in the days of ,epimenides1 the ,cretan1 when logic was a novelty1 and people amused themselves1 like boys learning to lasso1 in tripping each other up with it4 ,but it is funny to see this ancient weapon of scholasticism brought out to ward off the attacks of modernism1 such attacks from without the ramparts as ,wells's essay and from within as ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,schiller's big volume1 ,formal ,logic4 ,wells has not only the sense of continuity in space1 but1 what is rarer1 the sense of continuity in time4 ,the race flows through us1 the race is the drama and we are the incidents4 ,this is not any sort of poetical statement3 it is a statement of fact4 ,we are episodes in an experience greater than ourselves4 ,there is a desperate sincerity about the man that ,i like4 ,he seems always to be struggling to express himself with more exactness than language allows1 to say neither more nor less than he really believes at the time4 ,i do not think that he takes delight in shocking the bourgeoisie as ,shaw does4 ,wells would rather1 ,i believe1 agree with other people than disagree4 ,he is not a congenital and inveterate nonconformist4 ,but he insists always on painting the thing as he sees it4 ,his later novels have come under the ban of the ,british public libraries because1 conceiving sex as a disturbing element in life1 he put it into his novels as a disturbing element1 thus offending both sides1 those of puritanical temperament who wanted it left out altogether and those of profligate temperament who wanted to read of amorous adventure with no unpleasant facts obtruded4 ,his sociological works1 in which1 while insisting on permanent monogamy as the ideal1 he prophesied that the future would show greater toleration toward other forms of marital relationship1 aroused less criticism than the frank portrayal of existing conditions in his novels4 ,all his longer novels are largely concerned with the problem of marital life but the only one of them that comes near to a solution is that entitled ,marriage4 ,the couple in this case1 the ,traffords1 are exceptionally decent people for characters in a modern novel1 and if their marriage is not a success it is not on account of any interference from a third party1 but rather because of the cares and complications that come from family life and financial prosperity4 ,the heroine is a charming specimen of the modern young woman1 educated at ,oxbridge1 whose chief fault is a constitutional inability to keep her accounts straight4 ,she spends money with excellent taste1 but without regard to her husband's bank balance4 ,consequently ,trafford has to lay aside his researches in molecular physics to work out a successful process for synthetic rubber--easy to a man of his ability4 ,mr4 ,wells apparently adopts the theory formulated by ,professor ,devine1 of ,columbia1 as to the normal division of labor between husband and wife1 that men should be experts in the art of getting money and women experts in the art of spending it4 ,where both parties fail is in regarding these duties as ends in themselves1 the men getting absorbed in business and the women buying things that they do not want1 that nobody needs1 just for the sake of buying4 ,apparently ,mr4 ,wells has hope of curing the men1 but none of curing the women4 ,premature attempts at realization1 the demand for immediate results1 the disregard of purely scientific research1 the swamping of life by restless activity and futile efforts at reform1 these are the ailments of the modern world1 according to our author4 ,his satire spares neither conservatives nor radicals4 ,the following passage would apply to ,new ,york as well as ,london3 ,london1 of course1 is always full of ,movements4 ,essentially they are absorbents of superfluous feminine energy4 ,they have a common flavor of progress and revolutionary purpose1 and common features in abundant meetings1 officials1 and organization generally4 ,few are expensive and still fewer produce any tangible results in the world4 ,they direct themselves at the most various ends3 the poor1 that favorite butt1 either as a whole or in such typical sections as the indigent invalid or the indigent aged1 the young1 public health1 the woman's cause1 the prevention of animal food1 anti-vivisection1 the gratuitous advertisement of ,shakespeare 7that neglected poet71 novel but genteel modifications of medical or religious practice1 dress reform1 the politer aspects of socialism1 the encouragement of aeronautics1 universal military service1 garden suburbs1 domestic arts1 proportional representation1 duodecimal arithmetic1 and the liberation of the drama4 ,they range in size and importance from campaigns on a ,plessingtonian scale to sober little intellectual ,beckingham things that arrange to meet half yearly and die quietly before the second assembly4 ,if ,heaven by some miracle suddenly gave every ,movement in ,london all it professed to want1 our world would be standing on its head and everything would be extremely unfamiliar and disconcerting4 ,but1 as ,mr4 ,roosevelt once remarked1 the justifying thing about life is the effort and not the goal1 and few ,movements involve any real and impassioned struggle to get to the ostensible object4 ,they exist as an occupation2 they exercise the intellectual and moral activities without undue disturbance of the normal routines of life4 ,in the days when everybody was bicycling an ingenious mechanism called ,hacker's home bicycle used to be advertised4 ,hacker's home bicycle was a stand bearing small rubber wheels1 upon which one placed one's bicycle 7properly equipped with a cyclometer7 in such a way that it could be mounted and ridden without any sensible forward movement whatever4 ,in bad weather1 or when the state of the roads made cycling abroad disagreeable1 ,hacker's home bicycle could be placed in front of an open window and ridden furiously for any length of time4 ,whenever the rider tired1 he could descend--comfortably at home again--and examine the cyclometer to see how far he had been4 ,in exactly the same way the ordinary ,london ,movement gives scope for the restless and progressive impulse in human nature without the risk of personal entanglements or any inconvenient disturbance of the milieu4#aa ,to accomplish a cure1 or at least to obtain a diagnosis of the evil1 ,mr4 ,wells resorts to a curious expedient which he suggested first in his ,modern ,utopia1 where he laid down as one of the rules of his new order of ,samurai that a man who aspired to be a leader of men should for a week every year go off into the desert and live absolutely alone1 without books or other distractions to keep him from thinking4 ,but in ,marriage ,mr4 ,wells improves upon this plan1 for ,trafford and his wife go into the wilds of ,labrador together4 ,how sweet is solitude1 as the ,irishman said1 when you have your sweetheart with you4 ,so1 indeed1 they found it1 and in their fight with cold1 starvation1 and wild beasts they learned how to found their love upon mutual comprehension and respect1 and made of their marriage a true union4 ,the change of heart which ,trafford experiences is not altogether unlike what ,christians call conversion4 ,his line of argument1 or1 more properly speaking1 development of thought1 finds expression in fragmentary sentences muttered in the delirium of fever1 a ,freudian emergence of fundamental feelings1 as in the following passage3 ,of course1 he said1 ,i said it--or somebody said it--about this collective mind being mixed with other things4 ,it's something arising out of life--not the common stuff of life4 ,an exhalation4 444 ,it's like the little tongues of fire that came at ,pentecost4444 ,queer how one comes drifting back to these images4 ,perhaps ,i shall die a ,christian yet4444 ,the other ,christians won't like me if ,i do4 ,what was ,i saying8444 ,it's what ,i reach up to1 what ,i desire shall pervade me1 not what ,i am4 ,just as far as ,i give myself purely to knowledge1 to making feeling and thought clear in my mind and words1 to the understanding and expression of the realities and relations of life1 just so far do ,i achieve salvation4444 ,salvation6444 ,i wonder is salvation the same for every one8 ,perhaps for one man salvation is research and thought1 and for another expression in art1 and for another nursing lepers4 ,provided he does it in the spirit4 ,he has to do it in the spirit4444 ,this flame that arises out of life1 that redeems life from purposeless triviality1 isn't life4 ,let me get hold of that4 ,that's a point4 ,that's a very important point4 ,this passage from ,marriage showed that in #aiab ,wells's thought was entering upon a new phase1 considerably in advance of that revealed in his ,first and ,last ,things4 ,he seemed to be working toward some sort of belief in ,god1 a ,bergsonian ,god1 struggling upward in spite of and by means of inert matter and recalcitrant humanity4 ,it would indeed be queer to find ,wells not only among the prophets1 but among the ,christian prophets1 and1 as he intimates1 some of the other ,christians would not like it4 ,wells's catholicity of sympathy recognizes no limitations of race4 ,he has an abhorrence for race prejudice of every kind4 ,the greatest blot he found upon ,american civilization was our ill treatment of the negro4#ab ,in his article on ,race ,prejudice he puts it foremost among the evils of the age but even his anticipations could not conceive of such an insensate revival of racial animosity between civilized nations as the ,great ,war has1 brought about3 ,knight errantry is as much a part of a wholesome human being as falling in love or self-assertion1 and therein lies one's hope for mankind4 ,nearly every one1 ,i believe--,i've detected the tendency in old cheats even and disreputable people of all sorts--is ready to put in a little time and effort in dragon-slaying now and then1 and if any one wants a creditable dragon to write against1 talk against1 study against1 subscribe against1 work against1 ,i am convinced they can find no better one--that is to say1 no worse one--than ,race ,prejudice4 ,i am convinced myself that there is no more evil thing in this present world than ,race ,prejudice2 none at all4 ,i write deliberately--it is the worst single thing in life now4 ,it justifies and holds together more baseness1 cruelty and abomination than any other sort of error in the world4 ,through its body runs the black blood of coarse lust1 suspicion1 jealousy and persecution and all the darkest poisons of the human soul4 ,it is this much like the dragons of old1 that it devours youth1 spoils life1 holds beautiful people in shame and servitude1 and desolates wide regions4 ,it is a monster begotten of natural instincts and intellectual confusion1 to be fought against by all men of good intent1 each in our own dispersed modern manner doing his fragmentary1 inestimable share4 ,the abolition of hatred between castes and classes and countries1 the growth of toleration and extension of coperation1 the improvement of education1 and the advancement of science1 are what will lead toward his ideal4 ,and his ideal is that of an evolutionist1 the opportunity for continuous growth4 ,he has exp rest it best1 perhaps1 in ,the ,food of the ,gods1 in the speech of one of the new race of giants1 of supermen1 to his fellows as they are about to give battle to the community of ordinary people determined to destroy them3 ,it is not that we would oust the little people from the world in order that we1 who are no more than one step upward from their littleness1 may hold their world forever4 ,it is the step we fight for and not ourselves4444 ,we are here1 ,brothers1 to what end8 ,to serve the spirit and the purpose that has been breathed into our lives4 ,we fight not for ourselves--for we are but the momentary hands and eyes of the ,life of the ,world4 ,through us and through the little folk the ,spirit looks and learns4 ,from us by word and birth and act it must pass--to still greater lives4 ,this earth is no resting place2 this earth is no playing place1 else indeed we might put our throats to the little people's knife1 having no greater right to live than they4 ,and they in their turn might yield to the ants and vermin4 ,we fight not for ourselves but for growth1 growth that goes on forever4 ,to-morrow1 whether we live or die1 growth will conquer through us4 ,that is the law of the spirit forevermore4 ,to grow according to the will of ,god6 ,to grow out of these cracks and crannies1 out of these shadows and darknesses1 into greatness and the light6 ,greater1 he said1 speaking with slow deliberation1 greater1 my ,brothers6 ,and then--still greater4 ,to grow and again--to grow4 ,to grow at last into the fellowship and understanding of ,god4 ,the ,great ,war has inspired or at least instigated many works of fiction already1 but the best of these1 in my opinion1 is ,wells's ,mr4 ,britling ,sees ,it ,through4 ,it does not deal much with the fighting at the front4 ,the author is chiefly concerned with another aspect of the war1 its effect upon the psychology of the ,englishman4 ,the book is divided into two parts2 the first half is light1 carefree and amusing after the manner of ,wells's earlier romances2 the other half is darkened by the war cloud and is written with more emotional power than he has hitherto shown4 ,knowing ,wells's habit of introducing autobiographical details into his romances1 we inevitably surmise that ,mr4 ,britling is himself4 ,mr4 ,britling is a writer whom lots of people found interesting and stimulating1 and a few found seriously exasperating4 ,he had ideas in the utmost profusion about races and empires and social order and political institutions and gardens and automobiles and the future of ,india and ,china and esthetics and ,america and the education of mankind in general4444 ,and all that sort of thing4 ,this certainly reads like ,wells's repertory of ideas4 ,and to make the resemblance closer ,mr4 ,britling writes a pamphlet1 ,and ,now ,war ,ends1 shortly after the war began--just as ,mr4 ,wells wrote ,the ,war ,that ,will ,end ,war4 ,several of the characters are recognizable as ,mr4 ,wells' neighbors4 ,at any rate we may be sure that the book reveals the changing moods not only of the author but of every thinking ,englishman as the enormity1 the awfulness1 the all-pervasiveness of the war became slowly realized in the course of many months4 ,as a contrast to his typical ,englishman ,mr4 ,wells brings in an ,american1 handled with more skill than ,british writers usually show in dealing with ,american psychology4 ,the delight of his ,mr4 ,direck at the recognition of the scenes and customs he had known from history and novels is well presented3 ,the ,thames1 when he sallied out to see it1 had been too good to be true1 the smallest thing in rivers he had ever seen1 and he had had to restrain himself from affecting a marked accent and accosting some passerby with the question1 ,say6 ,but is this little wet ditch here the ,historical ,river ,thames8 ,in ,america1 it must be explained1 ,mr4 ,direck spoke a very good and careful ,english indeed1 but he now found the utmost difficulty in controlling his impulse to use a high-pitched nasal drone and indulge in dry ,americanisms and poker metaphors upon all occasions4 ,when people asked him questions he wanted to say ,yep or ,sure1 words he would no more have used in ,america than he could have used a bowie knife4 ,but he had a sense of rle4 ,he wanted to be just exactly what he supposed an ,englishman would expect him to be4 ,every ,american tourist in ,england has felt this temptation4 ,he also has the experience ascribed by ,mr4 ,wells to his ,american of finding that ,england on closer acquaintance is not so antiquated as she looks4 ,when asked what his impression of ,england is ,mr4 ,direck answers3 ,that it looks and feels more like the traditional ,old ,england than any one could possibly have believed1 and that in reality it is less like the traditional ,old ,england than any one would ever possibly have imagined4 ,i thought when ,i looked out of the train this morning that ,i had come to the ,england of ,washington ,irving4 ,i find that it is not even the ,england of ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward4 ,to complete this study of national psychology there is also a ,german in the family circle at first1 a tutor whose hobbies are ,ido and internationalism and a universal index1 traits drawn from ,professor ,ostwald apparently4 ,he is not caricatured but we suspect that like ,mr4 ,direck1 the ,american1 ,herr ,heinrich is affected by ,british expectations and appears more ,german than he is4 ,the book rechoes all the passions of the war1--love1 hatred1 courage1 despair1 meanness1 sacrifice1 heroism1 selfishness1 stoicism and mad wrath1--but ends upon a clear religious tone such as has been heard but faintly in any work of ,mr4 ,wells before4 ,what ,mr4 ,britling sees through is not the war1 for nobody can yet see so far as that1 but he sees through the doubt and turmoil of his own mind and finds internal peace in the midst of warfare4 ,when he sits down to write a letter to the parents of ,heinrich1 who like his own son had fallen in ,france1 his mind is torn by conflicting emotions1 but finally these are resolved into one common chord and he writes3 ,religion is the first thing and the last thing1 and until a man has found ,god and been found by ,god1 he begins at no beginning1 he works to no end4 ,he may have his friendships1 his partial loyalties1 his scraps of honor4 ,but all these things fall into place and life falls into place only with ,god4 ,only with ,god4 ,god1 who fights through men against ,blind ,force and ,night and ,non-,existence2 who is the end1 who is the meaning4 ,he is the only ,king4444 ,of course ,i must write about ,him4 ,i must tell all my world of ,him4 ,and before the coming of the true ,king1 the inevitable ,king1 the ,king who is present whenever just men foregather1 this bloodstained rubbish of the ancient world1 these puny kings and tawdry emperors1 these wily politicians and artful lawyers1 these men who claim and grab and trick and compel1 these war makers and oppressors1 will presently shrivel and pass--like paper thrust into a flame4 ,our sons have shown us ,god4 ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,wells ,the curious thing about ,h4 ,g4 ,wells is his diversity4 ,for a person of any intellectual consistency it is impossible thoroughly to appreciate him in certain moods without disliking him in others4 ,he is the stern moralist of ,the ,sleeper ,awakes1 the detached and exquisite artist of ,thirty ,strange ,stories and ,tales of ,space and ,time1 the genial and conciliatory sociologist of ,new ,worlds for ,old1 the intolerant ,imperialist of ,anticipations1 the subtle anti-moralist of ,the ,new ,machiavelli and ,ann ,veronica1 the sympathetic if somewhat cynical portrayer of the shop-keeping classes of ,mr4 ,polly and ,the ,wheels of ,chance1 the vague philosopher at large of ,first and ,last ,things1 the imaginative rationalist of ,a ,modern ,utopia1 the ,jules-,vernish romancer of ,the ,war of ,worlds and ,the ,first ,men in the ,moon1 the scientific transcendentalist of ,the ,food of the ,gods1 and in addition he seriously chronicles ,floor ,games with his boys and takes interest in fugitive essays on modern warfare and ,the ,misery of ,boots4 ,unless one is alien to everything human 7and superhuman71 it is impossible to escape being interested in at least some of these4 ,wells's philosophy is1 as ,i have said1 expressed symbolically in many of his stories4 ,it is most fully explained in ,first and ,last ,things3 ,a ,confession of ,faith and a ,rule of ,life 7,putnam71 and in the two essays previously referred to1 ,scepticism of the ,instrument 7in ,a ,modern ,utopia7 and ,the ,discovery of the ,future1 first published in ,nature1 ,february #f1 #aijb1 and in the ,report of the ,smithsonian ,institution1 #aijb1 and later in book form 7,huebsch1 ,new ,york1 #aiac74 ,his sociological studies comprise the following volumes3 ,anticipations 7#aija1 ,harper71 ,mankind in the ,making 7#aijc1 ,scribner71 ,a ,modern ,utopia 7#aijd1 ,scribner71 ,the ,future in ,america 7#aijf1 ,harper71 ,new ,worlds for ,old 7#aijh1 ,macmillan71 ,socialism and the ,great ,state1 with the collaboration of fourteen other authors 7#aiaa1 ,harper71 ,social ,forces in ,england and ,america 7#aiad1 ,harper71 published in ,england under the title ,an ,englishman ,looks at the ,world 7,cassell71 ,the ,war ,that ,will ,end ,war 7#aiae71 ,what ,is ,coming8 7#aiaf1 ,macmillan71 ,italy1 ,france and ,britain at ,war 7#aiag1 ,macmillan71 and ,god the ,invisible ,king 7#aiag1 ,macmillan74 ,his short stories have been collected in several different volumes1 in part overlapping3 ,thirty ,strange ,stories 7#ahih1 ,harper71 ,tales of ,time and ,space 7#ahii1 ,doubleday71 ,twelve ,stories and a ,dream 7#aijc1 ,scribner71 ,the ,plattner ,story and ,others 7#ahig1 ,macmillan71 ,the ,stolen ,bacillus and ,other ,incidents 7#ahie1 ,macmillan74 ,eight of the best of his short stories 7including ,the ,star1 ,armageddon and ,the ,country of the ,blind7 are published in a sumptuous edition with ,coburn's photographic illustrations by ,mitchell ,kennerley 7,the ,door in the ,wall and ,other ,stories1 #aiaa74 ,his romances include3 ,the ,time ,machine 7#ahie1 ,holt71 ,the ,wonderful ,visit 7#ahie71 ,the ,island of ,dr4 ,moreau 7#ahif1 ,duffield71 ,the ,war of the ,worlds 7#ahih1 ,harper71 ,the ,invisible ,man 7#ahig1 ,harper71 ,the ,sea-,lady 7#aijb7 ,the ,first ,men in the ,moon 7#aija71 ,when the ,sleeper ,wakes 7#ahii1 ,harper71 rewritten 7#aiaa7 as ,the ,sleeper ,awakes 7,nelson1 ,london71 ,in the ,days of the ,comet 7#aijf1 ,century71 ,the ,food of the ,gods 7#aijd1 ,scribner71 ,the ,war in the ,air 7#aijh1 ,macmillan71 ,the ,world ,set ,free 7#aiad1 ,macmillan74 ,his novels fall naturally into two classes3 first those of a lighter and humorous character3 ,the ,wheels of ,chance 7#ahif1 ,macmillan71 ,love and ,mr4 ,lewisham 7#aijj1 ,stokes71 ,kipps 7#aijf1 ,scribner71 ,the ,history of ,mr4 ,polly 7#aiaj1 ,duffield71 ,bealby 7#aiae1 ,macmillan71 ,boon etc4 7#aiae1 ,doran74 ,his longer and more serious novels are3 ,ann ,veronica 7#aiji1 ,harper71 ,the ,new ,machiavelli 7#aiaj1 ,duffield71 ,tono-,bungay 7#aijh1 ,duffield71 ,marriage 7,duffield71 ,the ,passionate ,friends 7#aiac1 ,harper71 ,the ,wife of ,sir ,isaac ,harmon 7#aiad1 ,macmillan71 ,the ,research ,magnificent 7#aiae1 ,macmillan71 ,mr4 ,britling ,sees ,it ,through 7#aiaf1 ,macmillan74 ,to these we must add some early works3 a ,textbook on ,biology in two volumes 7#ahib7 and two volumes of essays1 ,select ,conversations with an ,uncle 7#ahie1 ,saalfield7 and ,certain ,personal ,matters 7#ahig74 ,he has1 like ,stevenson1 devoted much attention to devising floor games for children and has published two books upon it3 ,floor ,games and ,little ,wars 7,small1 ,maynard74 ,wells still awaits his ,boswell1 but we have ,the ,world of ,h4 ,g4 ,wells by ,van ,wyck-,brooks 7#aiae1 ,kennerley71 a lively and appreciative critique1 and ,h4 ,g4 ,wells1 ,a ,biography and a ,critical ,estimate of his ,work by ,j4 ,d4 ,beresford 7#aiae1 ,holt71 still briefer1 equally interesting1 and containing a list of his writings to date4 ,an autobiographical sketch was written for the ,russian edition of his works 7#aiji7 and published in ,t4 ,p4's ,magazine 7#aiab74 ,of magazine articles and critiques the following have for one reason or another special interest3 ,les ,ides de ,wells sur l',humanit future by ,charles ,duguet in ,revue des ,ides1 #aijh4 ,wells by ,chesterton in ,american ,magazine1 vol4 #ga1 p4 #cb 7#aiaj74 ,wells and his ,point of ,view in ,catholic ,world1 vol4 #ia 7four articles1 #aiaj74 ,wells and ,bergson by ,p4 ,e4 ,b4 ,jourdain in ,hibbert ,journal1 vol4 #aj1 p4 #hce1 ,july1 #aiab4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells et la ,pense contemporaine by ,ren ,leguy in ,mercure de ,france 7#aiab74 ,the contributions of ,mr4 ,wells to current magazines and newspapers are too numerous to enumerate1 but ,i must not omit the two articles on ,socialism which he contributed to ,the ,independent1 ,october #be and ,november #c1 #aijf1 and an article on ,the ,nature of ,love 7,the ,independent1 ,august #ac1 #aijh74 #a ,see ,major ,prophets of ,to-day1 p4 #bcb4 #b ,heretics1 by ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton1 p4 #he4 #c ,in the ,days of the ,comet1 by ,h4 ,g4 ,wells4 ,new ,york3 ,the ,century ,company4 #d ,the ,world ,set ,free4 #e ,from ,wells's ,anticipations4 #f ,from ,kellermann's account of the ,battle of ,loos4 #g ,it would be interesting to learn where ,wells happened to get hold of the idea that time is the fourth dimension of reality and how much he knew then of the history of the conception4 ,he could not1 at any rate1 for all his prophetic powers1 have foreseen the important part it was to play in scientific thought and metaphysical speculation in the coming century4 ,lorentz1 ,einstein and ,minkowski have incorporated it into their new theory of relativity which threatens to abolish the ether and to make mass a variable1 dependent on velocity4 ,our ordinary ,euclidean or three dimensional space would thus be a cross-section at a certain time4 7,see ,the ,time-,space ,manifold of ,relativity1 by ,edwin ,b4 ,wilson and ,g4 ,n4 ,lewis1 in ,proceedings of the ,american ,academy of ,arts and ,sciences1 ,november1 #aiab47 ,heinrich ,czolbe in #ahge brought forward the theory 7see ,mller1 ,archiv fr systematische ,philosophie1 ,,xvii1 p4 #ajf71 and ,lotze discusses it in his ,microcosmos4 ,bergson's philosophy is based upon the distinction he draws between psychological duration and the physical treatment of time as a kind of space4 ,professor ,pitkin of ,columbia criticizes ,wells's time-machine from the metaphysical standpoint in ,time and ,pure ,activity 7,journal ,philosophy1 ,psychology and ,scientific ,methods1 ,vol4 ii1 ,no4 #ai74 #h ,boon1 ,the ,mind of the ,race1 ,the ,wild ,asses of the ,devil1 and ,the ,last ,trump4 ,being a ,first ,selection from the ,literary ,remains of ,george ,boon1 ,appropriate to the ,times4 ,prepared for ,publication by ,reginald ,bliss1 with an ,ambiguous ,introduction by ,h4 ,g4 ,wells4 7,doran1 #aiae47 #i ,he has given three statements of his views on this point3 ,first1 in an article1 ,rediscovery of the ,unique1 in ,fortnightly ,review1 ,july1 #ahia2 second1 in a paper read to the ,oxford ,philosophical ,society and published in ,mind1 ,,xiii1 ,no4 #ea1 and as an appendix to ,a ,modern ,utopia2 and1 third1 in ,book ,i of ,first and ,last ,things4 #aj ,logic1 ,m4 ,bergson and ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells1 by ,philip ,e4 ,b4 ,jourdain in ,hibbert ,journal1 ,x1 p4 #hce4 #aa ,marriage1 ,duffield and ,company1 #aiab4 #ab ,see ,the ,tragedy of ,color1 chapter xii of ,the ,future in ,america1 and his article on ,race ,prejudice1 in ,the ,independent of ,february #ad1 #aijg4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,g4 ,k4 ,,chesterton ,knight ,errant of ,orthodoxy ,the central truth to be uttered about ,mr4 ,chesterton is that he is the greatest prophet of our generation4 ,he is as great as ,tolstoy or ,ibsen4 ,it may seem rash to set him beside these great prophets1 but time will ratify my rashness4 ,a prophet is a man of genius with a spiritual message for his age4 ,the spiritual message delivered by ,mr4 ,chesterton is mightier than any other sounding in our ears4 ,he is a bigger man than ,maeterlinck or ,bergson1 though we know it not4 ,as a prophet he is larger in every way than ,mr4 ,shaw or ,mr4 ,wells or ,mr4 ,arnold ,bennett1 because he deals with the soul1 whereas they deal with the soul's environment4 ,they deal with man as a social animal4 ,he deals with man as a spiritual being4 ,our failure to salute the prophet is complete1 and it is emphasized by our failure to perceive that he is the authentic voice of that ,english soul which is now wrestling with the ,teutonic soul for the soul of the world4 ,he is the soul of ,england4--,james ,douglas in the ,observer1 #aiaf4 ,can a journalist have a philosophy of life1 and if so would it be worth talking about8 ,in answer to the first question ,i shall quote ,chesterton to the effect that everybody has a philosophy1 even generals and journalists4 ,to prove the affirmative of the second ,i shall present1 as ,exhibit ,b1 the whole body of ,chesterton's works4 ,perhaps the most heretical passage of his book on ,heretics was that which begins3 ,but there are some people1 nevertheless--and ,i am one of them--who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe4 ,we think that for a landlady considering a lodger1 it is important to know his income1 but still more important to know his philosophy4 ,we think that for a general about to fight an enemy1 it is important to know the enemy's numbers1 but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy4 ,we think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters1 but whether1 in the long run1 anything else affects them4 ,like many other things in ,chesterton's works this does not sound so heretical now as when it was written1 about the time when the weary old world had finished ,chapter ,,xix of the second volume of his history and had turned over the page in hopes of finding something new and exciting in ,chapter ,,xx--and found it4 ,chesterton's countrymen then were keeping careful count of ,germany's soldiers and ships1 but they were contentedly ignorant of ,german philosophy4 ,but as soon as the war broke out they began with feverish haste to translate and study ,treitschke1 ,nietzsche1 ,bernhardi1 and any other books which might throw light upon the ,german ,weltanschauung1 but which in the leisurely days of peace they had no time to read4 ,it is convenient to compare ,shaw and ,chesterton because they are antithetic in temperament and opinion and represent two opposite currents of modern thought4 ,shaw stands for the earlier rationalistic1 socialistic revolt against the conventions of society4 ,chesterton stands for the later conservative reaction to all this1 for ecclesiasticism1 nationalism1 and traditionalism4 ,shaw is a vegetarian and teetotaler4 ,chesterton is quite the opposite2 he champions the public house as a good old ,english institution4 ,shaw is a suffragist2 ,chesterton is dead set against anything of the kind4 ,shaw came from the most pronounced ,protestant stock1 the ,ulster kind1 and1 as we can see from his introduction to ,androcles and the ,lion1 he has constructed a sort of religion for himself1 though he could hardly be accounted orthodox4 ,chesterton is a ,catholic1 though of the ,anglican rather than the ,roman variety1 a champion of orthodoxy1 and a defender of all forms of ritualism and medievalism4 ,chesterton makes it his business to find a logical basis for popular traditions1 customs1 and superstitions which have always been regarded as purely irrational and arbitrary even by those who liked them and defended them as poetic and conforming to a deeper reality than that of reason4 ,shaw is always showing how absurd and illogical are the soundest axioms and the most unquestioned platitudes1 whether of orthodox conservative or orthodox revolutionary thought4 ,chesterton discovers new reasons in things2 ,shaw discovers new unreasons in things4 ,chesterton appears in the capacity of permanent minority leader4 ,but this is in respect to that really small minority of professional writers1 speakers1 and agitators who set the fashions for the ,zeitgeist4 ,actually he has the backing of the great inarticulate immobile mass of the people4 ,chesterton has discovered how to be witty though orthodox4 ,but his orthodoxy is so extreme that it seems heterodoxy to most of us4 ,perhaps that accounts for his success in making it sound paradoxical4 ,as ,wesley determined that the devil had no right to all the pretty music1 so ,chesterton determined that the iconoclasts should not monopolize all the cleverness4 ,his originality consists in his genius for turning platitudes into epigrams4 ,he can put the most unquestioned axiom in a way to shock the world4 ,if he is right in what he says in his books on ,watts that there is only one thing that requires real courage to say and that is a truism1 ,chesterton must be the bravest man alive4 ,but even he finds it necessary to promulgate his truisms in the disguise of sensational novelties4 ,chesterton's ideal is a complete democracy1 not merely democracy in politics but democracy in science1 religion1 literature1 sport1 and art4 ,if you say this is impracticable he doubtless would retort that it was the essence of an ideal to be impracticable1 otherwise it would be confounded with dull reality4 ,he always champions the opinion of the many against that of the few1 the laymen against the expert4 ,once men sang together round a table in chorus2 now one man sings alone1 for the absurd reason that he can sing better4 ,if scientific civilization goes on 7which is most improbable7 only one man will laugh because he can laugh better than the rest4--,heretics4 ,it was absurd to say that ,waterloo was won on ,eton cricket fields4 ,but it might have fairly been said that ,waterloo was won on the village green1 where clumsy boys played a very clumsy cricket4 444 ,it is a good sign in a nation when such things are done badly4 ,it shows that all the people are doing them4 ,and it is a bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well1 for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them and that the nation is merely looking on4--,all ,things ,considered4 ,on this ground he hated ,germany even before the war1 as a nation ruled by experts4 ,he denounced its workingmen's insurance1 its governmental efficiency1 its higher criticism1 and the like4 ,i am all for ,german fantasy1 but ,i will resist ,german earnestness till ,i die4 ,i am all for ,grimm's ,fairy ,tales2 but if there is such a thing as ,grimm's ,law1 ,i would break it if ,i knew what it was4#a ,it is on the basis of democracy that he defends religion3 ,that ,christianity is identical with democracy is the hardest of gospels3 there is nothing that so strikes men with fear as that they are all sons of ,god4--,twelve ,types4 ,it is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time4 ,it is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record4 ,the man who quotes some ,german historian against the tradition of the ,catholic ,church1 for instance1 is strictly appealing to aristocracy4 ,he is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob4 ,it is quite easy to see why a legend is treated and ought to be treated more respectfully than a book of history4 ,the legend is generally made by the majority of people in a village1 who are sane4 ,the book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad4444 ,if we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when dealing with daily matters1 there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable4 ,tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise4 ,tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes--our ancestors4 ,it is the democracy of the dead4444 ,democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion1 even if he is our groom3 tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion1 even if he is our father4--,orthodoxy4 ,i expect some time to find ,chesterton defending the ,trinity on the ground that it is more democratic than ,mohammedan monotheism1 a sort of commission government extended to the universe4 ,chesterton has the true artist's love for the individual and the concrete4 ,he delights in clear outlines and bright colors4 ,he thinks in pictures4 ,i have never seen any of his painting1 but he must have the color sense strongly developed4 ,he will halt in a stern chase or in the height of an argument to describe a sunset with the most chromatic language at his command4 ,he studied art at the ,slade ,school in ,london1 and although he was soon switched off into journalism he still reverts to the pencil on occasion4 ,he has supplied the illustrations to three of ,belloc's books2 ,the ,great ,enquiry1 ,the ,green ,overcoat1 and ,emmanuel ,burden4#b ,the last1 a satire on imperialistic financiering1 is one of the cleverest pieces of irony to be found in all literature1 but it raises the question of whether the ironical tone can be sustained through a whole volume without a decline of interest4 ,when the question of illustration arose ,chesterton sent out for a bundle of wrapping paper1 and in the course of one evening drew all of the portraits in the book as well as a lot that were not used4 ,for the understanding of ,chesterton's romances it is necessary to remember that the more non-sensical they seem1 the more sense they have in them4 ,this is because when he gets blinded by a big idea he sees men as concepts walking4 ,he is too much of a ,platonist to be a good novelist4 ,he admires ,dickens but never imitates him1 for ,chesterton's stories are singularly devoid of individuals4 ,all the little variations and accidental peculiarities that make a type into a person in the great novels of the world are lacking4 ,in ,the ,ball and the ,cross ,mac ,ian is simply the archetype of the ,catholic ,romanticist and ,turnbull of the ,revolutionary ,rationalist4 ,neither of them ever does anything out of character1 but then neither of them has any character outside of the ,idea that made them what they are4 ,each falls in love with a girl of the opposite type1 drawn to scale4 ,this is carried farther yet by the introduction of an incredibly consistent ,tolstoyan and a ,nietzschean beside whom ,nietzsche would seem all too human4 ,thus the whole book is balanced and matched like old-fashioned wall paper or an ,italian garden4 ,manalive comes closer to being real4 ,he certainly is alive1 but he is not a man2 he is an ideal1 ,chesterton's superman4 ,all habits are bad habits is the text of ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton's ,manalive1 which proved as delightful to his admirers and distasteful to his antipathists as any of his former productions4 ,in his essays ,mr4 ,chesterton's method is first to set down something that sounds like a wild absurdity and then to argue the reader into the admission--cheerful or indignant1 according to his temperament--that it is a very sensible thing after all4 ,in his romances his method is essentially the same4 ,nobody could act crazier than ,mr4 ,innocent ,smith in the first chapters of this volume1 but in the end he is proved1 by a long legal process1 to be the only really sane man of the lot4 ,he is accused of about as many crimes as the hero of ,jokai's tale1 ,the ,death's ,head1 confessed to1 but he turns out to be quite as guiltless4 ,charges of murder1 burglary1 bigamy1 and kidnaping1 amply certificated1 slip off him like water off a duck's back4 ,neither prison nor asylum can hold ,manalive4 ,smith's theory is that if you keep the commandments1 you may violate the conventions2 which1 being the reverse of the ordinary rule of procedure1 gets him into all sorts of misunderstandings4 ,he had evidently read ,schopenhauer's theory that the only happiness is the pursuit of happiness1 and1 what is more1 he acts upon it by letting go what he most delights in that he may recapture it4 ,he goes round the world in search of his own home1 and his series of amorous adventures are conducted in strict accord with monogamous morality4 ,by getting outside of himself he can gain the joy of coveting his own possessions4 ,the economic law of diminishing returns applies to all our habitual pleasures1 and to escape it we must be continually seeking new investments4 ,so ,manalive is distinguished from ordinary men in that he has legs that he uses4 ,he is not rooted4 ,he breaks out and runs around and discovers the most novel and wonderful things in the most commonplace environment4 ,mr4 ,chesterton is as fond of a chase as a fox hunter or a kinetoscope man4 ,we have it in ,manalive as we have it in ,the ,man ,who ,was ,thursday and ,the ,ball and the ,cross4 ,as usual he stops every little while and paints a cloudscape to rest our eyes2 and all along he enlivens the way by epigrams and inverted proverbs4 ,here are a few3 ,when men are weary they fall into anarchy2 but when they are gay and vigorous they invariably make rules4 ,we are never free until some institution frees us2 and liberty cannot exist until it is declared by authority4 ,for she was one of those women who at bottom regard all men as equally mad1 wild animals of some utterly separate species4 ,though she never spoke she always looked as if she might speak any minute4 ,perhaps this is the very definition of a companion4 ,all that the parsons say is unproved4 ,all that the doctors say is disproved4 ,that's the only difference between science and religion there's ever been or ever will be4 ,the academic mind reflects infinity1 and is full of light by the simple process of being shallow and standing still4 ,with our weak spirits we should grow old in eternity1 if we were not kept young by death4 ,providence has to cut immortality into lengths for us1 as nurses cut the bread and butter into fingers4 ,the most fantastic and therefore characteristic of ,chesterton's romances is ,the ,man ,who ,was ,thursday which the ,french are able more concisely to entitle ,nomm ,jeudi4 ,the author calls it ,a ,nightmare1 and it is4 ,the only books to compare with it are ,george ,macdonald's ,lilith1 ,strindberg's ,dream ,plays1 and ,andreyev's ,masked ,ball2 but for wild imagining1 grotesquerie1 farcicality1 and swift transformations it cannot be matched4 ,it is a detective story1 a motion-picture chase1 and a system of theology1 all in one4 ,like all dreams1 according to ,freud1 it is symbolic1 but the symbolism is not to be interpreted in the usual ,freudian way1 for ,chesterton is clean-minded4 ,the clue to it is to be found in his earliest book of essays1 ,the ,defendant1 when he argues for the moral value of the detective story in the following fashion3 ,by dealing with the unsleeping sentinels who guard the outposts of society1 it tends to remind us that we live in an armed camp1 making war upon a chaotic world1 and that the criminals1 the children of chaos1 are nothing but traitors within our gates4 ,the detective1 he says1 who stands alone and fearless amid the knives and fists of a thieves' kitchen1 is the original and poetic figure1 and the criminals surrounding him represent cosmic conservatism4 ,but in ,the ,man ,who ,was ,thursday each one of the six detectives1 separately commissioned by the mysterious head of the secret police to enter the inner circle of seven anarchists1 believes himself to be fighting single-handed for law and order against a criminal conspiracy to destroy civilization4 ,the seven pseudo-anarchists go through all sorts of perilous and absurd adventures in the course of which they are metamorphosed successively into the seven days of the week1 the seven days of creation1 the seven orders of created things1 and the seven angels of heaven4 ,finally seated upon seven thrones1 robed in state1 blazoned--of course1 since it is ,chesterton--with heraldic devices1 they recognize one another as friends and allies through all their strange strife4 ,it reminds one of ,emerson's ,brahma3 ,if the red slayer thinks he slays4 ,but ,chesterton is too much of a ,manichean to let it go at that4 ,one of the anarchists turns out to be genuine1 the only real one in the world1 the irreconcilable rebel1 the ,eternal ,anarchist1 the spirit that continually denies1 the leader of ,his ,majesty's ,opposition4 ,in some ways ,chesterton's conception of the devil reminds one of ,andreyev's ,anathema or perhaps rather of the ,satan whom ,dostoievsky introduces into his ,brothers ,karamazarov4 ,chesterton's mind seems to have a curious affinity to the ,russian1 though so far as ,i remember his writings show no evidence of being influenced by ,russian literature4 ,the ,man ,who ,was ,thursday affects readers variously4 ,to some it seems ridiculous2 to others blasphemous4 ,julius ,west1 usually sympathetic1 dismisses it in his biography of ,chesterton as incomprehensible and tiresome4 ,yet three people ,i know--a man1 a woman1 and a child--consider it one of the most wonderful books in the world1 and know it almost by heart4 ,my own opinion is that it shows that ,chesterton has not yet found the true medium for the expression of his genius4 ,drawing and writing are too slow and cold to give scope to his pictorial imagination4 ,he should1 like ,d',annunzio1 take to the screen4 ,the ,man ,who ,was ,thursday would make a magnificent scenario as it stands1 and ,chesterton could then add all of the things he thought of or saw while composing it but could not put into words4 ,blake1 too1 was a man who would have done wonders with the cinematograph if it had only been invented sooner4 ,chesterton1 in his sketch of ,blake1 explains his difficulties of expression by word and picture3 ,how shall we manage to state in an obvious and alphabetical manner the ultimate query1 the primordial pivot on which the whole modern problem turns8 ,it cannot be done in long rationalistic words3 they convey by their very sound the suggestion of something subtle4 ,one must try to think of something in the way of a plain street metaphor or an obvious analogy4 ,for the thing is not too hard for human speech3 it is actually too obvious for human speech4 ,chesterton's theory of the use of symbolism1 even absurd symbolism1 is given in his ,defense of ,nonsense4 ,every great literature has always been allegorical--allegorical of some view of the whole universe4 ,the ,iliad is only great because all life is a battle1 the ,odyssey because all life is a journey1 the ,book of ,job because all life is a riddle4444 ,nonsense and faith 7strange as the conjunction may seem7 are the two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out the soul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw out ,leviathan with a hook4 ,chesterton at the beginning of his career wrote ,a ,defense of ,detective ,stories#c and he has since shown that he knows how to write them1 in the collections entitled ,the ,club of ,queer ,trades1 ,the ,innocence of ,father ,brown1 and ,the ,wisdom of ,father ,brown4 ,but they are different from ordinary detective stories not merely because a mild-mannered priest takes the place of ,sherlock ,holmes but more because they frequently have nothing to do with crime and all parties turn out1 as in ,thursday1 to have the best of intentions1 whatever their actions4 ,chesterton's method in these stories is much the same as he employs in his essays2 that is1 he piles up paradoxical impossibilities1 and then by some simple expedient resolves them into apparent reasonableness4 ,the author's obvious enjoyment of his own ingenuity adds to the reader's delight4 ,it would be interesting to know whether he has in mind the solution when he lays out the plot or whether he is not playing a game with himself like jackstraws1 pitting his skill as a disentangler against a muddle of his own making4 ,as an artist ,chesterton has always been attracted by the ,orient1 with its mystical fanaticisms1 its cruel colors1 and its unfamiliar habits of thought4 ,but while ,turkey is all very well at a distance1 ,turkey in ,europe is to him a distinct and horrible menace4 ,in ,the ,flying ,inn we have a story of ,mohammedan influence not only in ,europe but in ,england itself4 ,this novel is an allegory of the war between the sacred symbol of the cross and the sacred symbol of the crescent1 as ,chesterton has similarly related the struggle of the ,ball and the ,cross in his book of that name4 ,the champions of the crescent are ,misysra ,ammon1 the ,prophet of the ,moon1 and ,lord ,ivywood1 an eccentric nobleman1 a fanatic against the liquor traffic as the embodiment of ,christian custom as opposed to ,moslem4 ,misysra1 who is as fertile with impossible theories as with plausible arguments to support them1 maintains that ,england is ,mohammedan at heart and proves it in a hundred ways from the contempt with which the pig is popularly spoken of to the absence of any idolatrous animal or vegetable forms in modern cubist painting4 ,lord ,ivywood's persecution of the inn-keepers sends one of them adrift throughout the country carrying his inn-sign with him and accompanied by ,captain ,dalroy1 an athletic ,irishman who champions the cause of the cross4 ,so far we have a straight ,chesterton novel1 a symbolic theme variegated by satires on modern life4 ,but ,chesterton really seems uncertain that he aimed to write a prose novel at all1 for the book is plentifully interspersed with verses1 serious1 comic1 ironical1 militant1 in good meter and in bad1 till the novel takes on the not unpleasant appearance of a ,chesterton anthology of songs4 ,everybody who likes ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton has wished that he might be induced to follow the example of ,charles ,dickens and write a ,child's ,history of ,england4 ,when a literary man of wayward genius undertakes to interpret and record the story of his country the result is almost always worth while4 ,we do not get the white sunlight of impartiality1 but we get a beautiful rainbow of prejudices1 personal opinions1 and mystical insight4 ,chesterton has still to write us a complete ,english history1 but he has dealt faithfully with about a century and a half of it in ,the ,crimes of ,england4 ,it is due to him to say that the unhistorical character of the work is caused rather by partisan emphasis than by any inaccuracy of detail4 ,rarely if ever has ,chesterton written with such care for his facts1 and1 as for his transcendental interpretation of them1 he has as much warrant to philosophize as ,carlyle or ,taine or any other literary historian4 ,but one does tend to get the impression from the book that only ,prussians had ever incurred the scriptural curse on him who removes his neighbor's landmark4 ,for the crimes of ,england are really the crimes of ,prussia1 and ,england's guilt is summed up in the phrase that ,english politics has been devoted ever since the time of ,frederick the ,great to the belittlement of ,france and the gross exaggeration of ,germany4 ,chesterton denounces the part played by his country in the wars of ,frederick the ,great1 in the ,napoleonic struggles1 in the repression of ,ireland1 in tolerating ,bismarck's schemes of aggrandizement1 only to bring into darker relief the wickedness of the state which used ,england throughout all these years as a catspaw4 ,yet the indictment of ,england as ,prussia's accomplice is delivered in very sharp terms2 so far as ,chesterton shows bias it is pro-,french or pro-,irish rather than pro-,british4 ,he really believes that the war is an epic struggle between the old soul of ,christendom1 most clearly incarnated in the ,catholic nations1 and a blast of sinister materialism from the wastes and forests of ,brandenburg4 ,in this belief he writes not only seriously1 but soberly1 as befits the great hour1 and concludes his book with a vivid and moving description of the ,battle of the ,marne which has in it a world of eloquence and no cleverness at all4 ,the large volume of ,criticisms and ,appreciations of ,dickens is composed of his prefaces to the separate books of ,dickens4 ,although not so important a piece of work as ,chesterton's biography of ,dickens1 they are well worth bringing together in this way1 because they form not only a brilliant piece of literary interpretation1 but because they show that it is possible to write prefaces to the classics which will increase the desire to read the book instead of dampening one's ardor at the start with a mass of dry and trivial details of the author's life and environment4 ,chesterton has the first requisite of a good introducer1 an enthusiasm for his subject and a belief in the importance of his message for the times in which we live4 ,his comparison of ,dickens and ,thackeray1 if not quite fair1 has at least sufficient point to suggest thought4 ,thackeray has become classical2 but ,dickens has done more2 he has remained modern4 ,there was a painful moment 7somewhere about the eighties7 when we watched anxiously to see whether ,dickens was fading from the modern world4 ,we have watched a little longer1 and with great relief we begin to realize that it is the modern world that is fading4 ,all that universe of ranks and respectabilities in comparison with which ,dickens was called a caricaturist1 all that ,victorian universe in which he seemed vulgar--all that is itself--breaking up like a cloud-land4 ,and only the caricatures of ,dickens remain like things carved in stone4 ,but whether his medium is fiction1 criticism1 or editorial1 ,chesterton is always a moralist1 differing1 however1 from most moralists in that he is never prosy and never directs his preachments at obsolete evils and deceased sinners4 ,prose and poetry are such widely sundered fields that a reputation made in one does not carry over into the other4 ,when ,scott dropped poetry to take up novel writing he found it expedient to leave his name behind4 ,when ,kipling passed in the reverse direction from prose to poetry he had to cultivate a new clientle4 ,it is very amusing to hear two lovers of ,hardy or of ,meredith sing peans of praise to their favorite author in strophe and antistrophe until on descending from the general to the particular they discover that one was extolling the poet and the other the novelist and that each had never read1 or but lightly esteemed what the other most admired4 ,so while the essays and romances of ,gilbert ,keith ,chesterton reach thousands of readers week by week through the journals1 and are bought with avidity in volume form1 his poems are but little known to readers of his prose1 although they have1 ,i fancy1 a circle of their own4 ,yet no one can understand ,chesterton fully who ignores his verse1 for his thought1 expressed through this medium1 is seen from another angle and so gains solidity to the view4 ,chesterton1 like ,tennyson1 has taken one of ,england's legendary heroes as the theme of an epic by which to express his philosophy of life and his message to his age4 ,the stories of ,alfred he accepts as uncritically and handles as freely as ,tennyson did those of ,arthur1 but the poems resultant show not merely the difference between the authors1 but also1 in a way1 the difference between the past century and the present one1 the contrast between a faintly hopeful agnosticism and a robustious affirmation of faith4 ,in his ,alarms and ,discursions he has told us in prose of the impressions made upon him by his visit to the ,vale of the ,white ,horse and ,ethandune4 ,these he transmutes into poetry in ,the ,ballad of the ,white ,horse4#d ,in the beautiful dedication to his wife he gives her credit for having opened his eyes to the ,christian significance of the wars of ,alfred against the ,danes4 ,miss ,frances ,blogg1 whom he married in #aijj1 was described by one who knew her then as a conservative rebel against the conventions of the unconventional4 ,we may assume that it was largely through her influence that he was converted from youthful atheism to extremest orthodoxy4 ,i can quote only a few stanzas from this dedication although such fragments are distressing to those who know the whole and aggravating to those who do not4 ,lady1 by one light only ,we look from ,alfred's eyes1 ,we know he saw athwart the wreck ,the sign that hangs about your neck1 ,where ,one more than ,melchizedek ,is dead and never dies4 ,therefore ,i bring these rimes to you1 ,who brought the cross to me1 ,since on you flaming without flaw ,i saw the sign that ,guthrum saw ,when he let break his ships of awe1 ,and laid peace upon the sea4 ,do you remember when we went ,under a dragon moon1 ,and 'mid volcanic tints of night ,walked where they fought the unknown fight ,and saw black trees on the battle-height1 ,black thorn on ,ethandune8 ,and ,i thought ,i will go with you1 ,as man with ,god has gone1 ,and wander with a wandering star1 ,the wandering heart of things that are1 ,the fiery cross of love and war ,that like your self goes on4 ,o go you onward1 where you are ,shall honor and laughter be1 ,past purpled forest and pearled foam1 ,god's winged pavilion free to roam1 ,your face1 that is a wandering home1 ,a flying home to me4 99 99 99 99 99 ,up through an empty house of stars ,being what heart you are1 ,up the inhuman steeps of space ,as on a staircase go in grace1 ,carrying the firelight on your face ,beyond the loneliest star4 ,it is hard to carry the ballad meter through a whole volume without its growing monotonous4 ,chesterton's poetry1 like his prose1 should be taken in small doses4 ,the ,ballad of the ,white ,horse contains some wearisome stretches1 particularly in the most exciting parts1 the fights4 ,when ,i want real zest in blood letting and the enjoyment of hand to hand combat ,i should turn to ,percy's ,reliques1 or to ,homer4 ,my volume of the ,ballad opens easiest1 as it has opened oftenest1 at three passages4 ,the first is that where ,king ,alfred as a fugitive in the forest is set to mind the cakes and gets to musing1 not1 as we children used to be told1 about how to beat the ,danes1 but1 according to the ,chestertonian version1 about the ,christian view of the labor question4 ,as the old1 bent woman leaves the hut ,alfred wonders what shall become of such as she4 ,and well may ,god with the serving-folk ,cast in ,his dreadful lot3 ,is not ,he too a servant ,and is not ,he forgot8 ,for was not ,god my gardener ,and silent like a slave3 ,that opened oaks on the uplands ,or thicket in graveyard grave8 ,and was not ,god my armorer1 ,all patient and unpaid1 ,that sealed my skull as a helmet ,and ribs for hauberk made8 99 99 99 99 99 ,for ,god is a great servant ,and rose before the day1 ,from some primordial slumber torn2 ,but all things living later born ,sleep on1 and rise after the morn1 ,and the ,lord has gone away4 ,on things half sprung from sleeping1 ,all sleepy suns have shone2 ,they stretch stiff arms1 the yawning trees1 ,the beasts blink upon hands and knees1 ,man is awake and does and sees-- ,but ,heaven has done and gone4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but some see ,god like ,guthrum ,crowned1 with a great beard curled1 ,but ,i see ,god like a good giant1 ,that1 laboring1 lifts the world4 ,wherefore was ,god in ,golgotha1 ,slain as a serf is slain3 ,and hate ,he had of prince and peer1 ,and love ,he had and made good cheer ,of them that1 like this woman here1 ,go powerfully in pain4 ,but whether ,alfred pondered problems of war or labor the cakes got burnt just the same4 ,next ,i turn to the page where men come to ,alfred on the island of ,athelney and beg him to become the ruler of all ,england4 ,this gives ,chesterton a chance to expound his anti-imperialism4 ,and ,alfred in the orchard1 ,among apples green and red1 ,with the little book in his bosom1 ,looked at green leaves and said3 ,when all philosophies shall fail1 ,this word alone shall fit2 ,that a sage feels too small for life1 ,and a fool too large for it4 ,asia and all imperial plains ,are all too little for a fool3 ,but for one man whose eyes can see1 ,the little island of ,athelney ,is too large a land to rule4 99 99 99 99 99 ,an island like a little book1 ,full of a hundred tales1 ,like the gilt page the good monks pen ,that is all smaller than a wren1 ,yet hath high towers1 meteors and men1 ,and suns and spouting whales4 ,a land having a light in it1 ,in a river dark and fast1 ,an isle with utter1 clearness lit1 ,because a saint has stood in it1 ,where flowers are flowers indeed and fit1 ,and trees are trees at last4 ,as his men clear the weeds from the ,white ,horse that had ages before been cut upon the chalk bluff1 ,alfred has a vision of the day when the ancient symbol shall be again overgrown and forgotten and when a new and less manly kind of heathen than the ,danes shall overrun ,england3 ,i know that weeds shall grow in it ,faster than man can burn3 ,and though they scatter now and go1 ,in some far century1 sad and slow1 ,i have a vision1 and ,i know ,the heathen shall return4 ,they shall not come with war-ships1 ,they shall not waste with brands1 ,but books be all their eating1 ,and ink be on their hands4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the dear sun dwarfed of dreadful suns1 ,like fiercer flowers on stalk1 ,earth lost and little like a pea1 ,in high heaven's towering forestry --,these be the small weeds ye shall see ,crawl1 covering the chalk4 99 99 99 99 99 ,by terror and the cruel tales ,of curse in bone and kin1 ,by weird and weakness winning1 ,accursed from the beginning1 ,by detail of the sinning1 ,and denial of the sin3 ,by thought a crawling ruin1 ,by life a leaping mire1 ,by a broken heart in the breast of the world1 ,and the end of the world's desire3 ,by ,god and man dishonored1 ,by death and life made vain1 ,know ye the old barbarian1 ,the barbarian come again4 ,when is great talk of trend and tide1 ,and wisdom and destiny1 ,hail that undying heathen ,that is sadder than the sea4 ,in this specification of the marks of the ,beast we may recognize ,chesterton's antipathies2 materialism1 commercialism1 ,darwinism1 imperialism1 cosmopolitanism1 pacifism1 and ,socialism4 ,he is haunted by the same nightmare as ,samuel ,butler1 that the day may come when machines will master the world and men be merely their slaves4 ,for relief he looks to a revolution like the ,french ,revolution1 only worse4 ,chesterton is like the ,eton boys who1 after a debate over woman suffrage1 passed a unanimous resolution disapproving of the aim of the suffragettes but approving of their methods4 ,the socialists say we must have a revolution1 peaceful if possible4 ,chesterton would say1 we must have a revolution1 bloody if possible4 ,the guillotine1 he says somewhere1 had many sins to answer for1 but1 at least1 there was nothing evolutionary about it4 ,and he makes the ,english people say3 ,it may be we shall rise the last as ,frenchmen rose the first4 ,our wrath come after ,russia's wrath and our wrath be the worst4 ,like ,hilaire ,belloc and other ,neo-,catholics1 he manages somehow to combine an admiration for the ,french ,revolution with a devotion to ,catholicism4 ,they are ardent advocates of democracy notwithstanding the very explicit condemnations of popular government by the ,popes4 ,they are more inclined toward syndicalism than ,socialism and place their hopes in the peasant proprietorship instead of in the nationalized trust4 ,it is an interesting novelty in the labor problem1 for it cuts across the old classifications1 and ,i hope it will have a chance to develop into something concrete4 ,the similar movement in ,france1 the ,sillon of ,marc ,sangnier1 was crushed out by a papal encyclical in #aiab4 ,chesterton might be called an ,english ,sillonist1 and in a literal sense if we recall his essay on ,the ,furrows in ,alarms and ,discursions4 ,chesterton sometimes praises the achievements of modern science and industry1 but always as ingenious toys4 ,he is convinced that mankind in the mass will never take the city seriously4 ,when the rest of the world was looking for the advent of cosmopolitanism and the reign of peace1 the earth lapped in universal law and all the local idiosyncrasies ironed out1 wherein all obstacles to freedom of movement had been crushed out and one could buy a tourist ticket to ,timbuktu with the same accommodation all along the route1 ,chesterton set his bugle to his lips and blew a fanfare of audacious challenge to the spirit of the times in the form of a nonsensical romance1 ,the ,napoleon of ,notting ,hill4 ,in this he carries particularism to an extreme1 breaking up ,london again into warring wards1 each with its own banner and livery1 its gilds and folk ways4 ,the book is inscribed1 as we might expect1 to his friend1 ,hilaire ,belloc1 and ,i quote part of the dedication as it sums up the message of the volume and is strangely prophetic3 ,for every tiny town or place ,god made the stars especially3 ,babies look up with owlish face ,and see them tangled in a tree2 ,you saw a moon from ,sussex ,downs1 ,a ,sussex moon1 untraveled still4 ,i saw a moon that was the town's1 ,the largest lamp on ,campden ,hill4 ,yes1 ,heaven is everywhere at home1 ,the big blue cap that always fits1 ,and so it is 7be calm2 they come ,to goal at last1 my wandering wits71 ,so it is with the heroic thing ,this shall not end for the world's end1 ,and though the sullen engines swing1 ,be you not much afraid1 my friend4 ,this did not end by ,nelson's urn ,where an immortal ,england sits-- ,nor where your tall young men in turn ,drank death like wine at ,austerlitz4 ,and when the pedants bade us mark ,what cold mechanic happenings ,must come2 our souls said in the dark1 ,belike2 but there are likelier things4 ,likelier across these flats afar1 ,these sulky levels smooth and free1 ,the drums shall crash a waltz of war ,and ,death shall dance with ,liberty6 ,likelier the barricades shall flare ,slaughter below and smoke above1 ,and death and hate and hell declare ,that men have found a thing to love4#e ,remember this was written in #aijd1 at a time when it was commonly thought that the last of the wars had been fought and the nations might disarm1 for henceforth the ,hague ,court would hold sway2 when the socialists were becoming opportunists and the anarchists had laid aside their bombs2 when such scientists as ,metchnikoff were saying that self-sacrifice and heroism of the fighting sort were antiquated virtues for which the peaceful and sanitary world of the future would have little use4 ,chesterton was wrong about the nature of the catastrophe4 ,he was looking and1 ,i fear1 hoping for a social revolution1 and that has not yet come although it seems now less improbable than it did then4 ,but the ,great ,war has given an irresistible impulse to the movement toward particularism as against cosmopolitanism4 ,whether we like it or not1 we must admit that the tide has turned in the other direction and that it will be many years1 perhaps more than one generation1 before there will be the freedom of trade1 intercourse1 and migration that prevailed at the beginning of the twentieth century4 ,even ,england has abandoned free trade1 and every country will hereafter strive to secure economic independence by developing its own resources4 ,even before the war there was a tendency toward the sort of local differentiation of which ,chesterton gave a fantastic forecast in ,the ,napoleon of ,notting ,hill4 ,this tendency manifested itself in a variety of ways2 in the cultivation of local industries1 the revival of folk dances and historic costumes1 in pageantry and community celebrations1 in the interest in town history and in the struggle to restablish disappearing languages1 like ,gaelic1 ,czech1 and ,ruthenian4 ,from ,chesterton's latest book devoted to the crimes of ,germany1 and characteristically entitled ,the ,crimes of ,england1#f we can see that it is the primitive little peasant kingdom of ,montenegro that he most admires and the machine-like efficiency of the ,german empire that he most abhors4 ,montenegro1 since he wrote this volume1 has been overwhelmed by the tide of war1 but probably ,chesterton has faith to believe that it will reappear like ,ararat when the waters subside4 ,this faith he expressed in the poem1 ,the ,march of the ,black ,mountain1 written during the ,balkan war which ,montenegro initiated by a single-handed attack upon the ,turk3 ,but men shall remember the ,mountain1 ,though it fall down like a tree1 ,they shall see the sign of the ,mountain ,faith cast into the sea2 ,though the crooked swords overcome it ,and the ,crooked ,moon ride free1 ,when the ,mountain comes to ,mahomet ,it has more life than he4 ,chesterton has a better right to appear now as the champion of small nationalities than some other ,english authors we could name1 for he first entered the lists of public life to break a lance in defense of the ,boers at a time when it was most unpopular if not dangerous to say a word in their favor4 ,he refers to these youthful days in his ,song of ,defeat1 published some ten years afterward4 ,i quote part of one stanza3 ,i dream of the days when work was scrappy1 ,and rare in our pockets the mark of the mint3 ,when we were angry and poor and happy1 ,and proud of seeing our names in print4 ,for so they conquered and-so we scattered1 ,when the ,devil rode and his dogs smelt gold1 ,and the peace of a harmless folk was shattered1 ,when ,i was twenty and odd years old4 ,when mongrel men that the market classes1 ,had slimy hands on ,england's rod ,and sword in hand upon ,afric's passes ,her last ,republic cried to ,god6#g ,one of his youthful dreams was to see a reunion of the ,united ,states and ,england which he imagined would come about in some great foreign war4 ,but by #aije1 when he included the poem on ,the ,anglo-,saxon ,alliance in a volume1#h he had lost faith in such ethnic generalities as the ,anglo-,saxon race1 so he explains in his preface3 ,i have come to see that our hopes of brotherhood with ,america are the same in kind as our hopes of brotherhood with any other of the great independent nations of ,christendom4 ,and a very small study of history was sufficient to show me that the ,american nation1 which-is a hundred years old1 is at least fifty years older than the ,anglo-,saxon race4 ,but the poem1 both because he wrote it and because he repudiated it1 has an especial interest now when ,american sympathy with ,england is stronger than ever before1 the traditional hostility has been largely swept away1 and there is talk of joining ,england in this bloodiest of all wars4 ,this is the weird of a world-old folk1 ,that not till the last link breaks ,not till the night is blackest1 ,the blood of ,hengist wakes4 ,when the sun is black in heaven1 ,the moon as blood above1 ,and the earth is full of hatred1 ,this people tells its love4 ,in change1 eclipse and peril1 ,under the whole world's scorn1 ,by blood and death and darkness ,the ,saxon peace is sworn2 ,that all our fruit be gathered1 ,and all our race take hands1 ,and the sea be a ,saxon river ,that runs through ,saxon lands4 99 99 99 99 99 ,deep grows the hate of kindred4 ,its roots take hold on hell2 ,no peace or praise can heal it1 ,but a stranger heals it well4 ,seas shall be red as sunsets1 ,and kings' bones float as foam1 ,and heaven be dark with vultures1 ,the night our son comes home4 ,in some respects we should expect ,chesterton to go better in verse than in prose4 ,he thinks in metaphors and pictures1 vivid1 fantastic1 and colorful4 ,the peculiarities of his prose style that grate upon the taste of some readers1 such as the repetition of the same words1 the alliteration1 the unqualified assertion of half truths1 the queer rhythms1 the verbal tricks1 and the superabundance of tropes1 are by tradition permissible in poetry and so arouse no resentment4 ,on the other hand1 poetry is a painstaking art1 and ,chesterton does not like to take pains4 ,he is too indolent or too indifferent to hunt for the best possible word or rime4 ,consequently we find in his verse many a perfect line1 rarely a perfect stanza1 and never a perfect poem4 ,but scattered all through his verse1 even in the most nonsensical1 we happen upon curious cadences that linger in the memory like the chant of some strange ritual4 ,his ballads abound in unconventional rhythms that haunt one like those of ,lanier's ,ballad of the ,trees and the ,master4 ,although ,chesterton often seems to disregard the canons of versification from carelessness or caprice1 yet at other times he takes delight in subjecting himself to the most rigid of models1 as1 for instance1 the old ,french ballade1 which1 he says1 is the easiest because it is the most restricted4 ,he shows us how he constructs one in ,the ,ballade of a ,strange ,town4#i ,the strange town into which he was shunted by the accident of taking the wrong tramcar one rainy day while fooling about ,flanders was ,lierre1 an unknown and uninteresting way station then1 but now one of the famous places of world history1 for it stood for days the shock of the ,german attack on ,antwerp4 ,while waiting for the next car to take him away ,chesterton scribbled on the back of an envelope with an aniline pencil a poem which begins in nonsense but ends with as good an expression of his creed as he has given anywhere3 ,happy is he and more than wise ,who sees with wondering eyes and clean ,this world through all the gray disguise ,of sleep and custom in between4 ,yes3 we may pass the heavenly screen1 ,but shall we know when we are there8 ,who know not what these dead stones mean1 ,the lovely city of ,lierre4 ,chesterton is so fond of the ballade that ,i must quote one specimen complete4#aj ,for the benefit of those who have taken no interest in versification ,i may call attention to the technical difficulties of the form of the ballade that he has chosen4 ,it consists of three octaves and a quatrain all ending in the same refrain and using only two rimes4 ,the first rime is used in the first and third lines of the first quatrain and in the second and fourth of the second quatrain4 ,the second rime is used in the second and fourth lines of the first quatrain and in the first and third of the second quatrain4 ,the closing quatrain or l'envoi is in the ballade addressed to a prince or other royal personage4 ,since ,chesterton hates princes his apostrophe to the prince in this ballade is not in the usual sycophantic style4 ,a ,,ballade ,,of ,,suicide ,the gallows in my garden1 people say1 ,is new and neat and adequately tall4 ,i tie the noose on in a knowing way ,as one that knots his necktie for a ball2 ,but just as all the neighbors--on the wall-- ,are drawing a long breath to shout ,hurray6 ,the strangest whim has seized me444 ,after all ,i think ,i will not hang myself to-day4 ,to-morrow is the time ,i get my pay-- ,my uncle's sword is hanging in the hall-- ,i see a little cloud all pink and grey-- ,perhaps the rector's mother will not call-- ,i fancy that ,i heard from ,mr4 ,gall ,that mushrooms could be cooked another way-- ,i never read the works of ,juvenal-- ,i think ,i will not hang myself to-day4 ,the world will have another washing day2 ,the decadents decay2 the pedants pall2 ,and ,h4 ,g4 ,wells has found that children play1 ,and ,bernard ,shaw discovered that they squall2 ,rationalists are growing rational-- ,and through thick woods one finds a stream astray1 ,so secret that the very sky seems small-- ,i think ,i will not hang myself to-day4 ,l',,envoi ,prince1 ,i can hear the trumpet of ,germinal1 ,the tumbrils toiling up the terrible way2 ,even to-day your royal head may fall-- ,i think ,i will not hang myself to-day4 ,those who assisted--with more or less enthusiasm--in the ,shakespeare ,tercentenary celebration will appreciate ,chesterton's verses about a similar commemoration decreed by the calendar4 ,,the ,,shakespeare ,,memorial _/ ,lord ,lilac thought it rather rotten ,that ,shakespeare should be quite forgotten1 ,and therefore got on a ,committee ,with several chaps out of the city1 ,and ,shorter and ,sir ,herbert ,tree1 ,lord ,rothschild and ,lord ,rosebery1 ,and ,f4 ,c4 ,g4 and ,comyns ,carr1 ,two dukes and a dramatic star1 ,also a clergyman now dead2 ,and while the vain world careless sped ,unheeding the heroic name-- ,the souls most fed with ,shakespeare's flame ,still sat unconquered in a ring1 ,remembering him like anything4 ,lord ,lilac did not long remain1 ,lord ,lilac did not come again1 ,he softly lit a cigarette ,and sought some other social set ,where1 in some other knots or rings1 ,people were doing cultured things1 --,miss ,zwilt's ,humane ,vivarium --,the little men who paint on gum --,the exquisite ,gorilla ,girl4444 ,he sometimes in the giddy whirl 7,not being really bad at heart71 ,remembered ,shakespeare with a start-- ,but not with that grand constancy ,of ,clement ,shorter1 ,herbert ,tree1 ,lord ,rosebery1 and ,comyns ,carr ,and all the other names there are2 ,who stuck like limpets to the spot1 ,lest they forgot1 lest they forgot4 ,lord ,lilac was of slighter stuff2 ,lord ,lilac had had quite enough4#aa ,chesterton's poetic versatility range may be inferred from the fact that he has written a drinking song that is used as a whisky advertisement and a devotional song that has been incorporated into the hymn book4 ,the former may be found in ,the ,flying ,inn1 the latter in the ,english ,hymnal1 also in ,poems4 ,the hymn is as follows1 omitting1 as the preachers always say1#ab the third stanza4 ,sing it to the tune of ,webb4 ,o ,god of earth and altar1 ,bow down and hear our cry1 ,our earthly rulers falter1 ,our people drift and die4 ,the walls of gold entomb us1 ,the swords of scorn divide1 ,take not thy thunder from us ,but take away our pride4 ,from all that terror teaches1 ,from lies of tongue and pen1 ,from all the easy speeches ,that comfort cruel men1 ,from sale and profanation ,of honor and the sword1 ,from sleep and from damnation ,deliver us1 good ,lord6 ,but ,i know of some people--and more sensible people than you would suppose--who say that they like ,quoodle the best of ,chesterton's poetry4 ,since there is no accounting for taste and some of my readers may have taste1 ,i must also quote this3 ,,song ,,of ,,the ,,dog ,,named ,,quoodle ,they haven't got no noses1 ,the fallen sons of ,eve4 ,even the smell of roses ,is not what they supposes1 ,but more than mind discloses1 ,and more than men believe4 ,they haven't got no noses1 ,they cannot even tell ,when door and darkness closes ,the park old ,gluck encloses1 ,where even the ,law of ,moses ,will let you steal a smell4 ,the brilliant smell of water1 ,the brave smell of a stone1 ,the smell of dew and thunder1 ,and old bones buried under ,are things in which they blunder ,and err1 if left alone4 ,the wind from winter forests1 ,the scent of scentless flowers1 ,the breath of bride's adorning ,the smell of snare and warning1 ,the smell of ,sunday morning1 ,god gave to us for ours4 99 99 99 99 99 ,and ,quoodle here discloses ,all things that ,quoodle can2 ,they haven't got no noses1 ,they haven't got no noses1 ,and goodness only knowses ,the ,noselessness of ,man4#ac ,according to ,mendelism new species are most apt to come from the crossing of diverse forms4 ,we should then naturally expect ,chesterton's verse to be original1 since it is the result of a cross between ,whitman and ,swinburne4 ,at any rate these were the poets who most influenced ,chesterton when in his teens he began to write poetry4 ,in philosophy of life ,whitman and ,swinburne were not so far apart1 since they were both pagans and democrats1 but in form they are antipodes4 ,whitman was the father or the grandfather of the vers-librists4 ,he cultivated the unconventional and introduced the most unpoetic and uncouth words4 ,swinburne1 on the other hand1 sought his themes in the classics and sacrificed anything to the music of his lines4 ,the early poetry of ,chesterton shows traces of both influences4 ,one very interesting instance of this is found in a poem that he wrote at school1 when he was about sixteen4 ,it is an ,ave ,maria in the ,swinburnian meter4 ,that is1 he has borrowed the weapon of the atheist and used it in defense of ,catholicism--a trick that he has been playing ever since4 ,the poem begins3 ,hail ,mary6 ,thou blest among women2 generations shall rise up to greet1 ,after ages of wrangle and dogma1 ,i come with a prayer to thy feet4 ,where ,gabriel's red plumes are a wind in the lanes of thy lilies at eve ,we pray1 who have done with the churches2 we worship1 who may not believe4 ,from his twelfth to his seventeenth year he went to ,st4 ,paul's school1 where1 as he says1 ,i did no work but wrote a lot of bad poetry which fortunately perished with the almost equally bad exercises4 ,i got a prize for one of these poems--,golly1 what a bad poem it was6 ,the prize was known as the ,milton ,prize and the subject assigned to the pupils competing for it was ,st4 ,francis ,xavier4 ,a soliloquy of ,danton on the scaffold1 written at the age of sixteen1 shows how early began his fascination for the ,french ,revolution4 ,his fondness for discussion was cultivated at the ,st4 ,paul's school in the ,junior ,debating ,club1 of which he was chairman1 and the monthly periodical of the society1 ,the ,debater1 contains many essays and poems signed ,g4 ,k4 ,c4 ,his first contribution to the outside press was a ,socialist poem appearing in ,the ,clarion1 but a few years later he was busy trying to puncture the balloon of ,socialism with his sharp-pointed pen4 ,after leaving ,st4 ,paul's he studied art at the ,slade ,school in ,london and has illustrated half a dozen books with cartoons1 for he draws as readily as he writes4 ,his first book was a volume of jingles and sketches entitled ,gray-,beards at ,play2 ,literature and ,art for ,old ,gentlemen4 ,his propensity for dropping into nonsense rhymes and sketches may be ascribed to heredity1 for his father1 ,edward ,chesterton1 though a respectable real estate agent by profession1 was responsible for a slim volume of child verse and drawings1 ,the ,wonderful ,story of ,dunder van ,haeden and ,his ,seven ,little ,daughters4 ,illustration3 ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton was born in ,kensington1 ,london1 ,may #bi1 #ahgd4 ,there is nothing in his heredity or early training to account for his conservative and ,high ,church tendencies1 for his father was a liberal in politics and religion and attended ,bedford ,chapel where the ,reverend ,stopford ,brooke was preaching what was then called the new theology4 ,although educated as an artist1 ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton soon passed from sketching through art criticism to journalism4 ,he began by writing pro-,boer articles for ,the ,speaker1 a ,liberal weekly4 ,the originality of his thought and the vigor of his style attracted public attention1 and ,the ,daily ,news took him over to write a weekly article in spite of the fact that he differed in opinion from the editors and readers on certain points4 ,as his anonymous biographer says3 ,thousands of peaceful semi-,tolstoyan non-conformists have for years been compelled to listen every ,saturday morning to a fiery apostle preaching consistently the praise of three things which seem to them most obviously the sign-manuals of ,hell--,war1 ,drink1 and ,catholicism4 ,but more recently his antagonism to cocoa--extended symbolically to the politics as well as to the beverage of ,cadbury--became so great as to break this incongruous alliance and he has found in his brother's weekly ,the ,new ,witness a more congenial although a smaller audience4 ,he has also contributed for many years a weekly page to ,the ,illustrated ,london ,news1 which is under entirely different management from ,the ,daily ,news4 ,besides these and frequent contributions to other periodicals on both sides of the ,atlantic1 he manages to turn out a volume or two of stories every year as well as poetry and criticism1 an amazing output considering that there is hardly a dull page in it4 ,to keep it up so long and steadily must be a strain upon one of his easy-going temperament4 ,fleet ,street men tell me that it is hard to get his copy on time4 ,as press day draws near runners are sent around to his clubs and other ,london haunts to tell him that the editor must have his article immediately4 ,once caught ,chesterton surrenders good-naturedly and taking any paper handy will dash off his essay1 carrying on a lively conversation at the same time4 ,producing under such pressure or at least under the compulsion of filling a certain number of columns every week with witty comment on current events inevitably tends to careless writing4 ,chesterton's work is all equally readable1 but not all equally worth reading4 ,he is an inspired writer1 but he goes on writing quite as brilliantly after the inspiration has given out1 just as a man writing in the dark goes on after his fountain pen has run dry and is only making meaningless scratches on the paper4 ,his display of gems of thought is hardly to be matched by any other show window1 but there are so many paste diamonds among them of equal brilliancy that the half of the world which does not like ,chesterton takes it for granted that they are all paste4 ,they may even quote ,chesterton in support of their view for he says3 ,all is gold that glitters for the glitter is the gold4 ,when ex-,president ,roosevelt1 on his return from ,africa1 was given a dinner by the journalists of ,london1 he was asked by the committee on arrangements whom he would like to have placed by his side to talk with during the meal1 and he promptly chose ,chesterton4 ,i was of much the same mind when ,i went to ,england1 but not being in a position to summon him to my side ,i sought him out in his home1 ,overroads4 ,this is a little way out of ,london1 near the town of ,beaconsfield from which ,disraeli took his title1--uncomfortable quarters1 ,i should say1 for ,chesterton1 considering his antipathy for ,disraeli and his race4 ,arriving at ,beaconsfield by the tea-time train ,i walked up the hill to where ,i saw a big man sitting on the little porch of a little house4 ,he impressed me as ,sunday impressed ,symes4 ,i do not mean ,billy ,sunday1 but quite a different personage1 the ,sunday of ,the ,man ,who ,was ,thursday4 ,great men are apt to shrink when you get too close to them4 ,mr4 ,chesterton did not4 ,he was too big to fit his environment4 ,the house was what we should call a bungalow2 ,i don't know what they call it in ,england4 ,it was on a little triangular lot set with trees half his height and a rustic arbor patiently awaiting vines4 ,afterward ,i saw in the paper that ,mr4 ,chesterton broke a leg on that arbor4 ,i suppose he must have tripped over it like a croquet wicket4 ,mr4 ,chesterton has a big head covered with curly locks1 two of them gray4 ,he is gifted with a ,taft-like smile1 and talks in a deep-toned1 wheezy voice1 punctuating his remarks with an engaging chuckle4 ,it is no trouble to interview him4 ,i never met a man who talked more easily or more interestingly4 ,there are no uninteresting subjects1 he says1 there are only uninterested persons4 ,start any idea you please as unexpectedly as a rabbit from its lair1 and he will after it in a second and follow all its turns and windings until he runs it down4 ,his mind is as agile as a movie actor4 ,epigrams1 paradoxes1 puns1 anecdotes1 characterizations1 metaphors1 fell from his lips in such profusion that ,i1 who knew the market value of such verbal gems1 felt as nervous as a jeweler who sees a lady break her necklace4 ,i wanted him to stop while ,i got down on my knees and picked them up4 ,but he did not mind wasting clever things on me1 for there were so many more where those came from4 ,besides they were not so completely lost as ,i feared4 ,i recognized some of them a few weeks later in his causerie page of ,the ,illustrated ,london ,news4 ,but when you visit ,mr4 ,chesterton don't make the mistake that ,i did and attempt to please him by telling him how much he reminds you of ,doctor ,johnson4 ,he admitted to me that he had paged a bit in that rle1 but ,i judge from what he says in ,the ,mystery of a ,pageant#ad he does not regard his selection for the part as altogether complimentary to his personal appearance4 ,perhaps he would not like it any better to be told that the resemblance was more psychical than physical4 ,chesterton is doubtless the most dogmatic man ,england has seen since ,doctor ,johnson died4 ,he has equally violent prejudices1 and he expresses them with equal wit4 ,unfortunately he has no ,boswell4 ,chesterton has written a book about ,shaw1 but so far ,shaw has shown no disposition to return the compliment4 ,shaw1 in speaking of ,coburn's portrait of ,chesterton says3 ,he is our ,quinbus ,flestrin1 the young ,man ,mountain1 a large abounding gigantically cherubic person4 ,it is ,shaw's theory that ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton and ,hilaire ,belloc are not two persons1 but one mythological monster to be known as ,the ,chesterbelloc4 ,chesterton's ideals are large and generous and very solid3 ,a divinely ordered church1 a really democratic state1 and a life of that hopeful and humble wonder that men call romance4 ,but his usefulness as a moral philosopher is impaired by the possession of a number of blind spots or inveterate prejudices that prevent him from seeing clearly4 ,he is like the tenor who had aelurophobia and was upset whenever a cat came into the room4 ,so whenever one of these phobias comes into his mind ,chesterton loses his poise and sings false4 ,some of the things for which he has a particular abhorrence are3 cocoa1 colonies1 divorce1 equal suffrage1 ,esperanto1 eugenics1 large scale production1 latitudinarianism1 ,lloyd ,george1 official sanitation1 organized charity1 peace movement1 pragmatism1 prohibition1 public schools1 simplified spelling1 vaccination1 vivisection1 and workingmen's insurance1 all of which some of the rest of us look upon with favor4 ,his inability to see any good in these and a score of other modern movements brings him into curious inconsistencies4 ,for instance1 he is an enthusiast for universal manhood suffrage4 ,but any mention of woman suffrage is like waving a red coat before an ,irish bull4 ,his statement that there are three things which women can never understand1 liberty1 equality1 and fraternity1 is as brutal and untrue as anything ,nietzsche or ,strindberg has said4 ,in his essay on ,william ,james he says pragmatism is bosh1 yet his whole system of apologetics is based upon the pragmatic argument2 religion is true because it works4 ,if ,christianity makes a man happy while his legs are being eaten off by a lion1 might it not make me happy while my legs are still attached to me and walking down the street8 ,in order to make due allowance for ,chesterton's class and race prejudices while reading his works1 it is convenient to keep a list like this as a bookmark3 ,,table ,,of ,,chesterton',s ,,affections ,,and ,,aversions ,,classes ,he likes most3 #a4 ,children #b4 ,peasants #c4 ,domestic women #d4 ,artisans and laborers #e4 ,priests and soldiers #f4 ,poets and adventurers #g4 ,shopkeepers 7hereabouts is a great gulf fixed7 #h4 ,business and professional men #i4 ,criminals 7including politicians7 #aj4 ,the conceited professional classes 7the intellectuals7 #aa4 ,landlords #ab4 ,millionaires ,he dislikes most3 #ac4 ,multimillionaires ,,races ,he likes most3 #a4 ,irish #b4 ,french #c4 ,english #d4 ,russians #e4 ,turks #f4 ,jews #g4 ,germans ,he dislikes most3 #h4 ,cosmopolites ,in his youth ,chesterton wrote a poem in defense of ,dreyfus1 ,to ,a ,certain ,nation1 but by the time he came to publish it in his first volume1 ,the ,wild ,knight1 he had so changed his opinion that he makes a partial apology for it in the preface4 ,since then he has1 in connection with his brother ,cecil and ,mr4 ,belloc1 introduced into ,british journalism a foreign element from which it had formerly been free1 the political anti-,semitism which has been the cause of so much disturbance in ,france1 ,russia1 and ,germany4 ,almost every number of ,the ,new ,witness1 edited by ,cecil ,chesterton1 contains sneers at ,jewish financiers and politicians1 and in #aiab he went so far that he was fined five hundred dollars and costs for defamatory libel of ,godfrey ,isaacs1 director of the ,marconi ,company4 ,the prosecution significantly was conducted by ,sir ,edward ,carson and ,f4 ,e4 ,smith4 ,it is greatly to be hoped that ,the ,new ,witness group may get rid of their race prejudice and cut down on their muckraking1 which1 though often necessary1 is never nice1 and bring forward the constructive part of their program1 for this is the time when there is a chance to do something4 ,for instance1 the ,british ,party system against which they so long clamored without effect has now broken down under stress of the war1 but there is nothing in sight to take its place4 ,g4 ,k4 ,chesterton was quite right when he said that the party system of ,england is an enormous and most efficient machine for preventing political conflicts1#ae and that what party politics had done was to turn ,balfour from the analysis of the doubtful to the defense of the dubious and ,morley from writing on compromise to practicing it4 ,and again1 ,i think the cabinet minister should be taken a little less seriously and the cabinet maker a little more4#af ,chesterton protests against being regarded as a mere obstructionist and reactionary in such language as the following3 ,i do not propose 7like some of my revolutionary friends7 that we should abolish the public schools4 ,i propose the much more lurid and desperate experiment that we should make them public4 ,i do not wish to make ,parliament stop working1 but rather to make it work2 not to shut up the churches1 but rather to open them2 not to put out the lamp of learning or destroy the hedge of property1 but only to make some rude effort to make universities fairly universal and property decently proper4#ag ,man has always believed in a paradise1 but he has never been certain whether to look for it in the past or the future1 or both4 ,we have very detailed descriptions of ,atlantis1 ,valhalla1 the ,golden ,age1 ,utopia1 and the like1 but the tense of the verb is indeterminable4 ,chesterton is equally uncertain as to whether to look forward or backward for his ideal state4 ,his ,christmas ,song for ,three ,gilds is headed ,to be sung a long time ago--or hence4 ,he has not yet favored us with a blueprint of his ,utopia1 so we are left to surmise what he likes from the very plain indications he has given us of what he does not like4 ,chesterton seems to obey a negative magnetism and orients himself by his antipathies4 ,we may infer that his ideal would be a self-governing community of equally well-to-do1 leisurely1 patriotic1 domestic1 religious1 jolly1 beer-drinking1 pork-eating1 art-loving1 freehold farmers and gild craftsmen1 clustered about the village inn and church4 ,they would all be of one race and creed1 healthy without doctors1 wealthy without financiers1 governed without politicians4 ,he believes with ,belloc that the nearest historical approach to this ideal was ,western ,europe about #abjj-aejj4 ,he probably would agree with ,doctor ,james ,j4 ,walsh in calling the thirteenth the greatest of all centuries4 ,among contemporary communities ,i should say that the mujiks of the ,russian mir come the nearest to complying with his specifications1 although he has not1 to my knowledge1 shown any disposition to leave ,london and take to the steppes in order to live the simple life in these communities of pure democracy4 ,but perhaps this is because women vote in the mir4 ,of the made-to-order utopias ,i presume that of ,william ,morris's ,news from ,nowhere would suit him better than the ,socialists for whom it was written4 ,to sum up ,chesterton in a sentence1 ,i must borrow the words of the ,forum article of ,o4 ,w4 ,firkins3 ,a man who preaches an impassioned and romantic ,christianity1 and who adds to that the ,jeffersonian doctrine of democracy1 the ,wordsworthian and ,tolstoyan doctrine of the majesty of the untutored man1 the ,carlylean doctrine of wonder1 the ,emersonian doctrine of the spirituality latent in all objects1 the ,dickensian faith in the worth and wisdom of the feeble-minded1 the ,browningesque standard of optimism1 affects us as a man with whom1 whatever his vagaries and harlequinries1 it would be wholesome and inspiriting to live4 ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,chesterton ,read whatever is handiest1 for there is no order and sequence is not important4 ,chesterton expresses much the same philosophy of life in essays1 stories1 and poems and there has been little change in his opinions or style in the sixteen years he has been writing4 ,nowhere has he given a complete and orderly presentation of his views4 ,he is a born journalist and prefers to fire at a moving target4 ,about once a year he gathers up a sheaf of his contributions to the press and puts them out under as general and indefinite a title as he can think up1 but he never can think up a title broad enough to cover the variety of topics he treats4 ,the heading to a chapter gives no clue to the theme or its importance4 ,one is apt to find his deepest philosophy tucked away in some corner of a discourse on cheese or mumming or penny dreadfuls4 ,he is like a submarine2 when he goes under you never can tell where he will come out4 ,consequently1 as ,i say1 it does not matter much which volume you pick up2 they are equally brilliant and inconsequential4 ,his views on religion and society are expounded most thoroughly in ,orthodoxy 7#aijh71 ,heretics 7#aije7 both published by ,john ,lane ,company1 and ,what's ,wrong ,with the ,world 7#aiaj1 published by ,dodd1 ,mead ,company74 ,somewhat briefer1 more varied1 and trivial in topic are ,all ,things ,considered 7#aijh1 ,lane71 ,tremendous ,trifles 7#aiji1 ,dodd71 ,alarms and ,discursions 7#aiaj1 ,dodd71 ,a ,miscellany of ,men 7#aiab1 ,dodd74 ,since the war began he has published ,the ,barbarism of ,berlin 7#aiad71 ,the ,appetite of ,tyranny including ,letters to an ,old ,garibaldian 7#aiae1 ,dodd71 and ,the ,crimes of ,england 7#aiaf1 ,lane74 ,to this we should add his first work1 ,the ,defendant 7#aija1 ,dodd74 ,in ,the ,new ,witness he has been running a weekly page under the head of ,at the ,sign of the ,world's ,end1 and when his brother1 ,cecil ,chesterton1 enlisted as a private in ,october1 #aiaf1 he assumed the editorship of that lively journal4 ,his youthful poetry is in ,the ,wild ,knight and ,other ,poems 7#aijj1 ,dutton74 ,the ,ballad of the ,white ,horse 7#aiaa1 ,lane7 contains his epic of ,king ,alfred1 and ,poems 7#aiae1 ,lane7 contains all the rest of his poetry except what still remains buried in the files4 ,of these ,i must mention ,the ,wife of ,flanders1 which may be found in the ,literary ,digest1 ,current ,opinion1 or ,living ,age of #aiad4 ,chesterton has written one play1 ,magic3 ,a ,fantastic ,comedy 7#aiac1 ,putnam71 which was a success on the ,london and ,new ,york stage4 ,of his allegorical fantasias ,i have discussed at some length ,the ,man ,who ,was ,thursday 7#aijh1 ,dodd74 ,the ,ball and the ,cross 7#aiaj1 ,lane7 describes the conflict between a religious fanatic and an equally intolerant atheist4 ,manalive 7#aiab1 ,lane7 deals with domesticity1 and ,the ,flying ,inn 7#aiae1 ,lane7 is a defense of the public house4 ,in ,napoleon of ,notting ,hill 7#aijh1 ,lane71 his first romance1 he preaches parochialism4 ,his detective or rather mystery stories are3 ,the ,club of ,queer ,trades 7#aije1 ,harper72 ,the ,innocence of ,father ,brown 7#aiaa1 ,lane72 and ,the ,wisdom of ,father ,brown 7#aiad1 ,lane74 ,his literary criticism1 mostly written as prefaces to standard reprints1 makes delightful reading1 although sometimes he uses his author merely as a point of departure4 ,of ,dickens he has written most and best in the prefaces to ,everyman's ,library edition 7collected in ,appreciations and ,criticism of ,dickens1 ,dutton7 and ,charles ,dickens2 ,a ,critical ,study 7#aijf1 ,dodd74 ,his ,victorian ,age in ,literature 7#aiac1 ,home ,university ,library1 ,holt7 is not quite so interesting because he does not have room to ramble4 ,his ,george ,bernard ,shaw 7#aiaj1 ,lane7 is not much of a biography1 but it is valuable as bringing into close contrast these representatives of opposing points of view4 ,his ,robert ,browning forms an admirable volume of the ,english ,men of ,letters series 7#aijh1 ,macmillan74 ,besides these he has written many biographical sketches and critiques1 among which may be mentioned3 ,five ,types 7#aiaa1 ,holt72 ,varied ,types 7#aijb1 ,dodd72 ,g4 ,f4 ,watts 7#aijb1 ,dutton72 ,william ,blake 7#aiaj1 ,dutton72 ,samuel ,johnson 7#aijc1 and #aiaa72 ,carlyle 7#aijb and #aijd7 and ,r4 ,l4 ,stevenson 7,pott74 ,chesterton is eminently quotable1 and the pocket volume of ,wit and ,wisdom of ,chesterton 7#aiaa1 ,dodd7 will afford plenty of food for thought for any one4 ,there are two biographies of ,chesterton4 ,one published anonymously in #aijh gives the best account of his early life2 the other by ,julius ,west 7#aiaf1 ,dodd7 gives the most complete criticism of his work up to date1 with a bibliography4 ,his picturesque personality and peculiar views have supplied innumerable journalists with material for articles4 ,specially noteworthy for one reason or another are3 the excellent piece of criticism by ,o4 ,w4 ,firkins in ,the ,forum 7vol4 #dh14 p4 #eig74 ,the ,defender of the ,discarded1 ,the ,forum 7vol4 #dd1 p4 #gjg71 is harsh and unsympathetic4 ,chesterton as an ,artist by ,joseph ,b4 ,gilder 7,bookman1 vol4 #ci1 p4 #dfh1 see also vol4 #cd1 p4 #aag71 containing his sketches1 a sketch by ,henry ,murray1 with sixteen portraits from childhood up1 in the ,london ,bookman1 ,may1 #aiaj4 ,wells1 in his ,social ,forces in ,england and ,america 7p4 #bje71 discusses ,chesterton and ,belloc4 ,a ,visit to ,g4 ,k4 ,c4 by ,b4 ,russell ,herts in ,the ,independent1 ,november #g1 #aiab1 contains some of ,chesterton's sketches2 reprinted with other interviews in ,herts's ,depreciations 7#aiae1 ,boni74 ,chesterton wrote on ,shall the ,united ,states ,fight8 in ,the ,independent1 ,january #ab1 #aiaf4 #a ,the ,crimes of ,england1 p4 #ih4 #b ,for specimens of his sketches see ,chesterton as an ,artist by ,joseph ,b4 ,gilder in ,the ,bookman4 #c ,see also ,the ,divine ,detective in ,a ,miscellany of ,men4 #d ,published1 #aiaa1 by ,john ,lane ,co41 ,new ,york4 #e ,republished1 #aiac1 in ,poems 7,john ,lane ,co41 ,new ,york74 #f ,published1 #aiaf1 by ,john ,lane ,co41 ,new ,york4 #g ,from ,poems 7,john ,lane74 #h ,the ,wild ,knight 7,dutton ,co41 ,new ,york74 #i ,in ,tremendous ,trifles 1 #aiji 7,dodd1 ,mead ,co41 ,new ,york74 #aj ,from ,poems 7,john ,lane74 #aa ,from ,poems 7,john ,lane74 #ab ,it has always been a puzzle to me why congregations have to be warned against singing the third stanza of any hymn4 ,i never could see that it was any worse than the rest1 but ,i assume the clergy know best about it4 #ac ,i quote from ,the ,new ,witness4 ,the version in ,the ,flying ,inn is a trifle different4 #ad ,tremendous ,trifles1 p4 #cag4 #ae ,in ,chesterton's book on ,shaw4 #af ,miscellany of ,men4 #ag ,what's ,wrong with the ,world4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,,schiller ,a ,,british ,,pragmatist ,the world knows nothing of its greatest men1 because by the time it knows something about them they have ceased to be the greatest4 ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,schiller4 ,a dozen years ago ,i happened upon the word pragmatism1 as it was printed1 rather inappropriately1#a upon the slip cover of ,santayana's ,life of ,reason4 ,being a queer looking word and unknown to me1 ,i started to find out what it meant and that led me on a long chase4 ,the farther ,i went the more interested ,i became1 for ,i soon discovered that ,i had been a pragmatist all my life without knowing it4 ,i was as delighted as ,m4 ,jourdain when he was told that he had been unconsciously talking prose all his life4 ,i felt as relieved as ,huxley when he invented agnostic as a tag for himself4 ,i had come by my pragmatism honestly enough1 for ,i had got my training as a journalist through the study of chemistry1 and in science the pragmatic mode of thinking is universal and unquestioned4 ,so when ,i went to writing about other things1--politics1 law1 ethics1 history1 religion1 and the like1--,i naturally used my brains in the same way as in science1 that is1 ,i persisted in the valuation of all acts by their consequences instead of their causes and in the validation of all truths by practicality instead of precedent4 ,but when ,i found how this way of thinking shocked1 annoyed1 or amused people ,i began to fear that ,i should have to drop it as ,i had other evidences of my buried past1 such as the habit of using words like catalysis and parachlorbenzamidine in casual conversation4 ,but when ,i heard of the pragmatists ,i knew that ,i was no longer alone in the world4 ,there were others1 it seemed1 even men of standing in philosophical circles1 whose minds ran in this way and who were not ashamed to own it4 ,i got their names and started to find them wherever they might be4 ,i ran down ,dewey in the ,adirondacks and ,bergson in the ,alps4 ,poincar ,i unearthed in a ,paris flat1 ,james ,i heard in a ,columbia lecture room2 ,ostwald ,i found in a ,saxon village2 ,schiller ,i caught in an ,oxford quad4 ,i was thinking of going to ,china to see ,wang ,yang-ming1 but fortunately before ,i had bought my steamer ticket or learned ,chinese ,i discovered that he had been dead for three centuries4#b ,some who have read or tried to read what ,i said about ,bergson and ,poincar#c have complained that ,i used too many big words1 and one man wrote me to say that if ,i would define pragmatism in words of one syllable perhaps he might understand what ,i was talking about4 ,i could not guarantee that1 of course1 but ,i had no hesitation about complying with his request4 ,confucius wrote his immortal works in words of one syllable1 and ,i would not be beaten by a ,chinaman4 ,even ,herbert ,spencer once condescended to translate his famous definition of evolution into ,anglo-,saxon4 ,since ,i am obliged to use the word pragmatism more than once in this book ,i may forestall criticism by putting here my ,monosyllabic ,definition of ,pragmatism ,the one way to find out if a thing is true is to try it and see how it works4 ,if it works well for a long time and for all folks1 it must have some truth in it4 ,if it works wrong it is false1 at least in part4 ,if there is no way to test it1 then it has no sense4 ,it means naught to us when we cannot tell what odds it makes if we hold to it or not4 ,a creed is just a guide to life4 ,we must live to learn4 ,if a man would know what is right he must try to do what is right4 ,then he can find out4 ,prove all things and hold fast to that which is good4 ,the will to have faith in a thing oft makes the faith come true4 ,so it can be said in a way that we make truth for our own use4 ,what we think must be of use to us in some way1 else why should we think it8 ,the truth is what is good for us1 what helps us1 what gives us joy and strength1 what shows us how to act1 what ties up fact to fact1 so the chain will hold1 what makes us see all things clear and straight1 and what keeps us from stray paths that turn out wrong in the end4 ,thought is a tool1 a means to an end4 ,man has to act1 and so he must think4 ,in this way he asks the world what it means to him4 ,the need for thought first comes when man asks ,why8 or ,which8 so that he may know what to do to gain his end4 ,the mind as it thinks makes such facts as it can to best serve its use4 ,out of the facts so come by is made a law1 and this law in turn serves as a rule to guide one's acts4 ,but the reader should be warned that no two pragmatists can be got to agree upon any definition of pragmatism1 and that the opponents of pragmatism differ still more widely in their conception of it4 ,schiller says that the most serious drawback in the name is that it condemns every exponent of pragmatism to consume at least half an hour of his limited time in explaining the word4 ,schiller himself employs the term humanism instead which being less novel is less disturbing to the conventional mind but on the other hand has the serious disadvantage of having been applied to a very different thing1 namely1 the spirit of the ,renaissance4 ,since ,c4 ,s4 ,peirce who invented the term pragmatism and ,william ,james who popularized it are both dead1 the word finds few defenders1 although the mode of reasoning it tried to stand for is obviously permeating all fields of thought4 ,like many other things pragmatism seems likely to conquer the world incognito4#d ,a man in the act of dismounting from a bicycle is temporarily incapacitated from the effective use of either mode of locomotion1 and it was at this psychological moment that ,i caught ,doctor ,schiller at the gate of ,corpus ,christi ,college4 ,otherwise ,i might have missed him1 for he is as alert and agile physically as he is mentally4 ,he usually spends his summers mountain climbing in the ,alps1 though ,i suppose he has suspended this pastime during the last three years while the ,tyrolean ,alps are being used for other purposes than tourism4 ,mr4 ,schiller wears the pointed beard that was the distinguishing mark of the radical of the nineties4 ,he has a ,shakespearean-shaped forehead1 but wears un-,shakespearean glasses4 ,he is as interesting to converse with as he is to read1 which is more than you can say of many authors4 ,he talks best while in motion1 a real peripatetic philosopher4 ,i wondered why he did not take his students out of the old gloomy lecture room and walk with them as he did with me1 up and down the lawn between the trees and the ivy-clad walls of the college garden4 ,curious turf it was1 close-cut and springy2 ,i never felt anything like it under my feet except an asphalt pavement on a hot summer day4 ,but ,i suppose it would be against the ,oxford customs to adopt the ,greek method in teaching ,greek philosophy4 ,at any rate when ,i went to ,mr4 ,schiller's lecture on logic ,i found it as conventional in form as it was revolutionary in spirit4 ,one would have thought that printing had never been invented1 nor even the mimeograph4 ,the lecture was delivered slowly1 and necessarily without feeling1 clause by clause1 with frequent repetitions1 so every word could be taken down4 ,it was really a brilliant lecture as ,i discovered afterwards when ,i read over my notes1 but at the time it sounded as dull as proof-reading1 for the lecturer dictated even the punctuation marks1 as he went along3 colon1 ,italics1 inverted commas1 etc4 ,the ,english leave out the punctuation marks in legal documents where they are needed and put them into lectures where they do not belong4 ,the students1 in short black gowns1 were seated uncomfortably on benches carved with the names of many generations1 and were writing awkwardly on long boards4 ,these were furnished with ink-wells and quill pens1 although the students sensibly used fountain pens4 ,i suppose it is somebody's perquisite to supply such things as quills and snuff to the college even if nobody uses them4 ,an ,american college president told me that he thought there was more graft at ,oxford than anywhere else in the world4 ,illustration3 ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,schiller4 ,if ,mr4 ,schiller had remained in ,america he would now be lecturing to one or two hundred at a time1 largely teachers who had come from all parts of the country expressly to hear his ideas and who would in turn transmit them to their students4 ,but in that room there were only these fifteen boys1 many of whom doubtless had no special interest in logic or in ,schiller's views of logic and who took his lectures simply because they were required for examination1 after which they could be forgotten4 ,i could not help contrasting this scene with the big lecture room at ,jena1 modern yet satisfying to the esthetic and historic taste1 where ,eucken's fiery eloquence held men and women gathered from five continents1 or with the ,collge de ,france1 where ,bergson had attracted an even larger and equally cosmopolitan audience4 ,a man in ,schiller's position must gain his disciples chiefly through his books1 and for a man of ,schiller's attractive personality this is a great disadvantage4 ,print can never take the place of the spoken word1 but to have its effect the spoken word must be widely heard4 ,the ,american visitor to ,oxford meets a double mystery3 how it is that ,oxford accomplishes so much with a poor and antiquated plant and how it is that ,american universities do not accomplish more with their modern and convenient plants4 ,one hates to conclude that plumbing and ventilation are incompatible with high thinking4 ,but if ,spencer is right in defining life as the power of adaptation to environment1 the ,oxford dons are most alive of any human beings4 ,they have shown the adaptability of hermit crabs in fitting themselves into their awkward environment4 ,they somehow manage to make themselves comfortable in buildings that a ,new ,york tenement house inspector--who is never regarded as unduly particular--would order torn down4 ,they work contentedly under conditions that would cause a strike in any well-regulated union4 ,oxford is the favorite resort of ,american tourists because it is the most satisfactory of all the sights of ,great ,britain4 ,the ,tower of ,london and ,stratford-on-,avon do not compare with it4 ,they are as disappointing as an extinct volcano4 ,but ,oxford is an antiquity in action4 ,our common feeling in regard to it was best expressed by a lady tourist who was being personally conducted through one of the college quadrangles when a student stuck his head out of a dormer window4 ,oh1 my6 ,are these ruins inhabited8 was her delighted exclamation4 ,that is a characteristic trait of the ,english1 the economical utilization of antiquated buildings and institutions4 ,the ,house of ,lords actually does something1 even though what it does is wrong4 ,westminster ,abbey is not a mere mausoleum1 like the ,paris ,panthon4 ,it is a church where one may worship and hear sermons of decidedly modernistic tone4 ,the ,french1 when they made up their minds that they did not need a ,king any longer1 cut his head off1 which was a waste4 ,the ,english keep their ,king and make use of him for spectacular and advertising purposes4 ,oxford is ,cluny and ,sorbonne in one1 a curious combination of old and new1 useful and superfluous1 progress and reaction1 that puzzles and fascinates every ,american visitor4 ,ferdinand ,canning ,scott ,schiller1 ,m4 ,a41 ,d4 ,sc41 ,fellow and ,senior ,tutor of ,corpus ,christi ,college1 ,oxford--to give for once his full name and titles--was born in #ahfd4 ,while at ,rugby he showed decided symptoms of intelligence1 so he was picked as a probable winner in the scholastic race and put in training for the classical scholarships4 ,the ,british turn all things into sport1 even war and education1 and since public opinion does not allow headmasters to keep racehorses they indulge their sporting instincts by backing their boys for the ,blue ,ribbon1 the ,balliol ,scholarships4 ,these boys are then given daily doses of classical verse competition2 ,i infer for the same reason that jockeys are fed on gin4 ,it is curious to see how widely educators differ as to the fundamental principles of their business4 ,the ,british system is built upon competitions1 prizes1 and examinations4 ,the ,american state universities in the days of their pristine purity--,i mean by that of course1 when ,i was a student--regarded competition as vicious1 prizes as demoralizing1 and examinations as an evil to be eliminated if possible4 ,but it ill becomes a pragmatist to condemn a system that works so well as the ,british1 whatever theoretical objections may occur4 ,much as ,schiller detested making verses in a dead language1 he did it so well that he got a ,major ,exhibition4 ,this gave him three hundred and fifty dollars for five years as well as four hundred and fifty dollars in ,exhibitions from ,rugby4 ,but it also meant that he had sold himself to run in harness for another four years at ,balliol and was obliged to master a philosophy which he already felt to be a fraud4 ,t4 ,h4 ,green had died just before ,schiller came up and had been sainted for the greater glory of ,balliol1 and it seemed to the tutors good pedagogy to set their pupils to begin the study of philosophy with ,green's ,prolegomena to ,ethics4 ,most of the boys confronted with this abstruse introduction came to the conclusion that it was wonderful1 but that they had no head for metaphysics because they could not see any sense in it4 ,schiller very curiously came to the opposite conclusion from the same premise4 ,orthodox ,oxford was at that time under the sway of the great philosophic ,trinity of ,plato1 ,aristotle1 and ,hegel1 which was supposed somehow to be concordant with or at least allied to the theological ,trinity1 and therefore fit food for the souls of innocent young men4 ,the third person of the philosophic ,trinity was kept much in the dark1 because the tutors generally were not fond of reading ,german4 ,they knew still less of science and apparently did not suspect that ,darwin and his evolution might prove to have some bearing upon philosophy4 ,schiller took his ,first ,classes at ,oxford1 although he was given to asking awkward questions and was known to be reading out of bounds4 ,one of his examiners complained that he used such queer terms in his papers1 solipsism and epistemology for instance4 ,the years #ahic-ahig ,schiller spent as instructor at ,cornell ,university1 and at the end of that period an amusing incident occurred1 though what it was and how it came about ,i don't know2 possibly because ,i never thought it best to inquire of any of the few who were in the room at the time4 ,the bare fact is interesting enough1 that a young man who had written one of the most brilliant volumes of the times on metaphysics1 ,riddles of the ,sphinx1 and who carried in his pocket a call to teach philosophy at a leading college of ,oxford1 was flunked in ,cornell on his oral examination for ,ph4,d4 in philosophy6 ,anybody who is curious can pick up half a dozen inconsistent versions of this famous episode on almost any campus4 ,one is1 that being fortified by the crinkle of the above mentioned letter over his heart and knowing that an ,american degree would have no value in ,england1 ,schiller did not take the examination seriously and neglected the necessary cramming4 ,another version of the story is that he turned tables upon his examiners by bringing into action for the first time the pragmatic arguments so much to their discomfiture and bewilderment that he was penalized for these foul blows4 ,but probably the details1 if one knew them1 would prove to be quite commonplace compared with either of these versions or the more picturesque legends that are in circulation1 so it is better to remain in ignorance and file it in the envelope with such cases as ,john ,henry ,newman1 who got only a ,third ,class2 ,f4 ,h4 ,bradley1 who got a ,second2 ,gustave ,dor1 who failed in drawing2 ,darwin who was called a stupid student1 ,grant who was graduated in the lower half of his class1 ,mendel who was never allowed to graduate at ,vienna1 and the like1 good material all for some one who wants to investigate the psychology of students--and examiners4 ,the chief benefit that ,schiller got out of his ,american sojourn was an acquaintance with ,william ,james4 ,it was a case of love at first sight and of lifelong devotion4 ,schiller dedicated his ,humanism ,to my dear friend1 the humanest of philosophers1 ,william ,james1 without whose example and unfailing encouragement this book would never have been written4 ,in #ahig ,schiller was called back to ,england to become tutor in ,corpus ,christi ,college4 ,the president of that college1 the late ,thomas ,fowler1 belonged rather to the pre-,hegelian ,oxford generation of the ,mill-,british-empiricism school of thought3 ,he liked things to be made intelligible1 and he was so much struck by the lucidity of ,schiller's ,riddles of the ,sphinx that he called him from ,cornell to ,oxford4 ,here then he has for twenty years lived the quiet1 sheltered1 contemplative life of the ,oxford don1 varied only by such daring adventures as his hunt for the hidden fallacies of formal logic1 his single combats with ,mr4 ,bradley1 and his ascent of the bleak heights of speculative philosophy1 where the ,absolute is supposed to dwell in solitude4 ,our ,american universities are putting up some very fair imitations of ,oxford architecture now4 ,some have transplanted ivy and it is growing4 ,some have transplanted tutors and they are growing4 ,but one ,oxford custom has not yet been introduced into our universities1 the custom of giving the professors time to think4 ,in ,oxford all the men have time to think and some of them do4 ,in ,america if a man shows a tendency to become absorbed in thought he is made a dean or put on the committee of accredited high schools1 which cures him4 ,in the ,british ,who's ,who ,mr4 ,schiller's recreations are ordinarily put down as mountaineering1 golf1 etc4 ,but in one edition of that handy volume of contemporary autobiography it is stated that his chief recreation is editing ,mind6 ,thus was revealed the secret of the mysterious appearance at ,christmas1 #aija1 of a periodical which in looks resembled one of the regular numbers of that staid blue-covered review of philosophy1 ,mind1 but with most startling contents4 ,the frontispiece is a ,portrait of ,its ,immanence1 the ,absolute4 ,this is followed by an article on ,the ,place of ,humour in the ,absolute1 by ,f4 ,h4 ,badley2 ,the ,critique of ,pure ,rot1 by ,i4 ,cant2 ,a ,commentary on the ,snark2 ,more ,riddles from ,worse ,sphinxes1 and the like4 ,the advertisements were likewise unusual--,a ,dictionary of ,oxford ,mythology1 in six volumes1 containing a complete account of the stories told in the ,common ,rooms and the men to whom they have from time to time been attached2 ,a fine consignment of assorted ,weltanschauungen just received from ,germany2 phonograms of all the lectures1 jokes extra1 with colored cinematographs of the most famous professors in action1 for armchair study1 etc4 ,the history of philosophy in fifty-one limericks1 covering all systems from ,thales to ,nietzsche1 would be useful on examination time by students of ,philosophy ,four4 ,we hedonists1 said ,aristippus1 ,discomforts detest when they grip us1 ,so wealth we adore1 ,the moment live for ,and take what the rich ',arries tip us4 ,the infinite self-absorbed ,brahma ,was dreaming the ,world-,panorama3 ,he groaned and he snored1 ,till at length he grew bored1 ,and woke up1 and broke up the ,drama4 ,to multiply beings1 said ,occam1 ,is needless1 'tis better to dock 'em4 ,so he seized on his razor1 ,this pestilent phraser1 ,and ran out to bloodily block 'em4 ,a pessimist1 great ,schopenhauer1 ,found living exceedingly sour1 ,at ,hegel he cursed1 ,his grievances nursed1 ,and poured forth his wrath by the hour4 ,as will be seen from the above1 ,mind6 reads much like the ,junior ,annual of an ,american college1 but at ,oxford the students are deficient in journalistic enterprise1 so the duty of keeping things cheerful devolves upon their betters4 ,according to its cover ,mind6 was edited by a ,troglodyte but as there was only one philosopher in ,england who would have the cheek to do it and who could parody the style and expose the weak points of the regular contributors to ,mind1 the troglodyte was soon tracked to his cave4 ,the author of a similar jeu d'esprit1 ,the ,joysome ,history of ,education1 which surreptitiously circulates about ,columbia ,university1 has so far as ,i know never been disclosed to the public4 ,but ,schiller has not been able to confine his humor to that uniquity1 ,mind6 ,he allows it to creep into his contributions to ,mind-without-the-exclamation-point and other serious journals4 ,he is a keen debater and does not follow the ordinary rules of fencing1 but frequently disconcerts his antagonists by parrying their thrusts with a pun or a personality4 ,he is1 so far as ,i know1 the first philosopher to find room for jokes in his formal philosophy1 as the following passage shows3 ,when we map out the whole region of ,truth-claim or ,formal ,truth1 we find that it contains 7#a7 lies1 7#b7 errors1 7#c7 methodological fictions1 7#d7 methodological assumptions1 7#e7 postulates1 7#f7 validated truths1 7#g7 axioms1 and 7#h7 jokes4 ,most philosophers in fact would not only ignore his eighth category1 but would neglect his first and second1 accepting any statement that claimed to be true and devoting themselves to the study of its logical implications4 ,but the pragmatist is more interested in finding out how and in what way an assertion comes to be called true and how it makes good its claim after it has been asserted4 ,as ,schiller puts it3#e ,what then is common to all sorts of ,truth and ,error1 and renders them species of a common genus8 ,nothing but their psychological side2 truth is the proper term for what satisfies1 error for what thwarts1 a human purpose in cognitive activity4 ,the difference between ,truth and ,error1 therefore1 is ultimately one in value4 ,the true way of conceiving an object or judging a situation is simply the way most valuable for our purpose2 the false way is one which is1 at least relatively1 worthless4 ,truth is a eulogistic1 error a dyslogistic1 way of valuing a cognitive situation4 ,truth and ,error therefore are continuous1 as history shows4 ,either may develop out of the other1 and both are rooted in the same problems of knowing1 which are ultimately problems of living4 ,the truths of one generation become the errors of the next1 when it has achieved more valuable and efficient modes of interpreting and manipulating the apparent facts1 which the new truths are continuously transforming4 ,and conversely1 what is now scouted as error may hereafter become the fruitful parent of a long progeny of truths4 ,it follows also that 7as every examiner who marks a paper knows7 ,truth and ,error admit of quantitative differences4 ,both can vary in importance1 and can attain 7or fail of7 their purpose to a greater or a less degree4 ,but neither is absolute4 ,an answer to a question is in general called true1 if it is true enough for the purpose in hand4 ,but this does not preclude a greater exactitude if 7for a different purpose7 it should be required4 ,it is a true answer to the question--when do you leave8 to reply to-morrow2 but if necessary ,i can specify the train ,i go by4 ,thus the demand for absolute exactness is both humanly unnecessary and scientifically unmeaning4 ,indeed a degree of accuracy higher than the situation demands would be irrational4 ,no one wants to know the height of a mountain in millimeters1 and if he did1 he could not ascertain it1 because his methods would not measure fine enough4 ,scientific truths are infinitely perfectible1 but never absolute4#f ,now if philosophers are wise1 they will accept this sort of truth1 and admit that any truth is absolute enough so soon as it is equal to the demands made upon it1 while none must ever be so absolute as to become incorrigible and incapable of further growth4 ,a human factor1 an element of personal desire1 enters into all our thinking2 otherwise why should we bother to think8 ,even our most abstract and general theorems have a hidden ,hinterland of subconscious motives1 limitations1 and conditions4 ,the abstract statement that two and two make four is always incomplete4 ,we need to know to what twos and fours the dictum is applied4 ,it would not be true of lions and lambs1 nor of drops of water1 nor of pleasures and pains4#g ,this suppressed context of thought is of course largely personal1 and with it is suppressed the human interest of philosophy4 ,hence the endeavor to drag it to light was very properly called ,humanism4 ,schiller conceives every thought as some one's experiment for which he is responsible4 ,every thought1 he says1 is an act and even the most 'theoretical' assertions are made to gratify an interest4 ,he finds in the present war a most unpleasant confirmation of his theory that thought is subordinate to action and never free from human volitional influence3#h ,if only philosophers could be got to face the facts of actual life1 could any of them fail to observe the enormous object-lesson in the truth of pragmatism which the world has been exhibiting in the present crisis8 ,everywhere the truths believed in are relative to the nationality and sympathies of their believers4 ,it is1 indeed1 lamentable that such an orgy of the will to believe should have been needed to illustrate the pragmatic nature of truth1 but who will dispute that for months say #iii persons out of #ajjj have been believing what they please1 and consciously or unconsciously making it true with a fervor rarely bestowed even by the most ardent philosophers on the most self-evident truths8 ,no improbability1 no absurdity1 no atrocity has been too great to win credence1 and the uniformity of human nature has been signally attested by the way in which the same stories 7mutatis mutandis7 have been credited on both sides4 ,since the controversy over pragmatism hinges on this theory of truth1 ,i will quote in condensed form what ,schiller says in his discussion with ,miss ,stebbing3#i ,it is an inevitable corollary of the belief in absolute truth that absolute truth cannot find lodgment in human mind1 nor be attained by way of human science4 ,we were led1 therefore1 to examine how in fact belief in the accepted truths grew up4 ,we found that every thought was essentially a personal experiment that might succeed or fail1 and that whether it did or not depended on its consequences4 ,but it seemed clear that true was the term appropriated by language to the success1 as false was to failure1 of such experiments4 ,of course both success and truth are relative terms4 ,absolute success is found as little as absolute truth and for the same reason4 ,all truths remain 7preferred7 truth-claims and retain an infinite appetite for assimilating further confirmation4 ,but there does come a point1 alike in the individual's experience and in social opinion at any time1 at which it seems that certain truth-claims have received confirmation enough to make them pragmatically certain4 ,these form the reigning truths4 ,but they never form a closed oligarchy or an immutable system4 ,merit can force its way into their ranks1 and inefficiency entails degradation4 ,thus1 though their position is 7psychologically7 unchallenged1 it is never 7logically7 unchallenged4 ,so it can not be said that because they work they are absolutely true4 ,they are called true because they work1 and there is no sense in calling anything true for any other reason2 but the progress of knowledge may nevertheless supersede them at the next step4 ,since ,schiller indignantly repudiates the formula often ascribed to pragmatism that ,all that works is true1 and since ,mr4 ,bradley has come to say#aj ,i agree that any idea which in any way 'works' has in some degree truth1 it would seem that these old antagonists are really not so far apart in their opinions as their words would indicate4 ,for classical authority for his ,humanism ,schiller goes back to the famous dictum of ,protagoras3 ,man is the measure of all things4 ,in ,plato's ,dialogues1 ,protagoras is represented as having been argued quite out of court by ,socrates1 but ,schiller appeals to posterity against this decision1 and he has written several supplemental dialogues of his own to prove that ,protagoras was really in the right4#aa ,schiller's most serious work so far is his destructive criticism of the ,aristotelian logic4 ,since my own study of logic came to an abrupt end as soon as ,i had secured a passing mark on ,jevons1 ,i shall not attempt to express an opinion upon the value of ,schiller's ,formal ,logic1 but will instead quote from the review of the volume by ,professor ,dewey of ,columbia4#ab ,in substance1 the volume 7a large octavo of about four hundred pages7 is an unrelenting1 dogged pursuit of the traditional logic1 chapter by chapter1 section by section4 ,not a single doctrine1 nor1 ,i think1 a single distinction of the official textbooks escapes ,schiller's demolishing hand4444 ,a vital and wholesome sense of the realities of actual thinking pervades the whole book2 it supplies the background against which the criticisms of formal doctrine are projected4 ,mr4 ,schiller brings out1 in case after case1 with a cumulative effect which is fairly deadly1 that at the crucial point each formal distinction is saved from complete meaninglessness only by an unacknowledged and surreptitious appeal to some matter of context1 need1 aim1 and use4 ,why not1 then1 frankly recognize the indispensableness of such volitional and emotional factors1 and instead of pretending to a logic that excludes them1 build up a logic that corresponds to human intellectual endeavor and achievement4 ,it is difficult to see how even the most hardened devotee of a purely theoretical intellectualism can lay down the book without such questions haunting him4444 ,while traditional logic has much to say about truth1 the truth it talks about is mere formal consistency1 since it declines to consider the material application of its premises4 ,relevance--a fundamental conception of concrete thought--is excluded because it goes with selection1 with selection of the part that is useful1 while formal logic professes an all-inclusive ideal4 ,selection1 moreover1 is a voluntary and hence arbitrary act1 and so is shut out from a doctrine that acknowledges only what is purely theoretical4 ,finally1 formal logic1 with its creed of absolute certitude1 abhors the very mention of adventure and risk1 the life blood of actual human thinking1 which is aroused by doubts and questions1 and proceeds by guesses1 hypotheses1 and experiments1 to a decision which is always somewhat arbitrary and subject to the risk of later revision4 ,much of the criticism of ,formal ,logic contained in this large volume is too technical for any save professionals to follow1 but at my request ,mr4 ,schiller was kind enough to write an article for ,the ,independent putting the main points of it in a form understanded of the common people4 ,from this ,i quote the passage in which he shows that the syllogism cannot lead unerringly to new truth3 ,the peculiar aim of logic hitherto has been to discover a form of valid inference4 ,by this was meant a form of words so fool-proof that it could not be misapplied1 and that the use of it would absolutely guarantee the soundness of the conclusion if only the reasoning had been fortunate enough to start from true premises4 ,in the syllogism it was supposed that such a form had been found4 ,from all swans are white and this bird is a swan it was to follow inevitably that this bird is white1 and the course of nature would eternally conform to the prophetic demonstrations of logic4 ,yet logicians also had soon to note that even formally there was something wrong about this syllogistic form4 ,it seemed to prove what was either nothing new or nothing known4 ,to justify the major premise all swans are white1 must not its assert or have already seen this swan and know that it is white8 ,or1 if he did not know this1 is he not risking an assertion about some swans on the strength of what he knows about others8 ,and what right had he thus to argue from the known to the unknown8 ,can an inference be valid if it involves a risk8 ,when therefore black swans arrive from ,australia to upset his dogmatizing1 what is he to do8 ,will he say his major premise was a definition1 and no bird1 however swan-like1 shall be called a swan if it cannot pass his color-test8 ,if so1 his reasoning is still caught in the old dilemma1 that he either proves nothing new or begs the question in another way4 ,for he then had no right to assert his minor premise1 this bird is a swan1 if he knew not it was white4 ,or will he1 desperately1 say in both of these interpretations the syllogistic form is fatuous2 but kindly understand it as asserting a law of nature which is immutable1 and applied to the particular case in the minor premise4 ,but1 if so1 how does he know that his law applies to the case8 that the case is such as he takes it to be8 that he has picked out the right law to deal with the case and formulated it correctly8 ,if it is quite certain that the law applies to the case1 his conclusion proves nothing new2 if it is not1 he runs the risk that the case of which he is trying to predict the behavior may be so exceptional as to break or modify his law4 ,and if he runs that risk1 is he not renouncing his ideal of reaching fool-proof certainty8 ,there seems to be no way1 therefore1 of saving valid inference1 of so interpreting the syllogism that it is both formally valid and humanly instructive4 ,if it is to be instructive1 it can only enlighten human ignorance1 and then its premises cannot be certainly true4#ac ,some critics1 having in mind how little attention is paid to formal logic in ,american schools1 have expressed the opinion that ,schiller was wasting his powder on dead game4 ,but however little it may be used in reasoning1 formal logic is still the object of formal reverence everywhere1 and in ,oxford it is strongly entrenched and heavily subsidized as ,schiller says in the passage3 ,that the same doctrine1 in perfect verbal continuity1 should have been taught and examined on for over two thousand years would be the most stupendous fact in education1 were it not surpassed by the still more surprising fact that during all this time no one has arisen to call it nonsense through and through1 and that every would-be improvement has been countered by the retort that it was not in ,aristotle4 444 ,the great mass of logicians have always been true to their salt4 ,for ,aristotle is still very heavily endowed4 ,in the ,university of ,oxford alone three philosophy professors1 twenty-eight literae humaniores tutors1 and about #dfj classical scholars and exhibitioners are paid1 at an annual cost of over #ej1jjj1 to believe that the theory of thought has stood still1 or stumbled into error when it tried to move1 ever since the composition of the ,organon1 and that all modern science may be read into and out of the obscurities of the ,posterior ,analytics4 ,the ,secret ,doctrine in which this is taught has never been divulged in print1 but examiners know that there are passages in the ordinary ,oxford ,logic ,lecture which must have been copied down by two hundred generations of students ever since the twelfth century4 ,like ,james and ,bergson and unlike ,dewey1 ,schiller has interested himself in psychical research as a possible way of proving personal immortality4#ad ,he does not seem from his published work to have yet obtained any satisfactory experimental evidence of a future life1 but he regards immortality as an ethical postulate1 necessary to the conceptions of a moral universe1 for if we reject it we should be plunged in that unfathomable abyss where ,scepticism fraternizes with ,pessimism and they hug their miseries in chaos undisguised4 ,but in his earliest work ,riddles of the ,sphinx he expressed the opinion that nowadays few people took a real interest in the question of immortality and that it had little influence upon conduct4 ,this unconventional opinion was confirmed many years later when the ,society for ,psychical ,research conducted a questionnaire on the subject and found that of the many thousand persons interrogated a large proportion did not regard a future life as of practical importance to them4#ae ,within the last few years ,schiller has entered a new field1 the eugenics movement1 where his keen wit and power of analysis are doing good service4 ,in his review of ,nietzsche's work#af he recognizes that ,nietzsche is not without reason when he asserts that the moral qualities he dislikes1 such as pity and sympathy1 may lead to decadence1 for1 as ,schiller elsewhere shows1 social reform1 unless it is eugenically directed1 may lead to the growth of the evils it aims to alleviate4 ,in a very remarkable article published shortly before the outbreak of the war1#ag he foretold the collapse of ,european civilization and suggested that the ,japanese or ,chinese1 through the greater importance they attach to the family1 might be found more worthy of preeminence4 ,if the ancestor-worship of the animist can be developed into the descendant-worship of the eugenist1 ,i can see no reason why one should not prognosticate for both of them a rosier future and a more assured continuance than for our ,european societies1 if these latter yield to the pressure of those1 whether called individualists1 socialists1 or militarists1 who tempt them to destruction4 ,the danger to ,european culture lies1 he says1 in that our ,hellenistic political philosophy exhibits all the marks of senile dementia and progressive paranoia4 ,the evidence goes to show that throughout the most valuable part of the nation1 not only in the upper classes but also in the middle classes and in the best parts of the working classes1 the birth-rate per marriage has in a generation sunk from four and a half to two1 and is now only half the size required to keep up the numbers in those classes4 ,in other words1 society is now so ordered that in every generation it sheds one-half of the classes it itself values most highly1 and supplies their places with the offspring of the feeble-minded and casual-labourer classes1 whose families still average more than seven4 ,what seriously aggravates the evil is the whole trend of social legislation4 ,social reform costs money1 and the money is raised by taxation1 which bears very hardly on the middle classes1 who cannot curtail luxuries like the rich1 and will not lower their standard of comfort4 ,they meet the extra expense1 therefore1 by further postponing the age of marriage1 and further reducing their output of children4 ,one of the chief effects1 therefore1 of our present methods of improving social conditions is to deteriorate the race4 ,and this in a twofold manner3 they eliminate the middle class1 and they promote the survival of the unfit and defective4 ,it is perfectly possible1 therefore1 to tax the middle classes out of existence4 ,indeed1 it has been done4 ,history exhibits a great object-lesson in the decline of the ,roman empire4 ,this appears to have been mainly due to an unscientific system of taxation which crushed the middle class and left no breeding ground for ability and ambition between the millionaire nobles1 who had nothing to rise to1 and the pauperised masses1 who had no chance of rising4 ,consequently1 the empire had to take from without its borders the men it needed to conduct its military and civil administration4 ,the barbarians alone could furnish the men to run the empire1 and consequently the barbarians inevitably came to overrun the empire4 ,the ,great ,war which he could not foresee has immeasurably accelerated the degenerative process which he foretold4 ,the death roll of university students and graduates1 representing1 however inadequate the examination system1 a selected class of young men of superior intellectual ability1 is probably higher than in any other class4 ,when ,i visited ,oxford a few years before the war the students were already drilling for the impending conflict and practically all who were eligible enlisted at the first call4 ,raising an army by appeals to patriotism as was done in ,england means sending to the front to bear the brunt of battle longest those who are most energetic1 self-sacrificing1 and intelligent1 while the slackers1 the incompetent1 the weaklings1 the selfish1 and the dull were left to the last or not taken at all4 ,besides this the burden of taxation resting upon the middle classes that ,schiller thought unbearable in #aiad has been multiplied and will act as a deterrent to large families more strongly than ever in the future4 ,a ,royal ,commission has been appointed to consider methods for checking the alarming decline in the birth-rate4 ,one anti-eugenic agency which ,schiller fails to mention but which strikes an outsider as very serious is ,labanism4 ,it was formerly the custom to require all ,oxford fellows to remain celibate4 ,later they were allowed to marry after serving seven years1 whence the name4 ,recently this prohibition has been removed1 but the antiquated social organization of the colleges acts as a practical deterrent of marriage4 ,so by this elaborate and expensive system of examination1 competitions1 and promotions--which unfortunately is not so inefficient as its occasional mistakes might lead us to think--the university prevents those whom it deems to have the brightest minds from transmitting their mental endowments to posterity4 ,the devil could not have devised a more ingenious scheme for the promotion of mediocrity4 ,since ,oxford has been in existence for about eight hundred years it must have had a considerable influence on the reduction of ,british genius4 ,as ,schiller points out1 any measures to be eugenically effective must apply to the young4 ,the rewards bestowed upon ability are not only frequently misapplied but they are invariably too long delayed4 ,the youthful genius is too often forced to give up having a family or compelled to support it on faith1 hope and charity4 ,to this defect in our civilization ,schiller has given the apt name of social hysteresis4#ah ,in all the professions 7except1 perhaps1 that of the actress7 the young are underpaid1 and established reputations are overpaid4 ,it would be eugenically preferable to do the opposite4 ,yet the existing practice is largely due to unintentional stupidity1 and failure to discover ability soon enough4 ,now to the individual this system brings compensation1 if he lives long enough1 because he continues to be rewarded for work he has done long ago1 and even is no longer capable of doing1 and is eventually raised to the status of a grand old man whom ancient institutions delight to honour1 by dint of sheer longevity4 ,but eugenically this social hysteresis1 this delay in recompensing merit1 has a fatal effect4 ,it renders the capable1 ambitious and rising members of the professional classes unduly sterile1 owing to compulsory celibacy1 postponement of marriage1 overwork1 etc4 ,thus a large proportion of the ability which rises to the top of the social ladder lasts only for one generation1 and does not permanently benefit the race4 ,from this passage it will be seen that ,schiller does not fall into the common fallacy of unconsciously assuming that the upper classes of our present social system necessarily consist of superior individuals4 ,but he does lay stress upon something often overlooked1 that this assumption is more justified as society becomes more democratic3 ,precisely in proportion as a society improves the opportunities of the able to rise1 it must accelerate the elimination of fitness in the racial stock4 ,so long as a relatively rigid social order rendered it almost impossible for ability to rise from the ranks1 reservoirs of ability could accumulate unseen in the lower social strata1 and burst forth in times of need1 as in the ,french ,revolution3 but the more successfully a carrire ouverte aux talents is instituted1 the more surely are these strata kept drained1 and incapacitated from retrieving the waste of ability in the upper layers of society4 ,now it is doubtless true that the primary need of society is to find persons capable of conducting its affairs ably1 and that a social order which does not allow ability to rise is therefore bad3 but nations cannot with impunity so order themselves as to eliminate the very qualities they most admire and desire1 and must husband their resources in men as in the other sources of their wealth and welfare4#ai ,that is to say1 it did not matter much if in former times the nobility did tend to die out in a few generations1 for in hereditable ability they were not much above the average4 ,but in the more just regime that we are trying to introduce1 especially in ,america1 when the opportunities for higher education and advancement are extended to the gifted of all classes1 it will be disastrous if the professional and well-to-do classes fail to contribute their share to the future population1 for it means a continuous reversal of the method of the survival of the fittest by which evolution has been accomplished4 ,this is not a law that man can repeal however he may disregard it4 ,so it happens that civilized societies tend to die at the top and the human race makes little or no progress in native ability4 ,as ,schiller says3 ,the inventor of the wheel or even of a new mode of chipping flints may well have been as great a genius as the human race has produced1 and it accords well with this that the early paleolithic races seem to have possessed a cranial capacity1 not less1 but greater than our own4 ,for in the dim red dawn of man the fool-killing apparatus of nature was terribly effective1 and society could do little to mitigate its horrors and to protect its inefficient members4 ,the injustice1 and what is more important1 the injurious effects of the present distribution of honors and emoluments he exposes in his article on ,national ,self-,selection3 ,is it not nonsense to say that the ,archbishop of ,canterbury is paid #ae1jjj a year and ,prof4 ,j4 ,j4 ,thomson seven or eight hundred1 because the persons fitted to perform the latter's functions are twenty times as common as those suited to the former's8 ,is not the real reason plainly that the former is the beneficiary of a long social development which has liberally endowed the ,church1 while the social appreciation of the value of science is only just beginning1 and has not yet raised the makers of new truths to a par with the custodians of time-honoured revelations8 ,our example1 however1 draws attention to a very general fact1 viz41 that the social position of various functions is very largely the product of past valuations which have persisted from mere habit4 ,hence their present salaries do not really prove that an ,archbishop is twenty times as valuable to a nation as a scientific genius1 or thrice as precious as a ,premier1 nor even that men now think so4 ,how many of us1 for example1 really now believe that mere descent from an illiterate medieval baron attests sufficient merit to entitle a man to a hereditary seat in the ,house of ,lords8 ,if we continued to value fighting qualities as highly as of yore1 we should promote our actual fighting men4 ,when we want really to defend the ,house of ,lords1 we point to its sagacity in gauging the will of the people and to the economic value of its attractiveness for foreign heiresses4 ,hence one of the chief needs of a society which desires to reconstitute itself on eugenical principles is a thorough revision of social status4 ,it must bring the social position of various services into closer agreement with their present value4 ,and it must induce a greater feeling of responsibility about the popular valuations and transvaluations of functions1 which are constantly exalting the position of the caterers to individual pleasures above the consolidators of man's permanent welfare4 ,it is not good for a society that a cricketer or a prize-fighter or a dancer should be esteemed and rewarded more highly than the man who discovers a cure for malaria or cancer4#bj ,the humanistic view of metaphysics ,schiller expresses in the preface to the #aiaj edition of his earliest work ,riddles of the ,sphinx4 ,practically a system of metaphysics1 with whatever pretensions to pure thought and absolute rationality it may start is always in the end one man's personal vision about the universe1 and the metaphysical craving often so strong in the young is nothing but the desire to tell the universe what one thinks of it4 ,of course1 the tale may be worth telling if told well4 ,this describes the ,riddles of the ,sphinx exactly4 ,in it the youthful ,schiller tells the universe what he thinks of it and it is told well4 ,but his thoughts have changed in the twenty-five years since this volume was published so that even in its revised form it does not so well express his views as do his later volumes1 ,humanism and ,studies in ,humanism1 of which revised editions were brought out in #aiab4 ,the doctrine known as ,absolute ,idealism was1 ,schiller explains1 imported from ,germany1 soon after its demise in its native country1 for the purpose of counteracting the anti-religious developments of science4 ,but the abstract conception of the ,absolute is1 in his opinion1 of no value to religion or anything else4 ,the pragmatic demand for ,god is1 first1 as a human moral principle of help and justice1 and second1 as an aid to the intellectual comprehension of the universe1 but the metaphysical ,absolute satisfies neither of these cravings1 for it is too impersonal to help anybody and too general to explain anything4 ,in his chapter on ,absolutism and the ,dissociation of ,personality#ba he generously offers his aid to the idealistic monists who have difficulty in conceiving how the ,one became the ,many and why the individualistic minds included in the ,universal ,mind should be so antagonistic4 ,schiller suggests that it is an analogous case to the dissociation of that celebrated ,boston lady ,miss ,beauchamp into several secondary personalities4 ,but he admits that it is a little startling at first to think of the ,absolute as morbidly dissociated or even as downright mad1 especially since in the case of the ,absolute there is no outsider1 like ,doctor ,morton ,prince1 to put the parts together again4 ,many years before he had said#bb ,the conception of a ,deity absorbed in perfect1 unchanging and eternal bliss is a blasphemy upon the ,divine energy which might be permitted to the heathen ignorance of ,aristotle1 but which should be abhorred by all who have learnt the lesson of the ,crucifixion4 ,a theology which denies that the imperfection of the world must be reflected in the sorrows of the ,deity simply shows itself blind to the deepest and truest meaning of the figure of ,him that was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and deaf to the gospel of ,divine sympathy with the world4 ,thus the world-process is the process of the redemption alike of ,god1 of the world and of our own selves4 ,the conception of a struggling and self-developing ,god which ,schiller adduced from ,christian principles is remarkably like that to which ,bergson was led by other lines of reasoning4#bc ,the value of the pragmatic method to religion is discussed by ,schiller in his article on ,faith1 ,reason and ,religion1#bd where he shows that even the most rigorous scientific reasoning involves the element of faith1 and on the other hand that faith is devoid of value unless it is verified in the only way by which anything can be verified1 that is1 by works4 ,he says3 ,christianity is an essentially human and thoroughly pragmatic religion1 hampered throughout its history and at times almost strangled by an alien theology1 based upon the intellectualistic speculations of ,greek philosophers4 ,fortunately the ,greek metaphysic embodied 7mainly7 in the ,athanasian creed is too obscure to have ever been really functional2 its chief mischief has always been to give theological support to philosophic criticisms1 which by identifying ,god with the ,one have aimed at eliminating the human elements from the ,christian religion4 ,as against all such attempts1 however1 we must hold fast to the principle that the truest religion is that which issues in and fosters the best life4 ,the pragmatic criterion of truth1 that all truths must work1 is not a lax one as its opponents assert but the most stringent that can be applied4 ,it means--,you shall back your beliefs with your acts and shall not assert the truth of whatever suits you without any testing at all4 ,it eliminates as meaningless all theories that make no difference whether they are believed or disbelieved4 ,it demands constant confirmation of all beliefs by their consequences4 ,it insists upon the unity of theory and practice1 of faith and works4 ,this point was plainly put by ,schiller in his address before the ,pan-,anglican ,church ,congress of #aijh3 ,for any theory to work1 it must be believed in1 e4g41 believed to be true4 ,it is impossible1 e4g41 to practice prayer merely as a piece of spiritual hygiene1 and in order to get the strengthening which is said to result from the practice4 ,the practice need not1 of course1 start with a firm belief in the reality of its object4 ,but unless it engenders a real belief1 it will become inefficacious4 ,hence1 to conceive of ,pragmatism as ultimately sanctioning an act-as-if attitude of religious make-believe is a misapprehension2 it is to confound it with the discredited and ineffectual dualism of ,kant's antithesis of practical and theoretic reason4 ,lastly1 it should be noted that any theory which works must evoke some response from the objective nature of things4 ,if there were no ,god1 i4e41 nothing that could afford any satisfaction to any religious emotion1 the whole religious attitude would be futile4 ,if it is not1 it must contain essential truth1 though it may remain to be determined what is the objective fact corresponding to the postulate4 ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,schiller ,humanism 7#aijc1 new edition #aiab7 and ,studies in ,humanism 7#aijg1 new edition #aiab7 are both collections of papers presenting various phases of ,schiller's philosophy4 ,either one may serve as an introduction to the author4 ,riddles of the ,sphinx 7#ahia71 though also revised 7#aiaj71 represents an earlier mode of thought4 ,formal ,logic 7#aiab7 is too technical for any but well prepared students4 ,all ,schiller's works are published by ,the ,macmillan ,company4 ,the reader who loves a fight and does not faint at the sight of inkshed will find what he wants in almost any volume of the ,oxford ,mind or the ,columbia ,journal of ,philosophy1 ,psychology and ,scientific ,methods4 ,where the conflict rages most fiercely there ,schiller will be seen in the midst of the combatants1 thrusting in all directions at the weak points in their armor4 ,to enumerate all of his controversial and fugitive writings would be impossible here1 but the following articles at least must be mentioned3 ,do ,men ,desire ,immortality8 7,fortnightly1 vol4 #gf1 p4 #dcj74 ,the ,desire for a ,future ,life 7,independent1 ,september #ae1 #aijd74 ,psychical ,research 7,fortnightly1 vol4 #hc1 p4 #fj74 ,presidential ,address 7,proceedings ,society for ,psychical ,research1 #aiad-aiae74 ,miss ,beauchamp 7,journal ,philosophy1 ,psychology and ,scientific ,methods1 vol4 #d1 p4 #bj2 and ,mind1 ,no4 #gj1 p4 #ahc74 ,the ,philosophy of ,friedrich ,nietzsche 7,quarterly ,review1 #aiac74 ,choice and ,infallibility 7,hibbert ,journal1 #aiji74 ,plato 7,quarterly ,review1 vol4 #bjd1 p4 #fb74 ,pluralism 7,proceedings of ,aristotelian ,society1 #aijh-aiji74 ,the ,rational ,conception of ,truth 7,proceedings ,aristotelian ,society1 #aijf74 ,oxford of the ,workingman 7,fortnightly1 ,february1 #aiac74 ,cosmopolitan ,oxford 7,fortnightly1 ,may1 #aijb74 ,war ,prophecies 7,journal ,society ,psychical ,research1 ,june1 #aiaf74 ,criticism of ,perry's ,realism 7,mind1 #aiad74 ,discussions of pragmatism 7,mind1 #aiac1 #aiae74 ,new ,developments of ,mr4 ,bradley's ,philosophy 7,mind1 #aiae74 ,present ,phase of ,idealistic ,philosophy 7,mind1 ,january and ,october1 #aiaj74 ,realism1 ,pragmatism1 and ,william ,james 7,mind1 #aiae7 ,the ,humanism of ,protagoras 7,mind1 ,april1 #aiaa74 ,logic versus ,life 7,independent1 vol4 #gc1 p4 #cge74 ,aristotle's ,refutation of the ,aristotelian ,logic 7,mind1 vol4 #bc1 pp4 #a1 #cie1 #eeh74 ,the ,working of ,truths and ,their ,criterion 7,mind1 vol4 #bb1 ,no4 #hh74 ,error 7,,iv ,congresso internazionale di filosofia1 ,bologna1 #aiaa74 ,relevance 7,mind1 vol4 #ba1 ,no4 #hb74 ,the ,working of ,truths 7,mind1 vol4 #ba1 ,no4 #hd74 ,national ,self-,selection 7,eugenics ,review1 ,april1 #aiad7 ,our ,critic ,criticized 7,eugenics ,review1 ,january1 #aiad74 ,criticism of ,schiller and other pragmatists may be found in the controversies referred to1 but ,i may also add the following references3 ,vital ,lies by ,vernon ,lee 7,john ,lane ,company1 #aiac74 ,pragmatism 7,quarterly ,review1 ,april1 #aiji74 ,british ,exponents of ,pragmatism by ,professor ,m',gilvary 7,hibbert ,journal1 ,april1 #aijh74 ,der ,pragmatismus von ,james und ,schiller1 by ,doctor ,werner ,bloch 7#aiac74 #a ,schiller says that ,professor ,santayana1 though a pragmatist in epistemology is a materialist in metaphysics4 #b ,the ,philosophy of ,wang ,yang-ming is now accessible in ,english1 through the translation of ,doctor ,henke 7,open ,court ,publishing ,company1 ,chicago1 #aiaf74 #c ,major ,prophets of ,to-day1 ,first ,series1 #aiad4 ,little1 ,brown1 and ,company1 ,boston4 #d ,of course any one who wants to find out at first hand what pragmatism is will not bother with what ,i say but will turn to ,william ,james's ,pragmatism or invest fifty cents in the briefer and more comprehensive survey of the movement in ,d4 ,l4 ,murray's primer of ,pragmatism4 ,a definition of pragmatism that is anything but monosyllabic may be found in the chapter on ,dewey4 ,the story is told of a college woman who was asked what ,professor ,james's lecture on pragmatism was going to be about and replied that she thought it had something to do with the royal succession in ,austria4 ,schiller's own definition is to be found in his ,studies in ,humanism3 ,pragmatism is the doctrine 7i7 that truths are logical values2 7#b7 that the truth of an assertion depends on its application2 7#c7 that the meaning of a rule lies in its application2 7#d7 that ultimately all meaning depends on purpose2 7#e7 that all mental life is purposive4 ,pragmatism is 7#f7 a systematic protest against all ignoring of the purposiveness of actual knowing1 and it is 7#g7 a conscious application to epistemology 7or logic7 of a teleological psychology1 which implies1 ultimately1 a voluntaristic metaphysic4 #e ,address on ,error before the ,congresso ,internazionale di ,filosofia1 ,bologna1 #aiaa4 #f ,i find the following incident reported of a ,boston school which would indicate that the philosophy of ,william ,james is influencing the younger generation in his home city3 ,well1 ,waldo1 said the professor of geometry1 can you prove any of to-day's theorems8 ,no1 sir1 ,i'm afraid ,i can't1 said ,waldo hopefully2 but ,i can render several of them highly probable4 #g ,studies in ,humanism4 #h ,realism1 ,pragmatism and ,william ,james4 ,mind1 #aiae4 #i ,mind1 vol4 #bb1 p4 #ecd1 #aiac4 #aj ,essays on ,truth and ,reality by ,f4 ,h4 ,bradley4 ,see ,schiller's ,new ,developments of ,mr4 ,bradley's ,philosophy in ,mind1 #aiae4 #aa ,see ,protagoras the ,humanist1 and ,gods and ,priests in ,studies in ,humanism1 and ,useless ,knowledge and ,plato or ,protagoras in ,humanism4 #ab ,the ,independent4 ,schiller's ,formal ,logic gave rise to much controversy4 ,see for instance ,mind1 vol4 #bc1 p4 #a1 #cih1 #eeh4 ,one critic called it a sympathetic appreciation of all known logical fallacies4 #ac ,logic versus ,life in ,the ,independent1 vol4 #gc1 p4 #cge4 #ad ,the latter part of ,humanism and of ,riddles of the ,sphinx is devoted to this topic4 ,schiller succeeded ,bergson as ,president of the ,society for ,psychical ,research in #aiad4 #ae ,see ,schiller's article on this in ,the ,independent of ,september #ae1 #aijd1 or in ,fortnightly ,review1 vol4 #gf1 p4 #dcj4 #af ,quarterly ,review1 #aiac4 #ag ,eugenics and ,politics in ,the ,hibbert ,journal1 ,january1 #aiad4 #ah ,practical ,eugenics in ,education4 #ai ,practical ,eugenics in ,education4 #bj ,eugenics ,review1 ,april1 #aiaj4 #ba ,in ,studies in ,humanism4 #bb ,riddles of the ,sphinx1 p4 #dca4 #bc ,see ,creative ,evolution and ,chapter ,,ii of ,major ,prophets of ,to-day2 also ,wells and ,shaw in this volume4 #bd ,in ,studies in ,humanism and ,hibbert ,journal1 ,january1 #aijf4 ,see also ,science and ,religion in ,riddles of the ,sphinx1 new edition4 ,,chapter ,v ,,john ,,dewey ,teacher of ,teachers ,if some historian should construct an intellectual weather map of the ,united ,states he would find that in the eighties the little arrows that show which way the wind blows were pointing in toward ,ann ,arbor1 ,michigan1 in the nineties toward ,chicago1 ,illinois1 and in the nineteen hundreds toward ,new ,york ,city1 indicating that at these points there was a rising current of thought4 ,and if he went so far as to investigate the cause of these local upheavals of the academic atmosphere he would discover that ,john ,dewey had moved from one place to the other4 ,it might be a long time before the psychometeorologist would trace these thought currents spreading over the continent back to their origin1 a secluded classroom where the most modest man imaginable was seated and talking in a low voice for an hour or two a day4 ,john ,dewey is not famous like ,w4 ,j4 ,bryan or ,charlie ,chaplin4 ,he is not even known by name to most of the millions whose thought he is guiding and whose characters he is forming4 ,this is because his influence has been indirect4 ,he has inspired individuals and instigated reforms in educational methods which have reached the remotest schoolhouses of the land4 ,the first of the ,dewey cyclones revolved about psychology1 the second about pedagogy1 and the third about philosophy4 ,i was a thousand miles away from the first storm center1 yet ,i distinctly felt the vibrations4 ,that was in the ,university of ,kansas when the psychology class was put in charge of a young man named ,templin just back from his ,wanderjahr in ,germany4 ,this study had hitherto belonged ex officio to the ,chancellor of the university who put the finishing touch on the seniors' brains with aid of ,mc,cosh4 ,but the queer looking brown book stamped ,psychology--,john ,dewey that was put into our hands in #ahhg relegated the ,princeton philosopher to the footnotes and instead told about ,helmholtz1 ,weber1 ,wundt and a lot of other foreigners who1 it seemed1 were not content to sit down quietly and search their own minds--surely as good as anybody's--but went about watching the behavior of children1 animals1 and crazy folks and spent their time in a laboratory--the idea6--measuring the speed of thought and dissecting brains4 ,this young man in ,michigan made bold to claim psychology as a natural science instead of a minor branch of metaphysics1 and he did the best he could to prove it with such meager materials as were available at the time4 ,his ,psychology appeared1 as should be remembered1 three years before the epoch-making work of ,james and before any permanent psychological laboratory had been opened in the ,united ,states4 ,in taking down again my battered brown copy of ,dewey's ,psychology ,i am surprised to find how trite and old-fashioned some of it sounds4 ,although ,dewey thought he had thrown overboard all metaphysics it is evident that he was then carrying quite a cargo of it unconsciously4 ,but the commotion started by ,dewey's ,psychology was a tempest in an inkpot compared with the cyclone that swept over the country when he began to put his theories into practice at the ,university of ,chicago in #ahid4 ,i heard echoes of it as far west as ,wyoming4 ,the teachers who went to the summer session of the ,university of ,chicago came back shocked1 fascinated1 inspired1 or appalled1 according to their temperaments4 ,the very idea of an experimental school was disconcerting1 suggesting that the poor children were being subjected to some sort of vivisection or--what was worse--implying that the established educational methods were all wrong4 ,he lets the children do whatever they want to do1 whispered the teachers to their stay-at-home colleagues1 who1 like themselves1 were spending their time in keeping the children from doing what they wanted to do and in making them do what they did not want to do4 ,he lets the children talk and run around and help one another with their lessons6 and all the teachers looked at each other with a wild surmise silent on the school-room platform4 ,could it be that there was a better way1 that this task on which they were wearing out their nerves1 trying to reduce to rigidity for five hours a roomful of wriggling children1 was no less harmful to the children than to themselves8 ,i'd like to see ,john ,dewey try to manage my sixty1 remarks the presiding teacher as she suppresses a little girl on the front seat with a smile and a big boy on the back seat with a tap of her pencil4 ,as a matter of fact1 the children neither studied nor did what they pleased1 but the idea was that if children had a sufficient variety of activities provided they would like what they did and their activities could be so arranged as to result in getting knowledge and in forming good habits of thought4 ,the common assumption that the main idea was to have the children do and study what they liked was a complete missing of the intellectual idea or philosophy of the school1 which was an attempt to work out the theory that knowledge1 with respect to both sense observation and general principles1 is an offshoot of activities1 and that the practical problems arising in connection with consecutive occupations afford the means for a development of interest in scientific problems for their own sake4 ,the social grouping of children1 and the attempt to get coperative group work1 was always just as important a phase as individual freedom--not only on moral grounds1 but because of the theoretical conception that human intelligence developed under social conditions and for social purposes--in other words1 mind has developed not only with respect to activity having purpose1 but also social activity4 ,these same notions of the central place of intelligence in action and the social nature of intelligence are fundamental in ,dewey's ,ethics4 ,the real distinguishing characteristic of schools of the ,dewey type is not absence of discipline but a new ideal of discipline4 ,this is most clearly stated in one of his more recent works3 ,discipline of mind is in truth a result rather than a cause4 ,any mind is disciplined in a subject in which independent intellectual initiative and control have been achieved4 ,discipline represents original native endowment turned through gradual exercise into effective power4444 ,discipline is positive and constructive4 ,discipline1 however1 is frequently regarded as something negative--as a painfully disagreeable forcing of mind away from channels congenial to it into channels of constraint1 a process grievous at the time1 but necessary as preparation for a more or less remote future4 ,discipline is then generally identified with drill2 and drill is conceived after the mechanical analogy of driving1 by unremitting blows1 a foreign substance into a resistant material2 or is imaged after the analogy of the mechanical routine by which raw recruits are trained to a soldierly bearing and habits that are naturally wholly foreign to their possessors4 ,training of this latter sort1 whether it be called discipline or not1 is not mental discipline4 ,its aim and result are not habits of thinking but uniform external habits of action4 ,by failing to ask what he means by discipline1 many a teacher is misled into supposing that he is developing mental force and efficiency by methods which in fact restrict and deaden intellectual activity1 and which tend to create mechanical routine1 or mental passivity and servility4--,how ,we ,think1 p4 #fc4 ,but even more revolutionary than ,dewey's rejection of the strict discipline then prevailing in the schools was his introduction of industrial training as an integral part of education1 not merely for the purpose of giving the pupils greater manual skill1 still less with the object of improving their chances of getting a job or of making them more efficient for the benefit of the employer1 but chiefly because it is only through participation in industry that one can get an understanding of the meaning of science and the constitution of the social organism4 ,in the old days when most industries were carried on in the household or the neighborhood children learned them by observation and participation4 ,school was then a place where this very effective form of home education could be supplemented by book learning4 ,but ,dewey faced frankly the fact that the house-hold arts and handicrafts had passed away for keeps1 and he refused to join in the pretense that they could be profitably revived by the various esthetic and socialist movements of the ,william ,morris and ,ruskin type4 ,he recognized that the machine and the factory had come to stay1 and if the worker is not to become a factory machine himself he must receive in school such a broad and diversified training as will make him realize the significance of the work he does4 ,or as ,dewey said in ,school and ,society in #ahii3 ,we sometimes hear the introduction of manual training1 art and science into the elementary1 and even into the secondary1 schools deprecated on the ground that they tend toward the production of specialists--that they detract from our present system of generous1 liberal culture4 ,the point to this objection would be ludicrous if it were not often so effective as to make it tragic4 ,it is our present education which is highly specialized1 one-sided and narrow4 ,it is an education dominated almost entirely by the medieval conception of learning4 ,it is something which appeals for the most part simply to the intellectual aspect of our natures1 our desire to learn1 to accumulate information1 and to get control of the symbols of learning2 not to our impulses and tendencies to make1 to do1 to create1 to produce1 whether in the form of utility or art4 ,mere manual training1 then all the rage1 has failed1 as ,dewey said it would1 because of its fictitious and adventitious character4 ,his method was as different from the ordinary kind of manual training as hay-making is from dumb-bell exercise4 ,we must conceive of work in wood and metal1 of weaving1 sewing and cooking1 as methods of living and learning1 not as distinct studies4 ,we must conceive of them in their social significance1 as types of processes by which society keeps itself going1 as agencies for bringing home to the child some of the primal necessities of community life1 and as ways in which these needs have been met by the growing insight and ingenuity of man2 in short as instrumentalities through which the school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life1 instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons4 ,so ,dewey set the children to solving the problems of primitive man and retracing for themselves the steps in the evolution of industrial processes4 ,they picked the cotton from the boll1 carded1 spun it into thread and wove it into cloth on machines of their own making and for the most part of their own devising4 ,this gave opportunity for personal experimenting and taught them history by repeating history1 not repeating a verbal version of history4 ,and the history they thus learnt was the history of the human race1 not the history of some chosen people4 ,this recapitulation theory1 like all others1 has since been carried to an extreme4 ,acting on the idea that children normally pass through the same stages as ,european civilization some teachers seem to think it necessary to keep them to the chronological curriculum4 ,so they cultivate a pseudo-savagery for a year or two1 then make them pagans and later teach the ideals of the age of chivalry which are hardly less repugnant to the modern mind4 ,so careful are they to avoid anachronism that if a boy should by any accident behave like a ,christian before he reached the grade corresponding to ,a4,d4 #bh he would be likely to get a bad mark for it4 ,so1 too1 ,i have known teachers of mathematics who would not allow their pupils to take a short cut to the answer by way of algebra unless it was in the algebra class and teachers of chemistry who would not permit the word atom to be mentioned in classroom until the term was half through4 ,but such extravagances find no countenance in ,dewey's writings or the examples he cites4 ,in the laboratory school of the ,university of ,chicago ,professor and ,mrs4 ,dewey had for several years a free hand in developing and trying out their theories4 ,their aim was to utilize instead of to suppress the fourfold impulses of childhood2 the interest in conversation1 the interest in inquiry1 the interest in construction and the interest in artistic expression4 ,the volume in which ,professor ,dewey explained what he was trying to do and why1 ,school and ,society1 was first published in #ahii and has been reprinted almost every year up to the present4#a ,it might well have borne the same title as ,benjamin ,tucker's volume on anarchism3 ,instead of a ,book1 by a ,man ,too ,busy to ,write ,one4 ,it consists of the stenographic reports of three informal talks by ,professor ,dewey to the parents of his pupils and the friends of his school1 supplemented by some fugitive papers4 ,yet it has an influence comparable to no other modern book of its size unless perhaps ,herbert ,spencer's tract on ,education4 ,how far the seed was sown is shown by ,schools of ,to-morrow1#b which tells of a dozen places where the ideas that were so novel and startling in the nineties are in practical operation4 ,but it is characteristic of ,dewey's self-effacement that he makes no claim for priority1 and there is no hint anywhere in the volume that many of the methods described were first devised and tried out in the ,dewey school at ,chicago nearly twenty years ago4 ,he gives the credit for the theory to ,rousseau and the credit for the practice to ,mr4 ,wirt of ,gary1 ,mrs4 ,johnson of ,fairhope1 ,mr4 ,valentine of ,indianapolis1 ,professor ,merriam of ,missouri1 and others4 ,mr4 ,wirt who organized the school system of the steel city of ,gary1 ,indiana1 and who is now employed in remodeling some of the schools of ,new ,york ,city1 owes his inspiration and ideas1 as ,i have heard him say1 very largely to ,dewey4#c ,the ,gary system differs from the trade schools in that the industries are used for their educative value4 ,the pupils are shifted around from one shop to another three times a year4 ,their tasks are artificial1 symbolic or imitative1 but from the fifth grade up real constructive work1 for the boys making school furniture1 iron castings1 laying concrete1 and printing2 and for the girls1 sewing1 cooking1 marketing1 millinery1 and laundry1 and for both1 gardening1 pottery1 designing1 bookbinding and bookkeeping4 ,arithmetic1 writing1 history1 and geography come in necessarily and naturally in connection with their work4 ,under this rgime the pupils make better progress in the traditional subjects than those who devote their whole time to books4 ,that it does not divert them from higher education is shown by the fact that one third of all the pupils who have left the ,gary schools in the eight years of their existence are now in the state university1 an engineering school1 or a business college1 a remarkable record for a population mostly composed of foreign-born steel mill laborers4 ,all the schoolrooms are in use for something all day long1 so the peak load is avoided and a great economy effected4 ,the grounds and buildings also serve as community centers and the last trace of the ancient feud between town and gown has been wiped out4 ,the chief advantage which these schools of tomorrow have over those of the past is1 in ,dewey's opinion1 that they come a step nearer toward giving the type of training necessary to prepare citizens for democracy4 ,in this new book1 then1 he is working toward the ideal he promulgated at the beginning of his career when he entered the faculty of the ,university of ,michigan as the youngest man ever appointed to a professorship in that institution4 ,he sounded the note of his philosophy thirty years ago in a paper on ,the ,ethics of ,democracy1#d and he has never faltered in his allegiance to the high ideal he there set forth1 although he has broken away from the ,hegelian mode of thought he then used4 ,the paper was written to confute ,sir ,henry ,maine who1 in his ,popular ,government1 argued that democracy was an historical accident and the most fragile1 insecure1 and unprogressive form of government4 ,dewey objects to his mechanical and mathematical conception of democratic government and sets forth a very different conception as the following quotations will show3 ,the majority have a right to rule because their majority is not the mere sign of a surplus in numbers1 but is the manifestation of the purpose of the social organism4 ,government is to the state what language is to the thought3 it not only communicates the purposes of the state1 but in so doing gives them for the first time articulation and generality4 ,a vote is not the impersonal counting of one2 it is a manifestation of some tendency of the social organism through a member of that organism4 ,the democratic formula that government derives its powers from the consent of the governed 444 means that in democracy the governors and the governed are not of two classes1 but two aspects of the same fact--the fact of the possession by society of a unified and articulate will4 ,the aristocratic idea implies that the mass of men are to be inserted by wisdom1 or1 if necessary1 thrust by force1 into their proper positions in the social organism4444 ,democracy means that personality is the first and final reality4444 ,it holds that the spirit of personality indwells in every individual1 and that the choice to develop it must proceed from that individual4 ,from this central position of democracy result the other notes of democracy1 liberty1 equality1 fraternity--words which are not mere words to catch a mob1 but symbols of the highest ethical idea which humanity has yet reached--the idea that personality is the one thing of permanent and abiding worth1 and that in every human individual there lies personality4444 ,it means that in every individual there lives an infinite and universal possibility3 that of being a king or priest4 ,aristocracy is blasphemy against personality4 ,even in those days when socialism had hardly begun to be whispered1 at least in academic circles1 ,dewey was not afraid to say that3 ,democracy is not in reality what it is in name until it is industrial as well as civil and political4444 ,a democracy of wealth is a necessity4 ,twenty-five years later ,i saw ,professor ,dewey giving a public demonstration of his faith in democracy when ,i found him marching with a small body of men at the tail end of a suffrage procession while the crowds that lined ,fifth ,avenue jeered and hissed at us4 ,who would then have thought that five years later all parties would be committed to equal suffrage and four presidential candidates would be bidding against one another for the privilege of giving the women the vote6 ,education for democracy is the burden of ,dewey's message to the world1 and ,i must give one more quotation on this point3 ,democracy1 the crucial expression of modern life1 is not so much an addition to the scientific and industrial tendencies as it is the perception of their social or spiritual meaning4 ,democracy is an absurdity where faith in the individual as individual is impossible2 and this faith is impossible where intelligence is regarded as a cosmic power1 not an adjustment and application of individual tendencies4 444 ,democracy is estimable only through the changed conception of intelligence that forms modern science1 and of want1 that forms modern industry4 ,it is essentially a changed psychology4 ,the conventional type of education which trains children in docility and obedience1 to the careful performance of imposed tasks because they are imposed1 regardless of where they lead1 is suited to an autocratic society4 ,these are the traits needed in a state where there is one head to plan and care for the lives and institutions of the people4 ,but in a democracy they interfere with the successful conduct of society and government4444 ,if we train our children to take orders1 to do things simply because they are told to1 and fail to give them confidence to act and think for themselves1 we are putting an almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of overcoming the present defects of our system and of establishing the truth of democratic ideals4 ,children in school must be allowed freedom so that they will know what its use means when they become the controlling body1 and they must be allowed to develop active qualities of initiative1 independence1 and resourcefulness1 before the abuses and failures will disappear4--,school and ,society1 p4 #cjd4 ,the old theory of education has been most pungently put by ,mr4 ,dooley1 the saloon-keeper of ,archey ,road1 in one of his monologues with ,mr4 ,hennessy3 ,it don't matter much what you study--so long as you don't like it4 ,professor ,dewey takes almost the opposite ground when he says3#e ,interest ought to be the basis for selection because children are interested in the things they need to learn4 ,this1 as he shows1 does not mean that in the new schools things are made easy2 on the contrary the pupils work harder because things are made interesting4 ,the range of the material is not in any way limited by making interest a standard of selection4 ,work that appeals to pupils as worth while1 that holds out the promise of resulting in something to their own interests1 involves just as much persistence and concentration as the work that is given by the sternest advocate of disciplinary drill4 ,the latter requires the pupil to strive for ends which he cannot see1 so that he has to be kept at the task by means of offering artificial ends1 marks1 and promotions1 and by isolating him in an atmosphere where his mind and senses are not being constantly besieged by the call of life which appeals so strongly to him4 ,but the pupil presented with a problem1 the solution of which will give him an immediate sense of accomplishment and satisfied curiosity1 will bend all his powers to the work3 the end itself will furnish the stimulus necessary to carry him through the drudgery4444 ,since the children are no longer working for rewards1 the temptation to cheat is reduced to a minimum4 ,there is no motive for doing dishonest acts1 since the result shows whether the child has done the work1 the only end recognized4--,school and ,society4 ,we have then two fundamentally different theories of training1 the ,dooley versus the ,dewey system4 ,they are now on trial in some degree all the way up from the beginning of the primary to the end of the college4#f ,one is authoritarian2 the other libertarian4 ,one cultivates obedience2 the other initiative4 ,one strives for uniformity2 the other diversity4 ,in one the impelling motive is duty2 in the other desire4 ,in one the attitude of the student is receptivity2 in the other activity4 ,in one there is compulsory cordination2 in the other voluntary coperation4 ,obviously neither could be carried to an exclusive extreme1 and in practice we find each more or less unconsciously borrowing methods from the others4 ,doubtless the optima for different temperaments1 ages1 and studies will be found at different points along the line connecting the two extremes4 ,how far one may safely go in either direction is to be determined by the pragmatic test of experiment4 ,but at present it is safe to say that the tide of reform is running in the direction ,dewey pointed out a quarter of a century before1 though recently a strong counter-current of militarism has set in4 ,that ,dewey is a true prophet is proved by the extent to which his ideas are being carried out in these schools of tomorrow that are already in existence to-day4 ,the third period in ,dewey's life began with his appointment to the chair of philosophy at ,columbia ,university in #aije4 ,this relieved him of the burden of responsibility for the conduct of the laboratory school at ,chicago and enabled him to concentrate his thought upon the fundamental problems of knowledge4 ,it was then perceived that he belonged on the left or radical wing of that movement to which ,james applied ,peirce's name of pragmatism4 ,but ,dewey is reluctant to call himself a pragmatist1 partly because of his constitutional dislike to wearing a tag of any kind1 partly1 ,i surmise1 because he has an aversion to the spiritualistic tendencies of the two men who are usually classed with him as the leaders of the pragmatic movement--,james of ,harvard and ,schiller of ,oxford4 ,dewey's doctrine of cognition1 the theory of instrumentalism1 is now to be found in two recent volumes1 one technical and the other popular4 ,the ordinary skimming reader will find the ,essays in ,experimental ,logic rather hard sledding1 so he will be relieved to find that it has been translated by the author into ordinary ,english in the little volume entitled ,how ,we ,think4 ,this is intended primarily for teachers whose business is supposed to be that of teaching their youngsters how to think1 though in reality most of their time has to be taken up with the imparting of information4 ,illustration3 ,john ,dewey4 ,the ,ethics of ,john ,dewey and ,james ,h4 ,tufts 7#aijh7 is not only a practical textbook admirably clear in expounding the conflicting theories and eminently fair in criticizing them1 but it would be useful to any reader for broadening the mind and pointing the proper way of approach to modern problems4 ,professor ,tawney of the ,university of ,cincinnati in reviewing it for the ,american ,journal of ,sociology says3 ,probably no more convincing effort to construct a system of moral philosophy by a strictly scientific method has ever been carried out4 ,moral philosophers are generally disposed to keep their carefully constructed systems of ethics under a glass bell jar rather than risk the hard knocks they must receive if taken into the street and marketplace4 ,but ,dewey as a professed experimentalist could not consistently adopt this cautious method4 ,his is no cloistered morality but a doctrine reduced from practical life and referable to the same authority for the validification of its influences4 ,an interesting instance of the practical application of his principles is found in his essay on ,force and ,coercion4#g ,here he discusses chiefly the question of the allowability of the use of force by a government as in war or by a class as in a strike and repudiates the ,tolstoyan view that all use of force is wrong4 ,on such a delicate question it would be improper for me to paraphrase his argument1 so ,i quote instead his own summary of his conclusions3 ,first1 since the attainment of ends requires the use of means1 law is essentially a formulation of the use of force4 ,secondly1 the only question which can be raised about the justification of force is that of comparative efficiency and economy in its use4 ,thirdly1 what is justly objected to as violence or undue coercion is a reliance upon wasteful and destructive means of accomplishing results4 ,fourthly1 there is always a possibility that what passes as a legitimate use of force may be so wasteful as to be really a use of violence2 and per contra that measures condemned as recourse to mere violence may1 under the given circumstances1 represent an intelligent utilization of energy4 ,in no case1 can antecedents or a priori principles be appealed to as more than presumptive3 ,the point at issue is concrete utilization of means for ends4 ,in this essay ,dewey inclines to the view that all political questions are simply questions of the extension and restriction of exercise of power on the part of specific groups in the community1 and says further that3 ,with a few notable exceptions1 the doctrine that the state rests upon or is common will seems to turn out but a piece of phraseology to justify the uses actually made of force4 ,practices of coercion and constraint which would become intolerable if frankly labelled ,force seem to become laudable when baptized with the name of ,will1 although they otherwise remain the same4 ,i trust that ,dewey is one of the few notable exceptions1 for the quotations from his paper on the ,ethics of ,democracy which ,i have given on a previous page show that ,dewey in his earlier years went as far as ,fichte in his later years toward identifying government--and a bare majority at that--with the common will of the social organism4 ,such a ,germanic doctrine of the power of the ,state could be used to justify worse things than the ,german ,government has ever done1 and it is perhaps a realization of this that has led ,dewey latterly to look with more favor upon the use of force by the minority4 ,the proper use of force is1 in ,dewey's opinion1 the acute question of social philosophy in the world to-day1 and a generation which has beheld the most stupendous manifestation of force in all history is not going to be content unless it has found some answer to the question4 ,in an article on ,force1 ,violence and ,law#h he discusses the possibilities of the peace movement in the following fashion3 ,at various times of my life ,i have1 with other wearied souls1 assisted at discussions between those who were ,tolstoyans and--well1 those who weren't4 ,in reply to the agitated protests of the former against war and the police and penal measures1 ,i have listened to the time-honored queries about what you should do when the criminal attacked your friend or child4 ,i have rarely heard it stated that since one cannot even walk the street without using force1 the only question which persons can discuss with one another concerns the most effective use of force in gaining ends in specific situations4 ,if one's end is the saving of one's soul immaculate1 or maintaining a certain emotion unimpaired1 doubtless force should be used to inhibit natural muscular reactions4 ,if the end is something else1 a hearty fisticuff may be the means of realizing it4 ,what is intolerable is that men should condemn or eulogize force at large1 irrespective of its use as a means of getting results4 ,to be interested in ends and to have contempt for the means which alone secure them is the last stage of intellectual demoralization4 ,it is hostility to force as force1 to force intrinsically1 which has rendered the peace movement so largely an anti-movement1 with all the weaknesses which appertain to everything that is primarily anti-anything4 ,unable to conceive the task of organizing the existing forces so they may achieve their greatest efficiency1 pacifists have had little recourse save to decry evil emotions and evil-minded men as the causes of war4444 ,and no league to enforce peace will fare prosperously save as it is the natural accompaniment of a constructive adjustment of the concrete interests which are already at work4444 ,the passage of force under law occurs only when all the cards are on the table1 when the objective facts which bring conflicts in their train are acknowledged1 and when intelligence is used to devise mechanisms which will afford to the forces at work all the satisfaction that conditions permit4 ,dewey's primary purpose has always been the development of a type of ethical thinking and a method of school training suited to the democratic and industrial society of modern ,america4 ,speaking of the mental revolution that has been effected by the advance of science he says3 ,whether the consequent revolution in moral philosophy be termed pragmatism or be given the happier title of the applied and experimental habit of mind is of little account4 ,what is of moment is that intelligence has descended from its lonely isolation at the remote edge of things1 whence it operated as unmoved mover and ultimate good1 to take its seat in the moving affairs of men4 ,theory may therefore become responsible to the practices that have generated it2 the good be connected with nature1 but with nature naturally1 not metaphysically conceived1 and social life be cherished in behalf of its own immediate possibilities1 not on the ground of its remote connections with a cosmic reason and absolute end4--,influence of ,darwin1 p4 #ee4 ,in the preface to the ,influence of ,darwin he quotes a ,german definition of pragmatism3#i ,epistemologically1 nominalism2 psychologically1 voluntarism2 cosmologically1 energism2 metaphysically1 agnosticism2 ethically1 meliorism on the basis of the ,bentham-,mill-utilitarianism4 ,dewey1 who dislikes to wear even one tag--and that a nice new clean one--naturally resents having these five old ones tied to him1 so he says3 ,it may be that pragmatism will turn out to be all of this formidable array1 but even should it the one who thus defines it has hardly come within earshot of it4 ,for whatever else pragmatism is or is not1 the pragmatic spirit is primarily a revolt against that habit of mind which disposes of anything whatever--even so humble an affair as a new method in philosophy--by tucking it away1 after this fashion1 in the pigeon-holes of a filing cabinet4444 ,it is better to view pragmatism quite vaguely as part and parcel of a general movement of intellectual reconstruction4 ,for otherwise we seem to have no recourse save to define pragmatism--as does our ,german author--in terms of the very past systems against which it is a reaction2 or1 in escaping that alternative1 to regard it as a fixed rival system making like claim to completeness and finality4 ,and if1 as ,i believe1 one of the marked traits of the pragmatic movement is just the surrender of every such claim1 how have we furthered our understanding of pragmatism8 ,in one of his ,socratic dialogues#aj ,dewey brings in at the close ,chesterton's flip refutation of pragmatism3 ,pupil4 ,what you say calls to mind something of ,chesterton's that ,i read recently3 ,i agree with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not the whole matter2 that there is an authoritative need to believe the things that are necessary to the human mind4 ,but ,i say that one of those necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth4 ,pragmatism is a matter of human needs and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist4 ,you would say1 if ,i understand you aright1 that to fall back upon the necessity of the human mind to believe in certain absolute truths1 is to evade a proper demand for testing the human mind and all its works4 ,teacher4 ,my son1 ,i am glad to leave the last word with you4 ,this enfant terrible of intellectualism has revealed that the chief objection of absolutists to the pragmatic doctrine of the personal 7or subjective7 factor in belief is that the pragmatist has spilled the personal milk in the absolutist's coconut4 ,it is curious to see how many different classes are now holding up ,germany as a horrible example of the dangers of the theories they oppose4 ,the ,anglican ,catholics blame ,luther for the war and look upon the prospective triumph of the ,allies as the final destruction of ,protestantism in the world4 ,the orthodox believe that ,germany got into trouble through higher criticism4 ,the classicists say that she is suffering from an overdose of science4 ,the ,absolute ,idealists ascribe the bad conduct of ,germany to her desertion of ,kant1 ,hegel1 and ,fichte to follow after the new gods--or no gods--of ,haeckel and ,nietzsche4 ,but ,dewey1 on the contrary1 holds ,kant1 ,hegel1 and ,fichte responsible for it all4 ,that philosophical absolutism may be practically as dangerous as matter-of-fact political absolutism history testifies4 ,this is no new notion cooked up for the occasion1 like so many of them1 but one which ,dewey plainly stated six years before the outbreak of the war in his address on ,ethics at ,columbia ,university4 ,in speaking of ,kant's denudation of ,pure ,reason of all concrete attributes he said3 ,reason became a mere voice1 which having nothing particular to say1 said ,law1 ,duty1 in general1 leaving to the existing social order of the ,prussia of ,frederick the ,great the congenial task of declaring just what was obligatory in the concrete4 ,the marriage of freedom and authority was thus celebrated with the understanding that sentimental primacy went to the former and practical control to the latter4--,influence of ,darwin1 p4 #fe4 ,after the war began he expanded this idea in his ,mc,nair lectures at the ,university of ,north ,carolina4#aa ,because ,germany has developed continuously without any decided break with its past like the ,french ,revolution or the transplanting of ,europeans to ,america1 ,german thinkers have come to declare all progress as the unfolding of national life and to declare impossible the construction of constitutions such as we have in the ,new ,world4 ,dewey traces the intellectual process by which the ,german people have reached the very startling opinions they now hold as to their mission in the world as follows3 ,the premises of the historic syllogism are plain4 ,first1 the ,german ,luther who saved for mankind the principle of spiritual freedom against ,latin externalism2 then ,kant and ,fichte1 who wrought out the principle into a final philosophy of science1 morals and the ,state2 as conclusion1 the ,german nation organized in order to win the world to a recognition of the principle1 and thereby to establish the rule of freedom and science in humanity as a whole4444 ,in the grosser sense of the words1 ,germany has not held that might makes right4 ,but it has been instructed by a long line of philosophers that it is the business of ideal right to gather might to itself in order that it may cease to be merely ideal4 ,the ,state represents exactly this incarnation of ideal law and right in effective might4 ,a hundred years ago ,fichte in his ,addresses to the ,german ,nation roused his countrymen to make a stand against ,napoleon and fulfill their mission to elevate the ,german name to that of the most glorious of all peoples1 making this ,nation the regenerator and restorer of the world4 ,there is no middle ground3 ,if you sink1 so sinks humanity entire with you1 without hope of future restoration4 ,this sounds very much like what we hear in ,germany to-day1 although the present ,german ,empire differs markedly in some respects from the ideal ,state that ,fichte foresaw4 ,it is also the same sort of language as is being used in ,england and the other allied countries4 ,in fact every nation has the same sense of its historic divine mission and unique importance to the world's civilization4 ,certainly we cannot deny the existence of that feeling among ,americans4 ,to quote again from ,fichte3 ,while cosmopolitanism is the dominant will that the purpose of the existence of humanity be actually realized in humanity1 patriotism is the will that this end be first realized in the particular nation to which we ourselves belong1 and that this achievement thence spread over the entire race4 ,this might seem a harmless and indeed inspiring conception of patriotism1 but when the ,fichtean idea of a particular ,state as the incarnation of the divine will is combined with the ,hegelian idea of progress through conflict1 it makes a fatal mixture1 as ,dewey shows3 ,philosophical justification of war follows inevitably from a philosophy of history composed in nationalistic terms4 ,history is the movement1 the march of ,god on earth through time4 ,only one nation at a time can be the latest and hence the fullest realization of ,god4 ,the movement of ,god in history is thus particularly manifest in those changes by which unique place passes from one nation to another4 ,war is the signally visible occurrence of such a flight of the divine spirit in its onward movement4 ,this fallacious line of argument is1 in ,dewey's opinion1 the logical outcome of the a priori and absolutist metaphysics which has prevailed in ,europe during the last century1 and for which he would substitute the method of intelligent experimentation4 ,he says1 ,the present situation presents the spectacle of the breakdown of the whole philosophy of ,nationalism1 political1 racial and cultural1 and he urges as a substitute the promotion of the efficacy of human intercourse irrespective of class1 racial1 geographical and national limits4 ,when we see the appalling results to which the doctrine of ,nationalism has led1 we may indeed regard it with ,dewey as a logical breakdown1 but ,i fear that actually it has become more powerful1 pervading1 and firmly fixed than ever through the psychological and economic experiences of the war4#ab ,doctor ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,schiller of ,oxford calls ,dewey's ,german ,philosophy and ,politics an entirely admirable book2 clear1 calm1 cogent1 and popular without being shallow and he further says3 ,professor ,dewey was assuredly the ideal person to handle the subject4 ,for though he had made a deep and sympathetic study of ,german philosophy1 he had in the end turned away from it to become a leader in the movement which is most antithetical to the traditionally ,german type of philosophizing4 ,it must not indeed be alleged that the ,anglo-,saxon world has a monopoly of the pragmatic habit of mind2 for all men have to act and pragmatism is only the theoretic apprehension of the attitude which imposes itself on every agent everywhere4 ,but it is probably right to regard this habit of mind as characteristically congenial to ,anglo-,saxon life1 and it was a perception of this that so infuriated our germanized professors who prided themselves on their superiority to the vulgar practicality of the national bent4#ac ,a stranger who drops into one of ,professor ,dewey's classes is at first apt to be puzzled to account for the extent of his influence and the devotion of his disciples4 ,there is nothing in his manner of delivery to indicate that he is saying anything of importance1 and it takes some time to realize that he is4 ,he talks along in a casual sort of way with a low and uneventful voice and his eyes mostly directed toward the bare desk or out of the window4 ,occasionally he wakes up to the fact that the students in the back seats are having difficulty in hearing him1 and then he comes down with explosive stress on the next word1 a preposition as like as not4 ,his lectures are punctuated by pauses but not in a way to facilitate their comprehension4 ,sometimes in the midst of a sentence1 perhaps between an adjective and its noun1 his train of thought will be shunted off on to another line1 and the class has to sit patiently at the junction station until it comes back1 as it always does eventually4 ,the difficulty of utterance in his lectures1 like the tortuous style of his technical writings1 results from overconscientiousness4 ,when he misses the right word he does not pick any one at hand and go on but stops talking until he finds the one he wants1 and he is so anxious to avoid a misunderstanding that he sometimes fails to insure an understanding4 ,talking has never become a reflex action with ,dewey4 ,he has to think before he speaks4 ,few professors and almost no instructors are bothered that way4 ,in profile ,professor ,dewey looks something like ,robert ,louis ,stevenson1 the same long lean face and neck and nose4 ,from the front one would take him to be a ,kentucky colonel disguised in spectacles4 ,his long straight black hair1 parted in the middle1 is now getting gray1 but his drooping mustaches1 being twenty years younger1 are still dark4 ,his eyes are black and keen1 and one can catch a twinkle in them if the lids do not drop too quick4 ,his neck-tie is usually awry1 and several thousands of orderly schoolma'ams have felt their hands itch to jerk it straight4 ,his drawling careless tone and hesitant manner quite disguise the boldness of his thought and the logical order of its wording4 ,questions from the class never disconcert him1 however inopportune1 and the more he is heckled the better he talks4 ,one of his former students at ,columbia1 ,randolph ,s4 ,bourne1 gives this pen sketch of ,professor ,dewey3#ad ,nothing is more symbolic of ,professor ,dewey's democratic attitude towards life than the disintegrated array of his published writings4 ,where the neatly uniform works of ,william ,james are to be found in every public library1 you must hunt long and far for the best things of the man who1 since the other's death1 is the most significant thinker in ,america4 ,pamphlets and reports of obscure educational societies2 school journals1 university monographs1 and philosophical journals1 limited to the pedant few2 these are the burial-places of much of this intensely alive1 futuristic philosophy4444 ,no man1 ,i think1 with such universally important things to say on almost every social and intellectual activity of the day1 was ever published in forms more ingeniously contrived to thwart the interest of the prospective public4 ,professor ,dewey's thought is inaccessible because he has always carried his simplicity of manner1 his dread of show or self-advertisement1 almost to the point of extravagance4 ,in all his psychology there is no place for the psychology of prestige4 ,his democracy seems almost to take that extreme form of refusing to bring one's self or one's ideas to the attention of others4 ,on the college campus or in the lecture-room he seems positively to efface himself4 ,the uncertainty of his silver-gray hair and drooping mustache1 of his voice1 of his clothes1 suggests that he has almost studied the technique of protective coloration4 ,it will do you no good to hear him lecture4 ,his sentences1 flowing and exact and lucid when read1 you will find strung in long festoons of obscurity between pauses for the awaited right word4 ,the whole business of impressing yourself on other people1 of getting yourself over to the people who want to and ought to have you1 has simply never come into his ultra-democratic mind4 ,a prophet dressed in the clothes of a professor of logic1 he seems almost to feel shame that he has seen the implications of democracy more clearly than anybody else in the great would-be democratic society about him1 and so been forced into the unwelcome task of teaching it4 ,knowing that every biographer is expected to show that the subject of his sketch got his peculiar talents by honest inheritance1 ,i wrote to ,professor ,dewey to inquire what there was in his genealogy to account for his becoming a philosopher4 ,his ancestry is discouraging to those who would find an explanation for all things in heredity4 ,my ancestry1 particularly on my father's side1 is free from all blemish4 ,all my forefathers earned an honest living as farmers1 wheelwrights1 coopers4 ,i was absolutely the first one in seven generations to fall from grace4 ,in the last few years atavism has set in and ,i have raised enough vegetables and fruit really to pay for my own keep4 ,john ,dewey was born in ,burlington1 ,vermont1 ,october #bj1 #ahei1 the son of ,archibald ,s4 and ,lucina ,a4 7,rich7 ,dewey4 ,his elder brother1 ,davis ,rich ,dewey1 is professor of economics and statistics in the ,massachusetts ,institute of ,technology and the author of the ,special ,report on ,employees and ,wages in the #abth ,census as well as of many other works on finance and industry4 ,john ,dewey went to the ,state ,university in his native town and received his ,a4 ,b4 degree at twenty4 ,being then uncertain whether his liking for philosophical studies was sufficient to be taken as a call to that calling he applied to the one man in ,america most competent and willing to decide such a question1 ,w4 ,t4 ,harris1 afterward ,united ,states ,commissioner for ,education1 but then superintendent of schools in ,st4 ,louis4 ,think of the courage and enterprise of a man who while filling this busy position and when the war was barely over started a ,journal of ,speculative ,philosophy and founded a ,philosophical ,society and produced a series of translations of ,hegel1 ,fichte1 and other ,german metaphysicians4 ,it would be hard to estimate the influence of ,doctor ,harris in raising the standards of ,american schools and in arousing an interest in intellectual problems4 ,when young ,dewey sent him a brief article with a request for personal advice he returned so encouraging a reply that ,dewey decided to devote himself to philosophy4 ,so1 after a year spent at home reading under the direction of ,professor ,torrey of the ,university of ,vermont1 one of the old type of scholarly gentleman1 ,dewey went to ,johns ,hopkins ,university1 the first ,american university to make graduate and research work its main object4 ,here he studied under ,george ,s4 ,morris and followed him to the ,university of ,michigan as ,instructor in ,philosophy after receiving his ,ph4,d4 at ,johns ,hopkins in #ahhd4 ,two years later he married ,alice ,chipman of ,fenton1 ,michigan1 who has been ever since an effective collaborator in his educational and social work4 ,in #ahhh he went to the ,university of ,minnesota as ,professor of ,philosophy but was called back to ,michigan at the end of one year4 ,when ,president ,harper went through the country picking up brilliant and promising young men for the new ,university of ,chicago1 ,dewey was his choice for the chair of philosopher4 ,during the ten years ,dewey spent on the ,midway ,plaisance he had the opportunity to try out the radical ideas of education of which ,i have spoken4 ,in #aijd ,dewey was called to ,columbia ,university1 where he has since remained4 ,besides his classwork he has always been active though rarely conspicuous in many educational and social movements4 ,one of the latest of these is the formation of the ,association of ,university ,professors1 of which he was the first president4 ,the title of his latest volume1 ,democracy and ,education1 gives the keynote of his philosophy and the aim of his life4 ,in a recent article#ae he puts it in these words3 ,i am one of those who think that the only test and justification of any form of political and economic society is its contribution to art and science--to what may roundly be called culture4 ,that ,america has not yet so justified itself is too obvious for even lament44 44 ,since we can neither beg nor borrow a culture without betraying both it and ourselves1 nothing remains save to produce one44 44 ,our culture must be consonant with realistic science and with machine industry1 instead of a refuge from them4444 ,it is for education to bring the light of science and the power of work to the aid of every soul that it may discover its quality4 ,for in a spiritually democratic society every individual would realize distinction4 ,culture would then be for the first time in human history an individual achievement and not a class possession4 ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,dewey ,as has been said previously1 ,dewey's writings are scattered far and wide in various periodicals and educational series4 ,he has never been able to say no to any struggling journal of socialism or school reform that begged him for an article although it meant no pay1 little influence1 and speedy oblivion for his contribution4 ,the graduate student of twenty-five years hence who undertakes to get a ,ph4,d4 by making a complete collection of ,dewey's works will earn his degree4 ,the main principles of ,dewey's philosophy1 imparted viva voce to successive generations of students1 have never been printed in a complete and systematic form1 though his ideas have interfused the schools of the country through the teachers he has trained and the educational books he has written4 ,the nearest thing to a short cut to ,dewey's philosophy that he has given us is ,how ,we ,think 7,heath1 #aiaj71 and with this the reader may well begin4 ,essays in ,experimental ,logic 7,university of ,chicago ,press1 #aiaf7 requires for its complete comprehension some knowledge of current controversies in philosophy4 ,but the review of ,james's ,pragmatism1 contained in the chapter ,what ,pragmatism ,means1 will be of interest to any reader seeking an answer to that question4 ,his epoch-making work1 ,the ,school and ,society 7,university of ,chicago ,press1 first edition #ahii1 second edition #aiae71 has by no means lost its value although much that was prophecy then is now fulfilled4 ,most readers will be more interested in the fulfillments as described in ,schools of ,tomorrow 7,dutton1 #aiae74 ,this contains1 besides the description of the new schools by his daughter1 ,evelyn ,dewey1 several chapters by ,professor ,dewey on the theory and aims of the educational movement they represent4 ,a more complete and systematic exposition of the principles of education under modern conditions is to be found in his most recent book1 ,democracy and ,education 7,macmillan1 #aiaf74 ,professor ,moore of ,chicago who reviews this volume in the ,international ,journal of ,ethics 7#aiaf1 p4 #edg7 says of it3 ,the thinking world has long since learned to expect from ,professor ,dewey matters of prime importance4 ,of the general significance of this1 volume it is perhaps enough to say that1 in the reviewer's opinion1 it is the most important of ,professor ,dewey's productions thus far4 ,in defiance of possible imputations of chauvinism1 the reviewer will also say that it would be difficult to overstate its import and value for all students of education1 philosophy1 and society4 ,the volume clumsily entitled ,the ,influence of ,darwin on ,philosophy and ,other ,essays in ,contemporary ,thought 7,holt1 #aiaj7 contains1 besides the anniversary address which gives it its title1 ten essays chiefly concerned with the exposition and defense of ,dewey's form of pragmatism1 immediate empiricism4 ,german ,philosophy and ,politics 7,holt1 #aiae7 is discussed in the preceding pages4 ,dewey's ,psychology 7,harper1 #ahhf7 has largely lost its interest through the rapid advance of the science and the altered viewpoint of the author4 ,the ,ethics which he wrote in collaboration with ,professor ,tufts ,i have previously mentioned 7,holt1 #aijh74 ,the practical applications of ,dewey's philosophy to current educational and public questions may best be found in the brief and popular articles that he contributed frequently to ,the ,new ,republic 7,new ,york7 in #aiae-aiaf4 ,his professional contributions to logical theory and epistemology appear mostly in the fortnightly organ of the philosophical department of ,columbia ,university1 the ,journal of ,philosophy1 ,psychology and ,scientific ,methods4 ,a volume of eight essays on the pragmatic attitude was published in ,january #aiag by ,henry ,holt under the title of ,creative ,intelligence4 ,the leading essay on ,the ,need for a ,recovery of ,philosophy is by ,john ,dewey4 ,besides the articles to which reference has been made in the footnotes of the preceding pages the following writings of ,dewey should be mentioned3 ,science as ,subject-matter and as ,method1 the vice presidential address of the section on education of the ,boston meeting of the ,american ,association for the ,advancement of ,science1 #aiji1 7in ,science1 ,january #bh1 #aiaj72 ,the ,problem of ,truth1 ,george ,leib ,harrison lectures before the ,university of ,pennsylvania1 #aiaa 7in ,old ,penn ,weekly ,review71 ,maeterlinck 7,hibbert ,journal1 vol4 #i1 p4 #gfe7 and ,is ,nature ,good8 7,hibbert ,journal1 vol4 #g1 p4 #hbg72 ,the ,existence of the ,world as a ,problem 7,philosophical ,review1 vol4 #bd1 p4 #ceg72 ,darwin's ,influence upon ,philosophy 7,popular ,science ,monthly1 vol4 #ge1 p4 #ij72 ,presidential address to the ,american ,association of ,university ,professors 7,science1 ,january #bi1 #aiae72 ,professional ,spirit ,among ,teachers 7,american ,teacher1 ,new ,york1 ,october1 #aiac72 ,the ,international ,journal of ,ethics published ,force and ,coercion 7vol4 #bf1 p4 #cei72 ,progress 7vol4 #bf1 p4 #caa72 ,nature and ,reason in ,law 7vol4 #be1 p4 #be72 ,history for the ,educator and other articles appeared in ,progressive ,journal of ,education1 ,chicago1 #aiji2 ,voluntarism in the ,roycean ,philosophy in the ,philosophical ,review1 ,may1 #aiaf2 ,logical ,foundations of ,the ,scientific ,treatment of ,morality in the ,decennial ,publications of the ,university of ,chicago4 ,a criticism of ,bergson by ,dewey under the title of ,perception and ,organic ,action may be found in the ,journal of ,philosophy1 ,psychology and ,scientific ,methods1 ,november #ba1 #aiab4 ,professor ,wilhelm ,ostwald1 who1 as ,i said in my chapter on him1 has devoted much attention to educational reforms1 includes a sketch of ,dewey by ,franz ,ludwig in the series on ,moderne ,schulreforme in ,das ,monistische ,jahrhundert of ,may #ca1 #aia-e4 ,for a criticism of ,dewey's social philosophy see the articles by ,lester ,lee ,bernhard of the ,university of ,chicago in ,american ,journal of ,sociology4 ,no biography of ,dewey has yet been written and none ever will be if he can prevent it4 ,h4 ,w4 ,schneider of ,columbia ,university has prepared a complete bibliography of ,dewey's writings1 not yet published4 #a ,the ,university of ,chicago ,press published a second edition of ,school and ,society1 revised and enlarged1 in #aiae4 #b ,schools of ,to-morrow1 by ,john ,dewey and ,evelyn ,dewey 7,dutton71 #aiae4 #c ,doctor ,georg ,kerschensteiner who founded the famous workshop schools of ,munich also acknowledges his indebtedness to ,dewey4 #d ,no4 ,i of ,series #b of ,philosophical ,papers of the ,university of ,michigan1 #ahhg4 #e ,schools of ,to-morrow1 p4 #cja4 #f ,see the admirable article in ,atlantic ,monthly of ,november1 #aijh1 by ,president ,pritchett of the ,carnegie ,foundation1 contrasting ,harvard and ,west ,point1 ,the ,college of ,freedom and the ,college of ,discipline4 #g ,international ,journal of ,ethics1 vol4 #bf1 p4 #cei-cfg4 #h ,the ,new ,republic1 ,january #bb1 #aiaf4 #i ,to get the full force of this portentous definition one must read it in the original3 ,gewiss ist der ,pragmatismus erkenntniss-theoretisch ,nominalismus1 psychologisch ,voluntarismus1 naturphilosophisch ,energismus1 metaphysisch ,agnosticismus1 ethisch ,meliorismus auf ,grundlage des ,bentham-,millschen ,utilitarismus4 #aj ,a ,catechism ,concerning ,truth in ,the ,influence of ,darwin on ,philosophy and ,other ,essays4 #aa ,published as ,german ,philosophy and ,politics 7,holt71 #aiae4 #ab ,german ,philosophy and ,politics is sympathetically reviewed by ,professor ,santayana in the ,journal of ,philosophy1 ,psychology and ,scientific ,methods for ,november #be1 #aiae4 ,the same ,journal reprints 7vol4 ,,xii1 p4 #ehd7 a criticism appearing in ,the ,new ,republic 7vol4 ,,iv1 p4 #bcd7 by ,professor ,hocking of ,harvard1 who thinks that the fault of the ,germans is being too pragmatic4 ,professor ,dewey's reply is published with it4 ,see also ,dewey's admirable analysis of the national psychology of ,germany1 ,france1 and ,england in his article ,on ,understanding the ,mind of ,germany1 ,atlantic1 vol4 #aag1 p4 #bea4 #ac ,mind1 ,april1 #aiaf4 #ad ,the ,new ,republic1 ,march #ac1 #aiae4 #ae ,the ,new ,republic1 ,july #a1 #aiaf4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,rudolf ,,eucken ,,apostle ,,of ,,the ,,spiritual ,,life ,to the history of and criticism of these conceptions and their terminology ,professor ,eucken has brought thorough and careful reading1 acute and candid criticism1 and a clear and solid style4 ,while he is at home among the systems of the past1 he seems equally familiar with the controversies of the present4 ,above all1 he has studied brevity1 and has mastered the art of expressing in a few words the results of patient research and critical discrimination4 ,the writer of this notice was constrained to recommend the work for translation to his friend and former pupil by his estimate of the intrinsic value of the treatise and the desire that it might be brought within reach of ,english readers as eminently suited to the times4 ,he can say with assured confidence that there are few books within his knowledge which are better fitted to aid the student who wishes to acquaint himself with the course of superlative and scientific thinking and to form an intelligent estimate of most of the current theories4#a ,these were the words with which ,professor ,eucken was introduced to the ,american public in #ahhj by one who was a good judge of men and books1 the primary qualification of a college president4 ,thirty-two years later ,professor ,eucken came to ,america2 this time in person1 but under the auspices of ,harvard and the ,university of ,new ,york1 instead of ,yale4 ,this time he reached a larger audience2 partly owing to his greater fame1 partly to a change in the popular attitude toward the views he presents4 ,in #aijh1 when ,eucken received the ,nobel prize for the greatest work of idealistic literature1 there was no book of his accessible to the ,english reader1 for the translation instigated by ,president ,porter was out of print4 ,since then all his important works have been brought out in ,england and ,america2 and the periodical indexes record a growing interest in his thought1 corresponding to that which is manifested in ,germany4 ,the ,nobel prizes have failed to carry out the intention of their founder1 which was to place #ajj1jjj or so immediately into the hands of a man who had made a signal contribution to science1 literature1 or peace4 ,instead of this1 the ,nobel committees absorb a liberal moiety of the income of the fund in local administrative expenses and usually give the residue1 now amounting to some #cg1jjj1 to men whose reputations have long been established2 for example1 in literature1 ,sully-,prudhomme1 ,mommsen1 ,bjrnson1 ,mistral1 ,kipling1 and ,heyse4 ,but in so interpreting their mandate the ,nobel committees have fulfilled another useful function1 possibly as much needed as that conceived by ,alfred ,nobel4 ,if they have not discovered original genius1 they have at least pointed it out to the world at large4 ,the men thus distinguished as having contributed to human progress have extended their influence over their contemporaries1 as well as received a due appreciation of their efforts4 ,the ,nobel prize does not add to the stature of a man1 but it does elevate him to a pulpit4 ,in the case of ,eucken the value of this is evident4 ,he did not need the assistance of the ,nobel fund in order to prosecute his researches1 for the laboratory expenses of a metaphysician are but slight1 and ,jena is as cheap a place to live as can nowadays be found in civilized lands4 ,the award of the prize did not1 of course1 add to his reputation in philosophical circles1 but ,eucken does not believe that the influence of a philosopher should be confined to philosophical circles4 ,he repudiates entirely the aloof1 impartial1 disinterested spectator attitude which philosophers in general have thought it necessary to pretend to assume4 ,the question is1 in short1 what kind of a scientist the philosopher should imitate3 the chemist who transforms the world in which he lives1 or the meteorologist who merely records the atmospheric currents without attempting to guide them8 ,eucken is not only a teacher2 he is a preacher4 ,he has a message which he believes of vital importance to his contemporaries1 so it cannot be a matter of indifference to him that he is1 in his later years1 gaining a wider audience1 that his works are the most widely current philosophical writings of the present day in ,germany1#b and are being extensively translated into other languages4 ,this growing popularity is all the more noteworthy since it is not attained by any novelty of form1 or even brilliancy of style4 ,eucken never tries to stimulate thought by shocking the reader with audacious paradoxes1 as did ,schopenhauer and ,nietzsche1 as do ,shaw and ,chesterton4 ,he has none of the freshness of phraseology and wealth of novel illustrations which attract to ,james and ,bergson their wide circle of admirers4 ,he does not1 like ,ostwald and ,haeckel1 make use of the direct and concrete mode of expression which has been introduced into literature by modern science4 ,eucken always writes in a serious and methodical style1 elaborating his line of thought as he goes along with exactness and just proportion2 expressing himself in general and abstract terms1 rarely making use of imagery or concrete illustrations1 never introducing personalities4 ,a sweeter-tempered philosopher never lived4 ,he speaks no evil1 even of the dead4 ,he indulges in no polemics with his contemporaries4 ,in his historical works he passes through all fields of thought1 gleaning good grain wherever he goes1 and saying as little as possible about the tares and brambles that he finds with it4 ,very curiously1 it has been ,eucken's lot to have been closely associated1 on the faculties of small universities1 with the two men whose views are most antagonistic to his3 at ,basel with ,nietzsche and at ,jena with ,haeckel1 and he has been on the best of terms with both of them4 ,i was particularly interested in what ,professor ,eucken told me of ,nietzsche1 whose personality and philosophy were in such violent contradiction4 ,this advocate of ruthless brutality1 this scorner of sympathy and compassion1 was in reality a most tender-hearted man1 but too shy and sensitive to be popular2 and when his feelings were hurt he wrote down in a passion what he felt at the moment4 ,at the ,university of ,basel ,professor ,eucken often served with ,nietzsche on the examining committee of candidates for the doctorate in classical philology4 ,on such occasions1 if the student appeared to be getting the worst of it in the verbal contest1 ,nietzsche would be observed to become more and more nervous until1 finally1 he could contain himself no longer and would break in with leading questions3 ,i suppose you mean so-and-so8 or ,do you not believe this or that8 until he got the student to say just about what he should have said in the first place4 ,professor ,eucken does not regard the widespread influence of ,nietzsche as altogether evil1 believing he should not be held responsible for all the vagaries and extravagances of his devotees4 ,the reason of ,nietzsche's popularity1 according to ,eucken1 is his strong individualism2 for the ,germans1 in spite of governmental control and the ,social ,democracy1 are pronounced individualists in character4 ,the ,german will insist upon having his own house1 his own seat1 his own opinion4 ,this sounded strange to the ,american1 accustomed to have ,germany referred to as the most regimented of nations4 ,but modern ,germany is a land of incongruities and contradictions1 a wild confusion of swirling cross-currents4 ,the increase of population1 the checking of emigration1 the amazing prosperity1 the extension of commerce1 the demand for territorial expansion1 would indicate a sound physical constitution and a healthful growth4 ,the immense sale of serious works on religion and philosophy shows a revival of interest in spiritual affairs4 ,yet1 if we were to judge of the character of the people by the most conspicuous of its achievements in art and literature1 we should say that modern ,germany is hopelessly decadent and corrupt4 ,in drama and fiction ,gallic license is allied with ,gothic coarseness4 ,in pictorial art hideousness and viciousness are depicted by means of strange and violent methods4 ,germany of to-day1 as seen by the tourist1 is a land of spotted painting1 spotted literature1 and spotted faces4#c ,in the little university town of ,jena the incongruities of modern ,germany are curiously conspicuous4 ,in this historic stronghold of ,protestantism1 this leader in the ,enlightenment1 the home of ,goethe1 ,schiller1 ,novalis1 ,fichte1 the ,humboldts1 ,hegel1 ,schelling1 and ,wieland1 the barbarous customs of the past have the strongest hold4 ,a student is likely to miss his seven o'clock ,wednesday lecture on the spiritual life because he sat up till two o'clock drinking compulsory beer with his corps brothers in the middle of the marketplace4 ,and he may cut out his eight o'clock ,saturday lecture because he has an imperative engagement to cut off the nose or the ear of a fellow student at the ,mensurort of ,dllnitz4 ,among the nobler manifestations of the spirit of new ,germany the tourist is likely to take most interest in the architecture4 ,here1 indeed1 he will find much that is displeasing and eccentric1 but that in itself is encouraging1 for it shows that we are in the presence of a living art which is not content to keep to the safe and beaten paths1 but would strike out new ways for itself4 ,in city and country unexpected forms and colors delight the eye on villa1 monument1 and public building2 new and ingenious solutions of problems as old as man4 ,the modern ,german architect is not the imitator1 but the rival1 of the master builders of the past4 ,he knows how to harmonize the old with the new1 utilizing the old to give him inspiration1 but not permitting it to hamper him4 ,a striking example of this is the new university buildings of ,jena1 erected on the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the university in #aijh4 ,the whole group cost only three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars1 not so much as some single buildings in our leading universities1 yet ,i know of none more satisfactory from both the utilitarian and the esthetic point of view4 ,here the problem of harmonization was particularly difficult2 not only must the new buildings fit into the picture of old ,jena1 but a tower of the ancient ducal castle was actually to be incorporated4 ,yet the architect1 ,theodor ,fischer1 has made no sacrifices to the spirit of antiquity4 ,at ,oxford the newer buildings either clash violently with their elders or imitate them so closely as to be almost equally inconvenient and uncomfortable4 ,the ,jena buildings look as though they might well have been built by ,kurfrst ,johann ,friedrich der ,grossmtige in #aeeh1 but are up to date1 commodious1 hygienic1 well ventilated1 steam heated1 equipped with electric lights and clocks1 and electric vacuum cleaners4 ,there are no superfluous statues stuck around in niches and on pedestals4 ,the adornment1 plastic and polychromatic1 is strictly structural4 ,it is put where it belongs4 ,with the possible exception of a ,rodin bust of ,minerva in the vestibule1 ,i did not see any objects of art that ,i could have carried off without tearing down the building4 ,on the stone of the north faade are roughly chiseled the ,ephesian ,diana in the gable1 and1 beneath1 four ,egyptian-like figures representing the four faculties4 ,that of ,philosophie1 with solemn and inscrutable face1 is very appropriately nearest to the lecture room of ,professor ,eucken4 ,as we enter we see opposite the portal to the ,aula1 the university hall of state1 on either side of which are gigantic paintings emblematic of the transmission of culture1 a grown man on one side holding out his torch to a young man1 that he may light his torch by it4 ,the most important picture at the ,jena ,university is the ,auszug deutscher ,studenten im ,jahre #ahae by ,hodler1 who used as a model for the middle figure the youngest son of ,professor ,eucken4 ,auditorium ,number #a1 the largest classroom of the new building1 is assigned to ,eucken1 and we find it already about half filled1 although it is not yet seven o'clock in the morning4 ,some seventy students ,i count1 and among them about a dozen women1 not segregated1 but scattered here and there1 for ,jena is coeducational now1 and masculine resentment at the intrusion of women has quite died out4 ,the students may seat themselves wherever they choose1 affixing a card with name and hour if they want to hold a particular place4 ,these cards and even the desks are scrawled with automatic writing and sketches by the inattentive hands of students4 ,the seats1 long benches with a fixed desk and book rack in front1 are better than those found in ,english universities1 but not so good as the ,american individual seats4 ,there are plenty of windows along one side of the room1 and the walls--white above1 light green below--diffuse the rays agreeably4 ,the floor slants down to a plain pine desk and a small blackboard4 ,on the wall is a mosaic portrait of the late ,professor ,abb1 the real patron of the ,university1 for a prosperous optician is of much more use to a modern university than a needy ,gross-,herzog4 ,promptly on the hour a vigorous shuffling and stamping of feet announces the arrival of the professor1 who begins with ,mein' ,herren und ,damen as his first foot steps upon the platform4 ,a ,german professor always gives good measure1 a full hourful1 pressed down1 shaken together1 and running over2 no period of preliminary meditation on what he shall say and of casual conversation at the end1 as often in ,america4 ,nor do the ,german professors find it necessary to adopt the low voice1 indifferent air and hesitating utterance regarded at ,oxford and ,harvard as the mark of the gentleman and the scholar4 ,in fact ,i find1 in roaming about our universities1 that so many of our younger men have adopted this pitch and tempo1 being often inaudible and never impressive to the back seats1 that ,i am tempted to lay down the law that the younger the instructor the poorer the voice4 ,when ,i complain of it they reply coldly3 ,one can never shout and tell the truth4 ,but ,eucken is evidently not afraid that being heard will impair his veracity4 ,you might take him for a revivalist4 ,you would not be wrong if you did4 ,his voice rings out loud and clear4 ,he is tremendously in earnest4 ,occasionally1 when he thinks of it1 he sits down4 ,but not for long4 ,he springs to his feet and throws himself forward on the reading-desk in the effort to really reach his audience4 ,he clasps his hands to his breast and then throws his arms out wide1 as though to seize the ,geistesleben with which his heart is overflowing and spread it far over a materialistic and indifferent generation4 ,who can doubt the reality of the spiritual life after he has seen ,eucken8 ,it shines in his face4 ,we do not need to be told that ,activism is his philosophy4 ,it shows in his movements4 ,he lives his theories4 ,few philosophers do1 luckily for most of them4 ,happiness is the subject of this lecture4 ,the spiritual life is the theme of it1 as always4 ,the spiritual life1 he says1 goes out from within and transforms the world1 thus giving true happiness4 ,we must work with the world movement if we would partake of its divine purpose4 ,and here he quotes ,plotinus1 the first religious philosopher1 for whom he has as high regard as have ,maeterlinck and ,bergson4 ,we must utilize the force of faith2 must bring this ,christian power into modern life4 ,true ability is moral ability4 ,labor is not merely activity2 it has a purpose2 it is directed against opposition4 ,by strife and striving we must reach the reality of the spiritual life4 ,through labor and love we attain our true selves4 ,the fulfilling of duty is inner freedom4 ,the unrest and stress of the present day are the signs of a new spiritual birth4 ,the function of philosophy is not to afford intellectual or esthetic gratification1 but it is to deepen and enrich life4 ,to the fine old ,german saying1 ,a man is more than his work1 ,eucken added ,mankind is more than his culture4 ,it is a ,lebensanschauung rather than a ,weltanschauung that he teaches1 for to him a theory of life is more important than a theory of the cosmos4 ,these are merely a few fragmentary thoughts that ,i gathered in that memorable hour4 ,of no value in themselves1 ,i give them merely to prove that ,i got something out of the lecture1 for ,i never understood spoken ,german until ,i heard ,eucken4 ,but even a deaf man would have found it profitable to be there4 ,a second lecture followed immediately1 on ,pessimism and ,optimism1 delivered with the same vigor and listened to with the same interest4 ,professor ,eucken was then sixty-seven years old1 and would have been ,carnegied if he were in an ,american university1 instead of giving lectures from seven to nine4 ,his hair and beard are pure white1 but set off handsomely his pink cheeks and his bright blue eyes still unspectacled4 ,and when he leaves the lecture room he does not leave his work1 but goes to more of it at home4 ,on one wall of his study is a photograph of ,michael ,angelo's ,creation1 from the ,sistine ,chapel1 and on the opposite a cast of a section of the ,parthenon frieze4 ,between these is the desk of the man who has brought together the highest aspirations of ,greek and ,christian culture2 a table stacked high with papers and manuscripts4 ,his correspondence is now voluminous1 but he answers all letters promptly and carefully1 writing his replies in the old-fashioned way1 with a pen4 ,he receives all visitors and will talk of his philosophy to a single auditor with the same unwearied enthusiasm as to an audience4 ,even those who are repelled by the severity of his literary style are attracted by the charm of his personality1 and this accounts in large part for his devoted following in all parts of the world4 ,after granting me an interview which took the heart out of his afternoon1 ,professor ,eucken returned good for evil by inviting me to dinner in the evening1 when ,i found that the lady on my right was from ,nebraska and the one on my left from ,switzerland1 while around the table ,i saw a young ,boer from the ,transvaal1 a don from ,oxford1 a professor from ,tokyo1 and representatives of ,i don't know how many other nationalities4 ,illustration3 ,mit beste ,grssen ,ihr 444 ,rudolf ,eucken ,the extension of the influence of ,professor ,eucken through this hearty hospitality is due largely to his wife4 ,frau ,eucken has happily not confined herself to the duties which the ,kaiser prescribes as woman's only sphere1 ,kirche1 ,kueche und ,kinder4#d ,she is not only wife1 mother and housekeeper1 but artist and musician as well4 ,her success in managing what might be called an international salon of philosophy is facilitated by her ability to converse in many languages4 ,on account of the generous hospitality extended to students and strangers by the ,eucken household a removal was made last year to a new villa in the suburbs4 ,professor ,eucken's wife and daughter came with him on his visit to ,america4 ,eucken's philosophy of life is dramatic4 ,his life has been undramatic2 the even1 ordered course of the typical ,german professor1 made even more uneventful by reason of his mastery of the gentle art of not making enemies4 ,born in ,aurich1 ,east ,friesland1 ,january #e1 #ahdf1 he studied at ,gttingen under ,lotze1 and at ,berlin under ,trendelenburg2 taught for four years in a gymnasium2 then for three years in the ,university of ,basel2 in #ahgd was called to the ,university of ,jena1 where he has ever since remained1 in spite of calls to larger institutions4 ,his inner life has been as uneventful as its external aspects2 a continuous1 methodical1 logical development of thought1 without leaps or backslidings4 ,first1 in #ahgh1 he laid the foundations in the study of the concepts of philosophy which attracted the attention of ,president ,porter4 ,seven years later he was ready to outline his own guiding theory in a volume bearing the characteristically ,germanic title of ,a ,prolegomena for the ,investigation of the ,unity of the ,spiritual ,life in the ,consciousness and ,acts of ,mankind4 ,from this standpoint of the unique significance of the spiritual life he then reviewed the whole history of the evolution of philosophy from ,plato to ,nietzsche4 ,his purpose in this work1 known in ,english as ,the ,problem of ,human ,life1 was1 as he explains1 to afford historical confirmation of the view that conceptions are determined by life1 not life by conceptions1 and that human destinies are not decided by mere opinions and whims1 either of individuals or of masses of individuals1 but rather that they are ruled by spiritual necessities with a spiritual aim and purport1 and that for man a new world dawns1 transcending the merely natural domain--the world1 namely1 of the spiritual life4 ,the sentences quoted are alone enough to show that ,eucken's history of philosophy is a very different thing from what usually goes by that name1 that is the chronicling of the speculations of successive generations of metaphysicians1 each one wiping clean the slate before he began to write4 ,eucken sees an aim and purpose in philosophic thought4 ,he does not regard it as a mere amusement or as an intellectual exercise1 but rather as a method by which humanity may grow into a higher sphere of existence4 ,the vital need of the day1 then1 is to awaken the present indifferent and busy generation to a realization of the supreme importance of spiritual things and to the necessity of bringing the ,christian religion into vital connection with modern thought4 ,this is the task to which ,eucken devoted his energies when by the close of the nineteenth century he had fully matured his views1 and the rapid succession of volumes which have since come from his pen are concerned with the moral and intellectual difficulties which nowadays impede religious progress4 ,the development of natural science and especially the theory of evolution have led to the identification of man with nature4 ,yet the very fact that we have come to know that we belong to nature shows that we are more than nature4 ,a transcendence of nature is already accomplished in the process of thought4 ,a consideration of all the facts leads us to the result that a life consisting solely of nature and intelligence involves an intolerable inconsistency2 form and content are sharply separated from each other2 thought is strong enough to disturb the sense of satisfaction with nature1 but is too weak to construct a new world in opposition to it4 ,life is in a state of painful uncertainty and man is a ,prometheus bound in that he must experience all the constraint and meaninglessness of the life of nature1 and must suffer therefrom an increasing pain without being able to change this state in any way4#e ,from time to time in the course of history1 spiritual impulses arise which are fundamentally different from physical self-preservation4 ,they force human activity into particular channels2 they speak to us with a tone of command and require absolute obedience4 ,neither the interests of individuals nor those of whole classes prevail against them2 every consideration of utility vanishes before their inner necessity4 ,religious movements show life in a particular form2 something emerges in it which1 unconcerned with the weal and the woe of man1 follows its own course and makes absolute demands4 ,man is not altogether the creature of his environment1 nor are his moral standards determined by society4 ,the individual is able in the light of his own conscience to approve and value something which all around him reject2 and conversely to condemn and reject something which all around him esteem and respect4 ,this opposition of individuals to the condition of things in the social environment has been the main source of all inner progress in matters of morality4 ,this line of thought leads ,eucken to the conclusion that a new life distinct from that of nature arises in our soul4 ,the spiritual life is not the product of a gradual development from the life of nature1 but has an independent origin and evolves new powers and standards4 ,we must recognize in the spiritual life a universal life which transcends man1 is shared by him and raises him to itself4 ,the philosophical treatment of history ought first of all to trace the liberation of life from the mere human2 the inner elevation of our being to a more than human4 ,in discussing the question of how man attains the spiritual life1 ,eucken steers carefully between the position of ,buddhism1 that each man must work out his own salvation without any aid from above1 and the extreme ,calvinistic position1 that man is purely passive and altogether undeserving4 ,or to quote his own words3 ,it is necessary to acknowledge that in all the spiritual movement which appears in the domain of man1 there is a revelation of the spiritual world2 as merely human power cannot lead the whole to new heights1 in all development of the spiritual life the communication of the new world must precede the activity of man4 ,at the same time1 where we are concerned with a life that is independent1 and of which the activity is conscious and self-determined1 the change cannot possibly merely happen to man2 it must be taken up by his own activity2 it needs his own decision and acceptance4 ,only through ceaseless activity can life remain at the height to which it has attained4 ,this leads to the distinctive form of ,eucken's philosophy of life1 known as ,activism4 ,this is like ,pragmatism in its rejection of the mere intellectualistic view of life and in basing truth upon a more spontaneous and essential activity4 ,but ,eucken's objection to ,pragmatism is stated in the following language3 ,pragmatism1 which has recently made so much headway among ,english-speaking peoples and beyond them1 is more inclined to shape the world and life in accordance with human conditions and needs than to invest spiritual activity with an independence in relation to these1 and apply its standards to the testing and sifting of the whole content of human life4 ,at its highest1 religion has always been concerned with winning a new world and a new humanity1 not with the achievement of something within the old world and for the old humanity4 ,it will be seen that ,eucken does not fall in with the tendency of the times to subordinate the individual to society4 ,the spiritual life springs up1 not in the social consciousness1 but in the soul of the individual1 elevating his spiritual nature above all environment4 ,but such a person is guarded against the arrogance of a superman by realizing that this superiority is not due to personal merit1 but solely to the presence of the spiritual world4 ,this1 as ,eucken recognizes1 may be called a form of mysticism1 but it differs decidedly from the older mysticism in some important respects4 ,it is not ,quietism1 but its opposite1 ,activism4 ,eucken does not regard the individual as seeking a peaceful haven by absorption into the infinite2 on the contrary1 the infinite enters the individual and rouses him to intensest and creative activity4 ,here ,eucken shows a striking similarity to ,bergson4 ,the ,geistesleben might be regarded as a higher development or manifestation of the lan vital4 ,both involve the conception of an upward impulse acting at individual points which thus become centers of spontaneous vital activity4 ,it is curious that this view1 so characteristically modern and as novel as anything can be in the realm of metaphysical speculation1 should have simultaneously and independently been made a fundamental doctrine by two philosophers so unlike in temperament and training1 the ,french philosopher starting from the standpoint of mathematical physics and ,spencerian evolution1 and the ,german from academic metaphysics and ,christian theology4 ,such a coincidence1 as well as the reception which the teachings of ,bergson and ,eucken have received in many lands1 show that their common principle is in harmony with the spirit of the age4 ,eucken and ,bergson met for the first time at ,columbia ,university in #aiab4 ,it might be feared that ,eucken1 emphasizing as he does the individualistic origin of religious inspiration and realizing as he does the injury done to the ,christian cause by clinging to antiquated formulas and medieval conceptions1 would be inclined to undervalue ecclesiastical institutions and to advocate too violent a break with historic ,christianity4 ,but here again his moderation and sanity are manifest4 ,he cannot be called orthodox from the standpoint of the established ,lutheran ,church4 ,he agrees entirely with his colleague ,haeckel in condemning the union of ,church and ,state1 but for opposite reasons2 ,haeckel because the ,church receives thereby artificial support2 ,eucken because the ,church is thereby hampered in its freedom of development4 ,he never1 however1 falls into the error of thinking that a new religion can be made to order to suit the times1 or even the needs of any one person4 ,he finds in historic ,christianity all the essentials of a permanent and universal religion1 capable1 when properly understood and presented1 of satisfying the severe requirements of modern thought and feeling4 ,but this is not to be accomplished by merely eliminating whatever the modern mind finds objectionable4 ,a religion is not primarily a mere theory concerning things human and divine--such a theory can1 of course1 be quite easily put together with a little ingenuity--it discloses ultimate revelations of the spiritual life1 further developments of reality1 great organizations of living energy1 movements1 in a word1 which have convulsed the age in which they came victoriously to birth1 and have subsequently proved themselves strong enough to attract large portions of mankind1 weld each of these inwardly together1 and set an invisible world before it as the main basis of life4 ,in such upheavals of the life of the people there is opened a rich mine of fact which becomes the property of all men1 and includes valuable experiences of humanity as a whole4 ,he who would cut himself off from this great stream of experience1 inward as well as outward1 will soon find out how little the isolated individual can do in matters of this kind4 ,it is easy to find fault with what tradition hands down1 no less easy to draw up vague views of one's own1 but how immense is the distance which separates procedure such as this from the creative effort which urges its sure way forward1 from the synthesis which embraces all men's lives and exercises an elemental compulsion upon them4#f ,eucken's clairvoyant faith sees through the present anti-religious atmosphere the dawning of a new era in which the spiritual life shall again be dominant4 ,yet no one has recognized more clearly the alienation of the ,church from the cultural and the practical life of the day4 ,this chasm is no doubt greater in ,germany1 where the ,catholic and ,protestant churches are ,state institutions and identified with reactionary elements1 than it is in our own country1 where there is fortunately no ,church1 but many churches1 all equally free to adapt themselves to changing conditions and to prove themselves useful to society in their own way4 ,but it must be admitted that our churches are not availing themselves of this exceptional freedom and do not show the originality and diversity which is characteristic of life and growth4 ,eucken is conciliatory1 but no compromiser4 ,he does not solicit for religion a humble place in modern life by using arguments like those employed in the sale of patent medicines1 that it is innocuous at the least and may somehow do some good4 ,he meets modern science upon her own ground4 ,he claims for religion an equal practicality and efficiency2 he demands for it a greater certitude1 and he is willing1 as ,jesus was willing1 to put it to the pragmatic test4 ,since we have found that religion is linked thus closely with the whole1 we need not make any timid compromise with certain superficial contemporary movements and content ourselves with a lower degree of certainty1 saying1 for instance1 that we can never altogether eliminate the subjective element1 and that religious truths can never have the certainty of such formulae as #b x #b #d4 ,on the contrary1 we maintain that it is a very poor conception of religion which deems any certainty superior to hers1 and does not claim for her truth a far more primary certainty than that of the formula #b x #b #d4 ,only a shallow and perverse conception of truth can allow the certainty of the part to exceed the certainty of the whole4#g ,either religion is merely a product of human wishes and ideas under the sanction of tradition and social convention--and then neither art nor might nor cunning can prevent so frail a fabrication from being whelmed by the advancing spiritual tide--or else religion is based on facts of a suprahuman order1 and in that case the most violent onslaught cannot shake her2 rather will it help her in the end1 through all the stress and toil of human circumstance1 to discover where her true strength lies1 and to express in purer ways the eternal truth that is in her4#h ,,postscript1 #aiag ,i have thought best to leave the article on ,eucken just as ,i published it in ,the ,independent of ,february #bg1 #aiac1 with only a few slight changes in tense and time references4 ,it presents a picture of ,german life and thought as ,i saw it shortly before the war1 and it would be impossible for me to bring it up to date now when the ,british censorship prevents ,german books and papers from reaching ,america4 ,i can only add some quotations from ,eucken's recent writings to show his attitude toward the war4 ,in the fall of #aiad1 ,eucken joined with his colleague in the university and his opponent in philosophy1 ,professor ,ernst ,haeckel1 in a public statement charging that ,british greed and egotism had caused the ,great ,war4#i ,in the following spring ,eucken sent an appeal to the ,american people in the form of eight questions which ,i quote entire4 ,you say that we are a nation militarist and greedy for conquest4 ,permit us a few questions with regard to that rash statement4 ,first4--,how do you explain that in times gone by ,germany did not take advantage of the difficulties of her present opponents--as1 for instance1 ,england's difficulty during the ,boer war or ,russia's difficulty during the ,japanese war8 ,if we had meant conquest should we have chosen the very moment when half the world was against us1 and we were numerically in the minority8 ,do you really think that we are as stupid as all that8 ,second4--,next1 how do you explain that all parties in ,germany approve of the policy of the government and loyally hold together1 including the ,social ,democrats8 ,yesterday they were our decided opponents4 ,do you believe that the ,socialists have overnight1 as it were1 become changed from decided opponents to adherents of militarism8 ,third4--,how do you explain the fact that the ,americans who were in ,germany at the outbreak of the war in an overwhelming majority sided with us8 ,does not the opinion of those who see events quite near--nay1 who live through them--carry greater weight than the view of such as observe occurrences from a remote distance8 ,fourth4--,you believe that the ,germans are oppressed and narrowed down by the rule of militarism4 ,how do you explain that education and technical and scientific research are so highly developed and universally esteemed in ,germany and that for this reason so many ,americans come to ,germany in order to study sciences and arts8 ,fifth4--,you always discuss war with regard to ,belgium1 ,france and ,england only4 ,have you forgotten ,russia1 with her one hundred and fifty million inhabitants and her army1 which is by far the largest in the whole world8 ,russia is a danger to ,germany and to the whole of ,europe and just now insists on the possession of ,constantinople4 ,have you forgotten that ,russia1 by interfering with the ,servian murder case1 began the war1 and that ,england1 according to the parliamentary statement made by ,foreign ,secretary ,sir ,edward ,grey1 was determined1 even before the ,german invasion of ,belgium1 to abandon her neutrality in favor of ,france8 ,sixth4--,you generally argue that all ,europe was in profound peace and that only the greed of ,germany disturbed that peace4 ,have you forgotten that long before the war there was a triple entente which was directed against ,germany and that the entente newspapers openly discussed the war plans hatched against ,germany and even recommended #aiaf as a suitable year for commencing hostilities8 ,seventh4--,you want to be good ,christians and as such work for peace among the nations4 ,can you reconcile such ,christianity with the fact that your country sends huge consignments of arms and ammunition to our opponents and thus intensifies and lengthens the war8 ,can you further reconcile that with neutrality1 a neutrality in spirit and not merely in the letter8 ,eighth4--,do not you think that a great nation with a glorious past should see the events of the day with its own eyes and that such independence of thought is the highest test of true liberty8 ,but you contemplate present history more or less through ,english spectacles1 as if your country were still a ,british colony and not an independent empire with its own goals and standards4 ,in such a passion-stirred age as ours neutrals have the lofty duty to keep out of party strife and to endeavor to be just and impartial to both sides4 ,this endeavor is lacking in ,germany's ,american opponents4 ,that even the antagonisms aroused by the war have not shaken ,eucken's faith in the power of religion and philosophy to heal the wounds of humanity is shown by a recent article on ,the ,international ,character of ,modern ,philosophy in the ,homiletic ,review of ,new ,york4 ,in this he discusses with great impartiality the contributions which ,england1 ,france1 ,germany1 and ,italy have made to philosophy and concludes as follows3 ,after all1 philosophy is summoned to proclaim the unity of mankind over against the present split among the peoples4 ,to be sure1 this does not mean that individual philosophers are less earnest to put forward the claims of their own people than the claims of others2 for they are not mere scholars1 they are also living men and citizens of their own nation4 ,when they see this assaulted and its existence put in peril1 it is for them a holy duty to come to the defense of the fatherland--if not with the weapons of war1 at least to do their best with the weapons of the intellect4 ,meanwhile1 the belief is entirely proper that the intellectual gains which are the result of philosophical labor remain unharmed by war1 that a realm of intellectual creation will retain full recognition beyond the enmities of man4 ,keenest blame is deserved by the attempt to array against each other the intellectual leaders of a people which is for the moment a foe1 or to disparage the entire mental character of the opponent4 ,that is the stamp of a small and vengeful disposition--he who aims to depreciate others to whom great thanks are due dishonors himself4 ,let each1 therefore1 remain true to his own people1 but never forget the task and aim of philosophy--to consider things under the form of perpetuity1 maintaining for humanity in the present a world superior to all the littlenesses of human action4 ,a further and much more weighty task is from this arising for philosophy--to work mightily for the inner unity of human life and endeavor2 the lack of such a unity has contributed not a little to whet the antagonisms of the nations4444 ,only when we are convinced that we belong together essentially1 that we have a great work to accomplish in common and have to raise mankind from the stage of nature to that of intellect--that we have to carry on unitedly a fight against the manifold unreason of life--only by the strengthening and operation of such convictions can the division of humanity into hostile nationalities be successfully withstood4 ,not through elegant addresses and articles1 only by means of a dynamic deepening of life and the introduction of new power can we progress in the solution of these problems4#aj ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,eucken ,eucken is not a man of one book4 ,he has put forth his ideas in many different forms2 large volumes and little1 works historical1 expository1 argumentative1 theoretical and practical1 but his point of view has remained throughout his long productive career essentially unchanged1 and is so clearly indicated in all his works that one may be sure of obtaining the fundamental principles of his philosophy from whatever volume he selects4 ,if1 however1 ,i am expected to prescribe a particular book as an introduction to ,eucken1 ,i should say that the general reader who is interested in the relation of philosophy to religion--and one who is not interested in that would not care to read ,eucken anyway--would find ,christianity and the ,new ,idealism 7translated by ,lucy ,judge ,gibson and ,w4 ,r4 ,boyce ,gibson1 ,harper7 most suitable for the purpose4 ,it is a small volume1 as easy reading as anything of ,eucken's1 and discusses frankly the present crisis in religious thought and indicates what he believes the churches ought to discard and what they must maintain of their inherited doctrines and forms4 ,the ,truth of ,religion 7translated by ,w4 ,tudor ,jones1 ,putnam7 covers similar ground1 but in a more thorough and theoretical manner4 ,the volumes entitled in their ,english version ,the ,meaning and ,value of ,life 7,gibson translation1 ,macmillan72 ,the ,life of the ,spirit 7translated by ,f4 ,l4 ,pogson1 ,putnam71 are intended for the non-philosophical reader2 while ,life's ,basis and ,life's ,ideals 7translated by ,alban ,g4 ,widgery1 ,macmillan72 ,main ,currents of ,modern ,thought3 ,a ,study of the ,spiritual and ,intellectual ,movements of the ,present ,day 7translated by ,meyrick ,booth1 ,scribner72 and ,the ,contest for the ,spiritual ,life 7,putnam7 are of a more technical character4 ,the ,problem of ,human ,life as ,viewed by ,great ,thinkers from ,plato to the ,present ,time 7translated by ,williston ,s4 ,hough and ,w4 ,r4 ,boyce ,gibson1 ,scribner7 differs decidedly from the ordinary history of philosophy in that the author is not trying to set at odds and overthrow the successive philosophers1 but is seeking for whatever in them is good and permanent1 finally coming to see them linked together as workers in one common task3 the task of building up a spiritual world within the realm of human life1 of proving our existence to be both spiritual and natural4 ,single lectures and articles by ,eucken readily accessible in ,english are3 ,religion and ,life 7,putnam72 ,back to ,religion 7,pilgrim ,press72 ,can ,we ,still ,be ,christians8 7,macmillan72 ,naturalism or ,idealism 7the ,nobel ,lecture74 ,twenty of his papers are included in ,collected ,essays of ,rudolf ,eucken 7,scribner1 #aiad74 ,the titles of ,eucken's chief works in ,german and in the ,english versions are as follows3 ,die ,grundbegriffe der ,gegenwart 7,the ,main ,currents of ,modern ,thought71 #ahgh2 ,die ,einheit des ,geisteslebens in ,bewusstsein und ,tat der ,menschheit1 #ahhh2 ,die ,lebensanschauungen der ,grossen ,denker 7,the ,problem of ,human ,life71 #ahij2 ,der ,kampf um einen geistigen ,lebensinhalt1 #ahif2 ,der ,wahrheitsgehalt der ,religion 7,the ,truth of ,religion71 #aija2 ,grundlinien einer neuen ,lebensanschauung 7,life's ,basis and ,life's ,ideal71 #aijg2 ,hauptprobleme der ,religionsphilosophie der ,gegenwart 7,christianity and the ,new ,idealism71 #aijg2 ,sinn und ,wert des ,lebens 7,the ,meaning and ,value of ,life71 #aije2 ,einfhrung in eine ,philosophie des ,geisteslebens 7,the ,life of the ,spirit71 #aijh2 ,erkennen und ,leben 7,knowledge and ,life1 #aiab74 ,of the numerous books and articles about ,eucken which have appeared in ,europe1 it will be sufficient to mention3 ,rudolf ,eucken4 ,die ,erneuerer des deutschen ,idealismus1 by ,theodor ,kappstein 7,berlin-,schneberg3 ,bucherlag der ,hilfe72 ,rudolf ,eucken's ,werk1 ,eine neue idealistische ,lsung des ,lebensproblems1 by ,kurt ,kesseler 7,bunzlau3 ,kreuschmer1 #aiaa72 ,eucken's dramatische ,lebensphilosophie1 by ,otto ,braun 7,zeitschrift fr ,philosophie und ,philosophische ,kritik1 #aiji72 ,rudolf ,eucken's ,christenthum1 by ,ludwig von ,gerdtell 7,verlag von ,becker74 ,on ,eucken's seventieth birthday1 ,january #e1 #aiaf1 the ,zeitschrift fr ,philosophie published a ,festschrift devoted to his work4 ,la philosophie de ,m4 ,rudolph ,eucken1 by ,emile ,boutroux 7,acadmie des ,sciences morales et politiques1 #aiaj74 ,it is unnecessary to give a list of articles about ,eucken in ,american magazines because any library that contains the files will have a periodical index1 but a few references may be given3 ,religious ,philosophy of ,eucken1 ,harvard ,theological ,review 7vol4 #b1 p4 #dfe1 #aiji72 ,eucken and ,st4 ,paul1 by ,richard ,roberts1 ,contemporary ,review 7vol4 #ig1 p4 #ga72 ,religious ,philosophy of ,eucken1 by ,baron ,f4 von ,hgel1 ,hibbert ,journal 7vol4 #aj1 p4 #ffj72 ,eucken's ,philosophy of ,life1 by ,w4 ,fite1 ,the ,nation 7vol4 #ie1 p4 #bi72 ,eucken's ,new ,gospel of ,activism1 ,current ,literature 7vol4 #ec1 p4 #fg72 ,idealism of ,rudolf ,eucken1 by ,s4 ,h4 ,mellone1 ,international ,journal of ,ethics 7vol4 #ba1 p4 #ae74 ,there are two excellent expositions of ,eucken's philosophy in ,english1 by his students and translators3 ,rudolf ,eucken's ,philosophy of ,life1 by ,w4 ,r4 ,boyce ,gibson 7,macmillan71 and ,an ,interpretation of ,rudolf ,eucken's ,philosophy1 by ,w4 ,tudor ,jones 7,putnam74 ,a briefer compendium1 ,eucken3 ,a ,philosophy of ,life1 by ,a4 ,j4 ,jones1 has appeared in a series of handy volumes known as ,the ,people's ,books 7,new ,york3 ,dodge ,publishing ,company74 ,meyrick ,booth 7,ph4,d4 of ,jena7 has published ,rudolf ,eucken3 ,his ,philosophy and ,influence1 ,london 7,unwin1 #aiac74 #a ,the ,fundamental ,concepts of ,modern ,philosophic ,thought1 ,critically and ,historically ,considered by ,rudolf ,eucken1 ,professor in ,jena4 ,translated by ,m4 ,stuart ,phelps1 ,professor in ,smith ,college4 ,with additions and corrections by the author and an introduction by ,noah ,porter1 president of ,yale ,college4 ,appleton1 #ahhj4 #b ,so says ,professor ,heinrich ,weinel in an interesting article on ,religious ,life and ,thought in ,germany ,to-day1 in the ,hibbert ,journal1 ,july1 #aiji4 #c ,my visit to ,jena1 described in the following pages1 was made in #aiaj4 #d ,these must1 ,i suppose1 be translated into ,english as kirk1 kitchen and kids4 #e ,life's ,basis and ,life's ,ideal1 p4 #aah4 #f ,christianity and the ,new ,idealism1 p4 #adf4 #g ,christianity and the ,new ,idealism1 p4 #bh4 #h ,the ,truth of ,religion4 #i ,published in ,the ,independent1 ,september #bh1 #aiad4 #aj ,the ,international ,character of ,modern ,philosophy1 ,homiletic ,review1 ,april1 #aiaf4