Part 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men, Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, The mere materials with which wisdom builds, Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, Does but encumber what it seems to enrich.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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