Better Gutenberg
Free, beautifully formatted public-domain ebooks

Philosophy and the Social Problem

by Will Durant

12 of 12 · Contents · Download EPUB

Conclusion

See now, in summary, how modest a suggestion it is, grandiloquent though it may have seemed. We propose no ’ism, we make no programme; we suggest, tentatively, a method. We propose a new start, a new tack, a new approach,—not to the exclusion of other approaches, but to their assistance. If this thing should be done, it would not mean that other gropers toward a better world would have to stand idle; it would but give light to them that walk in darkness. And it would make possible a more generous coöperation among the different currents in the stream of reconstructive thought.

We are a little discouraged to-day; we lovers of the new have become doubtful of the object of our love. Perhaps—we sometimes feel—all this effort is a vain circling in the mist; perhaps we do not advance, but only move. Our faith in progress is dimmed. We even tire of the “social problem”; we have tried so many ways, knocked at so many doors, and found so little of that which we sought. Sometimes, in the lassitude of mistaken effort and drear defeat, we almost think that the social problem is never to find even partial solution, that it is not a problem but a limitation, a limitation forever. We need a new beginning, a new impetus,—perhaps a new delusion?

See, too, how the thought of our five teachers lies concentrated and connected in this new approach: what have we done but renew concretely the Socratic plea for intelligence, the Platonic hope for philosopher-kings, Bacon’s dream of knowledge organized and ruling the world, Spinoza’s gentle insistence on democracy as the avenue of development, and Nietzsche’s passionate defence of aristocracy and power? There was something in us that thrilled at Plato’s conception of a philosophy that could guide as well as dissect our social life; but there was another something in us that hesitated before his plan of slavery as the basis of it all. We felt that we would rather be free and miserable than bound and filled. Why should a man feed himself if his feet are chained, and he must never move? And we were inspired, too, by the demand that the best should rule, that they should have power fitted to their worth; we should be glad to find some way whereby the best could have power, could rule, and yet with the consent of all,—we wanted an aristocracy sanctioned by democracy, a social order standing on the broad base of free citizenship and wide coöperation. Socrates shows us how to use Bacon to reconcile Plato and Nietzsche with Spinoza: intelligence will organize intelligence so that superior worth may have superior influence and yet work with and through the will of all.


And here at the end comes a thought that some of us perhaps have had more than once as this discussion advanced: What could the Church do for the organization of intelligence?

It could do wonderful things. It has power, organization, facilities, through which the gospel of “the moral obligation to be intelligent” could be preached to a wider audience than any newspaper could reach. And among the clergy are hundreds of young men who have found new inspiration in the figure of Jesus seen through the aspirations of democracy; hundreds eager to do their part in any work that will lessen the misery of men. What if they were to find in this organization of intelligence a focus for their labor?—what if they should not only themselves undertake the studies which would fit them for membership in the Society, but should also make it their business to stir up in all who might come to them the spirit of the seeker, to incite them to read religiously the reports of the Society, to call on them to spread abroad the good news of truth to be had for the asking? What if these men should make their churches extension centers for the educational work of the Society,—giving freely the use of their halls and even contributing to the expense of organizing classes and paying for skilled instruction? What if they should see in the spread of intelligence the best avenue to that wide friendship which Jesus so passionately preached? What better way is there to make men love one another than to make men understand one another? True charity comes only with clarity,—just as “mercy” is but justice that understands. Surely the root of all evil is the inability to see clearly that which is; how better can religion combat evil than to preach clarity as the beginning of social redemption?


One of the many burdens that drag on the soul is a knowledge of the past. It is a strong man who can know history and keep his courage; a great dream that can face the fact and live. We look at those flitting experiments called civilizations: we see them rise one after another, we see them produce and produce and produce, we feel the weight of their accumulating wealth; still visionable to us the busyness of geniuses and slaves piling stone upon stone and making pyramids to greet the stars, still audible the voices of Socrates in the agora and of old Plato passing quietly among the students in the grove, still haunting us the white faces of martyrs in the amphitheatres of Rome: and then the pyramids stand bare and lonely, the voices of Greek genius are hushed, the Colosseum is a ruin and a memory; one after another these peoples pass, these wonderful peoples, greater perhaps, wiser and nobler perhaps, than the peoples of our time; and we almost choke with the heavy sense of a vast futility encompassing the world. Some of us turn away then from the din of effort, and seek in resignation the comfort of a living death; some others find in the doubt and difficulty the zest and reward of the work. After all, the past is not dead, it has not failed; only the vileness of it is dead, gone with the winnowing of time; that which was great and worthy lives and works and is real. Plato speaks to us still, speaks to millions and millions of us; and the blood of martyrs is the seed of saints. We speak and pass, but the word remains. Effort is not lost. Not to have tried is the only failure, the only misery; all effort is happiness, all effort is success. And so again we write ourselves in books and stone and color, and smile in the face of time; again we hear the call of the work, that it be done:

Edens that wait the wizardry of thought,
Beauty that craves the touch of artist hands,
Truth that but hungers to be felt or seen;

and again we are hot with the passion for perfection. We will remake. We will wonder and desire and dream and plan and try. We are such beings as dream and plan and try; and the glory of our defeats dims the splendor of the sun. We will take thought and add a cubit to our stature; we will bring intelligence to the test and call it together from all corners of the earth; we will harness the genius of the race and renew creation.

We will remake.


The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects.

Poverty and Social Progress

By MAURICE PARMELEE, Ph.D.

“Suitable for college classes as well as for the general reader, and contains a great mass of material of value to the citizen who really wants to know.”—Independent.

“A very competent presentation of the various social factors that go to make up the problem of poverty.”—Churchman.

“A most useful and educative book. It would be well if every serious-minded person interested in social welfare would read this calm, impartial survey of the problems of poverty, and learn from it that poverty is not a spontaneous phenomenon, and that it could be practically wiped out by the reorganization of society. The book is offered for use as a text for college courses on charities, poverty, pauperism, dependency, and the like, but its most useful place is in the hands of the worker, the producer, the business man and woman, the serious shapers and makers of the present economic state of society.”—American Review of Reviews.

“Promoters of the democratic and humanitarian movement of our time will find this volume replete with valuable data and stimulating to close and careful thinking. Dr. Parmelee defines social progress as advancement toward realization of a normal human life for all mankind. He shows this obstructed by poverty in so many ways that there is no panacea for it, and a variety of remedies are requisite. The chief obstructions being in the production and distribution of wealth, his discussion centers mainly in the problems of these.”—Outlook.


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

The Great Society

A Psychological Analysis
By GRAHAM WALLAS
Author of “Human Nature in Politics”

Graham Wallas’s new book, “The Great Society,” will be equally interesting to the psychologists, students of sociology, politics and the general reader. Mr. Wallas is a man of wide connections in England, a man whose experience has well fitted him for the task which he has essayed. He has been for many years a university extension lecturer; he was at one time a member of the school-board of London, chairman of the School Management Committee, a member of the Technical Education Board, of the London County Council and of the Education Committee of that council. He has been, since 1896, a lecturer at the London School of Economics. He has served on the Senate of London University, as university reader in political science and on the Royal Commission on Civil Service. He has written more or less widely, his most popular publication being, perhaps, “Human Nature in Politics.”

The present work, a portion of which was delivered last winter as the Lowell Lecture in Boston, begins with an exposition of what the author means by the term “The Great Society.” It then proceeds to a consideration of the following topics: Disposition, Social Psychology, Instinct and Intelligence, Disposition and Environment, Habit, Fear, Pleasure, Pain, Happiness, The Psychology of the Crowd, Love and Hatred, Thought, The Organization of Thought, The Organization of Will, and the Organization of Happiness.

“His deft and almost subtle grasp of the viewpoints of the philosophic factors in history; his focusing of a theory into the tiny sunspot of an illuminant sentence, and adopting a style that is as inviting and penetrating as Havelock Ellis, make the book one of sustained interest”—Galveston Daily News.


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

The Social Problem

A CONSTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS
By CHARLES A. ELLWOOD, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology in the University of Missouri, Author of “Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects,” “Sociology and Modern Social Problems,” etc.

This work is a brief analysis of the social problem in Western civilization. It outlines a scientific social philosophy which can serve as a basis for a well-balanced progress. The author points out that the present crisis in our civilization calls for a reconstruction of our social philosophy; for we cannot build anew the structure of Western society upon the inadequate bases of eighteenth and nineteenth century thought. The book indicates the direction which our social thinking must take if we are to avoid revolution, on the one hand, and reaction, on the other. It aims to furnish a scientific basis for the progressive social movement; and it is commended to progressives in whatever class, party, or sect they may happen to find themselves. The attitude of the book is thoroughly positive and constructive toward all the essential values of our civilization.

“‘The Social Problem’ by Professor Charles A. Ellwood is one of the best books of the kind I have ever seen. The subject is handled in a masterful way. The best books I read in my field ordinarily do not gain more than eighty-five or ninety per cent of my assent. This book, however, I would endorse to ninety-eight or ninety-nine per cent.

“It is not only sound in its general positions, but sound in details. Every statement is guarded and weighty. There is a fine sense of the value of words, there is no duplication, and the author reaches his goal with the fewest possible sentences. I know of no book upon the social problem, which can command so completely the endorsement of social thinkers everywhere.”—Professor Edward A. Ross of the University of Wisconsin, Author of “The Changing Chinese,” “Social Psychology,” etc.


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

AMERICAN SOCIAL PROGRESS SERIES

The City Worker’s World in America

By MARY KINGSBURY SIMKHOVITCH

Director of Greenwich House

A new volume in the American Social Progress Series edited by Samuel Mccune Lindsay. Ll. D.

A plain description of the facts of the city dweller’s life, with some indications of the evolutionary process going on at the city’s heart.

Social Reform and the Constitution

By FRANK J. GOODNOW

“The work is well worth not only reading but study and is a decided contribution to the literature of the subject.”

—Boston Transcript.

The New Basis of Civilization

By SIMON N. PATTEN

“The book is valuable and inspiring in its general conception and guiding principles. Social workers will welcome it, and moralists should greatly profit by its teachings.”

—Chicago Evening Post.

Standards of Public Morality

By ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY

“The book is worth reading not only once, but twice.”

—New York Times.

Misery and Its Causes

By EDWARD T. DEVINE

“One of the most vital and helpful books on social problems ever published.”

—Congregationalist and Christian World.

Governmental Action for Social Welfare

By JEREMIAH W. JENKS

“Professor Jenks’ little book ought to be in the hands of every member of every legislature in the country.”

—Review of Reviews.

The Social Basis of Religion

By SIMON N. PATTEN

“It is a work of deep thought and abundant research. Those who read it will find their ideas and thoughts quickened and will be sure that their time has been profitably spent.”

—Salt Lake Tribune.

The Church and Society

By R. FULTON CUTTING

“A stimulating and informing little book.”

—Boston Herald.

The Juvenile Court

By THOMAS D. ELIOT

“Another volume which will repay careful reading—the most useful treatise on youthful criminology.”

—Providence Journal.

Social Insurance: A Program for Social Reform

By HENRY ROGERS SEAGER


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

Notes

1 Class-lectures. As Bacon has it, Aristotle, after the Ottoman manner, did not believe that he could rule securely unless he first put all his brothers to death.

2 The Dialexeis; cf. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, New York, 1901, vol. i, p. 404.

3 Gompers, vol. i, p. 403.

4 Botsford and Sihler, Hellenic Civilization, New York, 1915, p. 430.

5 Ibid., p. 340, etc.

6 And sincerely, says Burnet, because he had gone through radicalism to scepticism, and felt that one convention was as good as another.

7 Cf. Henry Jackson, article “Sophists,” Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition.

8 History of Ethics, London, 1892, p. 24.

9 Op. cit., vol. ii, 1905, p. 67.

10 History of Greece, vol. viii, p. 134.

11 Morals in Evolution, New York, 1915, p. 556.

12 Henry Jackson, article “Socrates,” Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition.

13 Twilight of the Idols, London, 1915, p. 15. For Nietzsche’s answer to Nietzsche, cf. ibid., p. 57: “To accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides,—this is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality,” this is one of “the three objects for which we need educators.... One must not respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the obstructing and isolating instincts. To learn to see, as I understand this matter, amounts almost to that which in popular language is called ‘strength of will’: its essential feature is precisely... to be able to postpone one’s decision.... All lack of intellectuality, all vulgarity, arises out of the inability to resist a stimulus.”

14 “Why art thou sad? Assuredly thou hast performed some sacred duty?”—Bazarov in Turgenev’s Fathers and Children, 1903, p. 185.

15 “Morality is the effort to throw off sleep.... I have never yet met a man who was wide awake. How could I have looked him in the face?”—Thoreau, Walden, New York, 1899, p. 92.

16 What happens when I “see the better and approve it, but follow the worse,” is that an end later approved as “better”—i.e., better for me—is at the time obscured by the persistent or recurrent suggestion of an end temporarily more satisfying, but eventually disappointing. Most self-reproach is the use of knowledge won post factum to criticise a self that had to adventure into action unarmed with this hindsight wisdom.

17 Gorgias, p. 521.

18 399 B.C.

19 Epistles, viii, 325.

20 “When the soul does not speak in dialogue it is not in difficulty.”—Professor Wood bridge, in class.

21 “If we look for a system of philosophy in Plato, we shall probably not find it; but if we look for none we may find most of the philosophies ever written.”—Professor Woodbridge.

22 Phædrus, 244.

23 Sophist, 247.

24 Laws, 765-6.

25 Republic, 425.

26 Protagoras, 325.

27 Republic, 536.

28 Laws, 804.

29 Ibid., 810.

30 Republic, 375.

31 Ibid., 410.

32 Laws, 810.

33 Republic, 539.

34 Republic, 537.

35 Republic, 184.

36 Ibid., 473.

37 The passage, abbreviated, follows: “First, then, let us consider what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work in summer commonly stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley and wheat, baking the wheat and kneading the flour, making noble puddings and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds of yew or myrtle boughs. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and having the praises of the gods on their lips, living in sweet society, and having a care that their families do not exceed their means; for they will have an eye to poverty or war.... Of course they will have a relish,—salt, and olives, and cheese, and onions, and cabbages or other country herbs which are fit for boiling; and we shall give them a dessert of figs, and pulse, and beans, and myrtle-berries, and beech-nuts, which they will roast at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.”—Republic, 372. Cf. The Rousseauian anthropology of Laws, 679.

38 Republic, 372-3.

39 Much of modern criticism of democracy finds its inspiration in Plato. Cf. Bernard Shaw: “The democratic politician remains exactly as Plato described him.” Cf. also the Modern Utopia and Research Magnificent of H. G. Wells. Nietzsche’s debt to Plato will appear in a later chapter.

[40] “Omnia communia inter nos habemus, praeter mulieres.”

41 Let us remember that a property-qualification for the vote remained in our own political system till the time of Jefferson, and has in our own day been resuscitated in some of the Southern states.

42 Laws, 783.

43 Republic, 403

44 Protagoras, 322.

45 Plato, says Cleanthes, “cursed as impious him who first sundered the just from the useful.”—Gomperz, ii, 73. Cf. Republic, 331.

46 Edmund Gosse, Life of Henrik Ibsen, p. 100, note.

47 Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, pref.

48 Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, New York, 1910, p. 21.

49 Cf. De Augmentis, bk. viii, ch. 2.

50 Advancement of Learning, Boston, 1863, bk. i.

51 Philosophical Works, ed. J. M. Robertson, London, 1805, p. 33.

52 Novum Organum, i, 65.

53 Advancement of Learning, p. 133.

54 Called by Bacon the “first vintage.”

55 Novum Organum, ii, 2.

56 Preface to Magna Instauratio.

57 Novum Organum, pref.

58 Novum Organum, i, 129.

59 Ibid., i, 92.

60 Ibid., i, 113.

61 Advancement of Learning, bk. ii, ch. 1.

62 Novum Organum, i, 61.

63 Advancement of Learning, bk. i, ch. 1.

64 Ibid., bk. ii, ch. 1.

65 New Atlantis, Cambridge University Press, 1900, p. 22.

66 Ibid., p. 24.

67 Pp. 44, 45.

68 P. 43.

69 P. 34.

70 J. M. Robertson, preface to Philosophical Works.

71 Robert Adamson, article “Bacon,” Encyclopædia Britannica.

72 Cf. preface to Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

73 Novum Organum, i, 81.

74 Advancement of Learning, p. 207.

75 Ibid., p. 131.

76 Advancement of Learning., bk. i.

77 Professor Woodbridge, class-lectures.

78 Turgenev, in Fathers and Children.

79 This division into saints and sinners must be taken with reservations, of course. In many respects Descartes belongs to the second group, and in some respects James and Comte belong to the first. But the dichotomy clarifies, if only by exaggeration.

80 L. Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 16.

81 Buckle, History of Civilization, i, 138.

82 Special acknowledgment for some of the material of this chapter is due to R. A. Duff, Spinoza’s Political and Ethical Philosophy, Glasgow, 1903.

83 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 17.

84 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 1.

85 Will to Power, vol. i, § 95.

86 Cf. Duff, op. cit., pref.: “It can be shown that Spinoza had no interest in metaphysics for its own sake, while he was passionately interested in moral and political problems. He was a metaphysician at all only in the sense that he was resolute in thinking out the ideas, principles, and categories which are interwoven with all our practical endeavor, and the proper understanding of which is the condition of human welfare.”

87 Ethics, bk. iv, prop. 7.

88 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, v, 2.

89 Ibid., ch. 16.

90 Ethics, bk. iv, prop. 58, schol.

91 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, i, 5.

92 Ethics, bk. i, appendix.

93 Ibid., bk. iv, prop. 18, schol.

94 Ethics, bk. iv, prop. 3.

95 Ibid., cor.

96 De Intellectus Emendatione.

97 Ethics, bk. iv, appendix, § 9.

98 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 10.

99 Ibid., ch. 19.

100 Ibid., ch. 8.

101 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 16.

102 Ethics, bk. iv, prop. 18, schol.

103 Ibid.

104 Ibid., bk. iv, prop. 24.

105 Bk. iv, def. 8.

106 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 6, § 1.

107 Ethics, bk. iv, prop. 35, schol.

108 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 5, § 2.

109 Ibid., ch. 16.

110 Ethics, bk. iv, prop. 37, schol. 2.

111 Contrast Plato: the state (i.e., the governing classes) is to the lower classes as reason is to passion.

112 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 3, § 14.

113 Ethics, bk. iv, prop. 40.

114 Ch. 20.

115 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 6, § 4.

116 Tractatus Theologico-politicus, ch. 6, § 4, ch. 7, § 29.

117 Ethics, bk. iv, prop. 35, cor. 1.

118 Ibid., cor. 2.

119 Ibid., prop. 18, schol.; also prop. 37. Cf. Whitman: “By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.”

120 Not that these ideas were original with Spinoza; they were the general legacy of Renaissance political thought. But it was through the writings of Spinoza that this legacy was transmitted to Rousseau. Cf. Duff, p. 319.

121 Professor Woodbridge: class-lectures.

122 Cf. Professor Dewey’s German Philosophy and Politics, New York, 1915.

123 Förster-Nietzsche, The Young Nietzsche, London, 1912, p. 98.

124 Ibid., p. 152.

125 Ibid., p. 235.

126 The Birth of Tragedy, 1872.

127 Thus Spake Zarathustra, p. 129.

128 Förster-Nietzsche, The Lonely Nietzsche, London, 1915, pp. 291, 212, 77.

129 Ibid., p. 313.

130 Ibid., p. 181.

131 Ibid., p. 424.

132 Ibid., p. 297.

133 Ibid., p. 195.

134 Chronology of Nietzsche’s chief works, with initials used in subsequent references: Thoughts Out of Season (“T. O. S.”) (1873-6); Human All Too Human (“H. H.”) (1876-80); Dawn of Day (“D. D.”) (1881); Joyful Wisdom (“J. W.”) (1882); Thus Spake Zarathustra (“Z.”) (1883-4); Beyond Good and Evil (“B. G. E.”) (1886); Genealogy of Morals (“G. M.”) (1887); Twilight of the Idols (“T.I.”) (1888); Antichrist (“Antich.”); Ecce Homo (“E. H.”), and Will to Power (“W. P.”) (1889).

135 Lonely N., p. 104.

136 Ibid., p. 195.

137 E. H., p. 106.

138 J. W., § 371.

139 E. H., p. 141.

140 Ibid., pp. 131, 81.

141 T. I., pref.

142 W. P., § 400 (all references to W. P. will be by sections).

143 J. W., § 345 (all references to J. W. by section unless otherwise stated).

144 W. P., 276.

145 Ibid., 345.

146 G. M., p. 46.

147 Z., p. 166.

148 W. P., 721; T. I., p. 89.

149 B. G. E., § 202.

150 J. W., 358; Antich., § 361.

151 W. P., 284.

152 Antich., § 46.

153 Ibid., § 43.

154 W. P., 464, 861, 748, 752, 686.

155 Ibid., 885, 281.

156 H. H., §§ 428, 472.

157 T. I., p. 96.

158 G. M., p. 225; written in 1887.

159 W. P., 861, 891.

160 B. G. E., p. 233.

161 W. P., 753.

162 G. M., p. 223.

163 B. G. E., p. 189.

164 E. H., p. 65.

165 B. G. E., pp. 96, 189.

166 Z., p. 89.

167 J. W., 363.

168 B. G. E., pp. 188, 184, 189.

169 W. P., 339, 86.

170 T. I., p. 86.

171 J. W., 377; W. P., 350, 315, 373.

172 H. H., § 451.

173 W. P., 761.

174 Ibid., 51, 125.

175 B. G. E., p. 226.

176 W. P., 856.

177 G. M., p. 44.

178 J. W., 356.

179 Lonely N., p. 83.

180 D. D., § 206.

181 W. P., 125.

182 Wanderer and His Shadow, § 292 (H. H., ii, p. 343).

183 H. H., i, § 473.

184 D. D., § 179.

185 Z., p. 62.

186 W. P., 329.

187 T. I., p. 86; E. H., p. 66; Antich., § 57.

188 W. P., 859.

189 G. M., p. 91.

190 Z., p. 159.

191 T. I., p. 94.

192 H. H., § 463.

193 W. P., 750, 874, 65, 50.

194 B. G. E., p. 173; W. P., 823, 851, 871, 11.

195 W. P., 397, 12, 736.

196 E. H., p. 136.

197 G. M., p. 10.

198 T. O. S., i, p. 78.

199 Antich., § 17.

200 J. W., 347.

201 Antich., § 17; D. D., § 542.

202 W. P., 585.

203 G. M., p. 202.

204 W. P., 585.

205 Ibid., 600; D. D., § 424.

206 J. W., 366.

207 D. D., § 41.

208 W. P., 461.

209 B. G. E., p. 136.

210 W. P., § 8.

211 J. W., p. 7.

212 W. P., § 351.

213 Ibid., § 12.

214 Ibid., § 43.

215 Antich., § 1.

216 D. D., § 163.

217 W. P., 266.

218 Ibid., 20.

219 Ibid., 585.

220 Z., pp. 193, 315; E. H., pp. 71, 28.

221 J. W., § 324.

222 Ibid., p. 6.

223 W. P., 120, 1029; Antich., § 55; E. H., pp. 72, 70; Birth of Tragedy, passim.

224 W. P., 255, 258, 710, 462, 392, 305.

225 Antich., § 2.

226 W. P., 918.

227 T. O. S., p. 76.

228 G. M., p. 45.

229 J. W., § 4.

230 Antich., § 14.

231 B. G. E., p. 162.

232 W. P., 440, 289.

233 E. H., p. 10.

234 W. P., 255, 774, 775; D. D., § 215; J. W., 13.

235 D. D., § 224.

236 W. P., 376, 776.

237 W. P., 650, 657, 685, 696, 704; Antich., § 2.

238 Ibid., 681, 688, 689.

239 T. I., p. 71; W. P., 649.

240 W. P., 685.

241 Z., p. 398.

242 W. P., 880, 716, 343, 423, 291.

243 E. H., p. 2; D. D., § 49; Lonely N., p. 17; W. P., 269, 90, 766, 660.

244 E. H., p. 138; T. O. S., ii, p. 66; Z., p. 222; W. P., 934, 944; J. W., p. 8; T. I., § 40; B. G. E., p. 138.

245 Z., pp. 199, 103, 186; W. P., 792.

246 W. P., 881, 870, 918; B. G. E., p. 154; E. H., p. 13; D. D., § 552.

247 W. P., 967, 366-7, 349; Z., p. 141; Antich., § 55; B. G. E., pp. 54, 57.

248 W. P., 969, 371, 356, 926, 946, 26; Z., p. 430; E. H., pp. 23, 19, 128; G. M., p. 85; D. D., § 60.

249 W. P., 866; T. O. S., ii, p. 154; Z., pp. 8, 104; T. I., p. 269.

250 W. P., 804, 732-3; Z., pp. 94-6; D. D., § 150-1.

251 H. H., § 242; W. P., 912; B. G. E., p. 129; D. D., § 194; “Schopenhauer as Educator” (in T. O. S.), passim.

252 T. O. S., ii, pp. 84, 28; W. P., 369, 965; E. H., p. 135.

253 Z., pp. 84, 64; H. H., § 457; G. M., 156-7; B. G. E., §§ 61-2; W. P., 373, 901, 132.

254 H. H., § 439; W. P., 660; Antich., § 57; Lonely N., p. 7.

255 G. M., pp. 160-1; W. P., 287, 854, 864.

256 W. P., 886, 926.

257 T. I., p. 96; W. P., 957; B. G. E., p. 239; T. O. S., ii, p. 39.

258 W. P., 464, 960; B. G. E., p. 225.

259 W. P., 44, 684, 909; G. M., p. 91.

260 D. D., §§ 165, 168; W. P., 1052; B. G. E., p. 69; J. W., p. 10.

261 T. I., pp. 91, 110; J. W., § 362; G. M., pp. 56, 226; W. P., 975, 877; B. G. E., pp. 201, 53.

262 W. P., 109-34, 747.

263 J. W., 293.

264 T. I., p. 260; G. M., p. 58; B. G. E., p. 151; Lonely N., p. 221.

265 W. P., 127, 728-9; G. M., pp. 88, 226; J. W., 283; Z., p. 60; Lonely N., p. 15.

266 B. G. E., p. 94; W. P., 717, 748; G. M., pp. 223-4.

267 W. P., 712.

268 Ibid., 1053.

269 J. W., p. 5.

270 E. H., p. 53.

271 W. P., 544, with footnote quoting Napoleon: “An almost instinctive belief with me is that all strong men lie when they speak, and much more so when they write.”

272 “Far too long a slave and a tyrant have been hidden in woman:... she is not yet capable of friendship.”—Z., p. 75.

273 Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory, New York, 1911, p. 25.

274 There is something verging on a recognition of this in W. P., 403-4.

275 B. G. E., p. 173.

276 B. G. E., p. 25.

277 G. M., p. 6.

278 Z., p. 303.

279 Z., p. 107.

280 T. I., p. 2.

281 Z., p. 10.

282 J. W., 312.

283 Ibid., p. 69; referring to 1879.

284 Ibid., 312.

285 Lonely N., p. 206.

286 Ibid., p. 218.

287 Lonely N., p. 289.

288 Ibid., p. 391.

289 Ibid., p. 65.

290 Ibid., p. 157.

291 Mrs. Gallichan, The Truth about Woman, New York, 1914, p. 281.

292 Jos. McCabe, Tyranny of Shams, London, 1916, p. 171.

293 Dr. Drysdale, The Small Family System, London, 1915.

294 Winston Churchill in Parliament, quoted by Schoonmaker, The World-War and Beyond, New York, 1915, p. 95.

295 Carver, Essays in Social Justice, New York, 1915, p. 261.

296 The “experimental attitude... substitutes detailed analyses for wholesale assertions, specific inquiries for temperamental convictions, small facts for opinions whose size is in precise ratio to their vagueness. It is within the social sciences, in morals, politics, and education, that thinking still goes on by large antitheses, by theoretical oppositions of order and freedom, individualism and socialism, culture and utility, spontaneity and discipline, actuality and tradition. The field of the physical sciences was once occupied by similar ‘total’ views, whose emotional appeal was inversely as their intellectual clarity. But with the advance of the experimental method, the question has ceased to be which one of two rival claimants has a right to the field. It has become a question of clearing up a confused subject matter by attacking it bit by bit. I do not know a case where the final result was anything like victory for one or another among the preëxperimental notions. All of them disappeared because they became increasingly irrelevant to the situation discovered, and with their detected irrelevance they became unmeaning and uninteresting.”—Professor John Dewey, New Republic, Feb. 3, 1917.

297 All this has been indicated—with, however, too little emphasis on the reconstructive function of intelligence—by Bertrand Russell in Principles of Social Reconstruction (London, 1916); and more popularly by Max Eastman in Understanding Germany (New York, 1916); it has been put very briefly again and again by Professor Dewey,—e.g., in an essay on “Progress” in the International Journal of Ethics, April, 1916.

298 This is not a defence of mechanism or materialism; it is a plea for a better perspective in philosophy.

299 It would be invidious to name the exceptions which one is glad to remember here; but it is in place to say that the practical arrest of Bertrand Russell is a sign of resuscitation on the part of philosophy,—a sign for which all lovers of philosophy should be grateful. When philosophers are once more feared, philosophy will once more be respected.

300 American Journal of Sociology, March, 1905, p. 645.

301 Ross, Social Control, New York, 1906, p. 9.

302 Will to Power, § 469.

303 Barker, Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, p. 80.

304 Perhaps this million could be reached more surely and economically through direct pamphlet-publication by the Society.

305 Some students—e.g., Joseph McCabe, The Tyranny of Shams, London, 1916, p. 248—are so impressed with the dangers lying in our vast production of written trash that they favor restricting the circulation of cheap fiction in our public libraries. But what we have to do is not to prohibit the evil but to encourage the good, to give positive stimulus rather than negative prohibition. People hate compulsion, but they grope for guidance.

306 E.g., by G. Lowes Dickinson, Justice and Liberty, p. 133.

307 Cf. Russell, Principles of Social Reconstruction, p. 236: “The supreme principle, both in politics and in private life, should be to promote all that is creative, and so to diminish the impulses and desires that center round possession.”

308 Reason in Common Sense, New York, 1911, p. 96.

309 Quoted by Walter Weyl, The New Democracy, p. 136.

310 Ross, Social Control, New York, 1906, p. 103.

← Back to Philosophy and the Social Problem

Scroll to Top