Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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